Avodah Mailing List

Volume 28: Number 98

Thu, 16 Jun 2011

• 1. Consumer Alert: Minhog Scams On The Rise! Mislabeled, Cheap Middle Eastern Imports Flooding In, Threatening To Overwhelm Natives! (Prof. Levine)
• 2. Mi Ban Siach (Eli Turkel)
• 3. Consumer Alert: Minhog Scams On The Rise! (Saul.Z.New...@kp.org)
• 4. Re: Tznius (Sarah Green)
• 5. Re: Tznius for Men (Rich, Joel)
• 6. Ehrlachkeit, not Frumkeit (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 7. Re: Tznius for Men (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer)
• 8. Re: Consumer Alert: Minhog Scams On The Rise! Mislabeled, Cheap Middle Eastern Imports Flooding In, Threatening To Overwhelm Natives! (Lisa Liel)
• 9. Re: Consumer Alert: Minhog Scams On The Rise! Mislabeled, Cheap Middle Eastern Imports Flooding In, Threatening To Overwhelm Natives! (Saul Guberman)
• 10. Minhagim Scams on the Rise... (Richard Wolberg)
• 11. Re: Consumer Alert: Minhog Scams On The Rise! Mislabeled, Cheap Middle Eastern Imports Flooding In, Threatening To Overwhelm Natives! (Micha Berger)
• 12. Re: Consumer Alert: Minhog Scams On The Rise! Mislabeled, Cheap Middle Eastern Imports Flooding In, Threatening To Overwhelm Natives! (Rich, Joel)
• 13. Re: Minhagim Scams on the Rise... (Lisa Liel)
• 14. Re: Minhagim Scams on the Rise... (Micha Berger)
• 15. Re: Minhagim Scams on the Rise... (Liron Kopinsky)

At 11:42 AM 6/16/2011, Lisa Liel  wrote:

> >At 03:10 PM 6/15/2011, Ben Waxman wrote:
> >>It's called kibbutz galiyot and bitul hagalut. Get onboard professor!
> >
> >On board what?  Living in EY should not cause one to abandon
> >Ashkenazic minhagim.  (BTW, the person who writes this blog lives in EY.)
>
>Of course it should.  Minhag goes by makom; not by ancestry.
>
>Lisa
  If it is true that  Minhag goes by makom, not by ancestry,  then 
why doesn't all of America follow the minhagim of the 
Spanish/Portuguese Jews who first came here?   All of the shuls 
founded in America until the middle of the 19th century followed the 
Spanish/Portuguese ritual.

Did not the followers of the GRA who came to EY follow their minhagim 
and not those of the Sephardim who were already in EY?  Shouldn't 
they have followed the minhagim that were in effect when they 
arrived, according to you?

YL
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20110616/b7f6abe9/attachment-0001.htm>

<<R' E.T. wrote:
At weddings I attend one rarely hears this. However, following Prof. Levine
this may be an infiltration of non-ashkenazi customs.

I chant it at every wedding following the Mi Adir paragraph.
I learned it years ago as sung by Mordechai Hershman z"l.>>

Let me try and be clearer. I rarely hear this at ashkenazi weddings
that I attend in EY.
I did not mean to speak of the USA. Hence, my remark about possible
sefardi influences.

-- 
Eli Turkel

>>>My point is that it is the nature of customs to develop and change over 
time. In fact, it could be argued that if the nature of a given society 
changes, then it *needs* to change its minhagim as well.

---if true, it's not clear to me the objective criterion on when to raise 
the threat of cherem, calumny etc  to new minhagim/practices. in  the past 
, people remarked that custom that develops from non-jewish [and maybe 
today we would add non-frum]  pracitces would be objectionable.  but then 
anything within the corpus of frum minhagim should be ok.

let me ask this. i know in some DL communities , the nusach haShatz  is 
determined by teh Shatz  [  ie   nakdishach for shacharis may be folowed 
by naaritzcha for mussaf].  has any shul in chu'l adopted this practice?


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20110616/3305ba07/attachment-0001.htm>

I would like to thank Dr. Levine for the link to rulings of several Rabbonim.

However, it should be pointed out that the Rabbonim from Eretz Yisroel have 
different guidelines than some of those in America.

For example, a 'right-wing' Lakewood posek told me regarding necklines:
The neck is vertical and need not be covered. The shoulder is horizontal and 
must be completely covered. For the sloping area in between, more than half must 
be covered.

I am also curious if anyone has a source for the collarbone guideline.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20110616/180df212/attachment-0001.htm>

> The following if from today's Hakhel email bulletin.

A few questions on the handouts:

1.who added the handwritten piece about always needing stockings, and
what is the source?

2.You can be uncovered below the knee but not have a floor length dress
with a slit to the ankle due to pritzut?

3.No mention of form fitting dresses status?

4.Men must wear shirts with sleeves because?

5,Chareidi men may not wear shorts because?

6. No mention of tzniut for men and women being opposed to conspicuous
consumption because?

KT
Joel Rich

In the "Consumer Alert: Minhog Scams On The Rise!" thread, R' Micha Berger wrote:

> We live in an era ... where there is too much focus on
> frumkeit rather than ehrlachkeit and yesodei haTorah.

I wholeheartedly agree with this, and would love to coin a new slogan to
help us focus on that idea. Something which can help us to realize that our
ehrlachkeit is lacking, but without casting aspersions on frumkeit.

But I want to be prepared for arguments and backlash. Many, for example,
will point to the proliferation of chesed organizations as an example of
ehrlachkeit. But that's not what we're talking about, is it? What we're
really referring to is manners, common decency, and a realization that Bein
Adam L'Chaveiro is also d'Oraisa.

How can we communicate these ideas? This is especially difficult to people who don't appreciate that a problem even exists.

I can imagine one situation where the opportunity comes up, and that could
be when someone's frumkeit is praised. One is describing a certain
individual, and the tendency is to describe how he dresses and the various
chumras he follows. If instead we would describe how he acts and the
chessed he performs, perhaps we can slowly effect a change in which things
are valued.

Akiva Miller

____________________________________________________________
Groupon.com Official Site
1 huge daily deal on the best stuff to do in your city. Try it today!
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/4dfa49df2e58d48516cst04vuc

I've been thinking of writing a sefer on tze'nius for men. I would like
some feedback from listmembers on the notion, what should be included,
etc.

Thanks!
YGB

On 6/16/2011 7:32 AM, Prof. Levine wrote:
> The following if from today's Hakhel email bulletin.
> Special Note Four:  With the summer fast approaching in the Northern
> Hemisphere, the heat and humidity could pose a challenge to the most
> basic standards of Tznius....

At 12:42 PM 6/16/2011, Prof. Levine wrote:
>At 11:42 AM 6/16/2011, Lisa Liel  wrote:
>
>> >At 03:10 PM 6/15/2011, Ben Waxman wrote:
>> >>It's called kibbutz galiyot and bitul hagalut. Get onboard professor!
>> >
>> >On board what?  Living in EY should not cause one to abandon
>> >Ashkenazic minhagim.  (BTW, the person who writes this blog lives in EY.)
>>
>>Of course it should.  Minhag goes by makom; not by ancestry.
>>
>>Lisa
>  If it is true that  Minhag goes by makom, not by ancestry,  then 
> why doesn't all of America follow the minhagim of the 
> Spanish/Portuguese Jews who first came here?   All of the shuls 
> founded in America until the middle of the 19th century followed 
> the Spanish/Portuguese ritual.

There was no distinct Sephardic community in the US the way there had 
been in Europe.  An Ashkenazi immigrant to a neighborhood that was 
overwhelmingly Sephardi should absolutely have taken on the Sephardi 
minhag.  That's how it's been done since Golus began.

>Did not the followers of the GRA who came to EY follow their 
>minhagim and not those of the Sephardim who were already in 
>EY?  Shouldn't they have followed the minhagim that were in effect 
>when they arrived, according to you?

If they settled amongst the Sephardim (which I don't believe they 
did), then yes, they should have.  More to the point, they would 
have.  But they set up their own geographically distinct communities.

The idea of Ashkenazim and Sephardim living in the same building and 
maintaining separate halakhic minhagim is repulsive, and a false 
understanding of Judaism.  I've heard that when thousands of Jews 
began returning to Eretz Yisrael at once, this question was 
addressed, and the decision was that people should maintain their 
communities until a unified halakhic authority could be set up.  Like 
the Israeli "constitutional convention" mandated in the Declaration 
of Independence, this body was not set up.  But the maintenance of 
communities wasn't, either.  Instead, people maintained ancestral 
minhagim while simultaneously mingling geographically, and split the 
nation in a way that Korah and his community would have been proud of.

Lisa 

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 13:42, Prof. Levine <llev...@stevens.edu> wrote:

>   If it is true that  Minhag goes by makom, not by ancestry,  then why
> doesn't all of America follow the minhagim of the Spanish/Portuguese Jews
> who first came here?   All of the shuls founded in America until the middle
> of the 19th century followed the Spanish/Portuguese ritual.
>
> Did not the followers of the GRA who came to EY follow their minhagim and
> not those of the Sephardim who were already in EY?  Shouldn't they have
> followed the minhagim that were in effect when they arrived, according to
> you?
>
>
Rav Moshe Feinstein wrote that there is no minhag hamakom in the US.  I
don't think there is an halachic answer to the above.
Sociologically/psychologically it probably has to do with keeping a rooted
piece of life, when going through a huge move transition.  This would
probably answer both above questions.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20110616/18d1e3ac/attachment-0001.htm>

R' Lisa wrote:  Minhag goes by makom; not by ancestry.

I would think that would not apply to private stuff.
For example if someone was davening b'yichidus, would it be wrong for him or her to use the nusach of their parents?
ri

On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 09:39:28PM -0400, Moshe Y. Gluck wrote:
: I think that one of the reasons people like R' YL are uncomfortable with the
: new minhagim is not so much because they are new minhagim - as I'm sure
: he'll agree, and like R' MB said earlier, minhagim changed before and will
: change again. But the sheer volume of change makes it seem like there's a
: qualitative difference between the changes now and earlier changes...

Which is why I'm comparing current events to other periods where
communities converged and eventually new ones emerged. Such as the Ashk
and Seph creation events. Or the expulsion from Spain, and the consequent
rise of Qabbalah-inspited minhagim among many of their Qehillos.

Add to that rare change in lifestyle the pace telecommunications allows
change to occur.

I don't see the pace of change to be startling, inexplicable from within
the system, or problematic. It might bruise my sense of notalgia, but
that's not a particularly strong argument against. (Although in many
mitzvos, nostalgia is a major issue. Much of the power of tefillah during
Yamim Noraim or of the seder is the tie to childhood memories.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The thought of happiness that comes from outside
mi...@aishdas.org        the person, brings him sadness. But realizing
http://www.aishdas.org   the value of one's will and the freedom brought
Fax: (270) 514-1507      by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook

by makom, not by ancestry,  then why doesn't all of America follow the
minhagim of the Spanish/Portuguese Jews who first came here?   All of the
shuls founded in America until the middle of the 19th century followed the
Spanish/Portuguese ritual.

Did not the followers of the GRA who came to EY follow their minhagim and
not those of the Sephardim who were already in EY?  Shouldn't they have
followed the minhagim that were in effect when they arrived, according to
you?


Rav Moshe Feinstein wrote that there is no minhag hamakom in the US.  I
don't think there is an halachic answer to the above. 
Sociologically/psychologically it probably has to do with keeping a rooted
piece of life, when going through a huge move transition.  This would
probably answer both above questions.
=============================================================
Yes it would - but it is not an halachic statement. I have yet to hear a
good explanation of this issue (other than the "second wave" should have
followed the practices of the first , but once they didn't, they created a
new reality  -or-  the rules/reality of minhag have changed since the
Talmudic geocentric  rules   were promulgated (not clear to me by whom))
KT
Joel Rich
THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE 
ADDRESSEE.  IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL 
INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE.  Dissemination, 
distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is 
strictly prohibited.  If you received this message in error, please notify us 
immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message.  
Thank you.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20110616/d5ebf2e2/attachment-0001.htm>

At 01:30 PM 6/16/2011, Richard Wolberg wrote:
>R' Lisa wrote:  Minhag goes by makom; not by ancestry.
>
>I would think that would not apply to private stuff.
>For example if someone was davening b'yichidus, would it be wrong 
>for him or her to use the nusach of their parents?

I really think it would.  Not terribly wrong, but incorrect.  And 
then I hear people say that it's *assur* to daven with Israeli 
pronunciation if your father davened in Ashkenazis, and I want to cry.

Lisa 

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 03:29:48PM -0500, Lisa Liel wrote:
> I really think it would.  Not terribly wrong, but incorrect.  And then I 
> hear people say that it's *assur* to daven with Israeli pronunciation if 
> your father davened in Ashkenazis, and I want to cry.

See R' Gidon Rothstein's post "What Are the Halachot of Switching One's Pronunciation of Hebrew?" over at the RCA's blog
<http://text.rcarabbis.org/what-are-the-halac
hot-of-switching-one%E2%80%99s-pronunciation-of-hebrew>
(or <http://bit.ly/iMrpLA>.

Snippets:
    ...
    Already in 1933, R. Kook published an article in [Qol haTorah],
    a Torah journal,[2] dealing with the propriety of switching one's
    pronunciation of Hebrew from one accent to another.
    ...
    For R. Kook, the force of custom argues in favor of each community
    maintaining its own pronunciation. In an interesting sidelight, he
    does not say this out of preference for any particular pronunciation.
    While R. Ben-Zion Hai Uzziel, a younger colleague of R. Kook who
    later served as Sephardic Chief Rabbi, speaks of those who assert
    confidently that Ashkenazic pronunciation is clearly the only correct
    one, R. Kook assumes that the Yemenite accent is the closest to
    authentic still extant.
    ...
    First, [RBZHU] noted..., that already in the 1500s, Maharashdam ruled
    that only customs connected to matters of prohibition fall under
    the rubric of customs that obligate future generations .... Second,
    R. Uzziel noted that the Hatam Sofer's teachers, R. Nosson Adler
    and the author of Haflaah, switched their version of prayer to
    Sefardic. If so, change is apparently permissible when warranted.

Lemaaseh, RAYKook only permitted havarah Yisraelit as a better alternative
for someone so used to it that trying to stick to his minag would not
lead to a consistent havarah.

R' Shalom Spria comments:
    ...
    See also Iggerot Mosheh, Orach Chaim III, no. 5, where R. Moshe
    Feinstein faces the same question (i.e. what Ashkenazim should
    do when the spoken Hebrew among world Jewry is influenced by the
    Israeli Hebrew, which is more Sefardi than Ashkenazi). R. Feinstein
    answers that everyone should follow his ancestor's custom, and that
    all customs are halakhically legitimate bidi'eved, as is evidenced
    from the laws of chalitzah. Since the halakhah is that if either
    the lady or gentleman participating in the chalitzah is unable to
    speak Hebrew properly, the chalitzah is disqualified, the fact that
    Ashkenazim and Sefardim accept each other's chalitzot proves that
    there is a principle in the Oral Torah which dictates that all spoken
    dialects of Hebrew are halakhically acceptable.

    But in terms of likat'chilah, R. Feinstein encourages Ashkenazim
    to maintain their Ashkenazic pronunciation, for he says that
    we the Ashkenazim have represented the majority throughout the
    generations. R. Feinstein assumes, therefore, that until the end
    of the First Commonwealth, all Jews spoke one dialect, and it was
    Ashkenazic.
    ...
    It may also be noted that R. Jacob Israel Kanievsky, in his Kreina
    Di'iggreta I, no. 138, specifically admonishes Ashekenazim in
    the contemporary world to at least pronounce the Name of HaKadosh
    Barukh Hu, Yishtabach Shemo, with the kametz differentiated from
    the patach, based on the comments of the Rabbeinu Bachye at the
    beginning of Parashat Va'yera. [R. Ovadiah Yosef takes cognisance of
    this Rabbeinu Bachye in his own responsum which favours the Sefardic
    pronunciation.]...

And in a later comment:
    I have carefully reviewed the Yabi'a Omer and have discovered -- as
    best as I can understand the responsum -- that there is no problem
    of tartei di'satrei to for a Jew to employ the Sefardic pronunciation
    with the Ashkenazic distinction between a patach and a kamatz. Indeed,
    in subsection no. 6, R. Ovadiah Yosef specifically attributes this
    compromise pracite to R. Benjamin Silber in the latter's Shu"t Az
    Nidbiru III, p. 101, who in turn orally cites this approach in the
    name of the Chazon Ish.

    For the sake of intellectual honesty, I must add that R. Yosef does
    not demand this compromise practice, either. ...

And from R' Israel Geoffrey Hyman:
    There is also a Tesuvah on this subject from Dayan Weiss Z"l in
    his Minchat Yitzkach, vol 3 chap. 9, dated 5718 (1957).He forbids
    the changeover.

    He deals with this topic as a response to the then Chief Rabbi of
    Britain, Israel Brodie who posed the question about changing the
    pronunciation from "Ashkenazis" to Israeli pronunciation. In fact,
    the background to the question was the pressure from certain circles
    within the United Synagogue who wanted to introduce the Israeli
    pronunciation in the synagogues and chedarim.

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. Fulfillment lies not in a final goal,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      but in an eternal striving for perfection. -RSRH

n Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 1:29 PM, Lisa Liel <l...@starways.net> wrote:

> At 01:30 PM 6/16/2011, Richard Wolberg wrote:
>
>> R' Lisa wrote:  Minhag goes by makom; not by ancestry.
>>
>> I would think that would not apply to private stuff.
>> For example if someone was davening b'yichidus, would it be wrong for him
>> or her to use the nusach of their parents?
>>
>
> I really think it would.  Not terribly wrong, but incorrect.  And then I
> hear people say that it's *assur* to daven with Israeli pronunciation if
> your father davened in Ashkenazis, and I want to cry.
>
> Lisa


I was just asking this shaila (about nussach) this week about what changes I
have to make upon moving to Israel. The Rav basically said that if davening
from the Amud I should use whatever nussach the kehilla use, but in my
personal tefilla to use nussach Ashkenaz.

Unless I happen to move to a kehilla with only 1 shul and the nussach there
is different. In that case I should ask again since it's not so simple I
should  keep my nussach even in my personal Amida.

I'm not sure how this would translate over to pronunciation, but I would
assume that any pronunciation that is going to enhance your kavannah would
be most important, no?

Kol Tuv,
Liron
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-ai
shdas.org/attachments/20110616/ba177a8a/attachment.htm>

------------------------------


Avodah mailing list
Avo...@lists.aishdas.org
http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org


End of Avodah Digest, Vol 28, Issue 98
**************************************

Send Avodah mailing list submissions to
	avodah@lists.aishdas.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
	http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
	avodah-request@lists.aishdas.org

You can reach the person managing the list at
	avodah-owner@lists.aishdas.org

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Avodah digest..."