Avodah Mailing List

Volume 13 : Number 021

Wednesday, May 12 2004

• Re: Valid halachic change
• Re: rebbe akiva
• RE: new chumra
• Re: Valid halachic change
• Re: Valid halachic change
• Rabbi Akiva
• Rabbi Akiva
• Music during Sefira
• Re: Valid halachic change
• Re: Valid halachic change
• Re: Music during Sefira
• RE: Music during Sefira
• R' Moshe/no zemer due to destructon of bet hamikdash
• Maaseh Rav
• how did they get over the problems of the issur of Kol Isha
• Re: When is a Mechitzah Necessary?
• Fw: Rabbi Akiva
• kivrei tzadikim aren't m'tamei?
• RE: Chai Rotel
• Valid Halchic Change -machloket
• Re: Valid halachic change
• RE: 24/7
• Re: C services/shalom mishpacha
• Re: musar
• opposition to upsheren/upsherin custom - observation from sidra
• s'fira machine

> so could one claim that what he have today is false in relation to the
> absolute standard given at Sinai?

sure. e.g. we know not how to spell our torah.
/dw

On 9 May 2004 at 14:18, Herb Basser wrote:
> Also
> the recitation of 10 harugei malkhus is generated by this idea that
> the slaughter happened on yom kippur and thus repeated on that day in
> musaf. The idea of misas tsakidim mekhaperes is blatant-- and
> liturgically tied to the horns of the scape goat...

The Asara Harugei Malchus are also recited as part of the kinos on 
Tisha b'Av albeit (at least for Ashkenazim) in a different nussach 
than on Yom Kippur. 

-- Carl

> Regarding nikkur, R' Eli Turkel wrote:
> <<< According to Meorot Hadaf on this week's daf yomi the
> Ashkenazi minhag is to strip out all large blood vessels from the
> animal. The sefardi minhag is simply to cut these blood vessels
> so the blood goes out. R. S. Salant changed the Ashkenazi minhag
> in Jerusalem to that of the Sefardim and this is the general
> minhag in all of EY today like the sefardim. While in Chutz
> Laartez the ashemazim keep the old minhag. Hence, it would seem
> to me that according to these that an Ashkenazi Jew who makes a
> visit to EY should not eat meat in Israel as it is not prepared
> according to standard ashkenazi minhag outside of EY. >>>

> If RET is using the word "minhag" properly, it sure sounds like
> he is making a valid point. But I can't help wondering if it
> might be more accurate to describe this not as a "minhag", but as
> a non-binding *practice* of those who do the nikkur.

But it's obvious from the OU's position on importing meat from E.Y. that
it IS a binding minhag.

As such, like RET said, the OU poskim probably shouldn't eat meat while
visiting...

Akiva

In  Avodah V13 #20 dated 5/10/04   "proptrek" <ruthwi@macam.ac.il> writes:
> >...in boolean,
>> true/false, logic once you accepts a single contradiction any suggestion
>> can be "proven" true.)

> i have no boolean knowledge, but out of my own fat belly this has always
> been self-evident that two contraries cannot both be true....

I think we had better assume that halachic reasoning is Boolean. However
there are many non-Boolean questions in which contraries certainly CAN
both be true. For example: Do you love me? This is only one of many
questions for which a fuzzy range of answers might be true.

BTW interestingly in re another thread, for halachic psak you must pick
one or the other--treif or kosher, one candle first night or eight candles
first night--but for Torah learning a range of contradictories might be
"true", look at eilu ve'eilu and the teachings of Hillel and Shammai.

  Omer Day 34
 -Toby Katz

On Mon, 2004-05-10 at 20:02 +0300, proptrek wrote:
>> so could one claim that what he have today is false in relation to the
>> absolute standard given at Sinai?

> sure. e.g. we know not how to spell our torah.

there's slight difference b/w saying we don't know, and saying something
is false.

RZB:
>Harry Miles draws attention to Yalkut Shimoni Mishlei #944 where it is
>said Rabbi Akiva was niftar on yom kippur. The usual siman of this yom
>kippur yahrzeit is given as "oR zaruA latsadiK uliyishreI leV simchA" the
>last letters spelling R Akiva (ending with heh as in talmud yerushalmi
>and galilean midrash)-- and this explains why we begin erev yom kippur
>with this posuk.

Actually, in Yalkut it says he was niftar on EREV Yom Kippur and buried
that day.

Shlomo Goldstein

It is interesting to note that the Yalkut in Mishlei is at variance with
our Gemara. The Yalkut says no one was present when Rabbi Akiva died. The
Gemara Brachos 61b says his talmidim were present and discussed with
him the mitzva of kiddush Hashem.

Perhaps the Gemara is literal and the midrash is not literally describing
Rabbi Akiva's death; just his soul's preparations for burial.

Shlomo Goldstein

On Areivim, RAM asked:

"Can someone show me where it says that there's a specific avoidance of
music during sefiras haomer? That's easy to find in English kitzurim,
but when I look up the sources, all I can find are references to parties
or one sort or another."

Someone else asked me that just a day or two later. Motzie shabbos I was
listening to a tape from R Frand, and he addressed the question directly:

He says that this is, actually, fairly new (at least in writing it is),
and modern day poskim derive it the following way:

1. The Mishna Brurah rules that is someone is invited to a mitzvah sedua
(perhaps a kiddushin, and/or the like) during the sefira it is permitted
to attend, provided one does not dance.

2. A kal v'chomer that if one can not dance, one can not listen to music.

3. How do we know this is a proper kal v'chomer?

4. The M"A writes, l'gabai the Three Weeks, that one can not dance.

5. The Pri Megadim, in a teshuva, permitted one who is a professional
musician to play music for goyim during the Three Weeks.

6. The Minchas Yizchok (?) says that this shows that the Pri Megadim
otherwise ossurs music during the Three Weeks based on a kal v'chomer
from the M"A, and therefore we can use the same kal v'chomer from dancing
to music for the sefira.

7. Rav Frand adds: we can show how this applies to recorded music also,
based on R Sonnenfeld's ruling that in Y'm, where music at chasunas are
ossur, he also ossured recorded music.

The above is to the best of my memory, any errors are mine.

 - Sholom

> there's slight difference b/w saying we don't know, and saying something
> is false.

can you figure out the chances that the masorah team hit all the
meleoth and hhaseroth exactly as moses wrote them? slight indeed is
the difference.

/dw

> a Yefetic perspective which reduces things to components and
> true/false question vs a Semitic one which focusses on interactions
> and interconnectedness

i remember a saying "kol sevara shei efshar lehasbirah legoy enah sevara".

in my mind it connects with my years in har tsevi, but if it came from
rav goldberg's mouth, and if, in whose name, i cannot say.

in any case, this is my opinion. and i do not restrict it to semitic
goyim. actually, that might be asking too much.

/dw

On 10 May 2004 at 13:23, Sholom Simon wrote:
> 7. Rav Frand adds: we can show how this applies to recorded music
> also, based on R Sonnenfeld's ruling that in Y'm, where music at
> chasunas are ossur, he also ossured recorded music.

This is interesting because I am pretty sure I have heard recorded 
music at Chasunos here (certainly during the one-man bands' breaks).

 - Carl

In previous generations (i.e. 1900 and before) there was a connection
between music and simcha (the only place frum Jews would hear music
would be at simchas).

This no longer is true -- especially with "ambient" or "background" music.

Also -- a friend noticed that the chareidi radio stations are have been
playing more and more music during sefira over the past few years.

> 3. How do we know this is a proper kal v'chomer?

We are allowed to make new kal v'chomers?

Akiva

Someone asked for a cite on this issue.
The tshuva is in O"C 1:166

KT
Joel Rich

(Moved here from an Areivim thread titled "RSRH and the Opera", in which
some posters were wondering what we might learn from reports that Rav SR
Hirsch had attended certain public musical events. Those reports were
originally written in German, and the Arevim thread discussed whether
those events should be translated as operas or as concerts, and that
topic will not be repeated here.)

R' Carl Sherer asked <<< Does a ma'aseh rav need sources? >>>

I responded <<< You *do* need sources to prove why he acted as he did.
Without such, how can one possibly know what his reasoning was >>>

R"n Chana Luntz pointed out <<< since we can assume that an adom gadol
is not engaged in a chillul hashem, you can rely on a ma'aseh rav without
knowing or understanding his reasoning. >>>

Granted that the adam gadol is obligated to avoid a chilul Hashem as
you described, but that does NOT mean that we can assume that he did not
commit such. Rather, when we see him commit something which appears to
be wrong, we are obligated to presume that unusual circumstances exist,
or he holds like a shita that we're unaware of, or -- if all other
limud zechus fails -- that he did teshuva immediately thereafter. But
we certainly cannot conclude that since he did it, so can I.

So RCL will respond that of course, little people like me cannot jump
to such a conclusion. But there are others with suffcient stature and
learning (also known as "poskim") who *are* capable of analyzing the
situation properly. But it seems to me that if such poskim are aware
of precedents that show this action to be allowed, then they could've
already paskened this way without having seen the Maaseh Rav which we're
talking about.

This thread began by mentioning reports that RSR Hirsch had attended
certain events, and some would like to use this Maaseh Rav to teach us
a leniency (even though, as I see it, this is difficult to do without
RSRH himself telling us what his reasoning was). But the same logic
works for chumros: When we see a gadol who refrains from something we
thought was mutar, or we see him go out of his way to do something which
we thought was not required, how can we know what led him to do this --
unless he tells us?

Akiva Miller

From: RabbiRichWolpoe@aol.com
>     c) Issur of kol isha only applies to the problem of saying davar
>     shebikdusha in its presence 
> AFAIK #c is the the simple pshat of the Gmara in Brachos.  If there is 
> another source in Gmara I would be interested in seeing it.
> It is arguable that any other application of an issur kol isha is chumra,
> minhag lifnim mishuras hadin etc.

The Seridei Esh 1:77 p 314, brings that gemoro and paskens l'issur.

SBA.

Gil Student wrote:
: It should, hopefully, be obvious that you do not need a mechitzah when
: you have friends over for dinner...

From: Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org>
> Nothing is ever pashut. In Yemen, it was not taken for granted. When
> company was over, men and women would stay on different floors.

Happens today with many chassidim. 
If they have guests for a meal - different rooms for men/women.

SBA

> It is interesting to note that the Yalkut in Mishlei is at variance with our
> Gemara.  The Yalkut says no talmid was present when Rabbi Akiva died. The
> Gemara Brachos 61b says his talmidim were present and discussed with him the
> mitzva of kiddush Hashem.

Perhaps the solution can be found in Yerushalmi Brachos 9:5 and Y. Sotah
5:5.  The Yerushalmi is like the Gemara in Brachos with the major difference
being that instead of the talmidim asking Rabbi Akiva it is Turnus Rufus.

Perhaps historically no talmid was present with Turnus Rufus asking
questions. This is in accordance with the Yalkut and Yerushalmi.
Our Gemara is not historical; yet records the halachos expounded by
Rabbi Akiva.

 Shlomo Goldstein

Carl M. Sherer wrote:
> But don't we hold that kivrei tzadikim aren't m'tamei?
> I never heard before that Kohanim don't go to Kever Rachel, etc.

From: Shaya Potter <spotter@yucs.org>
> yes, but I've never met a kohein who actually practiced by it (though
> i know there are). In KBY they when we went on tiulim, none of us went
> into the kvarot.

AFAIK this is an old debate.
The SR z'l forbid kohanim who were travelling with him to enter the cave
of RSBY in Meron.
I think the Taamei Haminhogim [in the Lag B'omer section] has a discussion
on this.

SBA

From: "Akiva Blum" <ydamyb@actcom.net.il>
>In Israel, it has recently become common to see appeals for donations
>for a segula called 'Chai Rotel Mashke'...

See this site [mainly page 2]
http://tinyurl.com/2vpc7

SBA

On  Sun, 9 May 2004 16:57:22 +0000 Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org> wrote:
                      .  .  .
>...RMF, in his haqdamah to IM, says that it doesn't
>really mean both are true, but rather because both were honest products
>of ameilus beTorah... However, RMF seems to be
>in the minority, and most do actually hold that in a true machloqes,
>both sides are amito shel Torah.

and on Mon, 10 May 2004 12:08:17 -0400 Shaya Potter <spotter@yucs.org>
wrote:
                      .  .  .
>...so could one claim that what he have today is false in relation to the
>absolute standard given at Sinai?

Please see the lecture by Moshe Halbertal on Controvery in Halacha (I
am put off by his closing comments in which he uses the scholarly term
"myth" to describe the three views because the popular usage of that
word is different but I still very much value this lecture.) It is found
at http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/Gruss/halbert.html

He differentiates between three different trends among the Rishonim
(although in discussing this lecture with a local talmid chacham I was
reminded that the dividing line between the various views is not as clear
as presented. So I would add, as an example, we could have someone who
follows the Rambam's view as to Halacha following from basic Divinely
given principles (without agreeing with him that there is only one
logical answer to any issue) and the view of the Ritvah that Halacha
is constituted by chazal choosing between equally valid options.

KT
Eliyahu

R Daniel Israel wrote:
> It could also be a switch between eilu v'eilu. IOW, one posek can look
> at the sources and issue one psak. Later, other poskim may conclude
> otherwise based on the sources. Eventually, the klal may cease to be
> noheig like the first, and follow the second. Do we say the first posek
> was wrong, that is, made a mistake in formulating the psak? Or do we
> say eilu v'eilu but today we are noheig like the second?

We can split your case into two (putting them after my list of three):
4- Where two shitos coexist, and while most of the the kehillah follows
one, there hasn't been a formal maskanah.
5- Where a shitah has become the accepted pesaq halakhah.

I think in the latter case (#5), we do not cease to be noheig like
the first to hold like the second. If we look at cases that seem to
be examples of #5, the argument made in favor of switching is that the
currently followed position is flawed (#3).

Every argument WRT nusach haGra not only involves why the Gra felt
the other nusach was superior, but also why standard Ashkenaz is
broken. E.g. "Moshav yeqaro", invoking an anthropomorphic phrase not
found in Tanakh (replaced by "kisei khevodo"). Or "shelo asani goy"
doesn't fit in face of us being called a "goy kadosh" (the Gra has
"nachri/nachriah"). The Gra rejects the Ari's ke'arah because it violates
ein ma'avirin al hamitzvos. Etc...

I would therefore limit #5 to:
5'- Where the kulah has become an accepted pesaq halakhah, and the
kehillah since became chosheish (Brisker style) for the validity of the
other shitah.

I'm not sure this becomes baseline pesaq, though. By eiruv, for example,
it is treated explicitly as chumrah, not as a pesaq lehachmir.

So, I'm rejecting #5 in either form.

-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 35th day, which is
micha@aishdas.org        5 weeks in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Malchus sheb'Hod: What is soul-like about
Fax: (413) 403-9905                  submission, and how is it glorious?

Shinnar, Meir wrote:
> RMB
>> The SE doesn't write about some "minhag" based on "oral heteirim" that
>> he rejects. He notes that the norm was to violate halachah.

> WADR, the SE does not write that the norm was to violate halacha.

Actually, he says that listening to such music is the norm, that the
only tzad heter is flawed reasoning, and in reality it's assur. It's not,
as you put it "a possible heter", it's a sevarah he shows has no raglayim.

Sounds like a declaration that the norm of his day was in violation of
the din.

> On another post, RMB asks
>> What makes you believe this mimetic tradition represents halakhah rather
>> than violates it?

> This question would have been clear to the SE, and most of the previous
> generation - the fact that the mimetic tradition represented people of
> unquestioned halachic integrity, and even gdolim, rather than merely am
> aratzim, was proof that it represented a shitta, even if it was a shitta
> that we believe is against maskanat haposkim.

The SE never actually says any of this. He assur-s the common
practice. You're projecting an opinion for which I see no basis in the
teshuvah itself.

-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 35th day, which is
micha@aishdas.org        5 weeks in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Malchus sheb'Hod: What is soul-like about
Fax: (413) 403-9905                  submission, and how is it glorious?

R' Jonathan Cohen <jcoh003@ec.auckland.ac.nz> wrote (turned right-side-up
for the American and Israeli majority):
> R. Steve wrote:
>> Some years ago we were invited to a family bar mitzvah which was to
>> take place in a C synagogue. I asked RAS zt'l what I should do. He said
>> (paraphrased) you know that I am a big believer in sholem bayit, this
>> also applies to sholem mishpacha. You should go, daven before and make
>> certain that they do not offer any and surely do not accept any kibudim.

> Any formal shu"t on the subject? What are the perspectives of other
> gedolim on the question?

Admittedly not a formal shu"t, but does qualify for the seifah:

When I was engaged, my wife's cousin celebrated her becoming a bas
mitzvah at her R synagogue. (Read something they called the "half-torah"
and everything.)

I asked R' Dovid Lifshitz what I should do. RDL advised me similarly to
RAS's pesaq: daven beforehand, and go. Also citing shalom bayis as the
reason lehakeil. RDL also warned against kol ishah, and advised hanging
out in the lobby and only coming in for the girl's recitation if the
cantor was a woman.

Thinking back at it as I write, it would seem that RDL didn't consider
trop to be music legabei kol ishah!

-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 35th day, which is
micha@aishdas.org        5 weeks in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Malchus sheb'Hod: What is soul-like about
Fax: (413) 403-9905                  submission, and how is it glorious?

R Eli Turkel wrote:
> First thanks to Micah on his notes - much appreciated

It wasn't much of a favor. Reviewing my notes helped me a great deal. You
may have noticed from the language used, that I wrote something that I
could send both here and to a non-O venue.

...
>> The idea of duty is a lack of freedom that is alien to contemporary
>> man. You have to know what you want before you can know what to
>> change. But moderns really don't know what we want.

> R. Soloveitchik in many derashot also stresses this theme very much.
> However, he was not a musar person -).
> What differentiated musar thought from general Jewish haskafa

Al regel achas?

I think mussar's hashkafah is typical Litvisher hashkafah -- man's pe'ulah
is defined primarily in terms of sheleimus ha'adam, in building oneself
into an eved Hashem. (Let's not revisit the Forks discussion. For newbies,
see <http://www.aishdas.org/rygb/forks.htm> and search the archive for
the word "fork". I doubt you'll find too many false hits about cutlery.)

But I think what mussar innovated was the notion that without the
pre-haskalah culture, one needs to directly work on oneself and one's
middos in order to get the full benefit of living bederekh haTorah. That
the Torah includes a certain cultural transmission of values that we
now need to inculcate consciously through study and practice.

In addition, mussar developed a set of approaches to help with that
inculcation.

Yes, there will be overlap with self-help. And some/many self-help
tools could help acheive mussar goals. We don't need to fully revisit
Ben Franklin's impact on Cheshbon Hanefesh, but that's an example.

...
>> I therefore suggested that menuchas hanefesh ... [is]
>>                      to be able to find the point of quiet and watch
>> the emotion. The anger is there, the stress is there, but not
>> overwhelming our ability to think.

> I understood the approach of Kelm was to actually overcome stress.
> The example I have heard several times was never to look to see if the
> bus was coming.

This is an autobiographical maaseh told by R' Lopian. R' Lopian tells
of his annoyance with himself for looking up at his seifer while at a
bus stop to look for the bus. It's not like there was a cheshash that
the bus was almost passing him.

...
> However, I agree with Micha that for ordinary mortals we need to learn
> how to deal with stress.

I whittled down the definition for a more pragmatic reason -- it needs
to be a single middah, and not a tofeses merubah. Menuchas hanefesh,
if broadly defined, would not only include a lack of stress, but also a
lack of anger, or of any emotion that interferes with full, productive,
decision making.

I therefore limited it to the art of not being overwhelmed by the emotion
to the point where it makes you take the inferior choice. This is still
a huge goal, but at least it's a single one.

...
>> 2- If one pays attention to moments of calm, one can capture the feeling
>> and more readily reproduce it. I'm not talking about intellectualizing
>> the process. Just that through awareness, one can recall the feeling on
>> a gut level. After all, with menuchas hanefesh, meditation will itself
>> help acheive calm...

> My wife is a great fan of meditation with music to calm. Is this included
> in menuchat hanefesh?

If it enables clear thinking, then yes. A practice that has no effect
except during the actual time of meditation, perhaps not. I'm defining
menuchas hanefesh in terms of enabling bechirah in real-life situations.

However, as I wrote above, there is a memory of emotion. One is creating
regillus in a certain mental state. So again, I would not think of
the meditation itself as menuchas hanefesh, but rather that a regular
practice of such meditation could be a qabalah that may advance the cause.

Musar does employ hispa'alus on a pasuq, or visualizing a scene --
meditative excercises. But not for its calm producing effects.

-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 35th day, which is
micha@aishdas.org        5 weeks in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Malchus sheb'Hod: What is soul-like about
Fax: (413) 403-9905                  submission, and how is it glorious?

>I took a look at meforshim on the posuk in the standard 'mikro'os gedolos'
>chumash and noticed that not one of them mentions anything about cutting
>the hair of a young boy in relation to it....

>This would seem to be a strong indication ... that it is a recent thing, etc.

>Anyway, the point is that I think that this silence speaks loudly.

Try to find any meforshim that talk about ossuring music during the
sefirah, you won't find any of those either. Speaking of the sefira, try
to find even _one_ Rishon who says that we need to daven ma'ariv late on
erev Shavuos so as to get a "complete" counting (thereby violating tosefos
yom tov, which is d'oraisa). Indeed, one of the Conservatives favorite
arguments against mechitza is that it doesn't appear in the S"A either.

So -- you that the silence speaks loudly. Agreed. But what does it say?
To me, it speaks loudly that it is somewhat recent. _My_ point is:
so are lots of other things we do.

 - Sholom

Moved from Areivim:

><<I thought it was obvious that the device was designed for those who 
>don't go to shul for maariv, principally the nashim tzidkaniot.>>

><Women are supposed to count sefireh?>

REMT answered:
>Why not?

Well, for starters, M"B 489:3 says that it's a mitzvas aseh shehazman
grama. He goes on to say that the M"A says that nevertheless women have
taken it upon themselves to count, but it's not the practice. He also
cites the Shulchan Shelomoh that women should do it without a brocho
because they will err on one of the days.

>The Ramban in Kiddushin 29 lists s'firas ha'omer as a mitzvas asei she'ein 
>haz'man g'rama.

OK, I'll bite: why is it not a mitzvas aseh hazman grama?

 - Sholom

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


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