Avodah Mailing List

Volume 25: Number 348

Wed, 01 Oct 2008

• 1. Re: Stolen goods (Yitzhak Grossman)
• 2. Free Will vs. Physics (Cantor Wolberg)
• 3. "OUT OF HAND LEADS TO OUT OF OUR HAND" (Cantor Wolberg)
• 4. Re: HaShem as God's Name (Moshe Y. Gluck)
• 5. Re: Pruzbul and Ribit (Joshua Meisner)
• 6. Re: Free Will vs. Physics (Micha Berger)
• 7. Re: Free Will vs. Physics (Zev Sero)
• 8. almanah bechaye baala (Henry Topas)
• 9. induction cooking (Dov Kay)
• 10. Re: [Areivim] Mohelet (Zev Sero)
• 11. Re: induction cooking (Gershon Dubin)
• 12. Re: Praying to Angels (Richard Wolpoe)

On Sun, 28 Sep 2008 11:32:21 -0400
"Michael Kopinsky" <mkopin...@gmail.com> wrote:

...

> The CC in Sefer Hamitzvos Hakatzar writes that the issur of geneiva is to
> steal, or to deal with stolen goods.  (I also thought it was a pele gadol
> that he said that.)  The chinuch (224) does not include it in the
> description of the issur, but does include the following in dinei hamitzvah:
> 
> "umah she'amru she'asur liknos miyad ganav, mipnei shemachzik y'dei ovrei
> aveirah, v'chein kol davar shechezkaso shehu ganuv asur likach oso,
> ul'fichach amru z"l she'ein lokchin min har'oim tzemer chalav ug'dayim,
> v'chein ein lokchim mishomrei eitzim o peirors ela bimkomos yiduim, v'derech
> klal amru: v'chulam she'amru "hatmen" asur likach meheim."
> 
> It is worth noting that he holds (unlike the CC) that the problem of buying
> stolen goods is machzik y'dei ovrei aveirah, not geneivah.  (I'm tempted to
> say that's what the CC meant, but there's no way to fit that into the
> lashon.)

The language of Rambam (Gezeilah 5:1) and SA (HM 369:1):

"It is prohibited ('asur') to purchase stolen property from the
thief ... for anyone who does [this] thing and similar ones is 'mahazik
yedei ovrei aveirah' and has violated 'velifnei iver lo siten
michshol' ..."

> Michael

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

R' Sero wrote:   I think even a newborn has free will, and decides  
whether to cry or not.

We're talking semantics. A newborn baby has no more free will than the  
man in the moon. And to say it decides whether to cry or not
is incorrect. A newborn operates on instinct. True a baby is not a  
machine, but its responses are reflexive. Obviously, there comes a
time when it has free will, but not for a while. 
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R' Micha wrote: "If people have pragmatic ideas as to how to gain more  
bitachon,"

All I can say is that looking back at events in life, etc. etc., it  
becomes apparent that there was much good not apparent at the time.  
The more you look back, the more you can
gain bitachon.

"Perception is 95% of reality.  The other 5% we all suffer with."  rw
ri
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> In Avodah 25:326, R' Moshe Y. Gluck wrote:
> > ... see the example on Bava Metziah 16b, because Rashi over
> > there explains that it is a Lashon of Shevuah. Like, "By God!"
> > or "I swear to God!" These also should be OK (though the
> > person saying them should really be very, very sure that
> > they're swearing the truth).

R' Akiva Miller: 
> Indeed? Is it really sufficient that one is very, very sure that he is
> swearing the truth? Aren't we taught to avoid swearing even in such cases?
> Are we being more machmir than they were?

I was just making the point that if he wasn't sure, it would be unwise - I
wasn't condoning swearing. As far as the examples in the Gemara, I see no
reason to assume that their attitude was different than ours - it just
shows how non-trivial the points they were making were to them. IOW, yes,
they avoided swearing except in cases of great necessity - as we do - but
for them these were situations of necessity.

KT and KVCT,
MYG

On Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 4:57 PM, Chanoch (Ken) Bloom <kbl...@gmail.com>wrote:

>
> For the borrower to give a gift (or any other kind of additional
> positive consideration) to a lender as the result of a loan is
> forbidden because of ribit, so how is paying back a loan that has been
> cancelled by shemitta not forbidden because of ribit?


Is it a gift?  My impression was that the borrower is returning the loan
itself, and that the only issur inherent within shmittas kesafim is for the
lender to demand the collection of the loan (n'gisah), not to receive it.

- Josh
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On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 08:07:09PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg wrote:
: We're talking semantics. A newborn baby has no more free will than the  
: man in the moon. And to say it decides whether to cry or not
: is incorrect. A newborn operates on instinct. True a baby is not a  
: machine, but its responses are reflexive. Obviously, there comes a
: time when it has free will, but not for a while. 

I personally would adopt REED's model: Having bechirah chafshi means
that there is a nequdas habechirah at which decisions involve conscious
thought, but anything well beyond that region may well be decided
reflexively.

For one person, the battlefront might be not pocketing a small item
when the store owner is busy elsewhere. For many people, that thought
would never cross their minds, so there was no conscious decision to
be made. For some of them the battle might be cutting corners in their
business bookkeeping. For others the thought of "should I - shouldn't I"
may be in other areas.


Inyana deyoma: A person is judged by how he did in each decision, how
he has moved that battlefront. Where the battlefront actually is also
involves nature and nurture, not only in where the nequdah started,
but the nature of the terraine -- in which directions it moves more
rapidly. For these he cannot take credit or blame. Ba'asher hu sham --
what he is at the time of judgment vs what material Hashem gave him to
work with.

Therefore, I submit that teshuvah isn't about getting from point A to
point B, but rather changing one's course toward B. Trying to change in
a short period, even a 40 day period, simply is too rapid. Pesach to
Shavuos is even longer, the changes we underwent unique in history, and
it was still incapable of preventing the slide back to the eigel.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Never must we think that the Jewish element
mi...@aishdas.org        in us could exist without the human element
http://www.aishdas.org   or vice versa.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                     - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch

Cantor Wolberg wrote:
> R' Sero wrote:

>>  I think even a newborn has free will, and decides 
>> whether to cry or not.
> 
> We're talking semantics. A newborn baby has no more free will than the 
> man in the moon. And to say it decides whether to cry or not
> is incorrect. A newborn operates on instinct. True a baby is not a 
> machine, but its responses are reflexive. Obviously, there comes a 
> time when it has free will, but not for a while. 

No, I really don't think so.  Bechira is not itself a rational -- or a
rationally explainable -- process.  We know instinctively that we have
it, but we can't prove it, let alone understand how it works.  But it's
fundamentally different not just from mechanical determinacy but also
from quantum indeterminacy.  It separates us from the mineral and
vegetable kingdoms (I don't know about the animal kingdom; theologically
it would make sense to include it too on the other side of this divide,
but I'm not confident that it's true.  Perhaps animals do have this
level of bechira.)

What we learn as we grow older (and what animals never learn, if they
have this bechira in the first place) is how to *use* it.  I see a baby
as like a person holding the remote control to a TV, one of those
complex remotes with hundreds of buttons and all kinds of functions,
but who has no idea how to use it, or even what it's for.  He just
pushes buttons at random, but he's still *deciding* which ones to push,
although he has no particular reason for that decision.  Eventually he
learns that certain buttons produce certain results, and as a result
his decisions become more rational and planned, but their fundamental
nature hasn't changed.  He is no more in control of the TV now than he
was then, he's just getting better results now that he knows what he's
doing.

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

In a recent exchange (RE: Avodah Digest, Vol 25, Issue 335)
There was a discussion relating to heart transplants during which time the
recipient might fall into almanah bechaye baala or in the case of a Kohein,
stam an almanah.

Question: Would this short situation, be enough to free an agunah in the
event the recalcitrant baal was the recipient?

Cantor Henry Topas who wishes all the Chevreh, a K'tivah v'Chatimah Tovah!
Montreal


-- Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:
<<I would think that WRT a kohein, she would be an almanah>>

So we need to add a category to "yesomah bechayeh ha'av", i.e., almana
bechaye haba'al <g>  >>>

I vaguely recall a similar discussion about a man undergoing a heart
transplant. There is a short time that a man has no heart. Some wanted
to rule that a man without a heart (?) is considered halachic
dead and so after the operation is wife is an almanah bechaye baala

-- 
Eli Turkel

<<I was saying more that I don't understand why we require a blech. >>
 
Rashi on Shabbos 36b, q.v. "oh ad she'yitein eifer"  writes "al gabei
gecholim l'chasosam u'l'tzan'nom".  The blech also needs to reduce the
heat.  Merely covering the heat source may not achieve this.  I assume that
this is also part of the heker function of the blech.
 
Kol tuv
Dov Kay
_________________________________________________________________
Make a mini you and download it into Windows Live Messenger
http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/111354029/direct/01/
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<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-moheletsep28,0,4355366.s
tory>

From the article:
> There is no Jewish law that prohibits women from becoming mohels.
> However, Orthodox rabbis believe that because it is not possible for
> women to have a circumcision, they cannot assist anyone in performing
> the ritual.

This is the "yesh omrim" brought by the Ramo, which is the SMaK and
the Hagohos Mordechai.  Can any of our Sefardi Areivim tell us whether
Sefardim follow this Ramo?  Do they have a halachic objection to women
performing milah, or is it merely "not done" for social reasons?  IOW,
if a woman wanted to become a mohelet, and trained appropriately, would
Sefardi Rabbanim forbid people from using her services, since the Mechaber
doesn't seem to have any objection.

PS: The Mechaber (YD 264:1) does say that the mitzvah should preferably
be given to a "yisrael gadol", and the Shach understands that to exclude
women, which is why he then has a question on the Ramo. It seems to
me that the Shach's question goes away if we understand the Mechaber's
"yisrael gadol" as including adult women.

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

<<Rashi on Shabbos 36b, q.v. "oh ad she'yitein eifer"  writes "al
gabei gecholim l'chasosam u'l'tzan'nom".  The blech also needs to reduce
the heat.  Merely covering the heat source may not achieve this>>

This itself is, IIRC, a machlokes rishonim.

Gershon
gershon.du...@juno.com



____________________________________________________________
Click here for free information on nursing degrees, up to $150/hour
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On Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 8:07 AM, Dov Kay <dov_...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:

>  As the one who started this thread, I should have given the source for the
> Ramban's statement about praying to angels.  It is in Toras Hashem Temima.
> In it, he refers specifically to the piyut machnisei rachamim, and says that
> it should not be said.  It seems that he considers this sort of thing AZ
> mamash, as he then goes on to discuss the chet ho'egel, which also started
> as the desire for an intermediary.  He also quotes a Yerushalmi in the
> beginning of Berachos (daf 9, IIRC), which contrasts the King of Kings with
> a human king, as the latter requires ministers and other intermediaries,
> while HKBH wants us to appeal to him directly.  I don't have the original in
> front of me right now, but I can provide a full quote if anyone wants.
>
> The Mossad HaRav Kook edition of Selichos also cites the Shibolei HaLeket
> as defending the recitation of machnisei rachamim.
>
> I should note that in Yeshivas Ohr Somayach in Jerusalem, machnisei
> rachamim was not recited, and I imagine that this is the minhag of Yeshivas
> Mir, as most of OS's minhagim came from there.
>
> In practice, I am in RMB's boat, in that I am usually behind and am
> grateful to have an excuse for something to skip.
>
> The MHK edition also refers to editions which changed the phraseology of
> the offending stanza in the piyut of the 13 middos so that we express the
> wish that the midas horachamim should show us favour, rather than beseeching
> the midah itself.  Goldschmidt, the editor, isn't impressed with these
> efforts because they distort the poetry of the piyut.
>
> Kol tuv
> Dov Kay
>

Rav Schwab was reproted to have said:

Q: Why do we recite Maran divishmaya after machinisei Rachamim?
A:  In order to emphasize LACH mishchanan after saying machnisei Rachamim we
are still Mischanein ONLY to HKBH.


Apprarently Brueur's and the Yekke community in genreal has not been so
concerned re: the Theological consequences of Machnisei Rachamim.  I wrote
an "apologetic" post on this practice myself many years ago. I will BEH
rehahsh it soon




-- 
Kesiva vaChasima Tova
Best Wishes for the New Year 5769
RabbiRichWol...@Gmail.com
see: http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/
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