Avodah Mailing List

Volume 07 : Number 073

Wednesday, July 11 2001

• Or HaChaim
• Arostotle's olom hab'boh: MM? and R. Kook to the rescue
• Chiriqs; the long and short of it.
• Re: Correct Spelling and Pronunciation of Tzitzis/Tzeetzis/Tzitzees
• Mother Getting to name the firstborn
• shekia
• agunot
• Re: Arostotle's olom hab'boh: MM? and R. Kook to the resc
• Re: Rambam on Christianity
• Re: value of prayer
• Mother Getting to name the firstborn
• Re: Rambam on Christianity
• Re: Rambam on Christianity
• Re: Rabbi Bechhofer's principle
• Re: Mother Getting to name the firstborn
• comparative deviance
• Aristotle's Olom Hab'boh: erratum
• Re: Silent reish??

In Balak (perek 23 passuk 10), the Or HaChaim (whose yahrtzeit was last
week 15 Tammuz) says that Bilaam was reincarnated as Pinchas ben Yair's
donkey (the one who would only eat grain that had maaser taken from
it). I have been unable to find his source. One Mikras Gedolos I saw
claims Sefer Gilgulim but names no perek. The other footnotes Gilgulei
Neshamos from the Rema from Fano but in both of these it says as far
as I can tell that Bilaam came back as a rock and Ishmael came back as
PBY's donkey. All spiritual issues aside, does anyone have a Perush on
the Or HAchaim that states a source for this gilgul ?

hgschild@hotmail.com

<gil.student@citicorp.com wrote:
> According to the Rambam, does Aristotle have a place in olam haba?
>I know that he held that A was the greatest philosopher, but what about
> olam haba? Does anyone see anywhere where the Rambam says or implies
> something relevant to this?>

David Riceman writes: <See the letter to Ibn Tibbon (Igroth HaRambam,
ed. Sheilath, p. 553) "and Aristotle's daath is the ultimate human
daath, with the exception of... the prophets." Now look at the Rambam's
description of the mechanism of hishaaruth hanefesh (H. Yesodei HaTorah
4:9 and H. Teshuva 8:3) and you will see that Aristotle qualifies>.

"S. Goldstein" <goldstin@netvision.net.il>
RGS>According to the Rambam, does Aristotle have a place in olam haba? I
>> know that he held that A was the greatest philosopher, but what about
>> olam haba? Does anyone see anywhere where the Rambam says or implies
>> something relevant to this?

> See Hilchos Melachim where chasidei umos haolam require an acknowledgement
> of Toras Moshe. This is expanded upon by Yaavatz and the Griz in the end of
> his sefer. Therefore, Aristotle, it seems, is out.

Catching up with back issues i see that i had missed a discussion of
chasidei umos ho'olom and their post mortem opportunities for advancement
 (so to speak) with the opinion expressed by a number of posters -- citing
rambam's authority in hilchos m'lochim 8: 11 -- which apparently required
the goy's moral/ethical virtues to stem from a specific recognition
of divine revelation at sinai in order to merit olom hab'boh, i.e. the
extremely virtuous eskimo who had ratiocinated his way to the top was
plumb outta luck. Others expresssed the opinion -- pointing to rambam's
more generalized description of the s'char due a virtuous man, that
aristotle too must fit the bill -- even though that ignored rambam's
explicit exclusion in hilchos m'lochim.

There is an interesting history to this very discussion. (to cite b'shem
om'ro as far as possible, i should mention that i am citing from imperfect
memory an article i read some years back on this very same topic by an
e.korn, but cannot remember off hand in which journal, perhaps someone
else is familiar with it.) and there have been at least three "solutions"
offered to "save" the aristotelian class of goyim who apprehended the
moral and divine truths without acknowledging a sinaitic origin.

1. the first solution was offered by none other than our old bone of
contention -- Moshe Mendelssohn. quite personally troubled by the,
lichoroh, unfairness of it all (as imho we should all be), MM consulted
his favorite halochic authority, r. yaacov emden, inquiring whether
there was any moqor in the g'moroh for the rambam's formulation excluding
righteous gentiles who did not.recognize the sinai revelation. After some
to and fro, the bottom line was that he could not provide MM with any
talmudic basis. So MM simply rejects the rambam's opinion as authoritative
in this instance as lacking any firm talmudic basis. While this is not
a position likely to enhance his reputation amongst those avodoh members
who were already passionately convinced that MM was apostasy incarnate,
or "worse than JC" as i recall one understated choveir put it when
quoting his own rebbe's qabboloh in the original MM thread, it does --
in my mind -- lead to other discussion (which I shall not pursue here)
as to the obligation to accept a "p'soq" of a halochic authority on a
hashkofic matter (after all, there hardly seem to be any operational
consequences to accepting or rejecting rambam -- and SA -- opinion
here. Belief in the eventual disposition of chasideie umos ho'olom is
not even listed in the thirteen iqorim, whatever the attitude toward
rambam's demand for their obligatory belief).

2. Hermann Cohen solved the problem by emending the text of the rambam.
With little justification (other than the desired result) he emended
two words in m'lochim 8-11. Thus (talking about a goy who acts morally
only from rational/intellectual considerations) the phrase which reads
"ain zeh ger toshov v'aino mi'chasidei umos ho'olom v'loa michakhmeihem"
was emended by Cohen to read "he is not a ger toshav but IS michasidei
umos ho'olom and IS michakhmeihem". this accomplished the goal but
(the first of his changes at least) is unsupported by any textual witness.

3. R. Kook. R. Kook's starting point is also an emendation of the usual
published girsoh of the Mishne Torah, but unlike Cohen, this has al mah
lismoch. First R. kook accepts the emendation which substitutes "eloh
michakhmeihem" for "v'loa michakhmeihem". There is much to commend this
emendation from the earliest and most authoritative kisvei yod, incuding
yemenite versions which have always been demonstrated to exhibit the
greatest fidelity to the original. ( I believe korn claimed that the
majority of academic scholars, including the late R. I. Twersky, now
preferred this girsoh.) While this apparently still leaves him with the
problem -- changing v'loa into eloh only succeeds in getting a righteously
performing gentile into the category of "chakhmeihem" but not yet into
olom hab'boh which was specified only by the category of chasidei umos
ho'olom, r. kook, turns the ususal understanding of the rambam on its
head -- basically claiming that chasidei umos ho'olom who merit olom
hab'boh is actually a LOWER status than "michakhmeihem" these chasidim
who act virtuously only because god has so commanded them -- but have
not achieved the intellectual apprehension of their necessity so prized
by rambam -get their s'char alright, but this is less than the status of
chakhmeihem, who have achieved the true intellectual understanding and,
qal v'chomer and no need to even mention it explicitly, of course get
their olom hab'boh too.

So, if we accept R. Kook's approach anyway, after mai'oh v'esrim, those
of you so inclined may still look forward to discussing theories of
universals and particulars or Active Intellects and what not with The
Man. As i expect that sort of thing will still give me headaches, i am
looking forward to asking ralph branca what could he have been thinking
when he decided he could blow an inside fastball past mazeroski that
fateful day in june.

Mechy Frankel                   W: (703) 588-7424
mechyfrankel@zdnetonebox.com    H: (301) 593-3949
michael.frankel@osd.mil

R. Set Mandel writes: < And it is true that in Ashkenaz there was no
difference in pronunciation between "hiriq gadol" and "hiriq qatan":
both were just hiriq. And I also noted that in the original Tiberian
vowel system there was also no distinction..... So let me say for the
record: in the Tiberian masorah there is no difference in pronunciation
between a hiriq gadol and a hiriq qatan. Similarly most Americans read
kha-mee-shihm for the Hebrew hamisshim...>

I am not sure that I have this time properly understood r mandel's
invariably learned assertions, and thus can't even be entirely certain
that i disagree -- but, since its more fun, i'll give it a shot under
that assumption.

To start on a positive note, where i do agree, ashkenazic practice
has certainly long abandoned -- and perhaps never entertained -- any
length distinction (or "quantity" in linguo-speak) between a long and
short chiriq. It is also true that the distinction between long and
short vowels -- like so many other afflictions -- was introduced as an
academic construct by those diabolically inventive sefaradi grammarians
and there is no reason to think that the tiberians must have practiced
such differences.
 never-the-less, there is also no reason to assume that a chiriq plus
yod combo was equal to a simple chiriq either. One simply doesn't
know, and R. Seth's categorical assertion of their equality is, imnsho,
unsupportable (though of course it might be true, ver vais?). And while
it is true that tiberians did not introduce an additional grapheme to
distinguish the two, that a single tiberian grapheme may in principle
reflect different realizations is already demonstrated in the instance
of the two sh'vohs -- though there the difference is in quality rather
than quantity.

But where i found R. Seth confusing is his implication (if i have not
misinterpreted) that all ashkenazi chiriqs are pronounced the same, and
that realization is an "ih" as in the two chiriqs in <kha-mee-shihm>
which according to r. Seth is the american mispronunciation <for the
Hebrew hamisshim> -- to borrow r seth's transliteration system here. I
believe this is incorrect. Rather, while the pronunciation of the so
called long and short chiriq is indeed the same, that realization is
davkoh as an ee. Thus ashkenazim would pronounce the short chiriq in the
following pee'el words as "deeber, qeedem, sheeber,...etc. rather than
-- as suggested by r seth's remarks -- "di'ber, shih'ber,...". But the
story does not end there. in standard practice today the chiriq is indeed
pronounced "ih" per R. Seth's prescription in one specific situation --
and that is when it points a letter in a closed syllable with explicit
sh'voh noch -- e.g. PIN'chos, GID'ros, MISH'kon. In those cases one
observes the common practice that a chiriq is indeed generally pronounced
"ih", i.e. precisely like a sh'voh noh (ashkenazis also having in practice
abandoned most of the distinction between an ultra-short (chatuf) vowel
and a short vowel). I also do not know when such a ubiquitous elision
loses its status as a "mistake" and assumes normative status as one of the
traditional communal realizations of hebrew, but i do not believe that
it can be said to have happened yet with the chiriq. Else the universal
opprobrium -- not to mention synagogal equivalent of catcalls -- which
would descend upon any ba'al qoreih who dared read e.g. "tit'tamm'u"
(as R. Seth's remark might lead you one to articulate) for "teet'tamm'u"
(Vayiqroh 18:24 -- ouch, now i'm doing it too) with the implicit change in
meaning would be entirely wasted. Wanna bet he wouldn't get away with it?

Mechy Frankel                   W: (703) 588-7424
mechyfrankel@zdnetonebox.com    H: (301) 593-3949
michael.frankel@osd.mil

R' Seth Mandel wrote <<< I trust I have succeeded in spreading confusion
where there was none, and people will think twice before inviting me
into an innocent exchange in the future! >>>

Sorry to disappoint you, but you have brought (just barely :-) enough
clarity to this issue that I am tempted to consider it closed.

I am totally lost on all discussions of Tiberians and non-Tiberians
and the like, and so I just skim over those sections. Your attempts to
confuse me there have utterly failed. :-)

But R' Mandel's comment that <<< the Torah avoids having two mole' vowels
in one word. >>> is a MAJOR revelation to me. Despite the caveat that
<<< these are tendencies and not strict rules >>> it still strikes a very
deep chord in me. He brought many examples (luchos, neviim, ksuvim)
and the truth is that I had noticed this sort of thing over the years
and have wondered about it. But now I know that grammarians have noticed
it too, and they feel that it happens frequently enough that it can be
called a tendency, or maybe even a rule.

Summary: I still don't know how to pronounce this word correctly, be it
"tzeetzees", "tzitzis", "zeezith", or whatever, nor do I know what the
word "correctly" means in this context. But I am no longer bothered by
the gematria=613 being based on a spelling other than that found in the
written Torah, and for that, Dayenu!

Akiva Miller

> What is the primary source for this generally accepted minhag? I've found
> a Ramban quoting the maharam mrutenberg as saying the father gets first
> but not the other way around.

It is a difference between Sefard and Ashkenaz

When I was in in RYBS shiur heonce asked what was unusual about
his name. He then explained that he is named after his paternal
greatgrandfather although his mother had the choice of names.
However, R. Chaim complained that no one had been named yet after his
father. R. Chaim's custom was never to be sandek. However, he promised
his daughter-in-law he would be sandek if she would agree to name the
child after RYBS I (Beis Halevi).

Eli Turkel

Enclosed is a note I sent to Rabbi Neustadt who publishes a halcha shiur
each week on the web.
Any comments are appreciated.


Dear Rabbi Neustadt,

In your recent column on shiva asar be-Tammuz you wrote that the fast ends
50 minutes after sunset. I found this strange since I conclude shabbat
about 40 minutes after sunset and in fact in our shul the ruling was to
end the fast 25 minutes after sunset.

It is well known that Shitat Rabbenu Tam and also the modification
of Minchat Cohen do not conform with the physical reality. Hence,
most communities in the U.S. and Israel follow the opinion of the Gra,
Ball haTanya and Geonim that night is about 20-25 minutes after sunset
(depending on season and location). I recently spent a lot of time
visiting communities in northern Europe. In most places they follow
a straight 72 minutes for motzei shabbat witrhout accounting for the
season. As it is they conclude shabbat at this time of the year at
about 11 to 11:30pm (I believe Oslo is about 1am). According to the real
Rabbenu Tam shbbat would end early in the morning and in some places it
never happens.

Since shiva Asar BeTammuz is essentially the latest ending fast (Northern
Hemisahpere) and it ends so late many communties even in Europe use
earlier times to help the fasting public.

Since, you so ably usually quote all the shitot on an issue I was confused
why you didn't even mention in the notes an opinion which is followed
by probably a majority of the communties today.

If you insist on following the Shulchan Arukh and not the Gra then plag
haMinchah starts 75 mintues before night, eg 3 minutes before physical
sunset and one cannot light shabbat candles until that time.

At least in Israel the widespread custom in all communtiues is to light
candles for Chanukah a little after sunset. I once asked a posek that is
against the Shulchan Arukh/Rabbenu Tam and he responded that obviously
the Gra is right and so when no kula is involved we follow the Gra. In
fact today very few places follow Rabbenu Tam even for a Kula.

As such when one is fasting on a long hot day and further the fast of
Shiva Asar beTammuz is only a custom not a taanait-be tzibbur it would
seem to me that one could rely on the Gra especially for communties that
rely on the Gra all year round.

Sincerely,
Eli Turkel

In connection with a suggestion made here last week, Tosfos says on
today's Daf Yomi that (migu that someone could have) written a get
immediately after kiddushin, despite it being a get yashan, the get
would be good bedi'avad.

Gershon
gershon.dubin@juno.com

Would anyone, whether R. Frankel or someone else, know where Rav Kook offers 
this brilliant explanation?

Gil Student

On Mon, Jul 09, 2001 at 10:50:05AM -0400, gil.student@citicorp.com wrote:
:                                                      The Rambam defines
: five types of people as a min: 1) someone who does not believe in HKBH, 2)
: someone who believes in more than one deity, 3) someone who believes in
: one HKBH but that he is corporeal, 4) someone who believes that HKBH was
: not first and creator of everything, 5) someone who worships something
: else to act as a mediator to HKBH.

In the Moreh, the Rambam shows that #3 comes from #2. The difference
between believing in a pantheon and believing in a single god who has
parts is one of terminology. And corporeality implies divisiblity.

Also, #4 can be taken two ways: either as a form of #2 -- that some other
deity created the universe; or as a form of #1 -- that the universe had
no creator.

#5 is the flipside of the first form of #2, and differ only in terminology.
The first shitah in #2 is that there is a Creator and the God one worships.
Call the Creator by His Name, and one has a middleman standing between
man and G-d.

: 1) Is the Rambam equating a min with an oved avodah zarah?

Looking at the Yad, Hil Teshuvah 3:6-8 (keminyan she'anu monim kan),
it would seem that he defines a min as someone who doesn't believe
in a single G-d; an apikoreis is one who believes in G-d, but denies
nevu'ah and Moshe's nevu'ah; and a kofeir is one who believes in such
communication, but that they didn't produce the Torah (TSBK and TSBP). (A
meshumad and machtei es harabim are violating chovos haguf, and therefore
are in the Rambam's discussion, but not this list.)

: 2) Does the Rambam claim that trinitarianism is polytheism, i.e. the
: second type of minus?
: 3) Or does he accept the claim that trinitarianism is monotheism and
: group Christianity in the third and/or fifth type of minus?

Because he says that one din logically flows from the other, and they
are all under the same issur, the distinction is moot. As already pointed
out, it depends on the Christian, anyway. And how much of the masses
really have a thought out position on trinitarianism? Tertullian thought
it was paradoxical and reveled in that paradox. Do you think a particular
ben Noach has a clear picture?

-mi

-- 
Micha Berger                 For a mitzvah is a lamp,
micha@aishdas.org            And the Torah, its light.
http://www.aishdas.org                       - based on Mishlei 6:2
(973) 916-0287               

On Mon, Jul 09, 2001 at 10:48:32AM -0400, David Riceman wrote:
:>: R. Chaim Volozhiner is cited in Kether Rosh as saying he would give all
:>: the tefilloth he'd prayed his whole life for one chiddush.

:> Which means that either:
:> 1- RCV took the temimus fork, and therefore valued having the da'as Torah...
:> 2- According to the Rambam's shitah that deveikus is acheived through
:> one's knowledge of the Borei...

:                               Aren't R. Chaim's theories about deveikuth
: through formalism in prayer and pshat in gemara (as opposed to sod in
: both cases) relevant here?

This is my #1. I didn't want to assert it without qualification because
as discussed here before, it's unclear whether RCV defined deveikus as
the goal, or as a side effect of temimus. The thrust of the first cheilek
of Nefesh haChaim is one of temimus. (Such as 1:21's analysis of Eiruvin
19a, that I cited recently in the "Sechar vaOnesh" thread.)

-mi

From: Joelirich@aol.com
<<What is the primary source for this generally accepted minhag?
I'vefound a Ramban quoting the maharam mrutenberg as saying the father
gets firstbut not the other way around.>>

As some of our esteemed members would put it, Bereishis 38:3-4 also
implies the opposite practice.

Gershon
gershon.dubin@juno.com

I wrote: 
:                                                      The Rambam defines
: five types of people as a min: 1) someone who does not believe in HKBH, 2) 
: someone who believes in more than one deity, 3) someone who believes in
: one HKBH but that he is corporeal, 4) someone who believes that HKBH was 
: not first and creator of everything, 5) someone who worships something
: else to act as a mediator to HKBH.

Micha wrote:
: In the Moreh, the Rambam shows that #3 comes from #2. The difference between
: believing in a pantheon and believing in a single god who has parts is one of
: terminology. And corporeality implies divisiblity.

Maybe you meant that #2 comes from #3? If you believe in a corporeal
deity then you REALLY believe in more than deity.

: #5 is the flipside of the first form of #2, and differ only in terminology.
: The first shitah in #2 is that there is a Creator and the God one worships.
: Call the Creator by His Name, and one has a middleman standing between
: man and G-d.

I'm not sure about this. See the Moreh Nevuchim 1:36. There, the Rambam
talks about #5 in the same vein as in Hilchos Avodah Zarah 1:1 -- the
historical development that leads to worshipping an intermediary or
something that you think can do good or bad to you (Rambam lists those
three). He specifically calls this avodah zarah of an intermediary or
something that you think... He distinguishes between this (#5) and the
other 4 and says that the other 4 (including atheism) are WORSE than #5.

The Rambam is certainly saying that #5 is avodah zarah (with all its
halachic ramifications). Is he saying that the other 4 are as well, or
just that they are worse than avodah zarah? If the former, then if a city
is populated entirely with atheists does it have a din of ir hanidachas?

I wrote:
: 1) Is the Rambam equating a min with an oved avodah zarah?

Micha wrote:
: Looking at the Yad, Hil Teshuvah 3:6-8 (keminyan she'anu monim kan), it would
: seem that he defines a min as someone who doesn't believe in a single G-d;

Yes, but is a min an oved avodah zarah?

: Because he says that one din logically flows from the other, and they
: are all under the same issur, the distinction is moot.

By "all under the same issur" are you saying that all 5 are considered
avodah zarah?

: As already pointed out, it depends on the Christian, anyway.

That is an obvious point that you never see mentioned in the literature.
I know Catholics who reject the trinity and pray to G-d without an
intermediary. How can even the most machmir consider them to be oved
avodah zarah?

Gil Student

David Riceman <dr@insight.att.com> wrote in Avodah V7 #72:
>2. The Rambam uses akum both as an ethnic classification (perhaps someone
>with a CD can locate my favorite expression of this "akum sheeino oveid
>avoda zara") and as a religious classification...

FWIW, my impression is that the "akum" in the above quotation is a censored 
replacement of nokhri or an equivalent term.

Has anyone an uncensored version to check?

-----------------------
IRA L. JACOBSON
mailto:laser@ieee.org

I'm sorry to bring up this old thread, but I was reading through the 
exchanges between the Chazon Ish and R. Elchanan Wasserman (printed in the 
back of Kovetz Inyanim) and it seems that they both agreed with RYGB's 
principle.  They both say that if you don't understand what someone great 
said then you cannot argue on it.

Here are my translations of excerpts:

Chazon Ish #4 (Kovetz Inyanim p. 196)
"From the perspective of a biblical law it is obvious that we are able to 
argue with a Gaon on whose level and in whose image we are.  However, we are 
not able to argue with the gemara because we do not fully understand their 
words nor the fundamental teachings and cases..."

R. Elchanan Wasserman #2 (Kovetz Inyanim p. 199)
"It is obvious even to children that it is impossible to argue with a great, 
wise man if the arguer is not his equal or his worthy opponent because it is 
possible that the reasoning and viewpoint of this wise man has eluded him 
and if he had known the reasoning he would see for himself that there is 
nothing for him with which to argue."

Gil Student

In message , Joelirich@aol.com writes:
>What is the primary source for this generally accepted minhag? I've found
>a Ramban quoting the maharam mrutenberg as saying the father gets first
>but not the other way around.

Well it is not the generally accepted Sephardi minhag (at least among
the Egyptian/Syrian Sephardim) where the minhag is to name the first
boy after the father's father, the second boy after the mother's father,
the first girl after the father's mother and the second girl after the
mother's mother (this is regardless of whether the relevant grandparent
is alive or not).

(In our case the David part of David's name is after Robert's late father,
Robert's Hebrew name is Michael ben David, - he was a third son, so his
parents got to pick his name, with his older two brothers the names were
pretty much set.).

Regards
Chana

PS on the subject of flabagasting minhagim, I have just discovered that I
have a speaking part at the pidyon haben! I checked the Ashkenazi version
found in Artscroll and sure enough no mention of the mother anywhere, but
the version in Robert's siddur (Sukkat David) that we will be following
requires me to confirm to the cohen that I have no other children and
had no miscarriages!

PPS To return to a topic of a while ago, while going through the siddur
looking at the nusach of pidyon haben, I couldn't help but notice that
the next entry after the pidyon haben was headed zeved habat. It is a
fairly short text, and seems to be effectively a naming ceremony, but
it does not seem to contemplate happening in shul (and includes picking
up the tinoket and psukim from shir hashirim).

PPPS If you do reply to one of my postings, please copy me directly as well.

-- 
Chana/Heather Luntz

Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 15:20:45 EDT
Subject: Re: Areivim V7 #271

In a message dated 7/10/2001 12:39:25 PM Central Daylight Time,
owner-areivim@aishdas.org writes:

<< Let's be clear about something: The BSA is not barring homosexuals from
 leadership roles. It is barring advertising homosexuals from leadership
 roles. They are not demanding that anyone prove their heterosexuality. 
They
 are only demanding that if one engages in homosexual activities to either
 keep it to yourself or look for leadership roles elsewhere. >>

Let's get real about this. The Scouts have a problem with gays , not just 
gay
sexual contact.
================================
SK: We should also 'have a problem' with men who share a physical 
relationship.
=================================

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is a prescription for deception and
disingenuity. The Scouts are supposed to stand for honesty and
forthrightness. "Keep it to yourself" is not part of the Scout oath, as I
remember it.
===================================
SK: Honesty does not require one to advertise one's sins. Intellectual 
honesty does require us to face the fact in the context of Torah there is 
no way an openly practicing Shochaiv im Ish can be a role model for our 
children anymore than an openly practicing Shochaiv im Behaimeh could be a 
proper role model. While (AFAIK) Torah would not advocate discriminating 
against gays in housing or employment or to investigate each other's 
personal habits when they do not have any effect on us, we can not turn 
that into the Torah's acceptance of such people as role models for our 
children.
===================================

 Or halacha, either.
===================================
SK: Refraining from advertising your sins is definitely part of halachah. 
Likewise, it is assur to spread the notion that physical relations between 
men is acceptable. It is a deviant and immoral act in the view of the 
Torah.

KT

SK

In a practically unforgivable slip of the key, I see that my fingers -
on an autopilot all their own - typed "Mazeroski" even when my brain was
screaming "Bobby Thomson". It is of course the latter who is immortally
paired with Branca, as I'm sure is quite superfluous to remind such a
choshiveh and knowlegable audience which forms the readership of avodah.

Mechy Frankel				W: (703) 588-7424
mechyfrankel@zdnetonebox.com		H: (301) 593-3949
michael.frankel@osd.mil

Referring to R' Seth's statement that a consonant is not pronounced,
if it is written in a Tanakh without nikkud, R' Akiva Miller wrote <<(2)
Would this logic also apply to the "resh" of "Yiru es HaShem k'doshav",
where the resh is not followed by a vowel (not even a shva) but by a
consonant (aleph)?>>

Good try, but the letter that is not pronounced is the aleph. The shuruk
belongs to the reish.

The proof is that, in the three appearances of y'ru et Hashem in Tanakh,
the ta'am on y'ru (mil'ra') is located beneath the reish, not the
aleph. Because there ain't no aleph. No nikkud, no aleph

I could add that one should look at words like haRuveini (like in this
week's sedra) which, your LBK (local bal-koireh) will tell you, that the
lack of a sh'va means that the aleph is silent. Luckily, my neighbor
R'uvein has a sh'va under his reish which saves him from being named
Uvein. But, then, Uvein might have been a nice name.


R' -mi wrote <<as well as the vav in "hi" (when spelled hv'). Leshitaso,
letters without tenu'os are silent.>>

The non-pronounced state of letters without nikkud is not only "l'shitoso"
of R' Seth but is standard for at least a thousand years.

The vav in "hi" in the Torah is not without a tenua', it has a chirik.
So, it is not an example of letters without nikkud. It is a ketiv uk'ri.
The nikkud is that of the k'ri. The written letters are the k'tiv. When k'tiv
uk'ri is rare, the thousand-year old custom is to write the letters of the
k'ri in the margin. The reader can see the nikkud under the k'tiv and the
letters in the margin and thus figure out how to read the word. When the
k'tiv uk'ri is a commonly occurring one, the marginal note is omitted. It
is unnecessary because every one knows the correct kri. Thus shem Havaya is
written in the text with the nikkud of shem Adanut to inform the reader of
the k'ri. No marginal note is necessary.

The only deviation from the standard custom was made by the Koren Tanakh
in which shem Hashem is written without nikkud. The first time I saw it, I
automatically omitted the word and only then woke up to what Koren had done.
Koren's argument is that 'amei ha'aretz nowadays are liable to pronounce the
shem with the letters of the k'tiv and nikkud of the k'ri, something from
which he saved them by omitting the nikkud. He has a point. After all, didn't
translators do exactly that, as seen in the common English pronunciation of
shem Havaya.

Me? I don't like it because, during the past thousand years, I've gotten
used to the standard traditional way.

David

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