Avodah Mailing List

Volume 27: Number 128

Tue, 08 Jun 2010

• 1. Re: ethic outside of halacha (Zev Sero)
• 2. Ethics Outside Halacha (Meir Rabi)
• 3. Tefillin with plomba (Simon Montagu)
• 4. ethic outside of halacha (Eli Turkel)
• 5. meraglim (Saul.Z.New...@kp.org)
• 6. Re: meraglim (Ben Waxman)
• 7. meraglim (Saul.Z.New...@kp.org)
• 8. Rav S. Schwab on the Nature of Emunah (Yitzchok Levine)
• 9. Some Thoughts (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer)
• 10. Re: Tefillin with plomba (Micha Berger)
• 11. better not to have been born (Eli Turkel)
• 12. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch and Friedrich von Schiller (Yitzchok Levine)
• 13. Re: meraglim (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer)
• 14. Rav Yisroel Belsky on Anisakis Worms (Prof. Levine)

Eli Turkel wrote:
> In a recent daf yomi Rambam says that for Ir Hanidachat that the women
> and children are also killed. Yad Ramah asks on Rambam that why should
> the women be killed if they didnt sin and for children even if they
> sinned they are minors.  Ramah concludes that G-d would not do any evil
> (ve-chalila la-kel mi-resha)

1. RMH doesn't ask anything about the women.

2. His argument about the children is *not* based on a mere feeling,
but on halachic principles, i.e. that R Eliezer is a Shamuti, so one
ought to pasken like R Akiva against him, that just as in the case
of Ben Sorer Umoreh we exclude a katan because of a general principle
that a katan is never punished, so too in this case we should apply the
same principle, and that even R Eliezer only meant those children who
were bnei daas and sinned.   "Chalila laKel miresha" is an expression
he uses, but it doesn't form the basis of his opinion.

3. Who says the halacha follows him?  It seems to me that he's very
much a daas yachid.


-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
z...@sero.name                 eventually run out of other people?s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher

Perhaps it could be said that everything that is good is to be found
approved within the Halacha and all evil is condemned by the Torah.

Ramban's Naval Bershus haTorah, that one can keep all the mitzvot and still
be evil, does not imply there is a definition of evil not formally stated in
SA.
Firstly, is Naval the same as Evil? Perhaps it only means not nice,
unpleasant, perhaps even ugly.
We are certainly bound to repent for bad Midos as per RMBM Hilchos Teshuvah.
Does that not make midos part of Halacha? Such a Naval is certain to face BD
Shel MaAlah. Bershus HaTorah perhaps means using a v narrow view but
ignoring more subtle aspects of Halacha.

Is not HaKoras HaTov part of the Mitzvah of honouring a teacher more than a
parent since the teacher brings one to OHaba?

Such lessons are embodied in various Mitzvos such as a lesser penalty for
the Ganev of a sheep since the Ganev already bore the humiliation of
carrying the sheep.

Similarly, the message that if punishment comes to this world it is due to
the evil people but the righteous get it first since they did not act to
prevent the evildoers and help them.

Legislation is difficult to define but not difficult to outline. It should
still be Halacha.
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I saw on a blog a picture of tefillin with a "plomba" like a kosher
chicken, stamped on one side "Kasher" and on the other "Harabbanut
Harashit TA-Yafo".

I have never seen this before, either in pictures or in real life, but
then I have only ever bought two pairs of new tefillin in my life. Is
this common practice? Is one expected to remove the plomba before use?
The blogger thought it wouldn't be hatzitza, but I don't see why not,
since at least in the pictures the wire that the plomba is attached to
comes out under the corner of the bayit, though it would presumably be
possible to attach them so that it didn't.

<<False premise: that all of Torah is in SA.  Or, more precisely, that
everything Torah disapproves of it forbids, and therefore whatever it
permits it says nothing about.>>

As I pointed out at the beginning the majority of the article of RAL discuss
"lifnim meshurat hadin" and the poisitions of Rambam and Ramban.
Thje article is over 20 pages long and of necessity I have been unfair to RAL
with selective quotes.

Let me conclude with the final paragraph of the article

"I dealing with this subject I have in effect addressed myself
both to those who miscopying the breadth of its horizons find the halakhic
ethic inadequate and to those who snugly regard the narrower confines
as sufficient. In doing so I hope I have presented my thinking clearly.
But for those who prefer definitive answers let me conclude by saying:
Does the tradition recognize an ethic independent of Halakhah?
You defines your terms and you take your choice"

-- 
Eli Turkel

when the meraglim were punished, for what part of the message was it?

ie when the tora says they said dibat haaretz, is the implication that
everything prior to that was a legitimate reaction? had there been no
dibah, it would have been ok?

i am having trouble seeing what was different in the pasuk that was
dibah compared to the prior part of their response.....

See the Ramban; this is exactly his point. What they said before was either
a factual statement (i.e. the land has good fruit, the people are strong,
the cities are fortified) or interpretations of the fact (we can't conquer
them).

Saying the diba (the land consumes its inhabitants) was outright lie; the
proof that it was a lie was what they said before about how strong the
people were.

It is one thing to argue about the facts and what they mean. It is something
else entirely to lie to win your arguement.

Ben
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Saul.Z.New...@kp.org>


> when the meraglim were punished, for what part of the message was it?
>
> ie when the tora says they said dibat haaretz, is the implication that
> everything prior to that was a legitimate reaction? had there been no
> dibah, it would have been ok?
>
> i am having trouble seeing what was different in the pasuk that was
> dibah compared to the prior part of their response.....

in response to  ben waxman's  response----

is the implication that  absent the dibah, the meraglim would not have
been punished?
or is it irrelevant ---since bnai yisrael ARE punished for believing
this interpretation, including following what they dont know is LH.
the implication is that LH is not the problem, believing this point of
view is.... which would make the point that bnai yisrael is punished for
believing a report [getting no credit for the fact that it contains LH]

or  do we say that the generation is not being punished per se; they
just flunked the

course, and maybe the incoming students can do better?

The following is from the sefer Rav Schwab on Yeshayahu.

In seventh perek of Yeshayahu Hashem tells Yeshayahu to tell Achaz a 
number of things. Among them is

7:9  And the head of Ephraim is Shomron, and the head of Shomron is 
Ben Remalyahu. If you do nor believe this,
it is because you do not want to be convinced. [lo sa'aminu ki lo sa'ameinu.]

Rav Schwab comments:

The word Emunah does not mean "belief" in the ordinary sense of the 
word. "Belief"
means to surmise or assume something is true, but Emunah means to be convinced,
or to have total confidence that something is true. Rav S. R. Hirsch 
takes Emunah from
omein, a nurse, or nurturer, in whom one places total trust and 
confidence, as in "ka'asher yisa ha'omein es hatinok.
As the nurturer carries the suckling (Bamidbar 11: 12). The highest
form of confidence that a human being can experience is that of an 
infant being held
in the arms of its omein, its mother or father. This sense of 
confidence is never repeated
in later life, although we seek it throughout our lives. The same 
relationship of the
total trust of a child to its omein is what HaKadosh Baruch Hu expects of us.
The reason people do not have emunah is because they are afraid to accept it.
People are afraid to fully allow themselves to be convinced of the 
omniscience of
HaKadosh Baruch Hu, because if one really believes that God is aware 
of his every
action and thought, he would be forced to change his whole life.

Rav Elchonon Wasserman, ZT"L, HY"D. in his Maamar Al HaEmunah, points out
the following. The Chachamim tell us that Lo sasuru 
achrei  l'vavchem, Do not follow your
hearts, etc. (Bamidbar 15:39), is a reference to minus heresy 
(Berachos 12b). One
would expect heresy, non-belief in HaKadosh Baruch Hu, to be 
associated with the
mind and not with the heart which is the seat of one's emotions and 
desires, but
not his intellect. However, says Reb Elchonon, the reason heresy is 
associated with
the "heart" is because one becomes a kofer be'ikar, a heretic, not 
because of some
intellectual or philosophical problem with the belief in God, but 
rather, because such
a belief carries with it moral imperatives which could interfere with 
the desire of one's
heart. One becomes an apikores because he wants to live a free life 
following the
dictates of his heart, without any moral constraints. And it is only 
as an afterthought
that one looks for some rationale for his disbelief. Any thinking 
person, upon observing
the precisely ordered universe, especially the highly complex 
vegetable, animal,
and human organisms on earth, will easily come to the conclusion that 
there must
be a Creator Who brought all of this into being. It strains the 
imagination to believe
otherwise. Disbelief in God is not the result of the mind at work, 
but rather, achrei  l'vavchem,
it is the heart which is at the root of heresy. This, then, is the 
meaning of lo
sa'aminu ki lo sa'ameinu,  "If you do not believe, it is because you 
do not want to believe."
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Last Thursday night, I attended my daughter's graduation from the Azrieli
Graduate School. The guest speaker was the always inspiring Rabbi Abraham
J. Twerski <http://www.abrahamtwerski.com/>. I would like to share some
specific points that he elaborated, as well as my own ruminations during
his presentation.

1. He cited the Gemara (Sanhedrin 19b) that anyone who teaches his
friend's child Torah, Scripture "places upon him" (ma'aleh alav ha'kasuv)
as if he brought this child into the world (k'illu yelado). He explained
that once a person accepts upon himself the mission of teaching Torah
to the children of his fellow Jews, he bears the same responsibility
for them that a father bears for his own child. The statement is thus
not just a promise of reward (as it is customarily understood), but an
assignment of acharayus.

2. Accordingly, he asserted, just as the main role of a parent in
imparting the legacy of Torah to his or her children is the instruction
of the message of the ultimate Simchas Ha'Chaim that is inherent in
a life of Torah and mitzvos, so too the Mechanech's main role is the
instruction of the message of the ultimate Simchas Ha'Chaim that is
inherent in Talmud Torah.

3. He expounded upon the level of that simchah. He based it upon the
phrase in davening that we frequently recite but rarely consider:
Ashreinu mah tov chelkeinu u'mah na'im goraleinu. He highlighted the
term goraleinu, and its intrinsic connection to the word goral and its
permutation as hagralah - a lottery. The Simchah of a Torah life and
of Talmud Torah must be at least on a par with the Simchah of winning
a lottery! Anything less than that level of Simchah falls short of the
acharayus of both parents and Mechanchim.

4. He bemoaned the prevalent lack of such Simchah and the accompanying
lack of Mechanchim who impart such Simchah. He identified the following
specific phenomenon as a manifestation of this problem: Seventy years
ago, when his brothers were learning in Torah Vodaas, were you to ask
them where they were learning, they would reply, "by Reb Shlomo
[Heiman]." Similarly, were you to ask a bachur learning in Lakewood
where he was learning, he would reply, "by Reb Aharon [Kotler]; a
bachur learning in Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan would answer,
"by the Rov." Today, the same bachurim would answer, "in Torah Vodaas,"
"in Lakewood" and "in YU." Teaching and learning was once personal and
experiential, whereas today it is largely impersonal and institutional.
This change is reflected in the "by-in" change in expression. The
Simchah that is generated by, inherent in, and imparted by Hiskashrus
is no longer prevalent. Yet that is the core of Chinuch and of our role
as Mechanchim.

5. Although the connection may not be obvious, as he was speaking there
flashed in my own mind the derivation of the term chinuch. The shoresh
of chinuch is ches-nun-chaf. The ches-nun is the word chen. It seems to
me that this refers to the chen that Torah imparts to those who learn it
(Eruvin 54a; Kesuvos 77b). Much more important than imparting the data,
and perhaps even the skills, of Torah is the imparting of the chen of
Torah - the same essence that is at the core of the Simchah of Talmud
Torah. This is accomplished by the Chaf Ha'Dimayon - the Mechanech
modeling that Chen and that Simchah, for the Talmid to acquire by Hisdamus
- assimilation and emulation.

[6. I think that many three-letter shorashim that are built on the
ches-nun combination can be explained in a similar vein. Just one example:
ches-nun-peh, chanef, a sycophant is someone whose chen is only b'peh
and not b'lev.]

7. In a search for sources, I came across this beautiful passage in the
Kav HaYashar (Chap. 58) that expresses these ideas succinctly:

??? ?? ???? - ??? ??

???? ????? ????? ??? ???????? ??? ????? ????? ???? ???? ????? ?? ??????
????? ????? ??? ???? ?????? ????? ???? ???? ????? ???? ???? ????? ?????
?? ?? ??????, ??? ?? ??? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ????? ????? ???? ???
???? ????? ???????? ???? ?? ???? ????? ????????
??? ??"? ????? ???? ?? ?????? ?? ????, ????? ???? ??????? ?? ???,
??????? ??????? ????? ???? ???"? ????? ????? ????????

On Sun, Jun 06, 2010 at 07:02:58AM -0700, Simon Montagu wrote:
: I have never seen this before, either in pictures or in real life, but
: then I have only ever bought two pairs of new tefillin in my life. Is
: this common practice? Is one expected to remove the plomba before use?

I would have thought so.

But now to get on-topic for Avodah:
: The blogger thought it wouldn't be hatzitza, but I don't see why not,
: since at least in the pictures the wire that the plomba is attached to
: comes out under the corner of the bayit, though it would presumably be
: possible to attach them so that it didn't.

The Shaarei Teshuvah (OCh 27 s"q 5) discusses a practice of tying the
qesher to the bayis using a gid. He objects, since the gid would run
under the tefillah shel yad AND THUS BE A CHATZIZAH.

What I've seen today when the qesher is tied to the box is that the gid
used simply runs around, not beneath the box.

I don't see how the cases differ. Unless the plumba is attached with
actual leather, and unlike the gid that qualifies for min bemino eino
chotzeitz. (If that rule applies to chatzitzah as defined WRT tefillin.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "And you shall love H' your G-d with your whole
mi...@aishdas.org        heart, your entire soul, and all you own."
http://www.aishdas.org   Love is not two who look at each other,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      It is two who look in the same direction.

any connection between this article and Bet Shammai?

Doesnt seem to be a Jewish attitude since Halakhah demands
that no abortions are allowed even if the child will have major difficulties

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/should-t
his-be-the-last-generation/?hp



-- 
Eli Turkel

Please see http://tinyurl.com/2d7r7hr and click on the link there for 
the pdf file for this article by Marc Shapiro.

The first paragraph of the article reads

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch's philosophy of Torah im Derekh
Erez finds expression in many texts, and these have been available
in English for many years. The one exception is his famous
speech about the Romantic poet, dramatist and historian Friedrich von
Schiller (1759-1805), which until now has not been translated into any
language from its original German.The reasons for the absence of a
translation are not hard to see. For one, R. Hirsch's attachment to
Schiller has not been shared by more recent generations. Especially in
the post-Holocaust years, R. Hirsch's great attachment to German culture
would have been very painful for many to see. Also significant is the
fact that a great rabbi could find such spiritual value in writings outside
of the canon of Torah literature. As R. Hirsch's position in this matter is
so far removed from contemporary Orthodox culture, it has been easier
to ignore what he said, rather than try to come to terms with it.

This article gives a translation of the entire "Schiller Speech."  I 
think you will find it somewhat surprising when viewed from the 
perspectives of certain Orthodox circles.

My understanding is that this speech is to appear in a forthcoming 
book by Feldheim that will include some other writings of RSRH that 
were not included in the 8 volumes of The Collected Writing of RSRH.


Yitzchok Levine 
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On 6/6/2010 12:48 PM, Saul.Z.New...@kp.org wrote:
> when the meraglim were punished, for what part of the message was it?

I think the chet ha'meraglim is hinted by the many pesukim later in the
parashah that focus on geirim: They should have assumed that v'ra'u kol
amei ha'aretz ki shem Hashem nikra alecha v'yaru mimecha would lead the
indigenous peoples to become, at least, gerei toshav.

YGB

 From 
http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2010/06/rav-belsky-on-anisakis-wo
rms.html

I [R. Noson Slifkin] recently received Rav Yisroel Belsky's formal 
responsum on the anisakis worms that are found in fish (you can 
download it 
<
http://www.zootorah.com/Rav_Belskys_Teshuva_about_worms_in_fish.doc>
here). 
It is an excellent, powerful responsum in which he makes two main points:

    * There is no significant difference between the phenomenon of 
anisakis worms today and any other worms that have existed.
    * No halachic authorities, from Chazal through Shulchan Aruch, 
have ever given qualifiers on their permission to eat worms found in 
the flesh of fish.
Rav Belsky draws the clear (and to my mind, undisputable) conclusion 
that you either say that all worms have always been prohibited, or 
you say that all worms have always been, and still are, permitted.

Now, Rav Belsky's own conclusion is that Chazal were correct, and the 
heter is based on the fact that the worm completes its growth in the 
flesh of the fish, not that it spontaneously generated there. As I 
discussed in an 
<http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2010/04/worm-controversy.html>earlier 
post, I think it's clear that Chazal did mistakenly believe in 
spontaneous generation. But, following Rav Herzog etc., I would say 
that Chazal's ruling is still valid and thus all worms found in the 
flesh of fish are kosher. In other words, I agree with Rav Belsky's 
conclusion, while disputing a component of the reasoning. I can also 
understand (although I dispute) those who take the approach of R. 
Lampronti and say that, since Chazal's science was in error, the 
heter was invalid from the outset.

The link to the actual Psak is 
http://www.zootorah.com/Rav_Belskys_Teshuva_about_worms_in_fish.doc

Yitzchok Levine
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