Avodah Mailing List

Volume 24: Number 39

Thu, 01 Nov 2007

• 1. Re: V'sein Tal Umatar (Zev Sero)
• 2. Minhag Yisroel (Chana Luntz)
• 3. Re: A few notes on Parshas Vayeiro (Michael Poppers)
• 4. Re: A few notes on Parshas Vayeiro (SBA)
• 5. Re: Minhag Yisroel and Gra on 2 Matzos vs.3 Matzos/Rabbi shopping (Chana Luntz)
• 6. Re: Minhag Yisroel (Chana Luntz)
• 7. Re: Subject: Re: Shabbas he mi lezok (added 4th point) (RallisW@aol.com)
• 8. Re: Minhag Yisroel (Rich, Joel)
• 9. Re: Did Someone Forget Eilu v'eilu? (Yitzhak Grossman)
• 10. Re: Rav Schachter on Kiddushei Ta'us; and a hypothesis re: Annulment (Yitzhak Grossman)
• 11. Re: praying to tzadikkim (Micha Berger)

yonah sears wrote:

> So, does anyone know why we wait to say V'sein Tal Umatar (which I always
> understood to be so that the olei regel could get home before the rain
> starts), but we don't switch to V'sein Brocha until they've already been
> oleh regel for Pesach? Shouldn't we back up the switch before the travelers
> set out?

Just to clarify, you're talking about in Eretz Yisrael, right?


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev@sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas

I wrote:

> > Now, I struggle to see "tzivu Chazal" as anything but an 
> > issur.  The is modified (at least for Ashkenazim) by the Rema adding

> that in any case a woman is obligated (chayaves) to learn dinim 
> shayachim l'isha.

And RJB writes:
 
> Sorry, I don't agree.  The issur is quite clearly, from the 
> exact language in the mishnah, on the FATHER to teach HIS 
> DAUGHTER.  The rabbis have made such diyukim before, e.g. in 
> prozbul - individuals must forgive debts, but not batei din (and other
corporate bodies?); in maakeh - 
> individuals have to erect a fence, corporate owners don't (this was
the reason 
> given to one future rav who complained that there wasn't a 
> railing on the roof of his yeshiva).

Yes, but these kinds of diyukim are generally learned out of psukim -
for example, in the case of maakeh, the specific exclusion of betei
knessios and betei midrashos is darshened from the pasuk in Chullin
136a.  Ie you have a d'orisa obligation that may or may not be a
chiddush, and a diyuk in the pasuk, which is brought by Chazal and hence
codified as halacha.  While here we are, as is clear form the language,
dealing with a gezera of Chazal, not a pasuk, and a diyuk that you are
drawing out of the words of Chazal/the Shulchan Aruch, not one that
Chazal is drawing out of the Torah.  Something of a difference.
Importantly therefore, you need to look at the surrounding discussions
to understand the nature of the gezera.  In this case, we have in the
mishna a machlokus - Ben Azai says that a father is chayav to teach his
daughter torah shebaal peh, and Rabbi Eliezer says that it is assur for
a father to teach his daughter torah shebaal peh.  Now the meforshim ask
the reasonable question (see eg the Birkei Yosef there in Yoreh Deah),
in a machlokus that involves Rabbi Eliezer, we generally do not posken
like Rabbi Eliezer- he Shamuti hu [he is a follower of Beis Shammai} -
so why does the Rambam and the Shulchan Aruch posken like Rabbi Eliezer
in this case?  And the answer given to this question is that this is
because Rabbi Yehoshua at the end of that Mishna can be taken (and
appears to be deemed to be taken by the rishonim) to agree with Rabbi
Eliezer {Rabbi Yehoshua ends that Mishna with a criptic statement which
says that women generally prefer one kav with tiflus rather than nine
kavs with prishus - eg Rashi there on Sotah 21b concludes his
explanation that this is about a women preferring less mezonos and more
tashmish over more mezonos and less tashmish by saying l'fikach ain tov
shetilmod torah).

> Now, the fact that throughout history, most people were 
> taught by their parents, rather than by an organized school 
> system,

No.  The fact is that throughout history most *women* were taught by
their parents, rather than by an organised school system.  However,
since the days of Yehoshua ben Gamla most boys and men were taught by an
organised school system not by their parents (in fact earlier than that,
as the gemora records in Baba Basra 21a - there was some degree of
organised school system, albeit one not accessed by orphans). 

 would mitigate against this distinction helping 
> women.  But once people went to organized schools, by the 
> 19th century say, the "issur" wouldn't hold.

Besides the need to disregard the contextual discussion of the meforshim
on the gemora in Sotah and on the Rambam/Shulchan Aruch, the other
problem with this interpretation is that, with regard to boys, it has
generally been understood that a father fulfils his obligation of talmud
torah vis a vis his sons by sending them to school.  But what you are
saying here is that an organised school cannot be considered to be in
loco parentis and the agent of the father.  But how then do you explain
why what is is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander?  

> And you leave out the beginning of the paragraph: 
> 
> "A woman who learns Torah has a reward, albeit not the reward 
> of a man who studies Torah".
> 
> So a distinction is already clearly drawn between a woman who 
> acquires Torah on her own, or from her father.

Agreed.  Nobody, as far as I am aware, is or has been making any comment
about a women (or miriads of women) who acquire Torah on her or their
own.  And one can without too much difficulty (even though it is clearly
a break from minhag yisroel) apply this to adult independent women who
go off to seminary under their own steam even though it involves
learning from others.  But we are not discussing that here.  We are
discussing the Beis Ya'akov system, which, at least the vast bulk of it,
involves sending either minors, or teenagers who are still completely
dependent on their parents, whether they want to or not (- or do you ask
your minor daughter every morning - do you feel like going to school
today?) to be compulsorarily educated in torah, at an educational system
almost invariably selected by their parents and paid for by their
parents.


> There are lots of places where the actual halacha says X, but common 
> practice is not-X, or pseudo-not-X.  This appears to be one of them.
Historic circumstance changed, people had to send 
> their children to school, rather than teaching at home, so instead of
absorbing 
> the Torah culture in the liebfraumilch, the schools need to inculcate
a Torah 
> personality.

I am not disagreeing with this.  But there is a major difference between
saying that the actual halacha says X and common practice is Y and
saying, as RMB appeared to be saying, and you appear to be saying that
halacha actually agrees and always has agreed with today's common
practice.  
  
> In fact, that seems to be pragmatically what was going on.  
> The Mechaber's distinction between TSBK and TSBP doesn't work 
> - one does have to teach one's chiildren belief in Hashem, 
> which is based in Oral Torah as much as Written Torah.  One 
> has to teach brachot, etc., which are Oral Torah.  One has to 
> teach prayers, which are nothing if not Oral Torah.  Women were 
> learning Tzene-rene, which is full of midrashic 
> understandings of the parshiyot.  
> 
> And I don't even see how that works either - not teaching the 
> mitzves. Not teach them mitzves?  How will they know how to 
> live?  So the Rema makes the logical interpretation - you 
> have to teach them how to live 
> a Jewish life.  But what do Sefardim do?  I don't mean how do 
> their rabbis read this, but how do they teach their daughters 
> how to live, if they can't teach Torah?
> 
> Or is it that the MOTHERS teach the daughters Torah, in which 
> case they too are making the diyuk that Micha and I see in 
> the text - it's not the FATHERS, it's the MOTHERS.

The traditional understanding of this (whether Ashkenazi or Sephardi)
was not that they were not taught how to do mitzvos that were relevant
to them.  For example, every girl was taught how to kasher a chicken,
that is a mitzvah.  How to light shabbas candles, how to keep a kosher
household.  But she never saw anything in writing.  And that included
Torah shebichtav - ie women were often not taught to read, and certainly
if they needed to know how to read the vernacular, they did not need to
know how to read Hebrew.  For an idea as to how this can be interpreted
and operated even in this modern day and age, you only need look at
certain parts of the Satmarer girls school system.  They have girls
schools (have to, by law to keep them out of the public schools).  I
believe that at least certain of them have breached the fence a little
bit by having the girls learn Torah shebichtav - ie to read the text of
the Torah.  But they certainly do not and will not show them Rashi -
although that does not exclude little ma'aselach told externally which
are supposed to incalcate a Torah personality and belief in HaShem.  You
can of course go further and not teach Hebrew reading at all, or at
least the text of the Torah and still bring wonderful ma'aselach based
on sound Torah principles.  And with all the time freed up from the
textual learning, you can involved the girls in some terrific chessed
programs - where they learn by example what wonderful kindness people
can do.  All quite possible even in this day and age of compulsory
schooling.  The difficulty is not the pragmatics of this, it is the
imbalance that is created once you have girls with a sophisticated
intellectual, textual, secular education and yet nothing equivalent
Jewishly.  The way these girls schools have tried to deal with this
issue is by a) shutting out the outside world as much as possible, and
b) by limiting the sophistication of the secular education to the
minimum that can be got away with by law.  I am not sure it does not
work, at least up to a point.  And it is certainly possible to remain
loyal to Torah and mitzvos with extremely limited Jewish educations -
there are thousands of people, men and women, who had no Jewish
education to speak of (eg there were no Jewish day schools in their day)
who remained loyal, albeit often ignorant.  However, it does certainly
entail rather large risks when there is a beckoning secular world out
there, and it was to this challenge that the Choftez Chaim was
responding.  

> 
> --
>         name: jon baker              web: 


Regards

Chana

In Avodah Digest V24#28, RSBA wrote:
> Baal HaTurim (19:12) says that "Boaz yotzo miS'dom" ! Yes his wife Ruth
did.   But Boaz?? <
My BhT has the text "remez l'Boaz sheyatza _mimenu_" (which sounds like the
next word is missing!) rather than "miS'dom."  Perhaps the object of
"sheyatza" isn't S'dom -- one possibility which comes to mind is David
haMelech.

> BTW the Baal Haturim (19:26) writes that Lot's wife was called Irit. <
See the last portion of RaMBaN's commentary on 19:17.

All the best from
--Michael Poppers via RIM pager
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From: Michael Poppers [mailto:MPoppers@kayescholer.com] 
RSBA wrote:
> Baal HaTurim (19:12) says that "Boaz yotzo miS'dom" ! Yes his wife Ruth
did. But Boaz?? <
My BhT has the text "remez l'Boaz sheyatza _mimenu_" (which sounds like the
next word is missing!) rather than "miS'dom." Perhaps the object of
"sheyatza" isn't S'dom -- one possibility which comes to mind is David
haMelech. 
>>

Actually we both quoted incorrectly.
The correct version is "Remez leBoaz sheyotzo mishom"

My Baal Haturim with the peirush of the Aderes refers to the Midrash Rabba
50:10 (the Hamaor Chumash says 50:30):
"..motzosi Dovid  avdi (Tehilim 89:21), heichan motzosi oso? biS'dom. AKL.

The peirsuh adds that "Mi lecho po choson" may refer to Boaz who was a
"choson" (SIL) of Moav - when he married Ruth...

SBA

RJR writes:

>> Let me go back to the case of the Rav who told my friend to
>> keep tryingwhen we all know there is a very simple heter that should
(and because
>> she psak shopped was) employed in this case to enable her to have
>> children.  Is it not crystal clear that after 120 years, when this
Rav
>> goes to face the din emes, if my friend had in fact followed his
ruling,
>> then this Rav would have been held accountable for the children (and
all
>> the countless generations possibly after them) that did not exist,
not
>> to mention the enormous suffering of my friend and her husband, that
he
>> had caused?  In fact did not my friend, on a deeper level do this Rav
a
>> big favour, because now his din will only be dealing with
theoreticals,
>> not actuals.
> ===========================================
> Not crystal clear to me. Perhaps the Rav in question had other reasons
> for his not using the heter, perhaps HKB"H had a different result in
> mind. 

Well of course it is hard for us to speculate on HKB"H intentions - but
he certainly had lots of other means at his disposal for preventing this
couple having children, if that was his intention.  As it happened, the
Rav did not inform them of the heter, they continued not to have
children until they went to the Dayan who steered them through the
heter.  Then they had children.  HKBH could certainly have found methods
to prevent them having children even once they heter was imployed, but
he chose not to implement them.

Regarding the Rav, I confess I am at a loss to explain what other
reasons he might possibly have for not using the heter.  Given the
weight placed within halacha on the mitzva of pru u'rvu, and the extent
that this is a case of, as people have articulated, hanhaga, and one
that is pretty generally recognised by many many gedolei yisroel as one
that is to be waived in order to allow for the mitzva of pru u'rvu, it
would show and enormous level of confidence and courage in one's own
poskening ability to come out against such gedolei yisroel - without
either articulating such reasons or even telling the people involved
what has been done.  From a Rav of a local shul, pretty unlikely.  Far
more likely is that he just didn't know.

 As long as we're conjecturing, what if someone takes advantage of
> a minority opinion and has children that they "shouldn't" have had.
> Does the new rav in question suffer for that?  

I am not sure that the question has much teeth if you are talking about
taking advantage of a bone fide minority opinion.  But OK, let's
strengthen the situation and say that the Rav in question, out of
compassion for the couple, allowed them to do something that is bone
fide against halacha as all see it in order to have children (I don't
know - how about having relations during the actual flow days, to make
the case as extreme as possible, assuming, against most biology I would
have thought, that this was the only time she could conceive).  Assuming
the couple had no idea (or were prepared to trust the Rav that this must
be OK, and they had reasonable grounds to trust the Rav - ie this was a
case of a Rav appointed to a local Orthodox shul, where a not so learned
couple should reasonably be able to expect that he knows what he is
doing) then yes, it seems to me that the issur is on the Rav and not on
the couple, and the din emes would be against him, not the couple, who
thought they were doing what they were permitted to do.  The Rav might
have averah lishma arguments perhaps (see Horayos 10b), I don't know.

> KT
> Joel Rich

Regards

Chana

> > RZS wrote:
> 
> >> Your ancestors did.  A person has the right to make a
> neder binding on him and his future descendants.

RJR responded:
 
> > What is the makor for this right (for an individual or a community -

> > although I could see a community as more logical than an individual)

RYG wrote:
 
> "kabalas herem hala aleihem ve'al zaram ..." - SA YD 214:2 "nidui 
> ve'herem hal al doros ha'ba'im" - ibid 228:35

And then RJR wrote:

>Sorry for the lack of clarity - this din (which iiuc is based on the
gemara in Pesachim 50b) is based on a pasuk in mishlei(Shma bni
musar..). So my 
>question was, what is the makor, as in is this an offshoot of a neder,
is it halacha moshe misinai, is it a gezeira of the rabbanan.....?

Is it possible to say that it is based on Vayikra 27:29 (the relevant
pasuk is kol cherem asher yicharam min haadam lo yfadeh mos umas)?

The Ramban there says that we deduce from this pasuk that a king
b'yisroel or sanhedrin gedola in the presence of all Israel who has the
authority to institute judgments, if they declare something cherem, one
who violates this is guilty of death. And, according to the Chatam Sofer
in teshuva 208 of Orech Chaim, this is because the mechanism that gives
this authority, which then operated to give the authority to the later
statement by Yehoshua that anybody who transgresses his command shall be
put to death (which can't be the primary source as it is from Nach) is
found in this pasuk as follows:  All of Yisroel said to Yehoshua that
whoever transgresses your command shall be put to death, thus creating a
cherem from the Torah which, based on this pasuk, makes the transgressor
liable from the Torah to be put to death.

But working backwards, doesn't this analysis of the Chatam Sofer
presuppose that the kind of kabala referred to in the Shulchan Aruch by
RYG above is learnt out of this pasuk?  {I know this is a rather back
handed way of getting at it, but I couldn't find anything directly
commenting on the pasuk that seemed to say it explicitly, rather to my
surprise - although it may well be out there).
 
> > KT
> > Joel Rich

Regards

Chana

 
I think this just shows how accommodating the rabbonim throughout  the 
generations, have been to the k'lal. 
 
1) Whether it's the recitation of a mishaberach for the sick on  Shabbos and 
Yom Tov, even though not strictly permitted by halochoh unless the  choleh 
might be nifter C"S before the next Monday or Thursday. The  rabbis recognized 
that many people will either not show up for davening during  the week, or 
they'll forget to recite it.
 
2) The recitation of Yizkor on the last days of Yom Tov. How many people  
would attend davening if there were no Yizkor the eighth day of Pesach for  
example? 
 
3) The recitation of kaddish after Oleinu, or the recitation of Oleinu  
itself, after Kiddush Levono [Bris Miloh]. The recital of tehillim just to  follow 
them with a kaddish sometimes to access IMHO [Mizmor  Shir Chanukas HaBayis  
L'Dovid?].   
 
4) Although not properly recited according to halochoh the recitation of  
kaddish by more than one oveil at a time, a practice I refer to as a "kaddish  
choir".
 
The one exception to this is the accepted recitation of Kaddish  D'Rabbonon 
by people who can barely say kaddish. Shouldn't the recitation of  that kaddish 
be; a) by the Rav, and b) after "real"  learning?







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Is it possible to say that it is based on Vayikra 27:29 (the relevant
pasuk is kol cherem asher yicharam min haadam lo yfadeh mos umas)?

The Ramban there says that we deduce from this pasuk that a king
b'yisroel or sanhedrin gedola in the presence of all Israel who has the
authority to institute judgments, if they declare something cherem, one
who violates this is guilty of death. And, according to the Chatam Sofer
in teshuva 208 of Orech Chaim, this is because the mechanism that gives
this authority, which then operated to give the authority to the later
statement by Yehoshua that anybody who transgresses his command shall be
put to death (which can't be the primary source as it is from Nach) is
found in this pasuk as follows:  All of Yisroel said to Yehoshua that
whoever transgresses your command shall be put to death, thus creating a
cherem from the Torah which, based on this pasuk, makes the transgressor
liable from the Torah to be put to death.


Chana
_______________________________________________

Which of course raises the related question is this a "neder" that the
am can be shoel on?  Similarly for non-Jews, for those who say dina
dmalchuta flows from King's ownership of land, does that mean it's not
operative now?  Can the non-Jews revoke divine right of king or withdraw
the consent of the governed?  Perhaps now it's all one big shutfut?

KT
Joel Rich
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On Tue, 30 Oct 2007 02:21:07 -0400
"Moshe Y. Gluck" <mgluck@gmail.com> wrote:

> R' Yitzchok Grossman, quoting Ralbag:
> > And it appeared in his dream that God opened the ass's mouth and it
> > spoke to him twice ...
> 
> 
> What would Ralbag do with the Mishna in Avos (5:8) that says the Pi HaAson
> was created Erev Shabbos?

That's exactly the point; he rejects that Mishnah!  Here is the
beginning of his remarks (Bamidbar 22:21):


This narrative has many extremely difficult problems:

The first, how is it possible that the ass could see an angel of God,
for no one who is not a prophet can see one ...

And if we say that God did this as a miracle, then we must ask what
point was there in this miracle ...

And if we say that this 'Malach' was a prophet, there will still remain
a problem, for what purpose was it necessary to create then the
miraculous event of the ass's speaking?  Additionally, we cannot say
who this prophet was.

Moreover, how did Balak's nobles and Bilam's youths not see him ...

And it is clear that God does not create miracles without a need ...

Now the opinion of our Rabbis Z"L is that this affair was according to
the simple reading, and so they have said that the ass's mouth was
among the things that were created bein ha'she'mashos.

And what appears to us according to the true fundamental principles
that are apparent from the words of the prophets and from analysis is
that this story was an episode that occurred to Bilam in a prophetic
vision. ...

[continuing as per my previous post]

Note that this is not your typical peshat / derush dichotomy; Ralbag is
not rejecting Hazal's opinion based on the written text, but is rather
maintaining that it is philosophically untenable *on its own terms*.

> KT,
> MYG

Yitzhak
--
Bein Din Ledin - bdl.freehostia.com
An advanced discussion of Hoshen Mishpat

On Tue, 23 Oct 2007 00:47:48 -0400
Zev Sero <zev@sero.name> wrote:

> In practise, I've never heard of a case of afke'inhu in modern times
> (meaning the past 1500 years); while cases of annulment on grounds of

There is extensive Halachic literature on the subject of post-Talmudic
afke'inhu; Encyclopedia Talmudis has a brief summary of the issue [0],
and Ozar Ha'poskim has a full twenty pages of citations of sources [1].

[0] Entry 'Afke'inhu'
[1] EH 28:21 (#112)

> Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's

Yitzhak
--
Bein Din Ledin - bdl.freehostia.com
An advanced discussion of Hoshen Mishpat

On Wed, October 31, 2007 5:48 am, Rich, Joel wrote:
: Yes but if their exposure to hkb"h is direct, how could there be
: bechira if there were always one "correct" thing to do/think/pray etc.?

It isn't direct. There are those who see be'asparlaqia hame'ira, those
who see with an aspaqlaria she'eina me'ira, those who r"l don't even
get that much (those in the other place)... But all require an
aspaqlaria. Even a soul unencumbered by filtering everything through a
guf's senses and desires still can not fully fathom the Borei. Some
more, some less, but all imperfectly.

And thus, just as in the Maharal's description of halakhah, the person
takes the unfathomable Complete Truth and maps it down to a subset he
can understand -- which could very well contradict someone else's
perfectly loyal mapping. By going from the Infinite to the finite,
there will be conflicting equally pressing values and a need for
shiqul hadaas.

The other question is how long after petirah does a neshamah
experience time? What is decision-making if time isn't involved?

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One who kills his inclination is as though he
micha@aishdas.org        brought an offering. But to bring an offering,
http://www.aishdas.org   you must know where to slaughter and what
Fax: (270) 514-1507      parts to offer.        - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv



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