Avodah Mailing List

Volume 31: Number 95

Tue, 21 May 2013

• 1. Re: 50 (Micha Berger)
• 2. Reform Practice in Orthodox Shuls (Prof. Levine)
• 3. Re: 50 (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: Reform Practice in Orthodox Shuls (Ben Waxman)
• 5. Re: Reform Practice in Orthodox Shuls (Zev Sero)
• 6. : Re: Electricity on Shabbas - R' Asher Weiss (Chana Luntz)
• 7. Re: 50 (Liron Kopinsky)
• 8. Re: 50 (Zev Sero)
• 9. Re: Reform Practice in Orthodox Shuls (Prof. Levine)
• 10. Re: Reform Practice in Orthodox Shuls (Zev Sero)
• 11. Re: Reform Practice in Orthodox Shuls (Harry Maryles)
• 12. Re: Reform Practice in Orthodox Shuls (Micha Berger)
• 13. Re: orlah (Micha Berger)
• 14. Re: More on Rabbi Riskin Permits Women to Read Ruth for Men (Micha Berger)
• 15. Re: Reform Practice in Orthodox Shuls (Zev Sero)

On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 04:31:30PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote:
:>> A very clear outright statement that yovel drifts -- sometimes it's on
:>> year 1 of the cycle, other times in the middle of the cycle, etc...
: 
:> Of course it's a clear statement if you supply bracketed text that isn't  
:> in the original.  Translating your quote:
: 
:>    However, according to the one who says Yovel is included in the
:>    shmittah cycle, sometimes [the eved ivri goes free] in the middle of
:>    a shmittah cycle.

: "Hu ba" is "the eved ivri goes free"? The noun in the sentence, about
: which "hu" would apply is "hayovel"...
: Nor does "ba" talk about going free.

To clarify, a translation without brackets:
    However, according to the one who says Yovel is included in the
    count of years of sabbatical, sometimes it/he comes in the middle
    of the years of a sabbatical.

How is that ambiguous?

On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 04:51:16PM -0500, Lisa Liel wrote:
> "Hu" is the end of the slave's service.

But that is arbitrarily assigning a pronoun to a noun not under
discussion. There is no mention of the end of the slave's service, as
a "hu" to be referring to. Whereas the yovel is not only a noun under
discussion, it is the last candidate prior in the self-same sentence.

If you insist that the QhE is speaking specifically of yovel being in the
year 1, even so he means "sometimes yovel is in the middle", as years 2
to 6 are only 5 years of servitude, not 6. But I don't see indication
the QhE is saying it's specifically year 1, rather than the part you
quote saying "e.g. year 1". He spends all that time on this case,
but also (beginning of the 2nd long line of that d"h in the Vilna ed
at <http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14142&;st=&pgnum=391>)
"debeshe'ar shenei shavua' airi qera" -- any of the other 6, not just
the first.

Note also the Penei Moshe (2nd narrow line), "... lif'amim hayoveil
qodem hashmitah..."

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It's nice to be smart,
mi...@aishdas.org        but it's smarter to be nice.
http://www.aishdas.org                   - R' Lazer Brody
Fax: (270) 514-1507

At 06:07 PM 5/20/2013, avodah-requ...@lists.aishdas.org wrote:
> If I'm not mistaken, the practice of having the rav's drasha in 
> English was also started by the Reform. Indeed, I think the practice 
> of having the rav speak *at all* (other than Shabbos Shuva and 
> Shabbos Hagadol) was started by the Reform.

Not in English but in German! We are talking about Germany not America.
For the record R. Jacob Ettlinger spoke in German rather than in Yiddish.

In America, Isaac Leeser (19th century) spoke on Shabbos in English and
he was certainly not Reform. Rabbi Avraham Rice who came to Baltimore
in 1840 spoke in German.

Even earlier, before the Revolution, Gershom Mendes Seixas spoke in
English. This was long before there was any Reform movement in America.


At 06:07 PM 5/20/2013, R. Kenneth Miller wrote:
>And when all is said and done, what's so terrible if a bunch of 
>people say kaddish, all at different speeds, such that few or no 
>people actually hear and respond? At worst, they will have said 
>kaddish pointlessly, and we will not have satisfied the minhag of 
>having a kaddish at that particular part of the service. But it 
>isn't a bracha l'vatala, nor does it even contain any Shaymos. I 
>think we're better off putting our energy into more attentive during 
>Chazaras Hashatz.

Rav Ettlinger did not agree with what you have written.  He was 
strongly opposed to this sort of Bilbul and we should also be opposed 
to it.   What a certain modicum of decorum for our davening?  Saying 
kaddish the way you describe is, IMO,  not in consonance with this.

YL

At 6:01pm EDT, I wrote:
: To clarify, a translation without brackets:
:     However, according to the one who says Yovel is included in the
:     count of years of sabbatical, sometimes it/he comes in the middle
:     of the years of a sabbatical.
...
: If you insist that the QhE is speaking specifically of yovel being in the
: year 1....
: but also (beginning of the 2nd long line of that d"h in the Vilna ed
: at <http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14142&;st=&pgnum=391>)
: "debeshe'ar shenei shavua' airi qera" -- any of the other 6, not just
: the first.

: Note also the Penei Moshe (2nd narrow line), "... lif'amim hayoveil
: qodem hashmitah..."

Add R Meis Simcha haKohein miDvinsk ad loc, who discusses the implications
of yovel going out of sync with shemitah at length.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When faced with a decision ask yourself,
mi...@aishdas.org        "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now,
http://www.aishdas.org   at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?"
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter

No surprise that a German rabbi would want seder in shul. Yekkes.

Ben

On 5/21/2013 2:37 AM, Prof. Levine wrote:
 >
 > Rav Ettlinger did not agree with what you have written.  He was
 > strongly opposed to this sort of Bilbul and we should also be opposed
 > to it.   What a certain modicum of decorum for our davening? Saying
 > kaddish the way you describe is, IMO,  not in consonance with this.
 >
 > YL

>> If I'm not mistaken, the practice of having the rav's drasha in
>> English was also started by the Reform. Indeed, I think the practice
>> of having the rav speak *at all* (other than Shabbos Shuva and
>> Shabbos Hagadol) was started by the Reform.

You are not mistaken.  Both were Reform innovations that were opposed
by the Orthodox for some time.   Actually you needn't except Shabbos
Shuva and Hagadol; it was never traditional for a sermon to be included
in the Shabbos morning service at all.   The traditional time for
speaking on Shabbos was in the afternoon before Mincha.   In Eastern
Europe the rov of the town was expected to speak then only twice a year;
but many/most towns had a maggid as well, whose job it was to speak
regularly (I don't know how regularly), and there were also travelling
maggidim who would be invited to speak, all on Shabbos afternoon.


> Not in English but in German! We are talking about Germany not America.

Well, yes, the Reform innovation was speaking in the vernacular, whatever
that happened to be.


> Even earlier, before the Revolution, Gershom Mendes Seixas spoke in
> English.

Are you sure?  My information (which may be inaccurate) is that the
introduction of English sermons to Shearith Israel, in the mid-19th
century, was controversial.

-- 
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

RJIR writes:
>JIR-WADR as I posted there- I have heard R' Weiss mention this more than
once and he has always said that based on that Yerushalmi anything that
chazal >thought shouldn't be done on Shabbat and did not fit into one of the
other 39 mlachot, would be forbidden as maakeh bpatish.  Very subjective but
that's >the way halacha is sometimes (as in another favourite of r' Weiss -
masruha lchachamim [and libi omer li])

Does that mean that R' Weiss is in fact understanding all this as a
d'rabbanan?  It sounds like it from the way you describe it above: -
something Chazal thought shouldn't be done on shabbas (eg business dealings)
are generally understood to be banned d'rabbanan.  

Or are you saying that he is saying that if chazal thought something should
be banned they called it a d'orisa when really it was their own idea?
(Sounds potentially like apikorsis to me) or, perhaps more palatably, that
they were merely using an asmachta b'alma for their ban?

Or are you saying - as I have sometimes heard said (and this is where
masruha l'chachamim may come in) that the Chachamim were given the power to
define melachos of this nature?  I know some people say it vis a vis shiurim
and the like - ie the Torah gave the power over to the chachamim to provide
certain definitions, such as shiurim, which are d'rabbanan, but which
operate in a Torah context, but it is a long way from that to defining the
scope of a d'orisa itself.  If the Chachamim generally had such a power,
then how do we ever have d'rabbanans regarding any shabbas melacha?  They
are all really d'orisas (of course that can get into the whole discussion
about how all d'rabbanans might also be d'orisos because of listening to the
Chachamim etc but trying to avoid that, as it is not strictly relevant
here), please define what you are saying.  Are you saying that according to
RAW, if I use electricity to intentionally do a meaningful task (however
that is defined) I am over on the issur d'orisa of makeh b'patish, or am I
merely over on an issur d'rabbanan of makeh b'patish?

If the former, which is how I understood RAW from RYA - we don't need a
mention of the Chachamim, that is what the Torah meant by makeh b'patish
(just that we may not have known for many years, because we did not know
about electric devices).  If the latter, then it seems to me we have a
problem.  Because while I would not disagree that if Chazal had known about
the uses that electricity are put to today, they would have banned it (maybe
on the grounds of makeh b'patish, maybe on other grounds, eg a separate
gezera, who knows), once you start saying that there is no Torah issur, then
you end up with the issue of the power of modern days rabbis to make
gezeros, as we have discussed in the past see eg
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol26/v26n261.shtml#03 - Rav Ovadiah if you
recall, (in Yabiat Omer Volume 10 siman Orech Chaim siman 26) objects to the
Tzitz Eliezer who said that we should not place cold soup on an off hotplate
before shabbas (which will subsequently come on on time clock) lest we come
to do it on shabbas, lest we come to stir.  And ROY objected that this was
creating a new gezera and that we cannot today create new gezeros, based
inter alia on a Yerushalmi.  To go having this as the fundamental  basis for
the ban on electricity makes it very shaky indeed.   Of course, you can
always fall back on minhag - if the minhag is not to use electricity (just
like the minhag is not to use umbrellas, even for those who think the Chatam
Sofer is 100% right and who reject the halachic reasoning of the Nodeh
B'Yehuda, or the minhag of Ashkenazim is not to eat kitniyos on pesach) then
that is the minhag.  But then we are not discussing the Chachamim, and their
powers, and any real torah definition or even rabbinic definition of makeh
b'patish, but minhag, which can attach to anything, especially where there
is a snif l'issur.


>JIR-R' Nissan Kaplan has a whole thing on why new refrigerators are a
problem because of the continuous information transfer in the solid state
>thermostat that tells the refrigerator compressor what to do.  I suspect
the response that it is all on a scale not observable by the human eye was
>rejected by him.

Sounds like it, but I wonder how widely this is going to be accepted.
People cannot survive without refrigerators today, and it will no doubt
rapidly become the case that you cannot find a refrigerator without these
mechanims (what? Frum Israelis are going to build refrigerators from scratch
purely to satisfy the frum market?).  And this is not something like a light
that you can disable without affecting the rest of the workings of the
refrigerator.  I therefore suspect that the olam will end up relying on
somebody (anybody) who is more makil in this regard (whether based on the
scale not being observable to the human eye or other reasons to matir) - so
purely for pragmatic reasons I can't see this as being a psak that will be
generally accepted - as well as gezeros that the people cannot live with,
there are also halachic positions that the people cannot live with, and I
suspect this may be one of them.

>Joel Rich

Regards

Chana

On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 10:39 PM, Zev Sero <z...@sero.name> wrote:
> The only eved who goes free after seven years is a thief who is unable to
> repay what he has stolen and the kefel; why would thefts be more common in
> the first year of shemitah than in any other year?

I thought it was only if he couldn't pay what was stolen and that one is
not sold into avdut if they can't pay the kefel. Your question still holds
- I would expect thefts to be more common closer to Yovel (or shmita if
that would also set one free.)


On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 11:26 PM, Lisa Liel <l...@starways.net> wrote:
> It's not that.  It's that buyers are more likely to buy in the first year,
> because that way they get 6 years of work.  If they buy in the 6th year,
> the guy goes free the next year.  It's bad business.

Why would the price of a slave be the same if he's only going to work for 1
year vs working for 6? Presumably if the eved is only going to have to work
4 years, the master would pay 4/6 of the price. This does however raise I
question I had, as Rashi (Kiddushin 15A D'H Mishum d'Avad Lei Shesh) seems
to assume like you're saying, that the master would pay the full amount,
regardless of when the slave goes free.

Kol Tuv,
Liron
-- 
Liron Kopinsky
liron.kopin...@gmail.com

On 21/05/2013 12:33 AM, Liron Kopinsky wrote:
> On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 10:39 PM, Zev Sero <z...@sero.name> wrote:
>> The only eved who goes free after seven years is a thief who is unable to
>> repay what he has stolen and the kefel; why would thefts be more common in
>> the first year of shemitah than in any other year?

> I thought it was only if he couldn't pay what was stolen and that one is
> not sold into avdut if they can't pay the kefel. Your question still holds
> - I would expect thefts to be more common closer to Yovel (or shmita if
> that would also set one free.)

You're right.  If he can pay the principal he is not sold, and the kefel
remains as a debt that he must discharge as soon as he can.  But as you
say, this doesn't change my question.


> Presumably if the eved is only going to have to work
> 4 years, the master would pay 4/6 of the price. This does however raise I
> question I had, as Rashi (Kiddushin 15A D'H Mishum d'Avad Lei Shesh) seems
> to assume like you're saying, that the master would pay the full amount,
> regardless of when the slave goes free.

We shouldn't read too much into this Rashi, since this is discussing a hava
amina that we might have entertained, had the Torah not explicitly said that
he goes free at the yovel even if he hasn't served his six years.  Hava aminas
like this are often not fully thought out.  In the hypothetical universe in
which the Torah didn't say that such a person goes free at the yovel, we
might indeed have said let him serve the full six, and let the buyer pay the
full price.  In the real world, if he's sold within six years of the yovel he
serves less than six, so the buyer obviously pays less, because why would
anyone pay the full price for less than the full value?  It's not as if BD
can force anyone to buy the eved for more than he's willing to pay!

Actually it seems to me that Rashi should have said "the victim" instead of
"the master", and this would make more sense.  Because it's really the victim
who loses by the yovel coming within the six years; he's the one who must make
do with a smaller payout.



-- 
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 10:19 PM 5/20/2013, Ben Waxman wrote:
>No surprise that a German rabbi would want seder in shul. Yekkes.

And here I was under the (apparently)  mistaken impression that 
proper behavior on the part of those in shul required order and 
decorum! >:-} YL
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On 20/05/2013 10:19 PM, Ben Waxman wrote:
> On 5/21/2013 2:37 AM, Prof. Levine wrote:

>> Rav Ettlinger did not agree with what you have written.  He was
>> strongly opposed to this sort of Bilbul and we should also be opposed
>> to it.   What a certain modicum of decorum for our davening? Saying
>> kaddish the way you describe is, IMO,  not in consonance with this.

> No surprise that a German rabbi would want seder in shul. Yekkes.

But order in German shuls is itself a 19th-century innovation.  Before
then German shuls were just as disorderly as Polish ones.  Adopting
German sensibilities about order was part of trying to be more German
and less Jewish.


-- 
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?Tue, 5/21/13, Zev Sero?<z...@sero.name>?wrote:
But order in German shuls is itself a 19th-century innovation.? Before
then German shuls were just as disorderly as Polish ones.? Adopting
German sensibilities about order was part of trying to be more German
and less Jewish.------------------?I can't speak to the history or origin
of German Jewry WRT order and decorum in the Shul. But to say that order
and decorum stems from a desire to be more German and less Jewish is to be
Motzi Laz in the Beis HaMikdash itself!
Does anyone believe for a moment that there was no order and decorum in the
Beis HaMikdash? ...that Kohanim used to shmooze while they were doing the
Avodah? The Shul is after all called a Mikdash Me'at. As such we ought to
emulate the kind of behavior one would expect in the Beis HaMikdash...
which definitely orderly and I suspect was highly decorous.
That many Shuls - especially Chasidishe Shtieblach - don't have proper decorum is a flaw! ...and nothing to be praised!?
That Reform Temples have a greater sense of decorum than Orthodox Shuls is something we Orthodox ought to be ashamed of.
HM

Want Emes and Emunah in your life? 



Try this: http://haemtza.blogspot.com/

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On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 06:52:56AM -0700, Harry Maryles wrote:
: Does anyone believe for a moment that there was no order and decorum
: in the Beis HaMikdash? ...that Kohanim used to shmooze while they were
: doing the Avodah? ...

But was it Yekke-level decorum? Not all lack of decorum is off topic and
unreligious. Do you know if the BHMQ more resembled KAJ or the cacophony
of davening in the Slonimer beis medrash? I wouldn't hazard a guess.

In any case, someone suggested on list in the past that group Qaddish was
encouraged in an era where shul attendance was falling off. If an aveil
knows that missing shul means missing saying Qaddish, duty and love of
one's parent gets them to shul. And I know MANY people who became much
more meticulous about making it to shul for the rest of their lives
after the habits built during aveilus.

But I wonder about the Arukh laNeir's position. On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 10:19am
EDT, R/Prof YLevine quoted Dr Judith Bleich:
:     [Rav] Ettlinger's reason for objection to communal recitation is
:     that the voices? are blurred and. indistinct and that the recitation
:     degenerates into a babble of voices, in which each mourner recites the
:     prayer at his own pace, the result being that the kaddish is inaudible
:     to the congregation. This, says [Rav] Ettlinger, is unacceptable
:     since the essence of the kaddish is a call for sanctification of
:     the Divine Name and the prayer is thus utterly meaningless if it
:     is incomprehensible to an attentive congregation. He maintains
:     that there is, however, a fundamental distinction between Ashkenazic
:     and Sephardic practice....

Is he invoking trei qolei lo mishtamaei and making it sitauational
-- Ashk can't separate out the voices, but Seph learned how thorough
practice? Or that the problem is everyone going their own pace, which
wouldn't happen among Seph? This is the more natural read, but poses a
simple solution already suggested here multiple times: all the aveilim
should keep themselves in sync?

Also, why raise issues of the appropriate way to declare qedushas hasheim
when there is a black-letter problem? If each aveil goes their own pace,
there will often (inevitably?) be an aveil who isn't getting a minyan of
people answering him!

Li nir'eh, this was his iqar:
:     It is precisely such an attitude of trepidation with regard to any
:     change of hallowed tradition that [Rav] Ettlinger wishes to foster.
:     Addressing himself to the question of the proposed change, he
:     declares, "I am altogether astonished at how you can describe as
:     a wonderful and proper innovation the changing of a Jewish custom
:     which has been followed in all parts of Germany and Poland for over
:     300 years." To effect such a change, Ettlinger adds, is "to walk in
:     the footsteps of the Reformers of our time who have changed the form
:     of prayer and have introduced this custom."

It's not the merits of this particular change that is at issue, but
making a levee around change in general. In which case, his fears are
de facto hora'as sha'ah -- the necessary size of a levee is a function
of the size of the waves.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             We are what we repeatedly do.
mi...@aishdas.org        Thus excellence is not an event,
http://www.aishdas.org   but a habit.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                   - Aristotle

On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 11:06:37PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote:
: we say that the land no longer has kedusha on a Torah level. If so how can
: Orlah today be more chamur than chutz laaretz which is halacha lemoshe
: mi-siai and so has several kulot.
...
: R Chaim Kanevsky gives an answer that Orlah started immediately upon
: entering the land and not 14 years later. We didnt find the answer very
: convincing...

The Yerushalmi (Orlah 1:2 3b) says that chalah and orlah are more chamur
because it was chal mishenichnas, and not when the land was divided. The
pasuq says "bevo'akhem" rather than "ki savo'u". And therefore plants
in reshus harabim, or someone who obtained a non-Jew's planting, or
a gazlan's planting or even natural spontaneous growth are chayavim
in orlah.

So don't "blame" RCK, chazal establish the chumerah.

We learn in Eirkhin (32b) that kol yosheveha aleha means not "merely"
the majority of Jews are in EY, but that each sheivet is in their own
territory. (Albeit apparently not their G-d-given nachalah, as neither
Dan nor Shim'on never manage to conquer their nachalos.) And therefore
yovel and shemittah have been derabbanan ever since the 2-1/2 shevatim
mei'eiver hanahar were displaced.

Orlah cannot require this, as it started before the majority of the
conquest.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Never must we think that the Jewish element
mi...@aishdas.org        in us could exist without the human element
http://www.aishdas.org   or vice versa.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                     - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch

On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 03:41:46PM +0300, Prof. Aryeh A. Frimer wrote:
: R. Riskin ignores Tosaphot Sukah 38a explaining the Behag, Semag Esin
: Derabbanan 4, and Magen Avraham 689:5, who maintain that the problem of
: women reading Megilat Esther for men is Kevod Hatzibbur -- which would
: apply equally for Ruth as it would for Esther!

It depends... If the problem with kevod hatzibur is that it looks
like a bunch of mechuyavim couldn't do the mitzvah themselves and in
their incompetence had to turn to an einah mechuyves to help them out,
would that apply to a minhag? No one is actually obligated to read Rus
altogether. And the versions of the minhag we do today post-date even
Mes' Soferim. Is it a kevod hatzibur problem to make it look like the
men were to incompetent to do a minhag?

(Despite the repeated rephrase of my question, I didn't mean it
rhetorically. I really can't form an opinion one way or the other.)

Perhaps statements about kevod hatzibur and women leading pesuqei
dezimra would parallel. It too dates to the geonic period, and isn't
really a chiyuv.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One who kills his inclination is as though he
mi...@aishdas.org        brought an offering. But to bring an offering,
http://www.aishdas.org   you must know where to slaughter and what
Fax: (270) 514-1507      parts to offer.        - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv

On 21/05/2013 10:40 AM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 06:52:56AM -0700, Harry Maryles wrote:
> : Does anyone believe for a moment that there was no order and decorum
> : in the Beis HaMikdash?

Absolutely.  We know that the BHMK was a chaotic place that would have
appalled the orderly Germans of the 19th century.  Kohanim running around
up to their ankles in blood, people conducting all sorts of business in
the Ezras Nashim, the sounds and smells of a slaughterhouse (there were
no flies and no meat ever rotted, but the intestines' contents still smelt
as normal), etc.


> ...that Kohanim used to shmooze while they were doing the Avodah? ...

I don't know whether they were allowed to chat during an avodah itself;
I imagine not, because it would be a hesech hada'as.  But I see no reason
to suppose they couldn't chat between avodos.  For most of the day there
was no "the avodah", each kohen was either doing an avodah at that moment
or he wasn't.




> Also, why raise issues of the appropriate way to declare qedushas hasheim
> when there is a black-letter problem? If each aveil goes their own pace,
> there will often (inevitably?) be an aveil who isn't getting a minyan of
> people answering him!

Where is it written that one needs a minyan answering?  One needs a minyan
in the room, but why must they hear, let alone answer?   "Tish'a onim" is
only written about chazaras haShaTz, and even that is only "karov birchaso
lihyos bracha levatala", not an actual bracha levatalah.  (My brother once
inadvertently triggered a dispute on the exact difference between "karov"
and an actual BlV.)



> It's not the merits of this particular change that is at issue, but
> making a levee around change in general. In which case, his fears are
> de facto hora'as sha'ah -- the necessary size of a levee is a function
> of the size of the waves.

Exactly.  At a time when it was necessary to resist the changes proposed
by the Reformers, accepting *any* change, even a good one, would weaken
that resistance.  The Reformers would immediately point to it and say
"see, you make changes too, so what's wrong with our changes?".   And
yet the fact is that the German Orthodox did make changes, and precisely
where to draw the line was a contentious issue among them.


-- 
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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End of Avodah Digest, Vol 31, Issue 95
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