Avodah Mailing List

Volume 28: Number 113

Sun, 26 Jun 2011

• 1. Re: Ehrlechkeit, not Frumkeit (T6...@aol.com)
• 2. Re: The Rambam and Eliyahu haNavi (Ben Waxman)
• 3. Re: Minhag Yisrael (Chanoch (Ken) Bloom)
• 4. A Shabbos of months? OR Two parallel cycles of Jewish year (Michael ORR)
• 5. Re: alenu (menucha)
• 6. barukh sheamar (Eli Turkel)
• 7. Re: Consumer Alert: Minhog Scams On The Rise! (Moshe Y. Gluck)
• 8. Should you go to the best surgeon? (Marty Bluke)
• 9. Defining an Os (Micha Berger)
• 10. Re: Consumer Alert: Minhog Scams On The Rise! (Simon Montagu)
• 11. Re: barukh sheamar (Zev Sero)
• 12. Re: barukh sheamar (Zev Sero)
• 13. Re: Minhag Yisrael (Danny Schoemann)
• 14. Re: ten things created erev shabbat (Lampel)
• 15. Re: Should you go to the best surgeon? (harchinam)

 
In a message dated 6/24/2011, llev...@stevens.edu writes:





According to me they are frum but  not ehrlech.  [--old TK]





But you  wrote earlier, "Frum is basically observant of ALL mitzvos.  I'm 
just  defining the  normal, traditional use of the word."   

Stealing and participation in scams if not observant of ALL mitzvos,  is 
it?  Is so, then how can you consider them frum.    YL

 
>>>>
 
By "all" I meant BALM and BALC.  I didn't mean "all" as in: only one  Jew 
in a million is frum.  I put in the word "basically" as a weasel word  to 
indicate that I meant to say that a frum person is one who in  theory keeps all 
TARYAG mitzvos but maybe in reality doesn't really actually  keep every 
single mitzva one hundred percent.  "Basically" was  kind of a giveaway that I 
mean to say, basically.
 
Beli neder I am now undertaking not to respond to any further posts on this 
 thread unless I have something significantly new to say.  I know that  
will be a departure from the norm for A. Avodah and B. me.
 
PS I am already weaseling out of my undertaking because there is  a  post 
in my "send later" folder that I never finished and I may read it and  decide 
that I do want to send it.  But after THAT.....beli neder.
 
--Toby Katz
================




_____________________  








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Is there any ikkar, any belief, that the Rambam holds, which are not based 
on clear sources?

Ben
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joel C. Salomon" <joelcsalo...@gmail.com>
> Assume (for the purpose of argument) that Rambam held that there would
> *definitely* be a ?Mashiach ben Yosef?.  What could he possibly have
> said on the subject of identifying such a person, or what this person
> would do, or any halachic ramifications of this fact?  I can think of
> nothing, beyond a vague, ?such a character will appear on the world
> stage, do unspecified things, and possibly get himself killed.?
>
> If you think Rambam should have said that (I don?t), only then is his
> silence on the matter telling.
> 

On Fri, 2011-06-24 at 15:07 -0400, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 08:57:22AM +0300, Ben Waxman wrote:
> > Anyone know of a universally held minhag?
> 
> 4 of the 5 megillos.

In shul? No. Sephardim (at least the middle-eastern ones) don't read
Kohelet, or Rut in shul at all, and don't read Shir HaShirim on shul on
Pesach (though there's a strong minhag to read it before Kabbalat
Shabbat every Friday night, and to read it at home after the seder).

~Chanoch

On 06/19/2011 08:37 PM, Michael ORR wrote:
> Judaism has a Shabbos of days (yom hashabbos), a Shabbos of weeks
> (shevuous), a Shabbos of years (shmitah), and a Shabbos of shemitahs
> (yovel).
> 
> I am wondering about whether there is any tradition of Shabbos with
> respect to other units of time.
> 
> A SHABBOS OF MONTHS
<snip>
> A SHABBOS OF HOURS
>"Joel C. Salomon" <joelcsalo...@gmail.com> replied:

>Interesting thought.? ... ?in
>things like days or years that don't have a "built-in" cycle, we can
>collect them in groups of seven.? Months (almost) divide up a year, and
>hours a day, so a "seven" of hours or of months isn't as meaningful....

>--Chesky
REPLY:
I was trying to explain how a seven of months does indeed seem significant, and 
it does not seem like such a stretch.? Tishrei is the seventh month from Nissan 
and Nissan is the seventh month from Tishrei.? Both are our most significant 
months, each with a major seven-day festival in the middle followed later by a 
completion/atzeres.? If we allow the seven year cycles to overlap in this way 
then a year is composed of two seven-month cycles, like day and night.? 

And then if we can understand the 12 month-year as a composite of overlapping 7 
month cycles, then it seems natural to try to extend this logic to a 24 hour 
day.? (BTW, is there a Torah source for dividing the day into 24 hours?)
I am wondering about sources for this.? So far I have just seen suggestive 
shreds, e.g. in the Sfas Emes (comparing Yom Kippur and Purim ? Yom K?Purim) and 
in the Ramban, comparing the Atzeres of Shevuous with the Atzere of Shemini of 
Sukkos.? Am just starting to look at RAK?s edition of Sefer Yetzirah which looks 
like it will be helpful.? Wondering if others have additional tips or feedback?
Even if the focus on the concept of a ?Shabbos of months? is not accepted as 
compelling, I am looking for sources that discuss the division of the Jewish 
year into two parallel cycles.? Commonalities between the cycles are:
-Each cycle centres on major seven-day festival ?around time of equinox
-Seven day festival culminates in completion/atzeres that is celebration of 
Torah
-Month preceding the festival (Elul or Adar) is month of transformation (Elul is 
teshuva and Purim/Adar is ?ve?nahapoch hu?)
-The first and tenth days of the festival month have special distinctions - (RH, 
YK, New Year of Nissan and Shabbos HaGadol, on the 10th in its original year).? 
The first day is a new year in both cases.
-Each cycle has apparent solstice-related observance: ??(1) 17th of Tammuz, 
leading to Tisha B?Av ? time when light begins to decrease ? Represents a 
beginning of galus/exile , and (2) Chanuka ? when the light begins to increase, 
?represents an end of galus/exile.
Any further leads or feedback is appreciated.? (I acknowledge with thanks the 
previous suggestions to look at the following on the significance of 7 
generally: ?RSRH, mequbalim in general. E.g. Maharal, Gevuros H', pereq 46.)?
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 From Teshuvot Hageonim (Shaarei Tzedek 43)
Yehoshua tiken Aleinu Leshabeiach velav hu mitakanat Rabanan

menucha

Eli Turkel wrote:

><<
>: In fact malchiyot was composed by Rav and there is no indication that
>: he incorporated an earlier prayer from Yeshoshua.
>
>
>
>Again there is no early source for such a claim. 
>  
>

<<Kaddish yasom based on a dead person's message to R Akiva.

* Being careful not to speak during Vayechulu and the Bracha Me'ein Sheva,
 based on a message a dead person gave to someone in a dream.

* Not davening "achorei beis haknesses" without turning ones face to it
(I'm really not sure what exactly this means), based on giluy Eliyahu.>>

R. Akiva never mention any kaddish yatom, that is a much later minhag
for some of the origins see for example
http://www.oztorah.com/2010/04/mourners-kaddish-ask-the-rabbi/

None of this material suggests a link with mourning, but Rabbi DS
Telsner, in his ?The Kaddish - Its History and Significance? (ed. GA
Sivan, Jerusalem, 1995) puts forward the idea that the development of
the mourner?s version of the Kaddish may have come about as the result
of a shift in emphasis. At first the Kaddish honoured the living (?in
your life and in your days?). During the medieval persecutions it
consoled the survivors of the catastrophes and implied that they
should not let their tragic experiences weaken their faith in
redemption. Eventually it memorialised those who had lost their lives,
and so it became a prayer for the dead rather than the living.

This theory reflects the fact that the Mourner?s Kaddish probably
arose in north-west and central Europe in the Middle Ages. Another
medieval source, the Machzor Vitry, speaks of a mourner conducting the
service on Saturday night, probably because of the belief that at the
end of Shabbat the dead are selected either for punishment or for
reward. Eventually the mourners recited Kaddish without necessarily
conducting the service, and finally Kaddish at the end of the service
became the mourner?s prerogative. This is often linked to a tale about
Rabbi Akiva which suggests that a person?s son can redeem the parent
from torment by saying Kaddish (Kallah Rabbati, ch. 2, etc.)

<<We start with the tradition that there was a piece of paper.  That's not
a stretch, that's what the Or Zarua says.>>

from wikipedia

Initially, Saadya Gaon instituted the recitation of barukh she'amar
for Shabbat, but in France, it became a custom to recite this prayer
daily.

in other posts on the web

Until the fourteenth century, most rabbinic discussions of its origins
assumed the existence of some vague rabbinic enactment, the exact
nature of which was of no great concern. The Tur mentions in passing
that the blessing appears in Sefer Heikhalot. R. David ben Yehudah
Hasid, in his influential kabbalistic prayer commentary, Or Zarua,
states that barukh she-amar was not established by the men of the
Great Assembly. Instead, scholars and men of wisdom received it
directly from ?the tradition of the covenant? when a note fell from
heaven. R. David was no doubt rebutting a theory suggested by some
unidentified group or person in his world. Obviously, it was not a
mainstream theory, judging from the literature of the period. However,
in the sixteenth century, R. Meir ibn Gabbai, in his commentary Sefer
Tolaat Yaakov, miscites the Or Zarua, stating that it ascribes barukh
she-amar specifically to the men of the Great Assembly, who
established the prayer on the basis of a note that fell from heaven.
This clever ascription removed all doubt about the legitimate origins
of barukh she-amar by placing its provenance in the same mythical
pre-talmudic antiquity as the amidah, the paradigmatic Jewish prayer.
This explanation eventually became standard in noncritical prayer
commentaries.
The impetus to generate and accept such ?origins? for this single
prayer must have come from the continuing need to justify its
recitation. Before Ibn Gabbai?s solution was widely accepted, Hizkiah
da Silva, in his Peri Hadash, a late seventeenth-century Sefardi
commentary on the Shulhan Arukh, challenged the geonic right to
establish new blessings, basing his argument on the Rosh?s objections
to the priest?s blessing at the pidyon haben. Da Silva was either
unaware of, or, more likely, unconvinced by the eighteenth-century
commentators, the Peri Megadim and the Beer Heitev. The Beer Heitev,
like his Sefardi contemporary, the Hida, also points to the Tur?s
identification of the source of the blessing in the Sefer Heikhalot as
proof of its pre-talmudic origins

-- 
Eli Turkel

R' ZS:
<SNIP>  What exactly is
difficult about believing that the Anshei Knesses Hagdolah saw a piece
of paper fall from heaven?  Again I come back to the basic question: are
we Jews or Protestants?  Do we believe that there is a Higher World and
there are miracles or not?  What kind of Jew believes such things to be
impossible?
-----------------------


already suspended our belief in a purely rational world. If that is so -
that we are allowing the supernatural into our life - then why should it
bother us to allow more of it into our life - admitting, for example, the
possibility of a Piska falling from heaven? Why should we confine our belief
in the supernatural to the miracles explicit in the Torah and in the
previously mentioned Mishnah in Avos?

In other words, to a rationalist who believes in the supernatural, it is not
rational to limit that belief.

KT,
MYG

Last week R' Elyashiv had heart surgery and the Charedi press had extensive
coverage. Mishpacha (Hebrew) had a number of articles about the surgery
including a profile of the surgeon. They flew in the top cardiac/blood
vessel surgeon from Cleveland (a religious Catholic) to do the surgery.

The prevalent hashkafa today is that not even a leaf falls without it being
a gezera min shamayim and that hishtadlus has no effect, it is just an
illusion. Hishtadlus is just so that we avoid nisim guyim (see Michtav
M'Eliyahu, Chazon Ish Emuna UBitachon and others). If so, shouldn't bringing
the top surgeon be too much hishtadlus and a lack of bitachon? After all,
Hashem is doing the healing not the surgeon and once we have done our
hishtadlus, going to the doctor and having the surgery, why should it matter
whether the surgeon is the best in the world or simply Joe surgeon who is
competent? As long as we do our hishtadlus to avoid requiring a nes, the
rest is a gezera min hashamayim. If the gezera is that the surgery will be
successful, then it will be successful even if done by the average surgeon,
and if the gezera is that it won't be successful then it won't help that you
have the best surgeon.

In fact, what does it actually mean that someone is considered the best
surgeon? After all, hakol bidei shamayim, so the fact that he successfully
operated is not due to his skill but due to the gezera min hashamayim.
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We got to the topic of making an electronic device display a new
text, and whether or not it's kesivah...

As already discussed here, on an e-ink page (e.g. a Kindle) the image is
theoretically permanent (well more than 3 days), it's only the screensaver
software that erases it.

Also possibly relevent is whether one can use silk-screening to
write a sefer Torah, or if kesivah de'Oraisa requires drawing
each letter individually. Or perhaps "kesivah" has different
limits in each context.

But RMYG offered a new idea we haven't bounced around here before:
: R' ZS:
:> <SNIP>but I'm puzzled as to how one could arrange
:> to scroll or turn the page without koseiv, probably d'oraisa, but at
:> least d'rabbonon.

: Using a "broken" font? (Where the letters have gaps in them, thus not doing
: a full Ois.)

First piece:
An employer used to give each employee a PalmPilot as a welcome aboard
gift. In those days, the input mechanism was to use a stylus to draw
each letter in something called "Graffiti". For many letters, Graffiti
was like normal writing, but for any letter that required lifting the
pen betwen strokes, they modified the letter down to something you would
do without lifting the stylus. E.g. "A" was an upside-down V, and "T"
was more like a "7".

Pretty soon fonts came out in Graffiti, so that Palm related web sites
(and Palm owners with an intense product loyalty) can disply text
accordingly. What was an almost-alphabet became a script in its own
right, at least among this small population.

Second piece:
Hebrew has hei and qof which are two piece letters; in script, there is
also alef. (In most variants; I learned to draw something more like a "K"
with curvy side-arms.) A letter can be in two pieces and still be an os.

Putting the pieces together:
How commonplace does this new font RMYG proposes have to become before
it becomes a script in its own right -- a set of non-broken but two-piece
osios?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision,
mi...@aishdas.org        yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view.
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 5:56 PM, Zev Sero <z...@sero.name> wrote:
> On 24/06/2011 10:28 AM, Saul Guberman wrote:
>>
>> I am not sure how this footnote explanation is any more of a stretch than
>> a piece of paper falling from heaven.
>
> We start with the tradition that there was a piece of paper. ?That's not
> a stretch, that's what the Or Zarua says. ?Then the Keter Shemtov comes
> along with an explanation about how it doesn't really mean what it says,
> and they really made a goral, but then they made up a story about a piece
> of paper falling from heaven because they were so confident in the goral
> that it was "as if" that had happened.

That's not how I understand the KST. I think he means that "pitka
nafal min-hashamayim" is a metaphorical expression, not that anybody
made up a story. When I say that I found a shidduch min hashamayim,
I'm not making up a story that a bat kol came and told me who to
marry.


> ?Come on, how is that *not* a
> stretch, compared to taking the Or Zarua at his word? ?What exactly is
> difficult about believing that the Anshei Knesses Hagdolah saw a piece
> of paper fall from heaven? ?Again I come back to the basic question: are
> we Jews or Protestants? ?Do we believe that there is a Higher World and
> there are miracles or not? ?What kind of Jew believes such things to be
> impossible?

I agree with what you said in a different context in another recent
message: one would have to be a kofer to believe that it *couldn't*
happen, but as I implied above wrt to shidduchim, I also believe that
the Higher World can work miracles in this world without dropping
pieces of paper from heaven, and entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter
necessitatem.

On 26/06/2011 3:12 AM, Eli Turkel wrote:

> R. Akiva never mention any kaddish yatom
> [...]
> This is often linked to a tale about
> Rabbi Akiva which suggests that a person?s son can redeem the parent
> from torment by saying Kaddish (Kallah Rabbati, ch. 2, etc.)

Don't you see the contradiction?  Unless you're claiming (on what basis?)
that this is a mere "tale" which we should ignore.


> <<We start with the tradition that there was a piece of paper.  That's not
> a stretch, that's what the Or Zarua says.>>
>
> from wikipedia

Wow, there's a source.


> in other posts on the web

Another wonderful source.  What's the point of citing some random
anonymous source against our poskim?  Why would you even consider
believing "posts on the web" over the poskim whose words we live by,
without knowing whose words you're quoting?  A search yields the
source, and surprise surprise, the author is a koferet, and the book
is published by a house whose entire purpose is spreading kefirah.
This is a source?!

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
z...@sero.name                 eventually run out of other people?s money
                                                      - Margaret Thatcher

On 26/06/2011 3:12 AM, Eli Turkel wrote:
> This clever ascription removed all doubt about the legitimate origins
> of barukh she-amar by placing its provenance in the same mythical
> pre-talmudic antiquity as the amidah, the paradigmatic Jewish prayer.

So we are to believe the amidah is also from a "mythical pre-talmudic
antiquity", ch"v?!

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
z...@sero.name                 eventually run out of other people?s money
                                                      - Margaret Thatcher

> R'  Ben Waxman wrote:
>> Anyone know of a universally held minhag?

RMB:
> 4 of the 5 megillos.

RZS already said that only Eicha may qualify.

> The parashah schedule we use and Simchas Torah.

Except when Eretz Yisroel and the Golah branch out :-)

> Reading the kesuvah to break between eirusin and nissuin.

No way! This was no how it was done in Yekkishe Kehiloth; the Rov's
Drosho was used instead. So recalls my Dad.

> I also thought of two that are so old and so widely accepted, I don't
> know if they formally became derabbanan: maariv/arvis and shiv'ah
> neqi'im.

They are not listed in the Chinuch as of the the 7 derabbanans.

- Danny

Re: [Avodah] ten things created erev shabbat, please see the following link for some discussion of the Rambam and this mishneh.

http://slifkin-opinions.blogspot.com/2011/02/ramban-chazal-and-rain
bow.html

Zvi Lampel

>
> ...The prevalent hashkafa today is that not even a leaf falls without it
> being a gezera min shamayim and that hishtadlus has no effect, it is just an
> illusion. Hishtadlus is just so that we avoid nisim guyim (see Michtav
> M'Eliyahu, Chazon Ish Emuna UBitachon and others). If so, shouldn't bringing
> the top surgeon be too much hishtadlus and a lack of bitachon? ...


No, I don't think that bringing in the top surgeon is "too much hishtadlus".
Any surgeon is only human and every human being can make mistakes, miss
things, etc. The "better" the surgeon is, the more practice he/she has had
and the less likely he/she is to miss things that someone with more
experience can catch. However, the outcome is still only in Hashem's hands
even if the person doing the surgery is considered the top person in the
world for that surgery. And just because a surgeon is not the #1 rated in
the world does not mean that Hashem can not send healing through that person
either.

I think that we are required to get the best doctors/surgeons that we can
find to do the job [our hishtadlus] and then we must trust that Hashem will
help guide that person as His shaliach for healing/cure. I don't have a
source for this but I am sure that someone else does, since I learned that
the above is the proper way to do things for a Torah Jew.

My understanding of things is though that if one is a "regular Joe" who
could only afford a regular average kupah surgeon that Hashem can certainly
still send a refua through that surgeon. But if one can afford a private
surgeon to be flown in then this is the level of hishtadlut that Hashem
wishes for that person to put in. After all, it is Hashem Himself who puts
us into whatever life/financial situations that we are in, no? So then we
can/must use all that Hashem has given us in order to put forth our efforts
for healing and Hashem will do the rest.

*** Rena
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