Avodah Mailing List

Volume 24: Number 102

Sun, 23 Dec 2007

• 1. Re: Apikores? (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: Apikores? (Zev Sero)
• 3. Re: Apikores? (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: Having a boyfriend equivalent to being married? (Chana Luntz)
• 5. Re: Apikores? (Zev Sero)
• 6. Re: Apikores? (Micha Berger)
• 7. A few Notes on Parshas Vaychi (SBA)
• 8. Re: Having a boyfriend equivalent to being married? (Micha Berger)
• 9. Re: A few Notes on Parshas Vaychi (Zev Sero)
• 10. Re: Women Lighting Menorahs (Arie Folger)
• 11. Re: All transgressions are sins? (saul mashbaum)
• 12. Re: All transgressions are sins? (Zev Sero)

On Tue, December 18, 2007 4:36 pm, Zev Sero wrote:
: Micha Berger wrote:
:> : But He permitted, and even commanded, judicial / executive
:> : enforcement of Halachah.

:> But when Sanhedrin saw that the masses weren't on the same page, and
:> oneshim would turn Inquisition-esque, they exiled themselves to
:> prevent the eventuality.

: Was that the reason?  Or was it because they were prevented by the
: Romans from carrying out their duty?

I'm worried that we're headed in a Historical School direction.

Regardless of what was the primary reason historically, as recorded by
Chazal, the reason was as I gave it -- they saw too much corporal
punishment. In terms of the lessons learned, finding historical
reasons that may have forced their hand anyway wouldn't change the
lesson the gemara tries to teach us via the timing.

IOW, if the Sanhedrin would have had to leave anyway, and thus the
good reason was ex post facto, the lesson could not be learned from
their action. But it would still be learned from the later member of
Chazal who gave the motivation cited in the gemara. There is no nafqa
mina to the historical theory's truth.

: (Consider a famous execution that was carried out by the Romans rather
: than the Jews, right around the time the Sanhedrin moved offices.
: Cause?  Effect? Just coincidence?  Or pure fiction?)

Likely the lattermost. If not the whole event, the dating certainly
is; but I'm inclined to think both, that the person executed was a
composite figure, historically not an individual.

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

Micha Berger wrote:
> On Tue, December 18, 2007 4:36 pm, Zev Sero wrote:
> : Micha Berger wrote:

> :> But when Sanhedrin saw that the masses weren't on the same page, and
> :> oneshim would turn Inquisition-esque, they exiled themselves to
> :> prevent the eventuality.
> 
> : Was that the reason?  Or was it because they were prevented by the
> : Romans from carrying out their duty?
> 
> I'm worried that we're headed in a Historical School direction.
> 
> Regardless of what was the primary reason historically, as recorded by
> Chazal, the reason was as I gave it -- they saw too much corporal
> punishment.

What it says is that there were too many murderers, not that there was
too many executions.  (And it says nothing about corporal punishment.)
It doesn't say explicitly what the problem was with too many murderers;
why not execute them all?  You're speculating that the reason was that
they were reluctant to do that, but I don't see anything in the source
to support that.  I understand the gemara to mean that they moved because
they *couldn't* execute the murderers.  I then bolster my reading by
pointing to the history we know from elsewhere, that in fact at that
time the Romans did not allow batei din to execute people.  As
evidenced by a famous story, fictional or not, that is supposedly set
37 years before the churban, give or take a few, which puts it right
around the time that the Sanhedrin moved.  Even if the story didn't
happen, it's evidence that the rule was in place.


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

On Thu, December 20, 2007 2:20 pm, R Zev Sero wrote:
: What it says is that there were too many murderers, not that there was
: too many executions. (And it says nothing about corporal punishment.)

Opening Shabbos 15a...

R' Yitzchaq bar Avdimei says it was to avoid dinei kenasos. This is
questioned and clarified -- it was to avoid dinei nefashos. Dinei
nefashos includes misas beis din as well as malkos, not just judging
retzichah.

Now the question is why they avoided corporal punishment. Was it
because they couldn't politically, or because they weren't willing to
mete it out in such quantity?

Well, as you also seem to recall, Chazal say "misherabu". (I'm looking
for that quote, but keep on turning up Sotah 9:9 about the end of egla
arufah, not galus.)

That was where I deduced causality -- too many murderers lead to doing
away with trying to kill them. In line with achas lesheva/shiv'im
shanah. I'm not sure why being politically unable to mete out capital
punishment would justify removing other powers of Sanhedrin. Frankly,
until you spelled out that that's how you're reading Chazal, it didn't
cross my mind as a possibility. So I'm shifting my complaint from
being bothered by using historical data rather than a maamar chazal to
simply finding your reading of chazal implausible.

Notice the move was probably simultaneous with the breakdown in
halachic process that required a bas qol to tell us halakhah keBH.
Definitely the same generation. It's difficult to see how something
that traumatic would be voluntarily accepted rather than not meting
out oneshim because they were anusim.


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

I wrote:

> On Mon, December 17, 2007 7:52 pm, Rn Chana Luntz wrote:
> : A chazaka in general is a rebuttable presumption.  That is, 
> we assume
> : something, usually about an existing status continuing, if we do not
> : have the information to know to the contrary....

And RMB replied:

> That is a chazaqah demei'ikarah, which is different in kind 
> than our case, a chazaqah disvara.

Why is our case a chazaka d'svarah and not a chazak demi'ikara?
Assuming we are talking about somebody known to be a kosher yid, then
all we are saying is that we assume he continues to be a kosher yid, and
would not do something like a bias znus (any more than he would do
something like serve us treif food) so if he actually engaged in biah,
he must have intended kiddushin.  If however he is mukzak as somebody
involved in znus, he has lost his chezkas kashrus in this regard, and
therefore we make no such assumption.

 The former is a 
> presumption that nothing changed until the moment a change 
> was observed, the latter is a rule of nature or rule of 
> thumb. The example of a distinction I posted yesterday (which 
> was still more recent than RnCL's post) was a chiluq made by 
> the Sheiv Shmaatesa, that a CdS is not asserted where there 
> are eidim, even in a case like terei uterei where the eidus 
> still leaves you with a safeiq. However, for a CdM, we would 
> assume nothing changed even where two of the eidim claim it did.

I confess I don't understand this Sheiv Shmatesa.  Two eidim are the
sina qua non of establishing a change of status - marriage spring to
mind exactly.  Isn't that the whole point of the pasuk, that by the
mouths of two eidim the matter is established?

> That said, I think that RYBS's position inclines us to say 
> that neither kind of chazaqah is a form of rov.

You don't need RYBS's position - the gemora in Yevamos that I quoted
expressly gives a case where the chazaka points one way and the rov
points another.  The chazaka if a man leaves town childless is that his
wife is roi for yibum if he then dies. On the other hand, if he leaves
with his co-wife, then given that rov women conceive and give birth, if
there was enough time for that to happen, the rov would point to the
wife left behind being permitted to marry. If chazaka was a form of rov,
then the gemora could not make this distinction. 

 And thus he 
> could still say tav lemeisav is a law of human nature, even 
> if that law might come into play rarely because of the 
> prevalence of other laws. Or, it could be that he insists 
> that tav lemeisav is true even in rov women today, and the 
> women who think otherwise are just in denial.

I think he has to be saying the latter. The context in which RYBS made
his famous statements about tav lemeisiv was to rebut an idea that one
could use mekach taus as a way of uprooting marriages, on a regular
basis, that had ended and where the husband was withholding a get.  If
there is a general principle that a woman really truly wanted to get
married (even if she subsequently doesn't think so) then there is no
mekach taus involved.

> The notion that chazaqah holds even when the circumstance it 
> describes is a mi'ut can be supported by a case in Chullin. 
> Lechat-chilah, the chalaf should be inspected before every 
> shechitah. Bedi'eved, if it is found kosher in one check and 
> pasul much later, every animal shechted until the failed 
> inspection is kosher. Even if someone use the knife to hack a 
> bone, we do not assume the nick came from the bone. I would 
> presume, though, that rov cases such a knife would have been 
> nicked by the bone and not the very end of the last siman cut.

 You seem to have lost your distinction between Chazaka d'svara and
Chazaka d'mikara here - this is clearly a chazaka dmikara.  BTW, so I
think, is tav l'mesiv.  Certainly RYBS was applying tav l'mesiv as a
chazaka after the woman has gotten married, or purported to get married,
and we are questioning whether that was really what was intended - ie
that what seems to be her putative status and the way she was known was
indeed intended.  I would have to think about whether that is true in
the cases discussed in the gemora.

I think there are any number of cases where a chazaka and a rov come
into conflict - I think there is some significant discussion in the
rishonim about this - tosphos certainly discusses it in several places,
although I would have to look it all up again, as I don't recall the
details - not a project I can embark on in the next little while, what
with work commitments.  Will try and look when I can.
> 
> SheTir'u baTov!
> -micha

Shabbat Shalom

Chana

Micha Berger wrote:
> On Thu, December 20, 2007 2:20 pm, R Zev Sero wrote:
> : What it says is that there were too many murderers, not that there was
> : too many executions. (And it says nothing about corporal punishment.)
> 
> Opening Shabbos 15a...
> 
> R' Yitzchaq bar Avdimei says it was to avoid dinei kenasos. This is
> questioned and clarified -- it was to avoid dinei nefashos. Dinei
> nefashos includes misas beis din as well as malkos, not just judging
> retzichah.

It includes malkos, but the *reason* they moved was because of too
many murderers, not too many treif-eaters or shatnez-wearers.  There's
no mention that they had malkos in mind.


> Now the question is why they avoided corporal punishment. Was it
> because they couldn't politically, or because they weren't willing to
> mete it out in such quantity?
> 
> Well, as you also seem to recall, Chazal say "misherabu". (I'm looking
> for that quote, but keep on turning up Sotah 9:9 about the end of egla
> arufah, not galus.)

It's at Avoda Zara 8b, at the bottom of the page.  And it says
explicitly that it was because there were a lot of murderers and
they were *not able* to try them.  Not that they didn't *want* to,
but that they couldn't.  Now it doesn't say exactly *why* they
couldn't judge the murderers; that's where outside history can help
us (as we've been discussing in other threads, how limudei chol can
help explain questions in torah).


 
> That was where I deduced causality -- too many murderers lead to doing
> away with trying to kill them. In line with achas lesheva/shiv'im
> shanah. I'm not sure why being politically unable to mete out capital
> punishment would justify removing other powers of Sanhedrin.

It wasn't just the Sanhedrin, it was every beit din in the country.
There were a lot of murderers *everywhere* in EY, and the batei din
weren't able to try them.  By moving offices, the Sanhedrin removed
the power of every b"d to sit on dinei nefashot.


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

On Thu, Dec 20, 2007 at 06:50:59PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
:> Opening Shabbos 15a...
:> R' Yitzchaq bar Avdimei says it was to avoid dinei kenasos. This is
:> questioned and clarified -- it was to avoid dinei nefashos. Dinei
:> nefashos includes misas beis din as well as malkos, not just judging
:> retzichah.

: It includes malkos...

So we agree on that side-point. It's not about judging murders, it was
to do away with corporal punishment altogether.

: It's at Avoda Zara 8b, at the bottom of the page.  And it says
: explicitly that it was because there were a lot of murderers and
: they were *not able* to try them...

Interesting, in this gemara the clarification is given a person's name,
R' Nachman bar Yitzchaq. So, the problem is that he says they exiled
themselves in order to eliminate all forms of capital punishment, but
then only explain the motivation for eliminating only a much smaller
subset of punishments -- those of murderers.

In normal gemara phrase structure, would normally mean they couldn't
do it because of the number. Was it a problem of quantity and time,
or a problem of morality? If it were a political problem, the gemara
wouldn't connect it to quantity. There would be some separator; "vegam"
instead of "ve-", or perhaps entirely different phrasing.

So besach hakol, here is how I would translate the gemara in AZ:
    The Sanhedrin went into exile and settled into the shuq. To what
    purpose? ... R' Nachman bar Yitzchaq said: ... So as not do judge
    cases of corporal punishment. For what reason? Since they saw that
    even murderers were increasing and so they couldn't judge them, they
    said it was better to be exiled... so that we wouldn't be obligated...

...
: It wasn't just the Sanhedrin, it was every beit din in the country.
: There were a lot of murderers *everywhere* in EY, and the batei din
: weren't able to try them.  By moving offices, the Sanhedrin removed
: the power of every b"d to sit on dinei nefashot.

I fail to see why this justifies sacrifice of major legislative authority,
the threat of "two Toros in Israel", when the cost is being obligated
to punish but unable to fulfill the obligation.

The political inability to carry out a death sentence doesn't really
give that strong of a motivation for departing. Particularly when you
consider the price paid.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A sick person never rejects a healing procedure
micha@aishdas.org        as "unbefitting." Why, then, do we care what
http://www.aishdas.org   other people think when dealing with spiritual
Fax: (270) 514-1507      matters?              - Rav Yisrael Salanter

48:22 Rashi dh: 'V'ani nosati lecho Shechem Echad al Achecho"
"Shechem mamash hi tihyeh lecho chelek echad yesero al achecho".

It occured to me(and I presume someone MUST have thought of this before me)
that as Yosef - was married to Osnas - who was the daughter of Dinah and
Shechem ben Chamor (according to Targum Yonoson), Yaakov thought it would be
only right to hand over the land of his (Yosef's) father-in-law to his
descendents..

(I drafted the above a few weeks ago and have since been searching -
wherever I could - to see if anyone else has said this. I found nothing
until early this week when I was in London for a simcha that I looked into
my host's Yalkut Meam Loez - who more or less writes this beshem unnamed
'meforshim'.)
==

Rashi dh: 'Becharbi ubekashti' - writes that Yaakov had to battle Shechem's
neighbours after Shimon and Levi wiped out the population there.
This seems to contradict the posuk in Vayishlach 35:5 "Vayhi chitas Elokim
al ha'orim asher sevivoseihem - velo rodfu achrei Bnei Yaakov"  ??

==

Interesting Baal Haturim 49:1
"Bikesh Yaakov legalos lohem haKetz venistam mimeno.
Omar Yaakov: 'shemo yesh bochem Chet?'
Omru lo: 'tedakdek bishmoseinu velo timtzo bohem osiyos 'CHeT'(ches tes)'.
Omar lohem: 'Gam ein bohem osiyos KeTZ (kuf tzaddik)..."

==

And the first to give a stipend to  Kollelniks !

Baal HaTurim (49:15) writes that not only did Zevulun teach Torah to Klal
Yisroel - but he also paid all those who came to learn...

==

And another very interesting BhT 50:15 (also 50:25). 
Too long to quote, but worth looking up.

SBA
sba@sba2.com

On Thu, December 20, 2007 5:56 pm, Chana Luntz wrote:
:> On Mon, December 17, 2007 7:52 pm, Rn Chana Luntz wrote:
:>: A chazaka in general is a rebuttable presumption.  That is,
:>: we assume something, usually about an existing status continuing,
:>: if we do not have the information to know to the contrary....
:
: And RMB replied:

... not very clearly, obviously ...

:> That is a chazaqah demei'ikarah, which is different in kind
:> than our case, a chazaqah disvara.

: Why is our case a chazaka d'svarah and not a chazak demi'ikara?

This isn't a lack of clarity of my part, but yet another assumption I
didn't realize I was making. Been doing that a lot lately (see my
recent response to RSZ about why Sanhedrin left the lishkas hagazis).

I must apologize for continuing without meqoros. Retaining and hunting
down citations is not a strength of mine.


While the gemara speaks of kesheirim when saying "ein adam oseh
be'ilaso..." the Rambam omits the word. Unless we think it's simple
shibush, it would seem the Rambam is making a point; that being
kasheir is a happenstance in the gemara's case, not an essential
criterion. It is unclear therefore that the Rambam would make this
connection. But the gemara seems to, so I assume someone I am unaware
of does as well.

Perhaps the Ridbaz, who ignored "ein adam oseh be'ilaso" in a case
where the chupah was a chupas nidah and the couple were meyachadim. Or
R' Chaim Ozer, who -- limiting himself to a case of agunah, where a
get couldn't be obtained -- who said the chazaqah doesn't hold where
the man was known to have had pre- and extra-marital affairs.

Neither of these two teshuvos "shtim" with RYGB's take on chazaqos.
But then, for him to hold like the Rambam should come as no shock.


There are a list of such assumptions about man being essentially good,
all of the "ein adam" phrasing -- ein adam chotei velo lo, ein adam
mei'itz panav lifnei baal chovo, etc... I took them to be statements
of human nature, and thus chazaqos disvara. Looking back at that ShSh
(6:22), his example of CdS bemaqom terei uterei is one!

You're right that if the assumptions about being essentially good is a
derivative of chezqas kashrus, that's not as clear. Man is essentially
good, but because we're born that way and we would need to change to
say otherwise. However, if they really are of parallel phrasing
because they're of a kind, there is also "ein adam lomeid ela bemaqom
shelibo chafeitz" -- and for someone within EY whose chosen rebbe is
in chu"l, this has a nafqa mina lemaaseh.

Misevara, it would seem we're making both kinds of chazaqos, not one
or the other: a CdM that the person would still be kosher, and then a
CdS that a kosher person wouldn't behave in a particular manner. I
would think it obvious chezqas kashrus doesn't mean a chazaqah
demei'ikara that he was sinless when we last checked, so assume he is
still entirely without sin. Which means that assuming kashrus is only
enough to compell assuming a tendency, not a reality.

Now to get to my terseness leading to confusion:
: I confess I don't understand this Sheiv Shmatesa.  Two eidim are the
: sina qua non of establishing a change of status - marriage spring to
: mind exactly.  Isn't that the whole point of the pasuk, that by the
: mouths of two eidim the matter is established?

The case is terei uterei. We say it's a safeiq shaqul even in the face
of a CdS. Eidim, and yet a question requiring

In http://www.aishdas.org/book/bookA.pdf I divide the whole world of
safeiq and birur into two, by extending a teshuvas RAEiger beyond his
topic of safeiq (which follows rov) and kavu'ah (kemechtza al
mechtza). In short, once there is human observation (eidim, kavu'ah),
etc.. the din exists, but it unknown. Until observation, it's the
establishment of a din where the safeiq is on the metzi'us. We can
only rely on rov or CdS in establishing metzi'us well enough for
pesaq, not in resolving a safeiq in known pesaq. (All this from RAE
making this chiluq WRT rov and why it isn't a factor in qavu'ah.) I
even argue that terei kemei'ah is part of this same "don't look at rov
once there is an observation".

Physics efficianados: I blame this bit about metzi'us being a product
of observation on halakhah dealing with the world-as-perceived, rather
than saying it's a foreshadowing of QM.

Now, for the above mentioned unclarity:
:> That said, I think that RYBS's position inclines us to say
:> that neither kind of chazaqah is a form of rov.

: You don't need RYBS's position - the gemora in Yevamos that I quoted
: expressly gives a case where the chazaka points one way and the rov
: points another.  The chazaka if a man leaves town childless is that
: his wife is roi for yibum if he then dies....

This is a chazaqah demei'ikarah, I would think.

What I was trying to day, with caps to show emphasis, was: I think
that RYBS's position inclines us to say that NEITHER kind of chazaqah
is a form of rov.

We know that in the case of a CdM, as in the case of the chalaf used
to chop bones, but RYBS would require we say it for a CdS too. So,
when RtCL writes:
:  You seem to have lost your distinction between Chazaka d'svara and
: Chazaka d'mikara here - this is clearly a chazaka dmikara....

I didn't so much lose it as intentionally write that it was not being
made WRT the applicability of rov. That doesn't work with my own
theories, as my extension of RAE requires that if CdS doesn't
influence bemaqom terei uterei, then it can't be on the same plane as
rov. But I think we all agree RYBS needn't buy into one of my
chidushim.

My point was that given the existence of one law of birur that defies
rov, we can't assume that we can dismiss another because today it
violates rov. That only works if we naively assume CdS is just a fancy
kind of ruba deleisa leqaman. Which is why I introduced an alternative
mechanics (laws of nature are assumed to play themselves out).


:>  And thus he
:> could still say tav lemeisav is a law of human nature, even
:> if that law might come into play rarely because of the
:> prevalence of other laws. Or, it could be that he insists
:> that tav lemeisav is true even in rov women today, and the
:> women who think otherwise are just in denial.

: I think he has to be saying the latter. The context in which RYBS made
: his famous statements about tav lemeisiv was to rebut an idea that one
: could use mekach taus as a way of uprooting marriages, on a regular
: basis, that had ended and where the husband was withholding a get.  If
: there is a general principle that a woman really truly wanted to get
: married (even if she subsequently doesn't think so) then there is no
: mekach taus involved.

Either would work. Her testimony, as a baalas davar, doesn't mean
much. So, we're left with safeiq and matters of birur.

First possibility:
We could have a law of birur that regardless of majority, we assume
that she felt tav lemeisav and the qidushin weren't a meqakh ta'us.

Second possibility:
We could have a rov who deep down want the marriage and are in denial,
and thus the qiddushin weren't a mekach ta'us.

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

SBA wrote:

> Rashi dh: 'Becharbi ubekashti' - writes that Yaakov had to battle Shechem's
> neighbours after Shimon and Levi wiped out the population there.
> This seems to contradict the posuk in Vayishlach 35:5 "Vayhi chitas Elokim
> al ha'orim asher sevivoseihem - velo rodfu achrei Bnei Yaakov"  ??

Rashi doesn't say he had to fight them, he says "vechagar klei milchama
negdam", he girded himself for war.  This is consistent with the earlier
story, where it says he was afraid of what the neighbours would do, so
he would have prepared for a fight which proved unnecessary.  As to why
it proved unnecessary, we know it was because of "chitat Elokim", but
is there a reason why Yaacov must have know that?  Perhaps he thought
it was his preparations for war that made his neighbours think better
of attacking him.  "Ein baal hanes makir beniso."

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

I am replying to the part of the thread discussing who is obligated to light 
Shabbat candles.

Please note that nowadays we have electric lighting and still light, out of 
kavod Shabbat. As far as the original taqanah, we probably fulfil our duty 
through the electrical light in the dining room and in the hallway or 
bathroom. Also note that we allow several women to light with a berakhah, for 
example when one woman is the guest of the other one.

The only way I can make sufficient sence of the whole matter is that at the 
very least every household needs to be lit, without regard to the number of 
household members (the ba'al habayit is presumably responsible in absence of 
a minhag-designated candle lighter), and that we allow additional people to 
light and bless based on ribbuy kavod Shabbat.

Hence, there should be no impediment to every household member lighting the 
candles; minhag Yisrael is simply different, but needn't be.

However, because of the fact that the obligation is for the light to be lit, 
rather than for lighting, because of the fact that candle lighting has 
morphed into kavod Shabbat instead of 'oneg Shabbat, and because of the 
permissibility of blessing for ribbuy nerot, I believe that any comparison 
with nerot 'hannukah is inappropriate.
-- 
Arie Folger
http://www.ariefolger.googlepages.com

RMB:
>Not only the 7 mitzvos benei Noach, but even the other 606, are subject to judgment. 
I have wondered about this. All the mitzvot b'nei  Noach are of course incumbent on Jews. It would thus seem that there are 606 *additional* mitzvot Jews have that BN do not. However, I have seen sources (which I can't quote  precisely now), that there are a total of 620 mitzvot, 613 for Jews and 7 for BN  (I think that there are 620 words  in the aseret hadibrot). Intuitvely, RMB's formulation seems more sensible. Can anyone support and  explain the alternate formulation?
Saul Mashbaum
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saul mashbaum wrote:
> RMB:
> 
>  >Not only the 7 mitzvos benei Noach, but even the other 606, are 
> subject to judgment.
> 
> I have wondered about this. All the mitzvot b'nei  Noach are of course 
> incumbent on Jews. It would thus seem that there are 606 *additional* 
> mitzvot Jews have that BN do not.

Ruth is gematria 606, for the extra mitzvot that she accepted.

> However, I have seen sources (which I 
> can't quote  precisely now), that there are a total of 620 mitzvot, 613 
> for Jews and 7 for BN  (I think that there are 620 words  in the aseret 
> hadibrot). Intuitvely, RMB's formulation seems more sensible. Can anyone 
> support and  explain the alternate formulation?

The 620 includes the 7 mitzvot derabbanan.  


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


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