Avodah Mailing List

Volume 28: Number 13

Sun, 23 Jan 2011

• 1. Interesting Aspects of Tu B'Shvat (Rich Wolberg)
• 2. Tu be-Shevat Sabbatianism (Prof. Levine)
• 3. yayin mevushal (Eli Turkel)
• 4. Re: Interesting Aspects of Tu B'Shvat (Zev Sero)
• 5. Re: Brain Death (Hankman)
• 6. Re: Brain Death (Micha Berger)
• 7. Re: Interesting Aspects of Tu B'Shvat (Micha Berger)
• 8. Re: Interesting Aspects of Tu B'Shvat (Zev Sero)
• 9. Re: Brain Death (David Riceman)
• 10. Re: Brain Death (Hankman)
• 11. Re: Brain Death (Micha Berger)
• 12. Re: Brain Death (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 13. Re: R Chiya Raba (Micha Berger)
• 14. Re: R Chiya Raba (Micha Berger)
• 15. ganzel, hirsch, etc. (Shlomo H. Pick)
• 16. Re: Brain death (Doron Beckerman)
• 17. Publishing Pictures of Women (Prof. Levine)

What I find interesting about Tu B'Shvat is that though it is called the
New Year for Trees, it is curious that the first of Tishrei is the new year
for the PLANTING of trees and herbs. Tu B'Shvat is the new year for maaser
of trees.  Also, I never understood why Shammai said the date is the first
of Shevat but we follow Hillel who says it is on the fifteenth. All of the
other three New Years are on the first of the month, so perhaps that is the
reason Shammai said it should be the first of Shevat.
Does anyone have the answer?

 From http://tinyurl.com/6e39ehh

See 
<http://seforim.blogspot.com/2006/02/is-tu-beshevat-sabbatian-holiday.
html>here 
for our earlier post discussing the potential linkage between Tu 
be-Shevat (or Tu B'Shevat)customs and Sabbatianism. See 
<http://seforim.blogspot.com/2006/09/custom-of-reciting-ldovid-has
hem-ori.html>here, 
<http://seforim.blogspot.com/2008/05/lag-ba-omer-and-upsherins-in-r
ecent.html>here, 
and 
<http://seforim.blogspot.com/2007/09/teffilah-zakah-history-of-
controversial.html>here 
for other customs that may have similar linkages. And, finally, see 
<http://seforim.blogspot.com/2005/10/collection-of-articles-on-s
abbatianism.html>here 
for a collection of articles on Sabbatianism generally.  YL
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From the article of R. Jachter

<<Dayan Weisz and Rav Ovadia Yosef (Rav Shlomo Zalman also concedes this
point) do not share Rav Eliashiv?s aforementioned concern that pasteurized
wine has become common practice. They believe that even though ?cooking?
wine today is commonplace, it is irrelevant. When Chazal established these
Halachot, they reason, cooking wine was uncommon, and we are not authorized
to enact new rules (see Rosh, Shabbat 2:15 and Teshuvot Yechave Daat 2:49)
or alter Chazal?s edicts.>>.

We had a similar discussion concening the bugs in Salmon. It seems that some
poskim are willing
to assume that changing circumstances changes the halacha but only lechumra.
So if chazal prohibted something but the reason no longer applies it is
still assur.
However, if they allowed something and the reason no longer applies then it
is also prohibited/
BTW a similar argument occurs if a mother is considered a nursing mother for
24 months
even though most women today have stopped way before that.

-- 
Eli Turkel
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On 21/01/2011 9:55 AM, Rich Wolberg wrote:
> Shammai said the date is the first of Shevat but we follow Hillel

*Beis* Shammai and *Beis* Hillel.  This is not one of the three known
disputes between Hillel and Shammai.


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

RMB wrote:
RMT's argument for brain stem death is based on the brain stem being the
source of the signals that cause heartbeat.

CM notes:
I am not sure that is correct. I strongly suspect that RMT is aware that
the heart has an internal pace maker and that it (so far as I understand)
does not require ANY signal form the brain stem to continue beating. Not
withstanding, the brain/brain stem does have a role in modifying the heart
rate for numerous conditions - but not for the most basic function, to keep
it beating. I thought RMT's reasoning was based on virtual decapitation.
Your logic implies that even real decapitation is only a cause of death
because it leads to cessation of heart activity, and not as an independent
cause of death in its own right. Does RMT give your logic explicitly
somewhere?

Kol Tuv

Chaim Manaster
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On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 10:56:13AM -0500, RCM asked:
>                          Your logic implies that even real decapitation
> is only a cause of death because it leads to cessation of heart activity,
> and not as an independent cause of death in its own right. Does RMT give
> your logic explicitly somewhere?

The issue isn't whether the brain controls each heartbeat, but whether
the heart can continue without a working brain stem. IOW, not cause, but
an indication that the body can't still be independently producing breath
and heartbeat.

As for a RMT actually saying this, listen to
<http://www.hods.org/video/html/Tendler%20-%20RMoshe.html>
in the beginning and around 2/3 or 3/4 of the way through.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Education is not the filling of a bucket,
mi...@aishdas.org        but the lighting of a fire.
http://www.aishdas.org                - W.B. Yeats
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 09:55:02AM -0500, Rich Wolberg wrote:
: year for maaser of trees. Also, I never understood why [Beis] Shammai said
: the date is the first of Shevat but we follow [Beis] Hillel who says it is on
: the fifteenth. All of the other three New Years are on the first of the
: month, so perhaps that is the reason Shammai said it should be the first
: of Shevat.

A couple of weeks ago (Jan 5th), I wrote the following in two posts
to scjm. The second two last paragraph is relevent, the rest I thought
might just be interesting.

I noticed something about years and days:

The Jewish year begins in Tishrei, the beginning of the fall. Just as
things are going dark. And our day begins at sunset. A second definition
of day is used WRT sacrifices, sunrise to sunrise. And we also have
a second definition of year used for counting months -- from spring to
spring. Both start with the start of light. (Perhaps: usually we rest
in order to produce, so the sleep cycle or farmer's slow season is before
the active part of the day. In the sanctuary, we aren't looking at prep,
only the work itself???)

"April Fools" were originally those pagans who celebrated the New Year at
the Spring Equinox, who the Christians felt were fair game for trickery.
Before the slippage, the equinox was on April 1. No idea when their day
started.

The Chinese New Year is always within a day of either Rosh Chodesh
Adar or Adar II. Their calendar has the same 19 year leap-month cycle,
although they aren't in the same place in the rotation. Their New Year
is always in the spring, and the calendar day changes at dawn.

The Gregorian New Year is around the shortest day (was once actually on
the shortest day) and it changes date at midnight.

A pattern.

[Post #2.]

I don't have a more full theory than that. Thus the "Perhaps: ...???"

The first mishnah in Tractate Rosh haShanah:
    There are four New Years:

    On 1 Nisan is the New Year for Kings and for festivals.

    On 1 Elul is the New Year for the tithe of animals. Rabbi Eliezer
    and Rabbi Shimon say, "on 1 Tishrei."

    On 1 Tishrei is the New Year for years, for Sabbatical years, for
    Jubilee years, for planting, and for vegetables.

    On 1 Shevat is the New Year for trees according to Beis Shammai. Beis
    Hillel say on the 15th of it.

I just commented on the more used two -- 1 Tishrei and 1 Nissan, because
that's the only two definitions of day. 1 Tishrei is how we count years,
both Anno Mondi and when dating contracts by non-Jewish ruler. 1 Nissan
is how we count months and date constracts when using years of rule of
Jewish kings. They mean something calendrical.

The other two are also more functionally defined, which may explain why
they're the subject of debate. 1 Elul (or 1 Tishrei) was the end of the
birthing season, 15 Shevat (or 1 Shevat) the beginning of the emergence
of crops. Both chosen to define when nature finished producing that year's
material, for the sake of knowing how to assess donations.

But really, this is just excusemaking. I simply don't have a more full
explanation. Just our two definitions of day, the Chinese day, and
the Gregorian day.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow
mi...@aishdas.org        man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries
http://www.aishdas.org   about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                       - Rav Yisrael Salanter

Bear in mind that the EY farmer's work begins not in the spring but in
the autumn, as soon as the post-sukkos rains start.  In the gap between
the yoreh and the malkosh he must plow his fields and sow them.  The
crop grows through the winter and is harvested in the spring.

Don't confuse this with the European/American farmer whose fields freeze
in the winter, and who is therefore idle until the spring thaw.


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

RMB:

<<It does. But. In order to have a chazaqah, one has to have a known state

that you're presuming holds. (Either because it used to, what the Sheiv
Shemaatsa calls as "chazaqah demei'iqarah", or because of a law of nature
/ human nature, "chazaqah desvara").

Are you saying we all agree as to what that known state is? If so,
what is it?>>

I don't know why you think this. To pick an analogy, there is day, there 
is night, and there is an intermediate state known as bein ha'arbayim.  
Can you define the precise boundaries of these three states? Most 
aharonim claim that bein ha'arbayim is inherently a safeik.  Nonetheless 
there are plenty of examples of hezkas yom and hezkas laylah.

There is being alive, there is being dead, and there is an intermediate 
state known as goseis.  Why should this be any different?

On a more philosophical level there seems to be an internal 
contradiction in your position.  On the one hand you want "alive" and 
"dead" to be what Leibniz and (following him) Godel call a primitive 
concept.  That means that they can't be defined in more fundamental 
terms.  On the other hand you insist that they must be definable in more 
primitive terms.

On a slightly different subject, I hope to have time to look at the 
tshuvah RAM cited over Shabbos.  While inserting a bookmark I noticed 
that RMF's conclusion is, indeed, that heart transplants are double 
murder.  Do people still follow that opinion?  He says the mortality 
rate is almost 100% after a few hours, which is (AFAIK) no longer true.

David Riceman

CM wrote:
>                          Your logic implies that even real decapitation
> is only a cause of death because it leads to cessation of heart activity,
> and not as an independent cause of death in its own right. Does RMT give
> your logic explicitly somewhere?

RMB responded:
The issue isn't whether the brain controls each heartbeat, but whether
the heart can continue without a working brain stem. IOW, not cause, but
an indication that the body can't still be independently producing breath
and heartbeat.

CM now responds:
But that was my point. The body can independently of the brain stem produce a heart beat (I did not discuss breath).

RMB wrote:
As for a RMT actually saying this, listen to
<http://www.hods.org/video/html/Tendler%20-%20RMoshe.html>
in the beginning and around 2/3 or 3/4 of the way through.

CM now responds:
I listened to the video you cited, but I heard just the opposite. RMT said
(at about the third point and again towards the end) that RMF paskened that
you could remove someone from a ventilator despite the fact that the heart
is still beating! Thus brain stem death is not because it causes the
cessation of heart function. Rmt seemed very concerned about apnea but not
heart function.

Kol Tuv

Chaim Manaster


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On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 11:32:52AM -0500, David Riceman wrote:
>> Are you saying we all agree as to what that known state is? If so,
>> what is it?
>
> I don't know why you think this. To pick an analogy, there is day, there  
> is night, and there is an intermediate state known as bein ha'arbayim.   
> Can you define the precise boundaries of these three states? Most  
> aharonim claim that bein ha'arbayim is inherently a safeik.  Nonetheless  
> there are plenty of examples of hezkas yom and hezkas laylah.

FWIW, bein hashemashos has a chalos sheim of day AND of night. It's
not stam a safeiq, but the period of overlap. That's a different subject,
but I'm pointing it out to make it clear that I'm keeping this reply to
discussing just day, not both, just to keep the cases parallel.

We disagree about where the sun must appear to be in order for it to
be day. The machloqes is not about which indicators make us sure enough
about that location that we can presume, ie use a chazaqah, that it is
there (or to presume that it is isn't).

> There is being alive, there is being dead, and there is an intermediate  
> state known as goseis.  Why should this be any different?

I'm saying we do not have agreement on the halachic definition of "alive". 

You're saying we do not have agreement on it means to be a living person,
and the question is which indicators are sufficient that we can presume
(chazaqah) that that definition holds.

What's that definition?

> On a more philosophical level there seems to be an internal  
> contradiction in your position.  On the one hand you want "alive" and  
> "dead" to be what Leibniz and (following him) Godel call a primitive  
> concept....

I'm saying that alive vs dead are halachic states that apply to sets
of medical ones. And, for that matter, it's possible that WRT different
halakhos, we could actually be using different pairs of states and only
homonymously calling them by the same names.

I didn't tie this Brisker chalos-sheim approach to any metaphysical
existences. (Despite my article in this month's Kol Hamevaser [blatant
plug] at <http://www.kolhamevaser.com/2010/12/brisk-and-telz>.) The
dichotomoy between primitive and defined concepts isn't really relevent;
the mapping is between realia and law. If you forced me to speak in these
terms, I guess I would say the lomdus concept of life is a primitive
concept, whereas the application to a given case requires defived
concepts. But in any case, this is generalizable to Brisker chalos-sheim
in general, and no special internal contradiction in our case.


On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 12:31:43PM -0500, RCM wrote:
: RMB wrote:
:> As for a RMT actually saying this, listen to
:> <http://www.hods.org/video/html/Tendler%20-%20RMoshe.html>
:> in the beginning and around 2/3 or 3/4 of the way through.

: I listened to the video you cited, but I heard just the opposite. RMT
: said (at about the third point and again towards the end) that RMF
: paskened that you could remove someone from a ventilator despite the fact
: that the heart is still beating! Thus brain stem death is not because
: it causes the cessation of heart function. Rmt seemed very concerned
: about apnea but not heart function.

That is not in contradition to what I said. What I said was that brain
stem death makes the person incapable of prolonged hearbeat. If someone
who has no brain stem activity is on a machine keeping his heart beating,
we can know that what's going on isn't an *independent* heartbeat,
and doesn't qualify as life. Not that the heart is or isn't beating,
but whether the person could ever have a heartbeat of their own doing.

Listening again to RMT's presentation of RMF's position, he appears at
different points to make two different claims.

1- Without oxygen reaching the brain stem, we know the brain isn't
regulating the heart, and at this point the heart is still going entirely
for externally imposed reasons.

Resulting definition of life (my derived conclusion): the ability to
(at some point in the future) have a self-generated heart beat.

2- Without oxygen reaching the brain stem, the person is effectively
in the same state as the gemara's decapitation case.

Resulting definition of life (also my own extrapolation): The heart
pumping oxygenated blood to the brain.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             I long to accomplish a great and noble task,
mi...@aishdas.org        but it is my chief duty to accomplish small
http://www.aishdas.org   tasks as if they were great and noble.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                              - Helen Keller

I wrote:
> Torah Jews *do* believe in Techiyas HaMeisim. It *is* possible
> for one who is dead to live again. However, please recall what
> I quoted from Igros Moshe regarding a decapitation. He wrote that
> such a person is "meis mamash", even though there *is* a method
> by which he can be brought back to life.

R' David Riceman asked:

> Does this mean that a surgeon who removes a person's heart in
> order to transplant a new one is a murderer?

I had long thought that, yes, what RDR says is exactly the view of the
Igros Moshe. For indeed, he begins that teshuva (YD 2:174, beginning of
second paragraph) by saying that the transplant surgeons are murdering not
only the donor, but also the recipient - who they are ostensibly trying to
save.

But, thanks to RDR, I have now reviewed some of that teshuva, especially
the rest of that second paragraph, and I see that I was mistaken. Rav
Moshe's concern for the recipient was not because he'd be dead when his
heart was removed, but because the vast majority of such patients lived
only a short while after the transplant, trading a potential of many years
for just a few weeks or days. And now I understand those who say that Rav
Moshe would no longer use that argument today, when the recipients live so
much longer (though he'd still oppose it on the grounds of killing the
donor).

Further, I noticed something very interesting in Nishmat Avraham (by Dr.
Abraham Abraham, English version, ArtScroll 2003). Regarding
transplantation of a mechanical heart, he writes on pg 58:

> A responsum I saw [Shu"t Divrei Menachem 27; also see Refuah
> L'Ohr HaHalacha 2 pg 122] forbids such a procedure since the
> patient is "killed" when his heart is removed preparatory to
> transplanting a mechanical one. This opinion is difficult to
> understand, for in every open heart procedure, although the
> heart is not removed from the patient's body, it is
> nevertheless stopped completely, the circulation to the rest
> of the body being maintained by a mechanical "heart" to which
> the patient is attached. I do not know of any posek who
> objects to this type of surgery, nor do I see any difference
> between stopping the heart during open-heart surgery and
> removing it prior to its replacement with a mechanical heart.
> This is the ruling of the Lev Aryeh, and Rav Auerbach zt"l
> concurred.

My incorrect understanding of Rav Moshe's view (which seems to be the
correct understanding of the Divrei Menachem's view) was shattered by the
Nishmat Avraham's footnote to the above, which quotes the Mechaber Yoreh
Deah 40:5: "If the heart is removed - whether by hand or by illness - it is
a treifah."

And so a new word enters the lexicon of this discussion: Treifah. A person
who has had his heart removed is a treifah - NOT "meis mamash". (And, as he
quotes Chazon Ish Y"D 5:3 in that footnote: "Nowadays many treifos can be
healed.")

In summary, I was wrong for taking what Rav Moshe said about decapitations and applying it to heart removals.

But I do maintain that even if head transplants might someday become as
successful as today's heart transplants, Rav Moshe's argument will still
apply, and that one would not be able to argue that successful reattachment
proves that the body "was not really meis". (If anyone is interested,
there's a Wikipedia article titled "Head transplant" about such operations
which have been done to animals.)

Akiva Miller

____________________________________________________________
Obama Urges Homeowners to Refinance
If you owe under $729k you probably qualify for Obama's Refi Program
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/4d39cb84d74ef7d69e1st05vuc

On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 11:40:22AM +0200, Eli Turkel wrote:
: Sorry but the concept that Rebbe could not disagree with a Mishna after this
: siyum hashas is too big of a chidush for me. Any hint of such an idea
: besides your interpretation of CI?

My entire question is how to understand the CI, not which shitah I would
choose to understand the issue for myself.

Yes, it seems like a huge chiddush, which is why I've been trying to get
someone to confirm it. So far, you and I have been having a back-and-forth
which (until this question of yours) I thought was about clarifying what
I was asking for confirmation of.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 11:40:22AM +0200, Eli Turkel wrote:
: Sorry but the concept that Rebbe could not disagree with a Mishna after this
: siyum hashas is too big of a chidush for me. Any hint of such an idea
: besides your interpretation of CI?

My entire question is how to understand the CI, not which shitah I would
choose to understand the issue for myself.

Yes, it seems like a huge chiddush, which is why I've been trying to get
someone to confirm it. So far, you and I have been having a back-and-forth
which (until this question of yours) I thought was about clarifying what
I was asking for confirmation of.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

just to set the record straight, all of barilan?s parsha publications in english are a year late,
for the original hebrew article published a year ago, see:
http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/yitro/pganz.pdf
shavua tov
shlomo pick
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A few comments:

IIUC, RMT's position regarding brainstem death is linked to autorespiratory
ability, not cardiac death. I don't think the heart beat requires a
functioning brainstem.

Re heart transplants and techiyas hameisim - the Tzitz Eliezer has a lengthy
discussion about this, or very much related to this, somewhere in his huge
10:26 series of Teshuvos. IIRC there is no identity shift when the recipient
gets the new heart. Otherwise, this would mean that he is his artificial
heart, which is ludicrous.

R' Slifkin's article was irrelevant to the issues, and had some demonstrably
incorrect assertions.

An interesting Yerushalmi in 3rd chapter of Niddah - the way you define
whether a person is a human or animal (relevant to the aforementioned
article) is not by his daas, it is by his facial features (those he was born
with, I presume). Even if someone with a bovine face is up there reading the
Torah, you can tell him "come, let us slaugter you", and even if one with a
human face is plowing in the field, we tell him to give his sister in law
yibum or chalitzah should the need arise. [This Yerushalmi is brought about
in respect to anencephalic babies - they may not be born with a tzurah
(facial characteristics) of an adam! RSZA held that they most probably may
be killed in utero, but not once they were born.]
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The Flatbush Jewish Journal is a local newspaper that serves the 
Brooklyn Jewish community. Several weeks ago as part of an obituary 
it published a picture of the deceased -  a woman who passed away 
when she was in her eighties.  The next week the paper published a 
letter to the editor urging the FJJ to follow the practice of the 
Hamodia, the Yated and Mishpacha Magazine and not publish pictures of 
women.  The next week there were several letters that were pro 
publishing pictures of women.   Recently the paper published a 
picture of Rav and Rebbetzin Pam as part of its obituary about the 
life of Rebbetzin Pam.

This week's paper contains another letter urging the paper not to 
publish pictures of women. In part this letter says, "The Gedolim 
have already expressed their opinion to omit pictures of women from 
frum papers and if the FJJ considers itself frum it should be no 
different." There is no mention as to who "the Gedolim" are.

Can anyone supply sources regarding teshuvos about this issue, both 
pro and con? There are a number of books published by Artscroll and 
Feldheim that do contain pictures of women, so I have to presume that 
there rabbonim who permit this.

Yitzchok Levine 



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