Avodah Mailing List

Volume 25: Number 410

Mon, 08 Dec 2008

• 1. Re: Questions as a Result of the Flatbush Lakewood Shabbos (T613K@aol.com)
• 2. Re: menorah on a plane (Gershon Dubin)
• 3. Re: menorah on a plane (Micha Berger)
• 4. What's the Truth About Sheva Berachot? (Yitzchok Levine)
• 5. Re: menorah on a plane (Zev Sero)
• 6. menorah on a plane (Shlomo Pick)
• 7. Re: menorah on a plane (Zev Sero)
• 8. Re: menorah on a plane (Micha Berger)
• 9. Re: effects of religous worship on health (Arie Folger)
• 10. Re: Questions as a Result of the Flatbush Lakewood Shabbos (Yitzhak Grossman)
• 11. Re: Questions as a Result of the Flatbush Lakewood Shabbos (Prof. Levine)
• 12. it took the Rosh Yeshiva a long time to daven (SBA)

 
 
From: Harry Maryles _hmaryles@yahoo.com_ (mailto:hmary...@yahoo.com) 

>> When it  came to Shemoneh Esrei, it took the Rosh Yeshiva a long time to  
daven.?<<[--RYL]


>>He probably concentrates on his own tefilla to the extent that he  was not 
aware that others were waiting for him. And maybe it does some baale  batim 
good just once in a while to see a person take his time to say each and  every 
word with  care.<<[--TK]

===================================

>>What  does this say about R. Yisroel Salanter who hurried his Teffila so he 
wouldn't  be a Tircha 
D'Tzibura? <<

HM




>>>>>
It says that R' Yisrael Salanter frequently  davened with bala batim and the 
Lakewood Rosh Yeshiva seldom does so.  
 
BTW how do you know he /didn't/ ask the sha'tz not to wait for him?   Maybe 
the sha'tz waited anyway out of kovod haTorah.  Maybe the tzibbur  considered 
it an honor to have the rosh yeshiva davening with them.



--Toby Katz
=============
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What kind of kiyum mitzva can you have if you don't live there?  I can
understand the train situation 150 years ago, when they spent, as someone
wrote, 3 days on the train, so it would be similar to achsenai. But a
plane?

Gershon
gershon.du...@juno.com

-- Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:
If the staff allows, and one can assume there are Jews on the vehicle
who could use every little bit of chizuq, would RSZA tell the person to
light without a berakhah?

IOW, is it a problem in the qiyum hamitzvah, or a problem doing it
altogether?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When memories exceed dreams,
mi...@aishdas.org        The end is near.
http://www.aishdas.org                   - Rav Moshe Sherer
Fax: (270) 514-1507
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On Mon, Dec 08, 2008 at 09:21:25PM +0000, Gershon Dubin wrote:
: What kind of kiyum mitzva can you have if you don't live there?
: I can understand the train situation 150 years ago, when they spent,
: as someone wrote, 3 days on the train, so it would be similar to
: achsenai. But a plane?

Tangentially, I really doubt this would come up lemaaseh on a plane.
Maybe an electric menorah.

Take the case of someone flying across the Atlantic who lives alone.
There is no one lighting for him at home.

Tangent (since I have the notes on-hand):
Or even if he does have someone at home, the Rosh holds (acc to Tur OC
677) that he has to light so that people are choshedim he isn't lighting,
although Bach says that this is only true where people light out doors,
and therefore an absence would be conspicuous. The SA (ibid se'if 3)
says that if he's the only Jew around he has to light anyway, and the
MA requires him to consciously rely on his family lighting back at home.

There is the famous machloqes of whether you light where you eat or where
you sleep. The MA and Taz seem to say that if you're away for one meal,
you have to light when you get home. In my hypothetical, he was away
for two and sleeping overnight. You are an achsenai lekhol hadei'os,
I believe.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Man can aspire to spiritual-moral greatness
mi...@aishdas.org        which is seldom fully achieved and easily lost
http://www.aishdas.org   again. Fullfillment lies not in a final goal,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      but in an eternal striving for perfection. -RSRH

Rabbi Dr. Ari Z. Zivotofsky's column Legal-Ease that appears 
regularly in Jewish Action Magazine discusses this topic in the most 
recent issue of this publication.  In part he writes

Misconception: A newly married
bride and groom are required to participate
in sheva berachot (festive
meals) each day for seven days.

Fact: There is no obligation to have
festive meals during the week following
a wedding celebration. However, if
the chatan (groom) and kallah (bride)
participate in a festive meal made in
their honor in which certain conditions
are satisfied, sheva berachot,
seven blessings, should be recited.

Please see 
http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rmiller/truth_sheva.pdf for the 
rest of the article.  (I can hear the caterers complaining already!)

Yitzchok Levine 
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Gershon Dubin wrote:
> What kind of kiyum mitzva can you have if you don't live there?  I can
> understand the train situation 150 years ago, when they spent, as
> someone wrote, 3 days on the train, so it would be similar to
> achsenai. But a plane?

Not every trip took 3 days.  If you're only one night on the train, or
the plane, you shouldn't light?  That's where you are that night.
 


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

Without seeing the reasoning of rav Elyashiv, it would appear to be that the
Halakha requires ner ish ubeito, i.e. the obligation to light is only where
there is a house. A train, plane or even a tent is not a house.  Moreover
the house must be yours and that brings one to the laws of achsanai (the
guest) if it is not yours.  Accordingly, anyone who would make a blessing on
the neirot chanuka on a plane would be making a bracha levatalah. Even
lighting with a minyan for ma'ariv would probably not help as one would need
a shul and lighting in a shul is a special minhag, see Shlomo Pick,
"Lighting Hanukah Candles in the Synagogue," Techumin, 23 (2003) 322 - 332
[in Hebrew] which extensively deals with this issue.

Shlomo Pick

 

 

 

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Micha Berger wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 08, 2008 at 09:21:25PM +0000, Gershon Dubin wrote:
> : What kind of kiyum mitzva can you have if you don't live there?
> : I can understand the train situation 150 years ago, when they spent,
> : as someone wrote, 3 days on the train, so it would be similar to
> : achsenai. But a plane?
> 
> Tangentially, I really doubt this would come up lemaaseh on a plane.
> Maybe an electric menorah.

I have posted before of an actual case where it did came up.  I know
two people who have lit on planes; one did so in the galley, with the
crew's permission, and the crew even took and posed for photos with
the lit menorah.


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

On Mon, Dec 08, 2008 at 05:37:23PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
: I have posted before of an actual case where it did came up.  I know
: two people who have lit on planes; one did so in the galley, with the
: crew's permission, and the crew even took and posed for photos with
: the lit menorah.

Smoking used to be allowed as well.

This is tangential, but I was thinking in today's security climate, fire
starting equipment wouldn't be allowed on a plane.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

On Monday 08 December 2008 22:46:46 Micha Berger wrote:
> I suggest people read RAF's blog entry (and not simply because he quotes
> me) about tefillos that don't seem to get answered.

Thank you for the honour - I never expected such an extensive treatment.

> I disagree with his playing fown the role of simply turning to Abba.
> Extrapolating from the Gra, I formulated Jewish prayer as being three
> distinct mitzvos:
> ? ? - qeri'as Shema
> ? ? - tefillah -- the reflexive, hitpa'el, of lehispallel, that RAF
> ? ? ? describes
> ? ? - tachanunim -- the raw crying out to one's Father, to the Beloved,
> ? ? ? when in pain. As in those books of Yiddish techines many of our
> ? ? ? grandmothers had. Or "kol ha'oseh tefillaso qeva, lo asa tefilaso
> ? ? ? tachanunim."

The issue I addressed is prayers for a particular outcome - for instance, on 
behalf of the Mumbai hostages who were subsequently murdered. Your comments 
do not address that kind of prayer. However, you are right that prayer need 
not be limited to Rav Chaim Volozhin's model. One could imagine it coexisting 
with tachanunim.

Krias Shma', OTOH, I do not consider to be a prayer. I tend to call it 
"letting G"d speak to you through your vocal chords." We hear the Shma' (which 
we pronounce - mashmi'a leoznav), we do not address G"d with it, but 
ourselves.

One more comment, which deserves its own essay: IIRC Rav M. Broyde once wrote 
an essay about the meaning of the abbreviation 'ayin he, which, as the author 
claims, isn't 'alav hashalom, an expression that comes from Arabic (and 
therefore, Arabs), but 'eved haShem. Calling one an 'eved haShem is according 
to IIRC the 'Hizquni, the greatest praise one can heap upon a human being.

In that sense, I do not consider that stressing prayer as service of G"d is 
stressing the ka'avadim of the Hayom harat 'olam text. There, 'avadim means 
those who are lowly servants utterly dependent upon the undeserved grace of 
their master, as opposed to children, who are right at home in the palace and 
are being treated mercifully on account of being children. Here, 'eved is 
almost like a close confidant, almost a friend. (I say almost, because 
obviously, our relationship with HQBH cannot be one of equals. For a lack of a 
better word, I used confidant and friend, but these words are obviously found 
lacking)

Kol tuv,
-- 
Arie Folger
http://ariefolger.wordpress.com
http://www.ariefolger.googlepages.com

On Sun, 7 Dec 2008 22:10:07 EST
T6...@aol.com wrote:

...

> TK:  I am guessing that he always davens a long shmoneh esreh and  that it 
> isn't a problem in Lakewood. If everybody davens long then it's not  tircha 
> detzibura.   He probably concentrates on his own tefilla to the  extent that he 

They don't always wait for the Roshei Yeshivah in Lakewood.  A couple
of them, for example, take about two hours for Musaf on Rosh Ha'Shanah,
while the Shaz (in the Beis Shalom Minyan) begins after about thirty
five minutes.

> --Toby Katz

Yitzhak
--
Bein Din Ledin - http://bdl.freehostia.com
A discussion of Hoshen Mishpat, Even Ha'Ezer and other matters

At 10:29 AM 12/8/2008, Cantor Wolberg wrote:
>P.S. I must say that I was embarrassed to see a R"Y criticized publicly.

I do not view what I wrote as a personal criticism of the RY. I had
questions about what he (did not) say and about what he did, not his
integrity, midos, gadlus in Torah, etc. There is a big difference in my
mind. For example, you might say, "Levine, what you wrote is stupid!" That
is a far cry from saying, "Levine, you are stupid."

You seem to feel that one is not allowed to question anything that a
RY does. I really do not understand why not. Can't one learn from the
explanation? And, might it not be possible that the RY would reevaluate
his position on something? No one is perfect, and we all make mistakes. We
all change as we go through life, even the greatest of men.

BTW, I was careful not to name which RY from Lakewood it was.

[Email #2. -mi]

At 04:59 PM 12/8/2008, T6...@aol.com wrote:
>From: "Prof. Levine" <mailto:llev...@stevens.edu>llev...@stevens.edu
>> Does not the fact that the Torah makes no mention of Yaakov learning
>> in yeshiva telling? If these years were more important, then I would
>> have expected the Torah to mention Yaakov's learning explicitly. I am
>> sure there is an answer, but I do not know it.

>The question you raise is legitimate and interesting -- why doesn't 
>the Torah mention the years that Yaakov spent learning?   Indeed, 
>why doesn't the Torah mention the Yeshiva of Shem v'Ever anywhere? 
>I'm sure there are good answers that could be discussed on 
>Avodah.   However, the inference you seem to be drawing -- that the 
>Torah does not consider Torah learning to be important -- is 
>certainly not warranted.

I am not inferring that Torah learning is not important!!!!!!! Without
Torah learning there will be no Yiddishkeit. It is yeshiva education that
is responsible for the Orthodoxy we see today. There were many sincere
Jews who came to America in the 18th, 19th and first part of the 20th
centuries. Most of their children went lost because they did not have
a decent Jewish education.

What I was inferring in what I wrote and what I thought I made clear is
that for almost everyone there is a time to learn and a time to work and
learn. Both times in a person's life have the same "validity." A person who
leaves Kollel to go to work to support his family should not be considered
a second class citizen.

[Email #3. -mi]

At 04:11 PM 12/8/2008, Micha Berger wrote:
>I think it's a little difficult to take a raayah from RSRH or from RYS
>and ask a question on a rav from a different derekh.

>It's one thing for me to say that I find myself more moved to "hihaleikh
>lefanai veheyei samim" by RYS's derekh. Or that I find it easier to pursue
>qedushah by learning how to utilize chol than through trying to minimize
>contact with it (an understanding of perishus or at least histapkus).
>It's another to ask a qyestion on someone else.

>Of course they behave differently -- they're taking a different path up
>the mountain.

I would like to make a couple of points, since I started this entire
business.

1. I do not view what I wrote as a personal criticism of the RY. I had
questions about what he (did not) say and about what he did, not his
integrity, midos, gadlus in Torah, etc. There is a big difference in my
mind. For example, you might say, "Levine, what you wrote is stupid!" That
is a far cry from saying, "Levine, you are stupid."

2. Some seem to feel that one is not allowed to question anything that
a RY does. I really do not understand why not. Can't one learn from the
explanation? And, might it not be possible that the RY would reevaluate
his position on something? No one is perfect and we all make mistakes. We
all change as we go through life, even the greatest of men.

3. My use of RYS is not in my view the taking of "a raayah from RSRH or
from RYS and ask(ing) a question on a rav from a different derekh." As
I understand it there are two aspects to Yahadus, bein odom l'makom and
bein odom l'chaveiro. How am I to understand davening what seemed to be
a very long SA and keeping many people waiting much longer than usual
with bein odom l'chaveiro? RYS simply provides "substance" to my question.

KT,
YL

From: Akiva Blum 
 Yitzchok Levine <Larry.Lev...@stevens.edu> wrote:
I davened with the Maariv minyan at which the Rosh Yeshiva davened...When it
came to Shemoneh Esrei, it took the Rosh Yeshiva a long time to daven. 
-------------
If he doesn't ever daven in that shul, how is he supposed to know how long
they take for shmoneh esrei? So he estimated, and they were still faster
than him. Next time, he'll know.
>>

And efsher the RY didn't realize that the tzibbur were waiting for him...?

SBA

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