Avodah Mailing List

Volume 31: Number 72

Thu, 18 Apr 2013

• 1. Re: YT Sheni in Eretz Yisrael (was Minhagim for Baalei Teshuva) (Zev Sero)
• 2. Re: More on Rav Moshe Vaye, Rav Eitam Henkin and Their Differing Views About Bug Infestation (Zev Sero)
• 3. Re: Quick question wrt birchas hagomel (Kenneth Miller)
• 4. Re: DeOraisa (Lisa Liel)
• 5. Re: DeOraisa (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: Kohen in a bag on a plane to block Tumah (Kenneth Miller)
• 7. two income families (Eli Turkel)
• 8. YHA nidche (Eli Turkel)
• 9. opening yahadus to ridicule (Eli Turkel)
• 10. Opening Yahadus to ridicule (Prof. Levine)
• 11. Re: (Areivim) Two Income Families and the halacha (Joe Slater)
• 12. Re: precedent (David Riceman)
• 13. Not being one of the mal'igim (Zev Sero)
• 14. The Age of the Tuition Crisis (Micha Berger)
• 15. sevara (Eli Turkel)
• 16. Re: Not being one of the mal'igim (Rich, Joel)
• 17. Re: opening yahadus to ridicule (Zev Sero)

On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 12:40:56PM +0100, Chana Luntz wrote:

> And my point was that the question of Yom Tov Sheni of the golus,
> despite the reference to minhag avoseichem b'yadeichem appears by general
> consensus to be much more of a rabbinic gezera than a true minhag -
> Half Hallel is a true minhag (except that everybody keeps it now, with
> the only question being with or without a brocha so there is nowhere to
> go to abandon it) but YT sheni is not, and thus despite the references
> to the fourth perek in pesachim, it is not a good one to use as your
> illustration of the question.

I've made this point several times -- that "hizaharu beminhag avoseichem
biydeichem" was an instruction from the Sanhedrin, which makes it a din
derabannan, not a minhag.  The "minhag" in the quote is *what* they ordered
us to do.  "That which was previously your minhag, and which you now propose
to abandon, keep doing it", but now instead of it being a safek de'oraisa
it's a vadai derabanan.  We treat it *as if* it were a safek, because that
was what we were doing before we got this order, and the order was to keep
on doing it.

-- 
Zev Sero               A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and
z...@sero.name          substantial reason' why he should be permitted to
                        exercise his rights. The right's existence is all
                        the reason he needs.
                            - Judge Benson E. Legg, Woollard v. Sheridan

On 17/04/2013 4:45 PM, Prof. Levine wrote:
> In response to my email about the article at http://tinyurl.com/cktrssv  Reb Zalman Alpert wrote to me
>
> "I think the following is a legitimate observation based on halacha
> and Mussar. Can one trust a halachic posek who is making money (in
> this case probably his complete income) from the field he is providing
> expert advice on? Can this person not have negios.
>
> "Should a rav decide on issues and then issue hechsherim based on his opinions?"
>
> I replied to him,	"What you write about him being paid and hence not
> impartial is precisely why I am against private hashgachos.  I do not
> like the idea of the person who is being supervised paying the person
> who is supervising him directly."

What's the problem? You worry that he's too *meikil*?!


-- 
Zev Sero               A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and
z...@sero.name          substantial reason' why he should be permitted to
                        exercise his rights. The right's existence is all
                        the reason he needs.
                            - Judge Benson E. Legg, Woollard v. Sheridan

Based on the Igros Moshe O"C 2:59, I think that it might be a mistake to
say that Hagomel relates to the actual danger of a voyage. It might be
better to speak of the *potential* danger. I will explain:

In his first two paragraphs, he writes:

"The main difference between a ship and travel on land is this: When one
travels on dry land, there's no real difference between staying at home,
because if nothing happens then there's nothing to worry about, whereas in
a ship on the water, the very travel itself is a danger which one must be
rescued from, because one cannot live in the water except for a mashehu of
time without being rescued, and the ship provides that rescue. Therefore,
since the ship is occasionally damaged, and his rescue would not be a sure
thing, one must give thanks by saying Hagomel. If so, then all the more so
for an airplane, which is even worse than a ship, for one cannot be in the
air for even a moment, so being in the airplane is certainly a rescue, and
since the airplane is occasionally damaged, here too his rescue would not
be a sure thing, and so he must give thanks by saying Hagomel.

"And this is why we say the bracha when traveling by ship even today: Even
though today's ships are vastly safer than those of the gemara's time and
even of the Shulchan Aruch's time, because only on very rare occasions does
a ship sink -- and it is perhaps even rarer than travel on ordinary roads
which were dangerous in their days -- the logic is this: The ship in which
one sits is actively rescuing him from the danger of being in the water,
and even our ships are rescuing him from that danger, and so it is
inherently proper to say the bracha. Only if there would be a certainty,
without any doubt, that the ship would rescue them from the water, [only
then] would they be exempt, because [only then] could it be imagined that
Hashem did not do a chessed for them on this trip. But since even modern
ships are not guaranteed -- because on very rare occasions there *are*
unrescued sinkings -- it *is* considered, at least, that Hashem has done a
chesed worthy of the bracha. And even
  if it is a small chesed compared to that of those days, we still have to ay the bracha; would we not thank Hashem for His chesed because it was a small one?"

R' M Cohen asked:

> I thought about the issue boat trips previously. For
> every boat trip they brought a KT!? If you take a rowboat
> offshore from Yafo? Everyone who goes ocean sailing?
> Sailing overnight? Sailing out of sight of shore? Staten
> island ferry ride? 

The Igros Moshe says that - theoretically speaking - if one's ship were
guaranteed not to sink, then such a trip would be exempt from Hagomel. I
think it might be reasonable, based on that, to conclude that even if the
ship *would* sink, but he is always close enough to shore that he can swim
back, then too the trip would be exempt. But if the ship travels further,
then the arguments of the Igros Moshe would apply, and he'd have to say
Hagomel.

Halichos Shlomo, Tefilah 23:5 (Dvar Halacha 5) writes similarly: "Even a
flight within the country likely requires Hagomel. This is despite the fact
that nowhere is it written that one who sails in a river or in the Kineret,
which is within a settled area, needs to say Hagomel. But that's because if
some event would occur, ch"v, they would rescue him immediately, because he
is so close to the settlement. But that's not the case here [regarding air
travel], and tzorech iyun."

But all this is according to the Igros Moshe and Halichos Shlomo. It seems
to me that most do NOT follow these arguments. For example, I recently flew
from Newark NJ to Florida, and a large portion of the flight path was over
the Atlantic Ocean, yet I was told not to say Hagomel afterward. Looking at
a map of the path of the Staten Island Ferry, I see a good half-mile or so
to shore no matter where it would sink; can most people swim that far? Yet
I've never heard of anyone saying Hagomel for such a trip.

Rabbi Doniel Neustadt's "Weekly Halacha" at ht
tp://www.torah.org/advanced/weekly-halacha/5763/matosmasei.html gives
many sources for the varying views relevant to this thread, in footnotes 46
to 50.

Akiva Miller
____________________________________________________________
How to Sleep Like a Rock
Obey this one natural trick to fall asleep and stay asleep all night.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/516f363c35e07363b73d4st02vuc

On 4/17/2013 5:44 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 01, 1970 at 12:00:00AM +0000, R Arie Folger wrote:
> :                    And even the Ran wqho does believe it is pentateuchal,
> : (how is that translation of DeOraita, after all, the Bible includes NaKh
> : ;-)), defines it as messaro hakatuv lachakhamim.
>
> DeOraisa is hard to define. OT1H, as RAF notes, it does not include Nakh.
> OTOH, it does include halakhos leMoshe miSinai as well as derashos that
> weren't explicitly law until later. (Eg our discussion of "Moavi velo
> Moavis" being codified by Boaz's BD.) And it includes those derashos
> even according to the Rambam who says that halakhos founded on derashah
> can be repealed.
>
> But given HLMMS, I would argue "pentateuchal" doesn't work.
>    
I use Sinaitic.  Seems to cover everything.

Lisa

On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 06:20:39PM -0500, Lisa Liel wrote:
>> But given HLMMS, I would argue "pentateuchal" doesn't work.

> I use Sinaitic.  Seems to cover everything.

But it requires believing that a law that dates back to Boaz but based
on a derashah is more "from Sinai" than shiv'ah and celebrating the
first week of marriage which actually date back to MRAH's beis din.
As well as Chanukah candles, an implementation of the deOraisa obligation
of pirsumei nisa, have to be accepted as more derived than sevara or
derashah from the Torah.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 22nd day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org        3 weeks and 1 day in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Chesed sheb'Netzach: Do I take control of the
Fax: (270) 514-1507                 situation for the benefit of others?

Just as an example of how ignorant I am of Hilchos Tumah VTahara, I had
thought that the term "tzamid pasil" refers the the string which is used to
tie down a flexible cover to the opening of a keli. This is why I did not
understand R' Zev Sero when he wrote:

> The second reason the plane is not a tzamid pasil is
> because there's no sealant.  Perhaps El Al could add
> some sort of tape to the doors.

I had never before heard of any requirement for any sort of sealant. RZS later wrote:

> From what I can gather, the definition of tzamid pasil
> involves a sealant.  Is an airtight container without a
> sealant also a tzamid pasil?  Find a source that says so.
> Did such things simply not exist at the time of Matan
> Torah (or in that of Chazal)?

Fortunately, R' Google led me to the Mishna Keilim 10:2, which contains a
list of materials which can be used for the purpose of Tzamid Pasil. From
what I see in a cursory look at this mishna, all of the materials are
pliable, but I'm not sure how adhesive they are. This would make a big
difference in whether or not the airtight gasket around an airplane door
would count or not. Interested parties are invited to look at that mishna
and report back. Thank you.

Akiva Miller
____________________________________________________________
How to Sleep Like a Rock
Obey this one natural trick to fall asleep and stay asleep all night.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/516f4e5bd2f554e5b365dst03vuc

<<Simtuta says that any convention that creates a mutual understanding
that one party lost ownership and the other party gained ownership is a
qinyan >>

That is far from clear. My understanding is that one cannot use money as a
kinyan under the guise of simtuta. Further one cannot use simtuta to say
one doesnt need a kinyan.

For example if a money transfer is done automatically by computer without
any human intervention one cant use simtuta to create a kinyan when no
human action was done (unless one wishes to claim that writing the program
or turning on the computer is the action - to my mind that is farfetched as
it has no direct connection to this particular transaction)
I was told that clicking on an icon to buy something on a web site might be
simtuta since there is an action but that it practice it would depend on
the specific terms of agreement of every seller.

-- 
Eli Turkel
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>>After all, Shabbos 118b calls someone who says Hallel every day a
mechareif umegadeif, not someone who reads Megillas Esther.>>

It would seem that the gemara is talking about one who says Hallel every day
not one who adds it for a special occasion

-- 
Eli Turkel
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<<Indeed -- and it is precisely to such a person that the injunction to be
"bold as a leopard, and not be embarrassed by the mockers" is directed.
He should try to summon the strength not to rely on kullos, and wear the
beanie.  If he can't, then he can't, and he has the heterim to rely on,
but he should know that he failed the challenge, and he should admire those
who succeed at it, and certainly not ch"v become himself one of the
mal`igim!>>

I repeat my question - did the LR where a yarmulka on the streets of Berlin
(as distinct from from common cap). Again RSRH would disagree with this

-- 
Eli Turkel
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>
>On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 04:23:33PM +0000, Kenneth Miller wrote:
>:> I would think the difference is between being laughed at for
>:> doing what's right, and being laughed at for how one goes
>:> about doing it.
>...
>: I think it is safe to say, as a matter of historical record, that there
>: WAS a time when even in the frummest areas of New York City, it was "pas
>: nisht" (unseemly) to walk in the street with a yarmulka...

Even today one sees this in the Brooklyn court system.  The are some 
old time observant lawyers who to this day do not wear a yarmulke in 
court,  while almost all of the younger observant attorneys do wear 
yarmulkes.  I know of a case where the clerk for a certain judge does 
wear a yarmulke and his boss,  the judge who is older,  does not.

YL
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R' Chana Luntz wrote:

It is one thing for Beis Din to try and apply halachic principles, but when
> such halachic principles would involve uprooting concepts such as the
> Married Woman's Property Act, by deeming
> property that the state says is hers as his, I find it very difficult to
> believe that the state would uphold such an arbitration.   Ie one can
> arbitrate over property that the state understands to be legitimately in
> dispute, but if the BD says her earnings belong to him and arbitrate based
> on such a principle, I think any secular court would just strike that
> arbitration down.
>

Granted that there must be a dispute in order to have an arbitration, but
I would think that there is an obvious argument to be made here: the
husband has an equitable interest in her property, just as she has an
interest in his. This is the basis for most divorce settlements, after all.
In our case the heirs would argue that the husband accepted the particular
halachic responsibilities of sustaining his wife with the understanding
that he was to be compensated by being granted his halachic rights over her
earnings; it would be inequitable to change the deal at this point.

Joe Slater
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RMB:

> <<I don't see the harmonization problem. The Rambam appears to be
> saying the authority of manuscript evidence overrides accepted
> precedent, which in turn overrides sevara you find personally
> compelling.>>
Think for a minute about the nature of manuscript evidence. Admittedly 
the rishonim used the term "geonim" in a fluid manner, so the Rambam's 
"kol hageonim" could mean only "geonay hama'arav"; nonetheless they also 
had a manuscript tradition, and it was generally viewed as a pretty good 
one.  So it's not like an errant scribe made an error that all of these 
guys (when I was a kid one of my rebbeim bawled me out for translating 
hachamim as "wise guys") inadvertently accepted.  Someone of prominence 
must have thought the opinion was of value.  So there's precedent on 
both sides - - your distinction between "precedent" and "manuscript 
evidence" is hard to take seriously.

Now the blatant distinction between the two cases is that the din in H. 
Shemitta V'Yovel is a legal construction, but the din in H. Ishus is a 
codification of clinical observation.  And what's particularly 
disturbing is that the Rambam doesn't say this: he could have said that 
his clinical experience is not like the standard psak, so he checked the 
old manuscripts and they confirmed his experience. Instead he cites 
legal precedent but not experience.

And we do know other cases (e.g., blanching meat after salting) where 
the Rambam did allow sevara to override precedent.  So I'm really 
puzzled about whether the Rambam even had a consistent opinion about 
this topic.  If he did, it must be more subtle than you suggest above.

David Riceman

http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/792651


-- 
Zev Sero               A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and
z...@sero.name          substantial reason' why he should be permitted to
                        exercise his rights. The right's existence is all
                        the reason he needs.
                            - Judge Benson E. Legg, Woollard v. Sheridan

An upcoming daf Y-mi, Gittin 5:8, vilna daf 32a....

    R' Mana said: Even though R' Yosi didn't enable collection of
    exorbinant sums [promised in a contract], he would agree by those
    who give their sons to [apprenticeship at] a profession. Because
    they do collect exorbinant sums because of chayei haberios [necessary
    to stay alive].

The term here is "itzumin", but it appears to be talking about what the
Bavli would call "asmachtos".

So it appears, tuition was always thus. <grin / sigh>

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 23rd day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org        3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            stifle others?

I saw recently the following machloket about the validity of sevara

1) Pnei Yehishua  (Berakhot 35a) & Tosafot R. Yehuda Berakhot 35a - sevara
has the force of a Torah law
2) Noda BeYehida (Tzlach)  sevara is from the Torah only when the gemara
uses the phrase - "lama li Kra sevara hih)
3) Sdei Chemed  sevara alimta (everyone agrees to it) eg when the gemara
says so then it is from the Torah but sevara lo alimta where some argue
does not have the force of a Torah law

-- 
Eli Turkel
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http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/792651


-- 
Zev 


Here's a quick summary of the issues: http://www.yutorah.
org/lectures/lecture.cfm/792566/Rabbi_Aryeh_Lebowitz/Ten_Minute_Halacha_-_K
ohanim_Flying_in_Plastic_Bags


KT
Joel Rich
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On 18/04/2013 5:23 AM, Eli Turkel wrote:
>> Indeed -- and it is precisely to such a person that the injunction to be
>> "bold as a leopard, and not be embarrassed by the mockers" is directed.
>> He should try to summon the strength not to rely on kullos, and wear the
>> beanie.  If he can't, then he can't, and he has the heterim to rely on,
>> but he should know that he failed the challenge, and he should admire those
>> who succeed at it, and certainly not ch"v become himself one of the mal`igim!

> I repeat my question - did the LR where a yarmulka on the streets of
> Berlin (as distinct from from common cap). Again RSRH would disagree
> with this

Of course he wore a hat on the street!  Indoors he wore a yarmulke, and
when that was impossible (not difficult because of mockers, but impossible
because they would simply not allow it) he wore a toupee.

-- 
Zev Sero               A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and
z...@sero.name          substantial reason' why he should be permitted to
                        exercise his rights. The right's existence is all
                        the reason he needs.
                            - Judge Benson E. Legg, Woollard v. Sheridan


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