Avodah Mailing List

Volume 28: Number 31

Wed, 02 Mar 2011

• 1. Re: Non-Jews Begin to Embrace Ketubah Wedding (Zev Sero)
• 2. Re: Non-Jews Begin to Embrace Ketubah Wedding (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: Non-Jews Begin to Embrace Ketubah Wedding (Zev Sero)
• 4. Re: The Tube of an Egg (Poppers, Michael)
• 5. Re: The Tube of an Egg (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: How long did Nevuchadnetzar reign? (Micha Berger)
• 7. orlah (Eli Turkel)
• 8. yaroq (Eli Turkel)
• 9. Feeding Your Baby In A Bathroom? (Prof. Levine)
• 10. Re: yaroq (Micha Berger)
• 11. Re: yaroq (Liron Kopinsky)
• 12. Torah UMadda (David Riceman)
• 13. Re: Torah UMadda (Harry Maryles)
• 14. Re: Torah UMadda (David Riceman)
• 15. Re: Torah UMadda (Harry Maryles)

On 1/03/2011 8:29 PM, Daniel Eidensohn wrote:
> My understanding is as you say - he cites the Yam Shel Shlomo BK in
> other places where the issue is that an act will cause the halacha to
> forgotten or misunderstood in the future.

What do you mean by "in the future"?  That on some future occasion people
will do something wrong?  That's explicitly *not* what he's saying.  What
he's saying is that people will develop a false understanding of halacha.
If you allow a woman to be mekadesh a man, both of them will naturally
conclude that such a thing is possible.

On 1/03/2011 8:47 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 01, 2011 at 08:34:24PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
>>> He speaks of future weddings. That's others.

>> Where does he speak of future weddings?  Where do those words appear?

> I quoted them four times now. The majority of RMF's teshuvah is about
> how allowing it now can lead to error of halakhah in the future!

Quote the words.  They're not there.  RMF's concern is explicitly *not*
about an actual error of halacha happening in the future, i.e. that
someone will one day do something wrong, but that they will have a false
understanding of halacha.  He's clear that the error will have no
practical consequences; the fact of the error is itself the harm to be
prevented.

>> From the port you're replying to:
>>>>>        ... yeish leesor mitzad zeh atzmo
>>>>>        af im lo yavo lidei qilqul kelal
>>>>>        shelo yit'u lomar shesagi raq beqidushin shelah...

>>>>> And "hu issur gamur uvarur mitzad shikhechas hadin veshinui hadin."

> Or
>      "Al yedei zeh osin sheyishkach meiharbeih din qiddushin..."

Exactly.  The din will be forgotten.  Not that future weddings will
somehow be done wrong, but that people will have a false understanding
of what is going on.  People will think that when she is "mekadesh" him
there is a kiddushin going on, when in fact it's all a joke.

> Or RMF's comparison to the gezeira against ba rasha verubo bemayim
> sho'avim, "... shehu mishim debitechilah hayu tovelin... umikol maqom
> ba mizeh she'amru..."

Exactly.  Read it again, and read it carefully, since you obviously
haven't done so yet.  There is *no practical takalah*, since they're
going to the mikveh anyway; the only problem is that their understanding
of what is happening is wrong.  They think the dirty water is symbolic
of their tum'ah, and the shower is what makes them tahor.  At this point
in the proceedings we are explicitly *not* concerned that they will skip
the mikveh -- that concern comes later.  All we're concerned about is
that they'll misunderstand.  And it's not outside observers that we're
worried about, it's the tovlim themselves.

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

On Tue, Mar 01, 2011 at 09:07:58PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> What do you mean by "in the future"?  That on some future occasion people
> will do something wrong?  That's explicitly *not* what he's saying...

While yes, RMF does write about "shikhchas hadin af shelo yavoleshum
qilqul", he starts the discussion of "belo amira" with a comparison
to Shabbos 14 which is just such a devolution lemaaseh and ends with
"aval hakha sheyargilu..."

While you question if I read it carefully, I feel rather secure that if
RDE, the compiler of Yad Moshe understood RMF as I did, the notion that
I didn't understand what you consider the obvious meaning of the teshuvah
is very unlikely. (I'm not even invoking RDE's very real authority in IM,
I'm only asserting his understanding can't be wrong in some obvious way.)

And so, I think your opening accusation that the Melbourne rabbi who
invoked the teshuvah was simply lying and relying on no one bothering
to read the GIFs of the teshuvah is misplaced and inappropriate.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
mi...@aishdas.org         'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
http://www.aishdas.org    'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
Fax: (270) 514-1507                     - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l

On 1/03/2011 9:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 01, 2011 at 09:07:58PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
>> What do you mean by "in the future"?  That on some future occasion people
>> will do something wrong?  That's explicitly *not* what he's saying...
>
> While yes, RMF does write about "shikhchas hadin af shelo yavoleshum
> qilqul", he starts the discussion of "belo amira" with a comparison
> to Shabbos 14 which is just such a devolution lemaaseh and ends with
> "aval hakha sheyargilu..."

It is not a devolution lemaaseh.  That's why I said to read it carefully.
At the point in the discussion that RMF refers to, it is assumed that
the misunderstanding of the tovlim will *not* lead to any qilqul.  He
explicitly derives his concern from Abaye's answer, *not* from Rava's,
and he then explains why Rava's answer was necessary in that case but
not in this one.


> And so, I think your opening accusation that the Melbourne rabbi who
> invoked the teshuvah was simply lying and relying on no one bothering
> to read the GIFs of the teshuvah is misplaced and inappropriate.

First of all, there is no reason to believe that just because someone
uses the name "Sydney Rabbi" to comment on a blog, that he is in fact
a rabbi in Sydney (let alone in Melbourne).  Second, no matter how you
understand the cheshash involved, to claim that the teshuvah forbids
her giving him a ring is simply a lie, because it does not do so.  You
cannot get away from the words "lekadesh", "lekidushin", and "usekadesh".


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

In Avodah V28n29, R'Micha noted:
> I got up to the mishnah "lo yiqov adam shefoferes shel /btzh/".
> Most people have the nusach that this last word is with a tzeirei --
"beitzah"....The Maharil gives the beis a chiriq -- "bitzah", meaning a
breed of swamp reed....There is an online siddur (available in plain TXT
and in PDF) prepared by R' Rallis Weisenthall with help from KAJ and from
Machon Moreshes Ashkenaz, "Siddur Bnei Ashkenaz" (lezeikher the Bad Homburg
Kehillah --
1335-1942)....Checking Siddur Bnei Ashkenaz, I see they have "beitzah",
with a tzeirei.  Often the siddur comments when the nusach differs from the
Maharil's, but not here. <
The siddur I used in KAJ; the "Siddur Avodas Yisrael" (Baer); and the new
"Siddur T'filas Y'shurun" (Hoffmeister) that RBShH of MMA aided all have a
tzeireh, and Baer's comment indicated he read the word as "beitzah."

Later in the same digest, R'Micha responded to RZS:
> R' Aqiva Eiger cites the end of the end of the Maharil, in the
> Liqutim. Trying to find it in <http://hebrewbooks.org/11762&g
> t; hurt my eyes, so I don't have a sharable copy, but on the Bar Ilan
> web site edition I found it in liqut #57. Here's the text:
    Shefoferes shel bitzah:
    Amar shehu qaneh agam.
    "Bitzah" peirush brukhah shegedilin bo qanim.
RAE quotes that in full and adds a reference to Iyov 8:11, "haiv'eh gome
belo vitzhah." <
I wonder if MaHaRYL was forced into such a p'shat because a yud was missing
from his /btzh/ -- in TaNaCH, a "bitzah" (a m'qom botz) never has a yud
(and always has a dageish in the tzadi), while "beitzah" always has a yud
-- and I'm not sure how one would understand the reisha of the mishna (e.g.
"v'yit'nenah al pi haneir") if the object in question was a reed (re
"v'yit'nena," it seems rather difficult to place a reed on, or even suspend
it over, a lamp). 

All the best from 
-- Michael Poppers via BB pager

On Tue, Mar 01, 2011 at 10:24:13PM -0500, Poppers, Michael wrote:
: I wonder if MaHaRYL was forced into such a p'shat because a yud was
: missing from his /btzh/ -- in TaNaCH, a "bitzah" (a m'qom botz) never
: has a yud (and always has a dageish in the tzadi), while "beitzah" always
: has a yud -- and I'm not sure how one would understand the reisha of the
: mishna (e.g. "v'yit'nenah al pi haneir") if the object in question was
: a reed (re "v'yit'nena," it seems rather difficult to place a reed on,
: or even suspend it over, a lamp).

I thought the reverse... That the Maharil was diverting from common
pronunciation and spelling based on logic in contradiction to the
accepted wording.

Picture an oil lamp like one of these
<http://www.museumsurplus.com/Pictures/9685.JPG>. The hole used to fill
it is a couple of inches from the wick. Into that hole, and angling
away from the wick, is a reed being used as a thin pipe to feed in oil
from a resevoir. A lot more plausible than oil dripping from a hole
empty eggshell, and more likely to parallel something a yotzeir would
manufacture from cheres.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "I hear, then I forget; I see, then I remember;
mi...@aishdas.org        I do, then I understand." - Confucius
http://www.aishdas.org   "Hearing doesn't compare to seeing." - Mechilta
Fax: (270) 514-1507      "We will do and we will listen." - Israelites

On Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 04:00:41AM +0000, kennethgmil...@juno.com wrote:
: So: If Evil Merodach became king in the 37th year of Yehoyachin's exile,
: that was the 44th year of Nevuchadnetzar, *not* the 45th.

Not being in the sugya, I didn't fully follow. However, Adar is between
Tishrei and Nissan, and thus between the time N's reign year-count gets
incremented and Yehoyachin's. Could that be relevant?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

<<From: "Prof. Levine"
 From http://www.kashrut.com/Alerts/


The following teruma and maaser alert concerning Israeli produce is
from the Atlanta Kashruth Commission on February 24, 2011.

Oranges from Israel have been seen in Costco. One is required to
separate Trumah and Ma'aser from these fruits. Ed. note: See
<http://www.kashrut.com/consumer/vegetables/#TITHING

>www.kashrut.com/consume
r/vegetables/#TITHING <http://www.kashrut.com/consumer/vegetables/#TITHING>


<http://www.kashrut.com/consumer/vegetables/#TITHING

>
for information  on tithing.
.........................
What about Orloh issues?>>

Very few orange trees with fruits that can be sold are less than 4 years
old.

As I previously wrote one has to be careful the other way as many Jaffa
oranges dont come from Israel


-- 
Eli Turkel
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In modern Hebrew yaroq is Green. Does anyone have any sources that
discuss what yaroq could have been in the gemara?

-- 
Eli Turkel
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 From http://revach.net/article.php?id=3224

V'Darashta VChakarta: Feeding Your Baby In A Bathroom?

Rav Aharon Yehuda HaLevi Grossman was asked (V'Darashta VChakarta 
4:42:7) if it is proper for nursing mother's who bring their infants 
to weddings to nurse them in the bathroom, for the sake of tznius?

The issur to bring food into a bathroom is not brought down anywhere 
in the gemara or poskim.  In fact the Ohr L'Tziyon even says that the 
Ruach Ra in the bathroom is only in the toilet itself and not in the 
whole room.  The mekor for not bringing food into the bathroom is 
from the Be'er Heitev (OC 3:2:2) who says that you may not speak 
while in the bathroom and certainly nor eat.  However in this case, 
says Rav Grossman, there are four reasons to be Meikel.

First, the infant is too young for chinuch to apply.  Second, the 
food does not go through the bathroom, as it goes straight from the 
mother to the baby. Third, our bathrooms our not like the bathrooms 
discussed in halacha, since the system we use keeps them clean from 
unclean things.  Last, because of the need for tznius there is reason 
to be lenient.

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On Wed, Mar 02, 2011 at 10:47:14AM +0200, Eli Turkel wrote:
: In modern Hebrew yaroq is Green. Does anyone have any sources that
: discuss what yaroq could have been in the gemara?

Well, looking at the origin of the word, before the time you're talking
about, yaroq is the color of yeraqos or yeraqos are those things you
are busy with that are the classical yaroq.

"Esrog... vehayaroq kekarti"... (mishnah on Sukkah 34b) So, a karti,
generally translated a leek, is something R' Yehudah considers too yaroq
to be a good color for an esrog, but R' Meir makhshir.

But if you're checking what yaroq means, why should we take the
translation of karti for granted? Kartin are discussed in kelaim
repeatedly (eg 28b, 30b), they are grown in vegetable patches. So,
yereq - yeraqos still holds.

R' Yehudah's reason (31b) is because "lo gamar peira", so yaroq is the
color of unripe fruit.

"Kekarti" is also a description of very yeroqah on Chullin 47b. It's
a possible color for lungs, albeit abnormal ones. However, it's also a
possible color for a sick baby that needs to wait longer to get dam beris.
And a sotah would turn yaroq (top of Sotah 9a), although that may depend
on just how lemaalah min hateva her punishment was.

So, it would seem to me that yaroq also means a pale sickly yellow-green.
At least, in the context of people.


I'm thinking your asking this question might be related to our discussion
on tekheiles. And if not, the juxtaposition caused me to think about
it, anyway.

This latter definition (the sickly yellow-green of a sick person)
describes the color of the liquid as it is first extracted from
the murex. Which MIGHT be what Rashi is talking about when he says
(Shemos 25:4) that techeiles is "tzemer tzavua bedam chilazon vetzi'o
yaroq". Saying the tzeva of the "dam" is yaroq, and not the final
dye. Seems like a stretch -- why describe the dam rather than the dye? --
but Rashi also says the dye is the color of the sky (Bamidbar 15:41)
-- which isn't the color of leeks or unripe esrogim. (Nor of too many
babies that would survive until their berisim in the days before CPR
and defibrillators.)

More to the point, the gemara doesn't say that tekheiles is sapphire
blue. It says that it's like the sea, which is like the sky, which is
like sapphire which is like the kissei hakavod. Aqua isn't impossible,
nor is blue -- depending upon whether we mean the yam at Tel Aviv or
closer to Chaifa. But Rashi ad loc (Chullin 89a "shehatekheiles domeh
layam") says "shehachilazon min hayam, umar'is damo domeh layam" --
explicitly speaking of dam chilazon, not tekheiles itself!

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

I know Rashi says Techeilet is Yarok, which is similar to Carti. (Brachot 9A
on the mishna)

On Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 12:47 AM, Eli Turkel <elitur...@gmail.com> wrote:

> In modern Hebrew yaroq is Green. Does anyone have any sources that
> discuss what yaroq could have been in the gemara?
>
> --
> Eli Turkel
>
> _______________________________________________
> Avodah mailing list
> Avo...@lists.aishdas.org
> http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org
>
>
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   I'm in the middle of reading Rabbi Lamm's book, and I'm surprised by 
a basic lacuna.  Most of the opinions he describes stem from a 
theoretical construct which describes human knowledge in general, the 
place of secular knowledge in it, and the place of Torah with respect to 
it (I change terminology because the Maharal, for example, does not 
classify Torah under the rubric of "human knowledge").
   Not only does he refrain from describing any of these theoretical 
constructs, he refrains from analyzing them (some of them are difficult 
to maintain after the post-Aristotelian rupture), and he refrains from 
hinting that he himself has such a theoretical construct.
   Is anyone on the list familiar enough with Rabbi Lamm's thought to 
explain what's going on?

David Riceman

On Wed, 3/2/11, David Riceman <drice...@optimum.net> wrote:
> I'm in the middle of reading Rabbi Lamm's book, and I'm surprised by a
> basic lacuna. Most of the opinions he describes stem from a theoretical
> construct which describes human knowledge in general, the place of
> secular knowledge in it, and the place of Torah with respect to it...
> Not only does he refrain from describing any of these theoretical
> constructs, he refrains from analyzing them...

I did not see his book as a full treatment of TuM. I saw it rather
as a series of models where one could see various elements of this
philosphy in them -- some more and some less. I'm not even sure he had
this philosophy fully developed in his own mind -- which explains some
of those missing gaps.

He explains at the outset that the entire TuM project was generated by
no more than the YU logo. It is from trying to infuse more meaning into
it that he tried to develop this philosophy into a coherent and organized
system of Jewish thought. IIRC he left it to the reader to expand on it.

HM

RHM:
> I did not see his book as a full treatment of TuM. I saw it rather as 
> a series of models where one could see various elements of this 
> philosphy in them - some more and some less. I'm not even sure he had 
> this philosophy fully developed in his own mind...
>            [H]e tried to develop this philosophy into a coherent and 
> organized system of Jewish thought. IIRC he left it to the reader to 
> expand on it.

Consider an analogy with psak. If you ask a shailah, and the rav you
ask lists ten answers given by rishonim and aharonim, but gives you
no sense of how they came to their conclusions, how useful is that
response? Surely you shouldn't just pick the answer you like best;
that's not how psak works. Why should this case be any different?

To use your terminology, the "models" are so incomplete that they're
useless.

David Riceman

On Wed, 3/2/11, David Riceman <drice...@optimum.net> wrote:
> Consider an analogy with psak. If you ask a shailah, and the rav you
> ask lists ten answers given by rishonim and aharonim, but gives you
> no sense of how they came to their conclusions, how useful is that
> response? Surely you shouldn't just pick the answer you like best;
> that's not how psak works. Why should this case be any different?

> To use your terminology, the "models" are so incomplete that they're
> useless.

OTOH consider how Psak is often reached. A Posek needs to fully research
the topic he is Paskining on. In that snese the Psak 'develops' as
information about both the physical nature as well as all relevant
Halachos that impact on it are learned. Until one reaches that stage
-- the Psak is a work nin progress. I think the same is true about
Hashkafos. The more one knows -- and the more one thinks about what they
know, the more the Hashkafa is developed. TuM is a work in progress.

HM



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