Avodah Mailing List

Volume 27: Number 159

Tue, 10 Aug 2010

• 1. Re: Tzedakah: Giving to an organization vs. giving privately (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: STAM Not Glatt! (Zev Sero)
• 3. Re: STAM Not Glatt! (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: Bein hashemashot: A Reevaluation of the Texts Part IV (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: Leshon haKodesh (Hankman)
• 6. Re: Leshon haKodesh (T6...@aol.com)
• 7. Re: Transgendering and Halachah (T6...@aol.com)
• 8. changing nusach (Prof. Levine)
• 9. Re: Leshon haKodesh (Zev Sero)
• 10. Re: STAM Not Glatt! (Zev Sero)
• 11. Understanding the Concept of Yashan (Prof. Levine)
• 12. A Tool for Effective Communication (Prof. Levine)
• 13. Re: STAM Not Glatt! (Akiva Blum)
• 14. Re: Transgendering and Halachah (Micha Berger)
• 15. Re: Transgendering and Halachah (menucha)
• 16. Ksav Ivri and Ksav Ashuri (Prof. Levine)

On Thu, Aug 05, 2010 at 09:26:06PM -0400, Moshe Y. Gluck wrote:
: I see Adon Olam as beginning with Hashem's grandeur, only in order to come
: to the "V'hu Ei-li V'chai Go'ali" part. Going back a step, the goal in life
: is to be Shaleim, and the way to do that is to be Daveik in Hashem (Ayin
: Mesillas Yesharim Perek 1). But in order to see the RBSO as the Chai Go'ali
: and fulfill being Daveik in Hashem, one first has to see the RBSO as the
: M'lo Kol Ha'aretz Kvodo, as the Rambam says in Yesodei HaTorah 2:2 in
: relation to Ahavas Hashem. Only afterwards can he come to Ahavas Hashem,
: which is, by definition, Dveikus B'Hashem.

Perhaps this is Chazal's take on why Hallel haGadol is "gadol". "Nosein
lechem lekhol basar." Not the beri'ah, not yetzi'as mitzrayim, qeri'as Yam
Suf, fighting our wars to gain EY, but the "mundane" -- and to KOL basar.

And in fact, looking at the format of the tehillah, most of the
pesuqim aren't phrased as the reason for "Hodu Lashem", but rather
as identification of who is this One we are to praise. "LeOsei orim
gedolim... LeMolikh amo bamidbar...."

As I wrote in the previous post, I saw it in more dialectical terms. The
same universal vs personal of birkhas Yetzirah (or Maariv Aravim)
and Ahavas Yisrael. (Or in the reverse, in *Aleinu* leshbei'ach vs the
universalist dream for which Al Kein Nekaveh.) But I'm also convinced our
tefillos were intentionally written to be read different ways depending
on what our heart needs to say at that moment; and so I would assume
we're both right.

Tangent:
As I posted on the Bilvavi thread, I don't see what you wrote in MY pereq
1. Rather, that the goal in the afterlife is to be daveiq, the goal in
this life is to be shaleim so that one is capable of being a nidvaq,
and part of that sheleimus is developing a longing for deveiqus, and
acheiving what (comparatively) little passes for deveiqus in olam hazeh.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Rescue me from the desire to win every
mi...@aishdas.org        argument and to always be right.
http://www.aishdas.org              - Rav Nassan of Breslav
Fax: (270) 514-1507                   Likutei Tefilos 94:964

Akiva Blum wrote:

> Rav Menachem Azaria AKA Rama MiPano (Fano?)

di Fano. 

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

On Mon, Aug 09, 2010 at 04:51:25PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
> Akiva Blum wrote:
>> Rav Menachem Azaria AKA Rama MiPano (Fano?)

> di Fano. 

The city in Italy is "Pano". Whether it gets conjugated as though it were
Hebrew is pretty open. It's kind of like the inverse of the question of
whether one should write "anti-Torah" or "anti-Sorah". (Actually, one would
hope not to have occasion to have to write either...)

Also, FWIW, in personal meandering I usually encounter either "Rav
Menacheim Azariah deFano" or the "Rama miFano", but not the combination
"Rama de-". Don't know what to make of that.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
mi...@aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter

On Wed, Aug 04, 2010 at 11:27:48AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote:
> Please see http://tinyurl.com/27yhjvt
>            Bein hashemashot: A Reevaluation of the Texts Part IV
>                           by: Dr. William Gewirtz

In what was perhaps an attempt to prevent people from following his
suggestions lemaaseh, I find the author omits just summing up masqanos --
how does he read the various shitosh hageononim verishonim, and showing
how the results fit his (understandable) assumption that there would be
no significant difference between them if one were in EY or Babel.

Without that, I got lost.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

Hankman wrote:

> I think some of the posts here are mixing two different concepts and 
> treating them as one. To  my understanding (I have no specific cite) Kri 
> and Ksiv are halacha leMoshe miSinai (at least in Chumash if not in 
> Nach). Whereas the subject matter in Megilla 25b, (Mishna and gemara) 
> refer not to Kri and Ksiv, but to Kriah and Targum, not the same as Kri 
> and Ksiv and likely of Chazal's origination based on the meaning at the 
> time as others have noted.

RZS responded:
AIUI the "keri" that substitutes completely different words for
what is written is not HlMmS, but rather "tikum sofrim".

CM responds:
The gemara on 25b never uses the terms kri and ksiv for those cases that
"substitute[s] completely different words for what is written." The term
the gemara uses is "korin oson lesh'vach." Thus these would not be
candidates for HlMmS as I understood this as well.

Kol Tuv

Chaim Manaster
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From: Zev Sero _zev@sero.name_ (mailto:z...@sero.name) 

Hankman wrote:

>  I think some of the posts here are mixing two different concepts and 
>  treating them as one. To  my understanding (I have no specific cite) Kri 
 
> and Ksiv are halacha leMoshe miSinai (at least in Chumash if not in  
> Nach).... 

 

AIUI the "keri" that substitutes completely different words for
what  is written is not HlMmS, but rather "tikum sofrim".

-- 
Zev  Sero                                



>>>>
 
I have seen the very phrase "tikun sofrim" explained/translated in two very 
 different ways:
 
1.  Corrections, emendations made for various reasons by the sofrim,  i.e., 
the chachamim who lived after the Torah was given to Moshe
 
2.  "Corrections" made by Hashem Himself at the very time that He gave  the 
Torah to Moshe -- that is, stylistic refinements on what He might otherwise 
 have written if He were not improving His own words, making them, for 
example,  less explicit or less coarse in certain places.  According to this  
definition, variations in ksiv/kri are not inadvertent changes that crept in  
during the course of transmission nor are they intentional changes by later  
chachamim, but rather, both variant readings were intended ab initio.
 
BTW a long-running thread on Areivim has been discussing the meaning of the 
 phrase "lesaken olam" in Aleinu.  I wonder how RZS would now translate 
that  phrase in view of the fact that "tikun sofrim" surely refers  to "fixing, 
correcting, improving, emending"?
 
 


--Toby Katz
==========



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From: Micha Berger _micha@aishdas.org_ (mailto:mi...@aishdas.org) 

>> Someone  posted on Areivim a reference to a transgendered person who
was living within  the chareidi community....
The TE discusses the case of an agunah whose  husband decided to become a
woman. It's pretty clear the she'eilah was  hypothetical. He answers that
no get is necessary, because there is no  concept of qiddushin between
two women. 

....So apparently REWaldenberg holds that the surgery does change  halachic
gender. Assur, but has a chalos. And even WRT the issur, he  mentions
the case of a risk of suicide, and piquach nefesh  docheh.

Micha  Berger              



>>>>
 
People who suffer from the delusion that they are "really" the  opposite 
sex are at no more risk of suicide than mentally ill people laboring  under 
any other delusion.  Any surgeon who plays along with this form of  mental 
illness by surgically altering a perfectly healthy person is committing a  
horrendous crime and, in a more just world, would lose his license to practice  
medicine.
 
The only case in which gender-assignment surgery is ethical and justified  
is the case where a baby is born with ambiguous organs and/or the external  
organs and the baby's chromosomes are at odds. 
 
If you had a friend who thought he was a chicken who had lost his  
feathers, and you glued feathers on him, any normal person would consider  you to be 
as mental as your friend -- unless you were charging your friend  a hefty 
fee to glue back his lost feathers, in which case any normal person  would 
consider you a gonif who was taking advantage of a vulnerable  person.
 
The TE was working with the best medical and psychological information  
(really, misinformation) he had, but the information he was given was wrong and 
 therefore, acting on false information, he came up with a mistaken psak.   
The false information was that men who think they are "really" women are 
prone  to suicide, and that gender-reassignment surgery that matches their  
external organs to their delusions helps prevent suicide.  In reality,  such 
men are at only slightly higher risk of suicide than anyone else, and after  
surgery, their suicide rate goes up, not down -- because surgery can't 
really  cure deep-seated psychological problems, and when they find this out, 
that's  when despair really sets in.
 
 
 
--Toby Katz
==========



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At 03:37 PM 8/9/2010, R. Eli Turkel wrote:


>I have an article in the Journal of Halacha and
>Contemporary Society, 1989 on changing
>between Ashkenaz and Sefard
>
>--
>Eli Turkel


How about posting it online? If you can't do this, then please send 
me the pdf file and I will post it.

YL


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T6...@aol.com wrote:

> BTW a long-running thread on Areivim has been discussing the meaning of 
> the phrase "lesaken olam" in Aleinu.  I wonder how RZS would now 
> translate that phrase in view of the fact that "tikun sofrim" 
> surely refers to "fixing, correcting, improving, emending"?

And therefore?  The root TKN has the same double meaning as the English
word "fix".  Whether it means "to set in place" or "to repair" must be
determined from context.  In Aleinu, the most straightforward translation,
indeed ISTM the only translation that doesn't require any stretching, is
"to establish the world under Hashem's sovereignty".  I don't even know
what "to repair the world under Hashem's sovereignty" is supposed to mean;
to my ear it's gibberish, word salad, whereas "to establish..." makes
perfect sense.


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

Micha Berger wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 09, 2010 at 04:51:25PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
>> Akiva Blum wrote:
>>> Rav Menachem Azaria AKA Rama MiPano (Fano?)
> 
>> di Fano. 
> 
> The city in Italy is "Pano".

No, it isn't.



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

This week's Hamodia Magazine has an article with the above title by 
Rabbi David Gorelik. The Hamodia has kindly given me permission to 
post this article 
at  http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/hamodia/yashan.pdf  The 
article provides valuable information about this topic.

YL

The week's Hamodia Magazine contains an article with the above title 
by Rabbi Shmuel Yaakov Klein, director of publications and
communications for Torah Umesorah in New York.  The Hamodia has given 
me permission to post this article and it may be read at

http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/hamodia/tool_communication.pdf

The article begins with the question "We live in a town that offers a 
choice of schools for my children, and the issue of limudei chol has 
arisen more than once, making me wonder what role secular studies 
should play in the chinuch of our children. What is the Torah 
viewpoint?" Towards the end of the article, Rabbi Klein writes, "It 
is certainly desirable that Torah Jewry maintain a comprehensive 
press of the highest caliber, and it seems most desirable that our 
system of chinuch be capable of providing the personnel to write for it."

"It is not acceptable that our own talmidim and avreichim lack the 
linguistic skill to portray the teachings of Torah to their 
uninitiated brothers and sisters in a
convincing and appealing manner. This is perhaps the greatest calling 
of our age."

For his entire approach to this topic, please see the article at the above URL.

I send a letter to the editor of the Hamodia Magazine (which they may 
or may not publish, of course!) I wrote

To the Editor,

I read with interest Rabbi Shmuel Yaakov Klein's article "A Tool For 
Effective Communication" in this week's Hamodia Magazine in which he 
responds to a question about the Torah viewpoint of the "role secular 
studies should play in the chinuch of  our children."

I find it surprising that he did not present the following views from 
two gedolim of the past.

"When I was in the illustrious city of Vilna in the presence of the 
Rav, the light, the great Gaon, my master and teacher, the light of 
the eyes of the exile, the renowned pious one (may Hashem protect and 
save him) Rav Eliyahu, in the month of Teves 5538 [January 1778], I 
heard from his holy mouth that according to what a person is lacking 
in knowledge of the "other wisdoms," correspondingly he will be 
lacking one hundred portions in the wisdom of the Torah, because the 
Torah and the 'other wisdoms' are inextricably linked together ..."

(This quote is from  the introduction to the Hebrew translation of 
Euclid's book on geometry, Sefer Uklidos [The Hague, 1780] by R. 
Barukh Schick of Shklov where he recalls his meeting with the Vilna Gaon.)

R. Yhonason Eybeschutz wrote in Yaaros Devash 2:7 (as translated by 
L. Levi in Torah and Science, pages 24-25):

"For all the sciences are "condiments" and are necessary for our 
Torah, such as the science of mathematics, which is the science of 
measurements and includes the science of numbers, geometry, and 
algebra and is very essential for the measurements required in 
connection with the Eglah Arufah and the cities of the Levites and 
the cities of refuge as well as the Sabbath boundaries of our cities. 
The science of weights [i.e., mechanics] is necessary for the 
judiciary, to scrutinize in detail whether scales are used honestly 
or fraudulently. The science of vision [optics] is necessary for the 
Sanhedrin to clarify the deceits perpetrated by idolatrous priests; 
furthermore, the need for this science is great in connection with 
examining witnesses, who claim they stood at a distance and saw the 
scene, to determine whether the arc of vision extends so far straight 
or bent. The science of astronomy is a science of the Jews, the 
secret of leap years to know the paths of the constellations and to 
sanctify the new moon. The science of nature which includes the 
science of medicine in general is very important for distinguishing 
the blood of the Niddah whether it is pure or impure and how much 
more is it necessary when one strikes his fellow man in order to 
ascertain whether the blow was mortal, and if he died whether he died 
because of it, and for what disease one may desecrate the Sabbath. 
Regarding botany, how great is the power of the Sages in connection 
with kilayim [mixed crops]! Here too we may mention zoology, to know 
which animals may be hybridized; and chemistry, which is important in 
connection with the metals used in the tabernacle, etc."

If one needs more to be convinced that secular studies should be an 
important part of a yeshiva education, then I suggest one read Rav 
Shimshon Raphael Hirsch's Essay "The Relevance of Secular Studies to 
Jewish Education" that appears on pages 81 - 100 of volume VII of his 
Collected Writings.

Professor Yitzchok Levine

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> [mailto:avodah-boun...@lists.aishdas.org] On Behalf Of Micha Berger
> Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2010 12:10 AM
> 
> On Mon, Aug 09, 2010 at 04:51:25PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
> > Akiva Blum wrote:
> >> Rav Menachem Azaria AKA Rama MiPano (Fano?)
> 
> > di Fano. 
> 
> The city in Italy is "Pano". 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fano
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menahem_Azariah_da_Fano

Akiva

On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 02:07:31AM -0400, T6...@aol.com wrote:
: People who suffer from the delusion that they are "really" the  opposite 
: sex are at no more risk of suicide than mentally ill people laboring  under 
: any other delusion.  Any surgeon who plays along with this form of  mental 
: illness by surgically altering a perfectly healthy person is committing a  
: horrendous crime...

Obviously, the Tzitz Eliezer disagrees. Also, the rest of your paragraph
does not follow from the first sentence. Any mentally ill person who
was suicidal who could be saved through a mutilating surgery, perhaps
because the risk of waiting for therapy to work is too greater, I would
think would be the same din.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

I can not remain silent seeing such a thing written about the Tzitz 
Eliezer.  We can not be casual about saying about gedolim that they were 
paskening based on medical and psychological misinformation, especially 
when we are talking about gedolim of our time.  The Tzitz Eliezer has 
another teshuva in this area written about 30 years later than the one 
cited by R' Micha Berger (22,2 written to Rav Mordechai Eliyahu zt"l in 
5757 and he does not seem to change his stance.
BTW, there is a comprehensive book on this topic- Dor Hapuchot- with 
hascamot by ROY , Rav ZN Goldberg, Rav Shlomo Amar and others.
menucha

T6...@aol.com wrote:

> .
>  
> The TE was working with the best medical and psychological information 
> (really, misinformation) he had, but the information he was given was 
> wrong and therefore, acting on false information, he came up with a 
> mistaken psak.


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Someone sent me that following:

"Professor,

I would like to research a little more about the Ksav Ivri alphabet 
and its historical significance in Jewish History. Were those letters 
(the stick-letter alphabet) in fact used during the first Bais 
HaMikdash and prior, rather than the modern Ksav Ashuri alphabet? If 
so, what Kedusha do the older letters have with relation to the newer letters?

On a related topic, a quick check on the Dead Sea scrolls, written by 
the Essenes, a dead sea and supposedly anti-Rabbanus sect, shows the 
texts written in Ksav Ashuri script with the Shem Havaya (YKVK) alone 
written in Ksav Ivri script. Any insight you may provide would be tremendous."

Another person was troubled by the Gemara stating that the Torah was 
given in ksav ashuri (square letters) while the 
archaeological/paleographical evidence is to the contrary, i.e., that 
ksav ashuri did not then exist. And, he asked, if it was given in 
ksav ivri how could Rabbi Akiva "relate to the tagin when none of 
[the] tagin were applied to the Semitic alphabet [of] those times?" 
(He also sent a quote from an online list where someone wrote: 
"Although, you realize of course that if you accept the view that the 
Torah had a different original script, you run into serious problems 
with the Kabbalah we have on Mitzvos such as Tefilin, Mezuza, writing 
of a Sefer Torah, Megillas Sotah etc. Whose Halacha demands that 
their writing be in their 'original' form. (Kehaviyassan). In fact 
the Gemara in Sanhedrin. (ibid) seems to conclude that the Ksav never 
really changed. That other forms of writing were adopted by different 
groups for different purposes at different times...".)

Any insights will be appreciated. YL


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