Avodah Mailing List

Volume 03 : Number 012

Wednesday, March 31 1999

• Humor Alert
• multiple e-mails
• RE: Avodah V3 #11
• Shofet vs. Melech
• re: more haughtiness from the academy
• Arguing with Previous Doros
• Ignoring Ecology
• Sefira, multiples of 49
• Hashkofo
• Women's Prayer Group (fwd)
• Kinneret
• re: more haughtiness from the academy
• [none]

Unfortunately this is a true story.... 
A sign on a grocery store
Matzos made with Mayim Shelonu
and in Yiddish below 
Matzos gemacht mit "unzerrer vasser". 

And we wonder how people mis-understand a text?!

Rich Wolpoe

Sorry about the repeated messages. I'm breaking in a new e-mail system which reported that my posts were unsuccessful. I then asked Aryeh Stein to pass along the e-mail.

Sender Baruch

--- On Tue, 30 Mar 1999 09:02:13 -0600  Avodah <owner-avodah@aishdas.org> 
wrote:
>Avodah             Tuesday, March 30 1999             Volume 03 : Number 
011

>RE: ignoring ecology
>Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 09:10:36 -0500
>From: "Allen Baruch" <Abaruch@SINAI-BALT.COM>
>Subject: RE: ignoring ecology
>
>Eli Turkel wrote:
><<These include topics like Meimad mentions but also problems like ecology
>(which in fact R. YGB has himself addressed). Thus, although individual
>people (icluding myself) have written about ecology I would hardly call
>it a burning issue in the religious community.>>
>
>One possible reason the religious community "ignores" issues such as 
ecology may be that many of those at the forefront of the issues (or at 
least the ones who get the most press) tend to be radicals. (Recently I read 
in the local paper about a woman living in a tree in order to keep it from 
being cut down. She talks to the tree (named it of course) and feels that 
the tree is protecting her...)
>
>Let's not forget too, that there are only so many things that one can treat 
as a "burning issue". After work, family, chinuch habonim, communal issues 
and my own seder limud, how worked up can I get about the fact that the 
crabs in the Chesapeake Bay are dying?
>
>Chag kosher v'sameach
>
>Sender Baruch

Let's take another look at this.  True, the crabs in Chesapeake Bay don't 
grab our "jewish" imagination.

How about the disaster of the sports people who died not only b/c of falling 
into a river, but b/c of the toxicity of this river - in Israel.

How come I didn't see a single rabbi call for a cleanup.  No Mincha/Maariv 
get-togethers on the river banks which contain water that is hazardous to 
our health and certainly comes under the heading of Piku'ach Nefesh.

Children and teenagers regularly navigate this river in boats, and there is 
always a clear and present danger of falling in.

This is a clear halachic/environmental issue, and no-one seems to care.

We have just been informed that due to pollution, there is a chance that the 
Kineret pipelines will have to be closed down, yet there is no interest 
shown in the religious community in Israel.

Why?  I'm told that it isn't pleasant to be an alarmist and that it "turns 
people off".

So, how about some advice on how to present such issues in such a way that 
"won't turn people off"!

Chag Kasher Ve'Same'ach


Shoshana

-------------------------------------
Name: Shoshana L. Boublil
E-mail: toramada@mail.netvision.net.il
Date: 30/03/99
Time: 05:51:48 PM , Israel

This message was sent by Chameleon 
-------------------------------------
Torah U'Madah Ltd. is developing a DB on the topic:
"Environmental issues and the Halacha (Jewish Law)"
any and all related information would be welcome.

Micha:>>2 was certainly NOT the ideal. Both in Shoftim and in Rus, those times 
were described as "ein melech biyisra'el, ish hayashar bei'nav ya'aseh". So, 
some charismatic shoftim were able to step up occasionally to fill that vacuum. 
Notice this only happened in time of need -- after k'lal yisrael went off the 
derech, and onesh was immanent.<<

Ein hochi name this is brilliant.  IOW, we need to be led by Shoftim such as 
Shmuel BUT there is an inherent problem, as Micha has noted. So this is how we 
resovle it via a synthesis of Shofeti AND Melech!  IOW the best of both worlds, 
a strong Melech to prevent "anarchy', but a Melech tempered by a Shofeit who 
esnures that the Melech adheres to Torah principles.  The shofeit as  
torah-based ombudsman, perhaps.  And a constitutional monarch whose constitution
is the Torah. 

(BTW, this does pre-suppose that Shofteinu refers to the shofeit as leaders and 
not as simple judges.  R. Chaim B. has pointed out that this is lav davka the 
peshat)

Rich Wolpoe

Rabbi Bechhoffer wrote:

<<<
> And it is pure speculation, without foundation in any ikar 
emunah, to
> say despite all the scientific advances that have occurred over the last
> three or four centuries, that Chazal and the Rishonim had a better
> understanding of nature and the physical world than we do (or
> alternatively that nature has somehow unaccountably changed in some
> fundamental, but unspecified, way).  There is no haughtiness in

That may well be as well - if you recall, I never asserted Chazal and the
Rishonim's supremacy in natural sciences etc. We were discussing yeridas
ha'doros vis-a-vis halachic areas - at least I was. 
>>>

Okay, but then why raise the issue of the Academy?  Are you  saying that in halachah l'ma'asseh academically oriented talmidei hahamim do not adequately defer to the precedent of earlier poskim?  The whole thread, or more accurately, the most recent variant of this thread, started, I think, when Eli Turkel noted the difficulties involved in too literal an interpretation of yeridat ha-dorot.  That observation seems to have inspired you to set up a grand dichotomy between Yeshiva and Academy.  Without being so bold as to speak on behalf of the Academy side, I would venture to say that your criticism was interpreted as being more far-reaching than merely a failure to preface any statement of disagreement or criticism of sages of earlier generations with the words b'mehilat k'vod torahto(tam).

<<<
And, again, the DR
evinces the proper attitude that a brilliant talmid chochom of one
generation should have vis-a-vis a brilliant talmid chochom of a recently
past generation in areas of halacha 
>>>

But never to the point of not voicing his opinion, however critical.  And, as a matter of fact, he was criticized for not being suficiently deferential.

<<<
(BTW, was this an issue of bor al
gabei bor?)
>>>

You have once again, wittingly or unwittingly, exposed the very limited boundaries of my knowledge. Since I have only read the hakdamah of Ohr Bahir, I don't know what the issue in dispute was, except that I believe that the Dor Revi'i refers at some point to an opinion of the Divrei Haim that mayim zohalin were necessary for a mikvah.  Maybe I can get back to you in a few years when I hope to have gotten around to reading the sefer itself.  

P.S.  I see that my e-mails have been doing funny things since I was upgraded to Windows NT.  I got one message from a list-member that said that there was no line-wrap, which doesn't seem to be the case on digest version except that there are these funny !!!s interspersed not to mention the weird symbols for quotations marks and apostrophes.  Not being very computer-literate either, I will have to rely on the FTC IT people to help fix whatever is going wrong here.  I appreciate your patience.

P.P.S  I expect to be offline during Pesach and look forward to continuing our discussions afterwards.  In the meantime Chag, kasher v'sameach to all.

David Glasner
dglasner@ftc.gov
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>>And, again, the DR evinces the proper attitude that a brilliant talmid chochom
of one generation should have vis-a-vis a brilliant talmid chochom of a recently
past generation in areas of halacha (BTW, was this an issue of bor al gabei 
bor?), but not applicable to katlei kanya b'agma and azuvei kir vis-a-vis elu 
asher ketanam ava mi'masneinu. Not that we cannot argue even on them - but only 
after sifting with thirteen sieves etc.

YGB<<

There is a very rational/logical aspect to all of this... and heere is a poor 
but useeful example.

Most Gentiles will tell you that Eve gave Adam an apple.  What we baby-boomers 
do not realize is, that in medieval English apple was a generic term for 
fruit/pri!  And indeed the Torah says Pri. So our King James Bibles say apple, 
and then we PRESUME (falsely) that the apple we know and love is what the KJ 
Bible means by apple.  But it actually refers to the fuit of any tree.  
(including the fig, etc.).

Nimshal:  We need to sift thru previous doros to understand what they MEAN and 
not what they say.  In order to fathom the true peshat we need our own Yerido, 
as in Vayered Hashem lir'os.....  

I do not question the spritiual yerido in our time.  I do question its 
relevance.

I do not question the intelligence of current scholarship.  It might well be on 
par with the "good old days".

The issue is, LFAD, the ability to read between the lines to fully appreciate 
what was said.

One more story (we probably are heard this one) The Beis haLevy was asked re: 
using 4 cups of milk for 4 Kosos. He responded by giving the person several 
rubles.  His wife interjected, but wine is not SO expensive.  The Beis haLevy 
replied that given his use of milk it IMPLIED that he had no money for meat 
either, and that wine itself was not the only issue.

Nimshal: we need to sift thru and see the rationale by uunderstanding the entire
milieu, the context, etc.  Often by reading the words, we miss the meaning, and 
so we are arguing against "straw men".

Therefor, niskatnu is primarily a function of receiving only a subset of the 
full meaning of our predecssors.  The great Gaonim, eg GRO, RJB Soloviechik (all
of them!) were sensitive to nuances and better able to discern the original 
intentions than the average "gadol" (how's that for an oxymoron!).

Chag Kosher v'Somayach
Rich Wolpoe 

I wonder if sending the same email thrice is ignoring ecology of electrons 
<smile>  RW

Dear Chevra,
     Lechovod Sefiras Ho'omer, let's crunch some numbers.
..
1)  How many diticnt 7-week or 49-day  occur within the calendar year?

2)  What is the relationship of 50 days to the lunar year?

Rich Wolpoe

Also, I think the Jewish Press on-line re-printed Rabbi Tendler's critique
of EIDAH.

From R' Aryeh Frimer...

YGB

Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer
Cong. Bais Tefila, 3555 W. Peterson Ave., Chicago, IL, 60659
ygb@aishdas.org, http://www.aishdas.org/baistefila


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 23:03:13 +0300
From: Esther and Aryeh Frimer <frimera@internet-zahav.net>
To: "Rabbi Yosef G. Bechhofer" <ygb@aishdas.org>
Cc: "Aryeh A. Frimer" <frimea@mail.biu.ac.il>,
    Dov and Shelli Frimer <greenj94@GREEN.CO.IL>
Subject: Women's Prayer Group

Dear Rabbi Bechhofer,
	Thank you for your kind comments about our paper and for the criticism as
well. As I write below,  I think your criticism is off the mark somewhat.
Would you be so kind as to send the following to Avodah (I am at home and
don't have the e-mail address).
	Chag Kasher ve-Sameach
			Aryeh


In a recent posting to Avodah Rabbi YGB writes:

"Certainly, debate of issues may
take place on any level - but in context, it seems to the reader that,
say, the opinions of Justice Elon may be used to refute those of R'
Herschel Schachter, or that communal rabbis who assess the situation
subjectively may differ with R' Moshe Feinstein or the Rav. I have
difficulty with R' YH Henkin being cited numerous times as the "tzad
she'kineged" against scholars whom I - and most of observant Jewry -
regard as greater b'chochmo u'b'minyan." 

We want to thank Rabbi Bechhofer for his kind comments about our paper and
for his criticism as well. We believe that the dictum of Rambam is
appropriate here, namely "Kabel et ha-emet mi-mi she-amaro". The issue
should be the validity and the emes of an argument, not its authorship. 
But we can only testify that both Harav Menachem Elon (A musmach of Hevron
Yeshivah) and Rav Yehudah Herzl Henkin are serious Talmidei Chachamim of
very high calibre. And hence, their opinions should be evaluated with great
Koved Rosh.  To set aside opinions merely because they are not those of
recognized gedolei haDor - and on the contrary, to accept opinions merely
because they come from reputed gedolei hador - is a sure-fire recipe for
limiting all creativity and growth in Torah. In surveying this very
complicated issue, we attempted to review and evaluate to the best of our
abilities all legitimate views. We leave to each reader, to judge how well
we succeeded.  

On Tue, 30 Mar 1999 toramada@netvision.net.il wrote:

> We have just been informed that due to pollution, there is a chance that
> the Kineret pipelines will have to be closed down, yet there is no
> interest shown in the religious community in Israel. 
> Name: Shoshana L. Boublil
> 

There should be an interest - far greater interest than in areas that the
religious community does nowadays express concern.

YGB

Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer
Cong. Bais Tefila, 3555 W. Peterson Ave., Chicago, IL, 60659
ygb@aishdas.org, http://www.aishdas.org/baistefila

On Tue, 30 Mar 1999, David Glasner wrote:

> Okay, but then why raise the issue of the Academy?  Are you saying that
> in halachah l'ma'asseh academically oriented talmidei hahamim do not
> adequately defer to the precedent of earlier poskim?  The whole thread,

Yes.

> or more accurately, the most recent variant of this thread, started, I
> think, when Eli Turkel noted the difficulties involved in too literal an
> interpretation of yeridat ha-dorot.  That observation seems to have
> inspired you to set up a grand dichotomy between Yeshiva and Academy. 

Right, and I continue - our friendships here notwithstanding - to maintain
it.

> Without being so bold as to speak on behalf of the Academy side, I would
> venture to say that your criticism was interpreted as being more
> far-reaching than merely a failure to preface any statement of
> disagreement or criticism of sages of earlier generations with the words
> b'mehilat k'vod torahto(tam). 
> 

Right, it is more far-raching than that!

> But never to the point of not voicing his opinion, however critical. 
>

Which, as one who was adequately equipped, he was most entitled to
espouse.
 
> You have once again, wittingly or unwittingly, exposed the very limited
> boundaries of my knowledge. Since I have only read the hakdamah of Ohr
> Bahir, I don't know what the issue in dispute was, except that I believe
> that the Dor Revi'i refers at some point to an opinion of the Divrei
> Haim that mayim zohalin were necessary for a mikvah.  Maybe I can get
> back to you in a few years when I hope to have gotten around to reading
> the sefer itself. 

Mayim zochalim passel a mikva (l'kulei alma). The DC passels the Chabad
mikva'os - introduced, I believe, by the Tzemach Tzedek, of bor al gabei
bor because the water may be regarded as flowing from upper bor to lower
bor. It seems your illustrious forbear was coming to defend a mikva built
to Chabad-style specifications.


YGB

Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer
Cong. Bais Tefila, 3555 W. Peterson Ave., Chicago, IL, 60659
ygb@aishdas.org, http://www.aishdas.org/baistefila

I was wondering if anyone knew the direction faced during prayer at
various synagogues located in the following locations: (1) Moscow; (2)
Anywhere in Australia; (3) Turkey; (4) South Africa.

Is the direction of prayer the same as the direction of the aron kodesh?

Chag Sameach.

Michael J. Broyde
Emory University School of Law
Atlanta, GA 30322
Voice: 404 727-7546; Fax 404 727-3374

********************


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