Avodah Mailing List

Volume 31: Number 85

Mon, 06 May 2013

• 1. Re: Lag Baomer (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: Lag Baomer (Micha Berger)
• 3. R. SHIMON SCHWAB: A LETTER REGARDING THE "FRANKFURT" APPROACH (Prof. Levine)
• 4. Local Batei Dinim's Prerogatives Under Sanhedrin (was Lag Baomer) (Arie Folger)
• 5. doresh el hameisim (Beth & David Cohen)
• 6. Re: Lag Baomer (Lisa Liel)
• 7. Re: Lag Baomer (Micha Berger)
• 8. Re: Lag Baomer (Zev Sero)
• 9. Re: Local Batei Dinim's Prerogatives Under Sanhedrin (was Lag Baomer) (Lisa Liel)
• 10. Re: doresh el hameisim (Zev Sero)
• 11. Whey (Was: [Areivim] How the OU Kashrus Division Works) (Prof. Levine)
• 12. Re: doresh el hameisim (hankman)

On Mon, May 06, 2013 at 09:38:53AM -0500, Lisa Liel wrote:
> We should distinguish between minhagei halakha and cultural minhagim.   
> In terms of minhagei halakha, there weren't different ones from shevet  
> to shevet.  So long as the Sanhedrin existed (and wasn't co-opted by  
> Sadducees), the system was such that halakha was uniform throughout Klal  
> Yisrael.

I don't believe this is true. For example, we have archeological
evidence that the split between Rashi vs Rabbeinu Tam tefillin predates
the Sadducees.

And we know that Sheivet Ephraim said Qerias Sema, not having a shin
sound in their havarah. No one pasqened the One Right Way to say Shema
lein, or say Vidui Maaser.

Each sheivet had its own central beis din. I think it's only questions
that historically became divisive that ended up with a single
authoritative pesaq from *the* beis din hagadol. Otherwise, what's so
bad about multiple right answers?

See my earlier speculation at
http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2006/04/what-is-judaism.shtml
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol17/v17n078.shtml#14
and
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol25/v25n343.shtml#03

From the blog post:
> I think much of what drives the Torah's laws of inheritance is
> Hashem?s desire for each sheivet to have a distinct derekh avodah,
> and each beis av to have its own subspecies...

> In fact, most questions must not have gone forward to the central beis
> din in Yerushalayim, the Sanhedrin. Each sheivet had their own judicial
> system as well, and their own high court. Israel was much bigger then
> than once the Greeks and Romans brought more modern means of harnessing,
> modern roads, etc... There was opportunity for much greater variety of
> opinions than those of Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel. Each sheivet had
> the opportunity to forge very distinct implementations of the covenant
> of Sinai. Each evolved according to the rules of halakhah, (in addition
> to the idolatrous and irreligious amongst us) and therefore all within
> the covenant, all of them "the words of the living G-d", but with much
> less frequent need to impose "but the law is according to..."

> The 12 nesi'im, the heads of the tribes, each gave the same gift for
> the inauguration of the Mishkan.... The Ramban explains that even though
> the items given were identical, a silver platter, a silver sprinking bowel,
> fine flower mixed with oil, a gold pan, a bull, a ram, a lamb, a goat,
> and shelamim offerings, the intent was distinct. And he goes through
> the gift of each nasi, explaining how he related it to his own tribe's
> history, talents, and culture.

> It's mind-stretching to think how different their expressions of Torah
> would be. Perhaps they would even seem like different religions. ...

IOW, I'm picturing quite the reverse of Lisa's depiction. With shevatim,
and an agreement that each sheivet and indeed each beis av had its
own territory, subcommunity, and norms, there was less reason to close
machloqesin, and far more variety than from Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai
onward.

From the 1st Avodah email I cited above:
>                                                             I think it
> has a lot to do with the transition from being Benei Yisrael to being
> Yehudim. My theory is that in the days of bayis rishon, many questions
> simply didn't have to get posed to the Sanhedrin for resolution. People
> were okay with each sheivet having it's own pesaq from its own beis din
> hagadol, and fewer things were brought to a singular pesaq.

> If this conclusion, made from rather pragmatic lines of reasoning,
> is true, then there were distinct implimentations of the Sinaitic
> covenant in each sheivet, sets of practices that differ more than did
> batei Hillel veShammai. I even go so far as suggest possible differences
> between Isaacarism and Judaism, just to give a feel for what I mean. But
> all divrei E-lokim Chaim, and all of them Toras Moshe.

And from the 2nd Avodah email:
> Picture the evolution of halakhah that differed from Judah-ism in more
> fundamental ways than Ashkenaz vs Sepharad vs etc... One that is far
> more alien to us hashkafically than Chassidei Ashkenaz and their
> self-flagellation.

> After all, the splits from tannaim onward were all given the Judean
> and Levitic courts' traditions. (With a little influence from Binyamin,
> Shim'on, and survivors of other shevatim.)

Closing by jumping back to Avodah 2006:
> Yehudah, with its derekh based on "hapa'am odeh es Hashem" and Yehudah's
> ability to admit (vidui) and agree (modeh) to Tamar's accusations, was
> the derekh to survive. Binyamin's distinct derekh evaporated, just as
> Shim'on's already had.

> For that matter, given who returned to EY, minhag and ancestral pesaq
> were pretty much an open field. The majority of Ezra and Nechemiah's
> followers were BTS.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 41st day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org        5 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Yesod sheb'Yesod: What is the ultimate measure
Fax: (270) 514-1507                     of self-control and reliability?

On Sun, May 05, 2013 at 02:46:47PM +0000, Kenneth Miller wrote:
: Suppose it was around the time of Yehoshua or the Shoftim, and a person
: from one Shevet moved permanently, with his family, to the territory of
: another shevet....

He couldn't, really. Anyone who belonged to a sheivet had land that
returned to him.

And the gemara refers to the kohanim having their own batei din which
handled qodshim -- I don't know if that's only qodshim, or just their
per-sheivet court system.

Maybe we can talk about geirim moving around.

But in any case, I couldn't derive a definitive answer. Pereq maqom
shenahagu was written after most of us lost our sheivet identity, and I'm
just saying that by its rules -- whether they only apply to shevet-less
people or not -- we're supposed to have minhag hamaqom, and minhag avos
is just a stopgap.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 41st day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org        5 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Yesod sheb'Yesod: What is the ultimate measure
Fax: (270) 514-1507                     of self-control and reliability?

From  http://tinyurl.com/cx5ks8m

  In 1963, a   scathing  critique of the Torah and Derekh Eretz movement
founded by R. Samson Raphael  Hirsch (d. 1888) appeared in print. It
was authored by R. Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler.

A letter was sent to Rabbi Shimon Schwab,soliciting his response to
Rabbi Dessler's critique. His response was published anonymously in ha-
Ma'ayan, a distinguished Israeli Torah journal, in 1966.

Who am 1 to render an opinion regarding a matter about which
greater and better rabbinic scholars have yet to reach agreement? The
rabbis of the previous generation, indeed the ancestors of Rabbi Dessler
who were the founders of the musar movement, R. Israel Salanter [d.
1883] and his disciple R. Simhah Zissel [Broida, d. 1897], addressed
this issue. I have heard that their view on these matters came very close
to that of R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, but that they were outnumbered
and opposed by the majority of [East European] rabbis at the time. It
seems to me that this was always the case historically. The majority of
rabbis refused to engage in secular study, lest they be ensnared by it. On
the ocher hand, in every generation a minority of Torah sages engaged
in secular study, using it as a handmaiden to serve the cause of Torah.
That minority pursued its own path and sanctified God's name
throughout the universe, as is well known. R. Moses Isserles [d. 1572]
already wrote in a responsum to R. Solomon Luria [ci. 15741 that it was
an ancient debate between the sages.

See the above URL for the entire article. YL


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20130506/fa5543c2/attachment-0001.htm>

R?n LL wrote:
>> But if I understand correctly, a local or regional beit din wasn't
empowered to "figure out" the halakha.  If someone invented a zipper,
they couldn't say, "Hmm... is this tefira or isn't it?"  If they didn't
have an exact mesora for that exact case, they had to take it up the
line.  Only the Sanhedrin was able to be creative in the way that
rabbanim have become accustomed to doing. <<

Pardon my ignorance, but where do you take this idea from, that lower batei
din were not allowed to be medameh davar le-davar and be lomed davar mitoch
davar?

--
mit freundlichen Gr??en,
with kind regards,
Arie Folger

visit my blog at http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/
sent from my mobile device
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20130506/ea205c28/attachment-0001.htm>

R. Akiva Miler wrote:

"He might choose to repent. A total teshuva is clearly impossible, because
his current circumstances are so radically different than before. But is a
sincere charata impossible? Whatever charata he accomplishes won't be worth
as much as if he had done it before he died, but is it worth *zero*? Isn't
it possible that this "rasha" was only slighty lower than the midpoint, and
this tiny amount of charata might elevate him to be above the midpoint?

A different scenario, a different mitzvah: The rasha is now in the Olam
Ha'emes, and sees his life from a new perspective, understanding things
that he had never understood before. In his previous life, he was a very
bitter person, who deeply hated Hashem. But now he understands, and makes a
conscious choice to thank Hashem and love Him. Is it really too late?"


It should be too late, because by now there is no longer any bechira. Once
the person/neshama has actually experienced the presence of HKBH, how can
there be bechira? If you actually knew (not just believed) that HKBH
commanded you to "jump", the only question would be "how high?" But your
bechira is taken away at that point. With no bechira, teshuva is
meaningless.

David I. Cohen
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20130506/9c315bb1/attachment-0001.htm>

On 5/6/2013 1:47 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Mon, May 06, 2013 at 09:38:53AM -0500, Lisa Liel wrote:

>> We should distinguish between minhagei halakha and cultural minhagim.
>> In terms of minhagei halakha, there weren't different ones from shevet
>> to shevet.  So long as the Sanhedrin existed (and wasn't co-opted by
>> Sadducees), the system was such that halakha was uniform throughout Klal
>> Yisrael.

> I don't believe this is true. For example, we have archeological
> evidence that the split between Rashi vs Rabbeinu Tam tefillin predates
> the Sadducees.

Do you have a source for that?

> And we know that Sheivet Ephraim said Qerias Sema, not having a shin
> sound in their havarah. No one pasqened the One Right Way to say Shema
> lein, or say Vidui Maaser.

I have a feeling the whole issue of passuling someone on the basis of 
their accent is pretty modern.  I don't think it ever occurred to anyone 
that people who pronounce "shin" as "s" aren't yotzei in Kriyat Shma.

> Each sheivet had its own central beis din. I think it's only questions
> that historically became divisive that ended up with a single
> authoritative pesaq from *the* beis din hagadol. Otherwise, what's so
> bad about multiple right answers?

She-lo tihyeh ha-Torah k'shnei Torot.  To paraphrase a certain frum 
rapper, "Hashem echad, Torah achat, HaAm echad, this is unity."

> See my earlier speculation at
> http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2006/04/what-is-judaism.shtml
> http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol17/v17n078.shtml#14
> and
> http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol25/v25n343.shtml#03

I know we've discussed this before.  I continue to disagree with you.


On 5/6/2013 1:52 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Sun, May 05, 2013 at 02:46:47PM +0000, Kenneth Miller wrote:
> : Suppose it was around the time of Yehoshua or the Shoftim, and a person
> : from one Shevet moved permanently, with his family, to the territory of
> : another shevet....

> He couldn't, really. Anyone who belonged to a sheivet had land that
> returned to him.

Ownership and residence are two different things.  Ownership returned.  
Residence was a matter of choice.  I assume that most people lived on 
their own land, but you know, as time went on, second sons and whatnot 
would have gradually had less and less land to call their own and would 
have moved around a little more freely.

Lisa

On Mon, May 06, 2013 at 03:51:20PM -0500, Lisa Liel wrote:
>> I don't believe this is true. For example, we have archeological
>> evidence that the split between Rashi vs Rabbeinu Tam tefillin predates
>> the Sadducees.

> Do you have a source for that?

Look for Yigal Yadin's work on the Hasmonean caves.

Yadin found the Rabbeinu Tam pair first. RARakeffetR tells of the JTS
professor who got all excited when the news hit and switched. Then,
when Yadin found the Rashi set, he switched back.

(In Qumran, which is both later than the time in question and the remains
of a heterodox community, they found both as well as a third ordering --
Shema and VeHaya im Shamo side-by-side. An attempt at compromise?)

I can't cite sources. I've been posting this factoid since at least as
far back as scj in the early 1990s. Unsurprisingly, I can't remember the
article anymore.

>> And we know that Sheivet Ephraim said Qerias Sema, not having a shin
>> sound in their havarah. No one pasqened the One Right Way to say Shema
>> lein, or say Vidui Maaser.

> I have a feeling the whole issue of passuling someone on the basis of  
> their accent is pretty modern.  I don't think it ever occurred to anyone  
> that people who pronounce "shin" as "s" aren't yotzei in Kriyat Shma.

In Megillah 24b, Rebbe tells R' Shimon to tell R' Chiya to break his
habit of saying a hei-like ches, because when he says "vechiqisi Lashem",
it sounds like kefira ("vehikisi" -- I will smite).

And yet in BM 85b Rebbe (on Eliyahu haNavi's advice) appoints R' Chiya
as a shaliach tzibur! Then Eliyahu stops the davening, as it would have
brought mashiach prematurely.

Rishonim grapple with this, rather than take it as proof that havarah
doesn't matter.

Tosafos offer 2 answers, one on each gemara:

1- R' Chiya could pronounce a ches when he tried. Which is why in Mes'
Megillah Rebbe tells him to try. And Rebbe was similarly sure that R'
Chiya would be careful when selected to be sha"tz. (Megillah)

2- Only if you have a choice do you need to pick a sha"tz who can
pronounce every letter. And Since Eliyahu said that only R' Chiya could
bring mashiach...(BM)

The Rambam (Tefilah 15:1) prohibits a kohein from duchaning if he confuses
alef and ayin, or shiboles and siboles. In 8:12 he prophibits using as
a shats someone who confuses alef and ayin or slurs any letter. Then he
says a rebbe can pick a talmid to be sha"tz. The Eishel Avraham says
the seifa is qualifying the reisha: even a talmid who mispronounces.
His proof is our pair of gemaros.

>> Each sheivet had its own central beis din. I think it's only questions
>> that historically became divisive that ended up with a single
>> authoritative pesaq from *the* beis din hagadol. Otherwise, what's so
>> bad about multiple right answers?

> She-lo tihyeh ha-Torah k'shnei Torot.  To paraphrase a certain frum  
> rapper, "Hashem echad, Torah achat, HaAm echad, this is unity."

There is no need for conformity to have unity. Look how much HQBH did
to preserve each sheivet's identity and distinct culture. It is easier
to argue He wanted a mosaic of different shevatim, and not a melting
pot of a single din.

We only need a single consistent pesaq when the impact of the law is
national -- eg the avodah in the BHMQ, or geirus, or when the matter
became divisive.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 41st day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org        5 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Yesod sheb'Yesod: What is the ultimate measure
Fax: (270) 514-1507                     of self-control and reliability?

On 6/05/2013 2:47 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
>> >It's mind-stretching to think how different their expressions of Torah
>> >would be. Perhaps they would even seem like different religions. ...

Say rather different flavours of the same operating system.

> People were okay with each sheivet having it's own pesaq from its own
> beis din hagadol, and fewer things were brought to a singular pesaq.

Indeed, surely that is what "nahara nahara upashteih" means (Chulin
18b, 57a). It's OK for halacha to exist in different implementations,
so long as it's not immediately apparent, which is why "lo sisgodedu"
applies only in the same town.

And even then, if the town has two batei din it's OK for people to be
doing different things, because it's obvious to any observer that both BD
are implementing the same torah, and therefore that each person who is
following one of them is observing that same torah. The problem is only
when the town has one BD, which paskens X, and someone does Y, and the
observer doesn't know that there's a BD somewhere else that paskened Y,
so he thinks that person is simply following another religion ch"v.


On 6/05/2013 2:52 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Sun, May 05, 2013 at 02:46:47PM +0000, Kenneth Miller wrote:
>: Suppose it was around the time of Yehoshua or the Shoftim, and a person
>: from one Shevet moved permanently, with his family, to the territory of
>: another shevet....

> He couldn't, really. Anyone who belonged to a sheivet had land that
> returned to him.

Which he could promptly sell again to the same person.  Especially if it
was too small to be economical to farm on its own, which is why he sold it
to the neighbour and moved away in the first place.  And if his place of
residence was in a walled city then he wouldn't have to worry about
possibly losing his house, so he could really be a permanent resident.

-- 
Zev Sero
z...@sero.name

On 5/6/2013 1:54 PM, Arie Folger wrote:
>
> R?n LL wrote:
> >> But if I understand correctly, a local or regional beit din wasn't
> empowered to "figure out" the halakha.  If someone invented a zipper,
> they couldn't say, "Hmm... is this tefira or isn't it?"  If they didn't
> have an exact mesora for that exact case, they had to take it up the
> line.  Only the Sanhedrin was able to be creative in the way that
> rabbanim have become accustomed to doing. <<
>
> Pardon my ignorance, but where do you take this idea from, that lower 
> batei din were not allowed to be medameh davar le-davar and be lomed 
> davar mitoch davar?
>
 From the Rambam's description of the process at the beginning of 
Hilchot Mamrim.  He doesn't say "if they were able to work it out, 
they'd tell them, and if not..."  He says "If they knew."  Which seems 
to indicate that they either knew the halakha pertaining to a particular 
issue, or they didn't.

Lisa

On 6/05/2013 3:07 PM, Beth & David Cohen wrote:
> It should be too late, because by now there is no longer any bechira.
> Once the person/neshama has actually experienced the presence of HKBH,
> how can there be bechira? If you actually knew (not just believed)
> that HKBH commanded you to "jump", the only question would be "how
> high?" But your bechira is taken away at that point.

Again, we have the counter-example of Navoth, who had the bechira to make
a decision.  It was much more subtle than the difference between a mitzvah
and an aveirah, ch"v, but it was nonetheless a decision, and it had
consequences for him.  So we see that the faculty of bechira is unchanged,
it's just that the range of choices available is limited.

-- 
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

At 01:50 PM 5/6/2013, you wrote:
>What has changed? Now butter can be made from whey.
>
>I noted that according to RMF zt"l, whey did not require an hashgacha and
>therefore butter should still not require an hashgacha.

<Snip>

To state the obvious, both R. Blech and the OU have a significant financial
stake in claiming that butter (and countless other products) can only be
purchased with reliable hashgachah. Additionally, the RCA gets an annual
payoff from the OU Kosher division (as per a longstanding arrangement) so
RCA Rabbanim also have a strong incentive to claim that products can
only be purchased with a reliable hashgachah.

Apparently not everyone agrees with this 
psak.  Furthermore,  it is not just the OU that 
says that whey should have hashgacha.

 From http://www.ok.org/Content.asp?ID=225

Some time ago we learned that significant kashrus 
issues do arise with butter. Developments in the 
food industry are ongoing, and such changes often 
have important kashrus ramifications. Butter is 
mostly butterfat, with some additional milk 
elements and water also present. Butter 
traditionally is made from sweet cream (commonly 
called heavy cream), which is the thick layer 
skimmed off the top of milk. Sweet cream contains 
both butterfat and buttermilk. The churning 
action causes butterfat lumps to bond together 
into balls of butter, while at the same time the 
buttermilk separates. You can easily make butter 
at home, by taking heavy cream and mixing it with 
a beater until it hardens to butter consistency.

If butter contained only this cream and perhaps 
some salt and water, as used to be the case, we 
could continue to classify butter in Group One; 
however, this is no longer true.

The primary kashrus issue concerning butter is 
that whey cream is often added to it. Whey cream 
is a byproduct of cheese manufacturing. When milk 
is curdled to make cheese, it separates into two 
parts: the mass that will become the cheese, and 
a watery compound called whey, part of which is cream.

Today?s economic climate finds companies seeking 
to profit from every possible aspect of their 
production; nothing is discarded if it can be 
used in some way or sold. Having discovered that 
whey cream can be made into butter, cheese 
companies sell the whey cream to butter companies.

Why would a butter company add whey cream to its 
products? The answer again is economics; whey 
cream is less expensive than sweet cream. If a 
company can successfully make butter by using 
whey cream, the company stands to save money.

And here our problem begins.

Cheese needs kosher supervision for two reasons. 
First, all ingredients in cheese, including the 
rennet (the curdling mechanism) in which it is 
set, must come from a kosher source (either 
microbial, genetically engineered, or a properly 
slaughtered animal). The starter culture also 
must be kosher, as must any additives that enhance the flavor.

If cheese is made from non-kosher ingredients, we 
treat the whey as not kosher as well. (It should 
be noted that Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, zt?l, 
considers this whey kosher. However, because of 
complexities in using whey cream that is made in 
this fashion, the major kashrus agencies do not 
permit it in the products they certify.)

See also http://oukosher.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Daf18-2b.pdf  page 13.

And from http://www.kashrut.com/trade/trade_links/wheycream/

In practical terms, because of the difficulty of 
monitoring the different types of whey cream 
coming into the butter plant and keeping them 
segregated throughout the processing, some rabbis 
may require that a plant either only use kosher 
whey cream or that it have a much higher level of 
inspection to assure that only the right type of 
whey cream is used for the kosher production. In 
most cases this will be cost prohibitive (which 
is why most cheese is not compliant with gevinas 
yisroel in the first place), so that in fact it 
is likely that only kosher whey cream would be 
permitted in a kosher butter plant.

Because of the changes in technology, production 
of all kosher butter therefore requires kosher 
supervision. Prior to the use of more 
sophisticated technology, butter was evaluated 
religiously rather like milk, for which minimal 
active kosher supervision was deemed necessary. 
This evolution reminds us that the day-to-day 
implementation of kosher supervision is 
constantly updated in our high tech world.

 From http://www.crcweb.org/kosher_articles/moderne_technology.php

Are their new avenues or paths in Kashruth that did not exist a few years ago?

  Certainly.  Things change all the time. For 
instance, butter was always kosher.  It  didn?t 
need to have a kosher symbol on it because it can 
only be made from milk from a kosher animal.

It is not the case at all anymore. This is due to 
a cost saver that the butter industry 
discovered.  If you take a cup of whole milk and 
separate the fat, the fat will be 10 percent 
sweet cream, and 90 percent whey. Since butter is 
made out of the cream, the dairy wants a high 
percentage of fat.  The more fat there is, the 
higher the profit.  Most companies that sell 
cream are places that produce other dairy 
products ? like cheese factories. When making 
mozzarella or other hard cheeses (usually 
non-kosher), the company cooks the cheese in a 
bath of water. This method is done in order to 
get the right texture to the finished product; 
you may notice this in the cheese placed on 
Pizza. The excess fatty water is called cooker 
water and the fat volume is high.

Manufacturers have an incentive to place the 
cream from the cooker water into the cream that is going to produce the butter.

See also http://www.star-k.org/kashrus/kk-palate-whey.htm

Please see the extensive discussions about whey on these web sites.

Apparently the Big Five Kashrus Agencies [OU, OK, 
Star-K,  Kof-K, and CRC] have decided that whey 
does need supervision.  This has now become an industry kashrus standard.

YL

   YL
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20130506/c6196e68/attachment-0001.htm>

I would think that the pashtus hagemara in San. 91a (the discussion of
Antignus and Rebbi) is most simply understood per my last posting in this
thread. I think that RZS might be able to explain the gemara but it won?t
be as glat ? he will have to qvetch a bit.

Furthermore. the drasha of ?hayoim la?asoson? isn?t quite right either if
you hold that bechira is possible after misa and there is sechar veonesh
for those choices. So even if you say this is not common, nevertheless
?lemachor? la?asosn remains a possiblity.

The gemara that RZS refers to about Navos does really not explicitly prove
his point. It is the way RZS chooses to interpret this gemara. I imagine
there are two points to be made here. 1) the possibility of ?choice? by the
neshama, 2) the existence of onesh for that choice ? Tsai mimechitsasi. I
would concede that at first sight this would be the straight forward
explanation of this gemara ? but I think not the only or even necessarily
the ?better? peshat. I would suggest that there is a difference between
?choice? and bechira. Not every choice constitutes the exercise of bechira.
The consequence of becira is sechar ve?onesh, whereas mere ?choice? has no
such consequences (eg choices made after death or with the haskama of
Hashem). Finally, the ?punishment? here ? ?tsei mimechitsasi? ? can be
understood not as a punishment but as a natural consequence of the events ?
much like if the temperature of a block of ice is raised above zero
centigrade it melts ?  the loss of its so
 lidity is not a ?punishment? but just a natural consequence of the new circumstance.

RZS assertion that it is just that there is no (little) opportunity to do
mitzvos after death doesn?t really make sense. While that would be true for
most mitzvos, it is certainly not the case for learning Torah. So it would
seem that there would be ample opportunity to do many mitzvos all the time!

Finally you very commonly see in various meforshim the assumption that this
is the olam ha?asiah and the next is not ? it is for the gemul. The terms
of omeid and holeich are applied in this sense ? after death you become an
omeid during life you are a holeich. According to RZS in theory you remain
a holeich after misa.

Kol tuv

Chaim Manaster
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-ai
shdas.org/attachments/20130506/d2cde23c/attachment.htm>

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


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


End of Avodah Digest, Vol 31, Issue 85
**************************************

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..."


A list of common acronyms is available at
        http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/acronyms.cgi
(They are also visible in the web archive copy of each digest.)