Avodah Mailing List

Volume 32: Number 48

Fri, 21 Mar 2014

• 1. How to Teach History (Ben Waxman)
• 2. Re: Esther (Zev Sero)
• 3. Re: Congregation B'nai Yeshurun Hosts First-Ever 'Internet Minyan' (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: Congregation B'nai Yeshurun Hosts First-Ever 'Internet Minyan' (Zev Sero)
• 5. Nadav and Avihu (sholom)
• 6. Re: Can Xerxes be Achashverosh - Jewish Chronology (Lisa Liel)
• 7. Rav Elya Lopian: tefillin and radio (Kenneth Miller) (David Riceman)
• 8. Re: chassidaztion of halacha (Arie Folger)
• 9. Re: Rav Elya Lopian: tefillin and radio (Zev Sero)
• 10. Re: How to Teach History (Micha Berger)
• 11. Re: Esther (Micha Berger)
• 12. Re: Etz hada'at (David Riceman)
• 13. Re: Esther (Allan Engel)
• 14. Re: How to Teach History (Ben Waxman)
• 15. Zachor and Zechor (Kenneth Miller)

[Truth in avertising, I edited the subject line when reposting
this to Avodah. -micha]

Rabbi Wein: http://www.rabbiwein.com/blog/post-1598.html
    They occupy no space or time in many Orthodox schools and days
    of commemoration of these events are absent on school calendars.
    Instead there is a mindset that hunkers back to an idyllic Eastern
    European world of fantasy that is portrayed falsely in fictional
    stories, hagiographic biographies and omissions of uncomfortable
    facts and doctored photographs -- to a world that never was.

Contrast this to a classic from Rabbi Schwab:
    What ethical purpose is served by preserving a realistic historic
    picture? Nothing but the satisfaction of curiosity. We should tell
    ourselves and our children the good memories of the good people,
    their unshakable faith, their staunch defense of tradition, their
    life of truth, their impeccable honesty, their boundless charity and
    their great reverence for Torah and Torah sages. What is gained by
    pointing out their inadequacies and their contradictions? We want to
    be inspired by their example and learn from their experience... Rather
    than write the history of our forebears, every generation has to
    put a veil over the human failings of its elders and glorify all the
    rest which is great and beautiful. That means we have to do without a
    real history book. We can do without. We do not need realism, we need
    inspiration from our forefathers in order to pass it onto posterity.
    Selected Writings (Lakewood, 1988)

On 20/03/2014 8:41 AM, Lisa Liel wrote:
>
> It's commas. As in the difference between "Let's eat grandma" and
> "Let's eat, grandma". Since Hebrew doesn't have commas, the verse can
> either be identifying Mordechai as the great-grandson of Kish, and then
> saying Mordechai was exiled, or it can be identifying Mordechai as the
> great-grandson of the exile Kish.

Then it should all be in one long pasuk, and the trop should join Kish to
"ish yemini" and "asher hoglah".

In any case, I got that; what I challenged was the claim that "anyone born
in galut is as if they were exiled".   That is just a ridiculous explanation,
because how can such a person be considered part of a *specific* exile?
The ad absurdum extension of that idea is that babies born in Iraq in the
20th century were part of one of the many exiles to Bavel, but which one?


-- 
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

I'm not sure the desired advantage is a halachic chalos. For all we know,
RHS was asked to help the homebound have a kavanah-aiding experience
and a sense of community by appealing to as much of the nostalgia of
the minyanim of their past as permissable, and not a minyan at all.

I need more than this article to really know what we're talking about
for this kind of analysis. The above is just a possible alternative to
the take the writer leads us to. It is equally possible that, like one
possibility raised by RMF about qerias hamegillah, RHS holds that the
voice that comes out of a speaker is the same qol as the voice in the
microphone that caused it. But what about members of a minyan needing
to be connected by lines of sight? I simply don't know what the real
discussion was.

Also, we are discussing the homebound. Ein danin es ha'efshar mishe'i
efshar. Not all the commentors there seem to realize that.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Strength does not come from winning. Your
mi...@aishdas.org        struggles develop your strength When you go
http://www.aishdas.org   through hardship and decide not to surrender,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      that is strength.        - Arnold Schwarzenegger

On 20/03/2014 9:00 AM, Rich, Joel wrote:
> Yes, there is certainly a preference for davening at the same time (as
> there is for davening in a shul) but I don't recall anyone claiming that
> this is fulfilling tfila btzibbur. Perhaps you could provide a citation?

What does it mean to "fulfil" tefilah betzibur?   What is the point of
davening betzibur?  Because Hashem is listening.  Berachos bottom of 7b
and top of 8a says that one can achieve the same thing by davening at
the same time as the tzibur.   It's not as good as actually being part
of that tzibur, and therefore having the Shechinah present, etc., but
it seems to fulfil the essence of tefilah betzibur.

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

 

> I find it mystifying why Nadav and Avihu paid with their life for
a sin we are not even sure of. It says strange fire, whatever that
means. Moshe Rabbeinu?s sins of smashing the Tablets and not speaking to
the rock seemed quite serious, and yet, he didn?t pay with his life, at
least not immediately. I have seen explanations given which only
weakened the argument. Any new insights?

I like your question. (And,
I'm giving a short vort tonight in a kiruv context, and this is exactly
the question I'm addressing).

There's a chassidishe view that Nadav and
Avihu got exactly what they wanted. Their whole lives they were
separating themselves from the community in order to be "more holy" from
their (incorrect) definition of kedusha. It is for this reason, e.g.,
that they didn't marry. They thought they could get closer to H' without
having to worry about the mundane aspects of life (such as marriage).
(This is the view some clergy have in other places, right?) It is _this_
that was the "strange fire" that "H' did not command" that they
brought.

They wanted to become as close to H" as possible. H" gave them
what they wanted -- that's why were were "consumed" (and not "punished")
just like a korban. In fact, and crucially, note the similar phrasealogy
between how Aharon's korbanos had just been accepted and what happened
to them. (9:24 "Vateitzei eish milifnei H' v'tochal al hamizbeach es
ha'olah... " vs 10:2 "Vateitzei eish milifnei H' v'tochal osam...")

One
of the simple messages for us (besides the obvious: "do what H' says,
don't try to improvise") is that we're not to be like Nadav and Avihu,
who, had they could, would have sat on a mountaintop, celebate,
communing with H'. We're supposed to get into the world, interact with
it. Elevate it. 
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On 3/20/2014 7:19 AM, Arie Folger wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 12:57 PM, Zev Sero <z...@sero.name> wrote:
>> It's not just Seder Olam, it's every single gemara and maamar Chazal that
>> mentions it. It's even hinted at in the Torah itself: "veshachanti" is
>> "veshachan TY" and "Vesheni TCh". You can't get away from the fact that
>> this is our history, and we have no other. To reject our history for that
>> of the Greeks is, if nothing else, demeaning.

> And Chazal were weaving Seder Olam through and through in their 
> teachings. No suprise here.

That's not good enough. You've got to posit a multigenerational hoax
that didn't let a single contradictory view through. It simply isn't
plausable. You only have two options. Either the Greek version of
history is correct, in which case Chazal are flat out wrong, and had no
real conception of how events transpired (not to mention the fact that
the unbroken mesorah is a fiction), or Chazal are right and the Greek
version of history is a reconstruction based on the tales of Herodotus
and others, who were not historians in any way that we understand the
term today, but were rather paid story tellers. Raconteurs.

(Yes, there's a third option, which is that both accounts are wrong,
but it's not particularly interesting.)

What is not possible is that Chazal were so incredibly dishonest that
they spent centuries perpetrating a fraud, and doctoring all documents
in order to support that fraud. Or rather, it's as unlikely as space
aliens killing JFK. And if it /were/ the case, we'd have no reason to
consider the entirety of Judaism an empty fraud as well.

Lisa

RAM (citing the internet):
>> R' Eliyahu Lopian once met one of his students in the hallway
>> holding a transistor radio. He asked the student, "Does the radio
>> really work without being plugged in to an electrical socket?" The
>> student answered that this was true. R' Lopian then said, "If even
>> one little screw was missing, I assume it would probably not
>> operate properly anymore."  The student answered that this was
>> also true.
>>
>> The student wondered what this conversation was all about, but R'
>> Lopian then revealed what he really was thinking about.  "If this
>> is true, why do we find it hard to believe that we if we position
>> a little box on our head (indicating the place of tefillin), it
>> channels kedusha from Shamayim without a visual connection?  This
>> is true only if the four parshiyos of the Torah are written with
>> complete perfection and kedusha.  If even one letter is defective,
>> the connection is lost and the kedusha is blocked.  We can
>> understand from the radio that this is true!  (Lev Eliyahu)
>
This analogy bothers me.  People who understand electronics can walk you 
through the circuit, wire and component by wire and component, and 
explain what each part does.  If one component is defective they can 
replace it and the circuit will work again.  It's a functional device in 
a very literal sense, and its current state determines it functionality.

Tefillin aren't like that.  They depend not only on the product, but on 
how they were written and on who wrote them.  The status of the object 
depends not only on its state, but also on its history.

Furthermore I doubt if anyone can point out, letter by letter and blank 
space by blank space, the function of each of its parts.

So what is the comparison? Is he just saying that they're both complex 
objects, or is he saying something more profound?

David Riceman

RET wrote:
> What bothered me was not the psak but the reason -
> as a child's gender should remain the way God created it and specifically
> that a boy/man has more mitzvot than a woman and so should not be clothed
> in a woman's garb

On teh contrary, I found that aspect of Rav Steinman's psak to be most
modern and insightful. If it were down to pure halakha, there should be no
reason to abstain from cross dressing babies who are still far from
reaching chinukh age. However, in our world in which gender is becoming a
fluid notion, divorced from biology, Rav Steinman is asserting that we
should proactively celebrate the fixedness of gender. It seems very
appropriate to do this as a meta halakhic value.
-- 
Arie Folger,
Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/
* Wieviel Feste feiern wir an Sukkot (Audio-Schiur)
* Die ethische Dimension des Schma Jissra?ls (Audio-Schiur)
* Ein Baum, der klug macht?! (Audio-Schiur)
* Podiumsdiskussion ?J?dische Religion zwischen Tradition und Moderne?
* Great Videos from the CER in Berlin
* A Priest Returns to his Faith
* The CER Berlin Conference in Pictures
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On 20/03/2014 6:01 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote:
> After all, we*do*  have a principle that one who attempts to do a
> mitzva, but is prevented from doing it, gets the s'char anyway. (I
> think the term is "machshava mitztaref l'maaseh".)

"Metzarfah lema'aseh" doesn't sound anything like "mekabel sechar".
There's a separate maamar chazal, "chashav laasos velo asah, maaleh alav
hakasuv ke'ilu asah".  That would be the source that he receives a reward,
because Hashem is kind and just.

Be that as it may, that's all about reward and punishment, not about
actual results.  The fact is that good intentions or not, nothing was
done. "Keman de'avad lo amrinan".

"Metzarfah lemaaseh" is something else; it means that a good intention is
joined to a good deed that was done without any intention, and together
they make a complete mitzvah.

-- 
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 Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 08:16:35PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote:
: Rabbi Wein: http://www.rabbiwein.com/blog/post-1598.html
...
:     Instead there is a mindset that hunkers back to an idyllic Eastern
:     European world of fantasy that is portrayed falsely in fictional
:     stories, hagiographic biographies and omissions of uncomfortable
:     facts and doctored photographs -- to a world that never was.
: 
: Contrast this to a classic from Rabbi Schwab:
:     What ethical purpose is served by preserving a realistic historic
:     picture? Nothing but the satisfaction of curiosity...

The first time we discussed it, I was surprised by RSS's inability
to find value in preserving realistic if imperfect pictures of good
people.

    Ki sheva yipol tzadiq vaqam,
    ursha'im yikashelu vera'ah.
                    - Mishlei 24:16

There is much to learn from how the great became great. Those of us
on the lower floors of personal refinement need to remember that
no one was born a gadol, and to get to where they ended up, they too
passed through these stages. Likely when they were far younger than I am.

And, as Shelomo says, much of life is about recovering from setbacks,
including personal failures. IOf we don't want to stumble and be destroyed
by our own wickedness, it would help to be inspired by how the tzadiqim
recovered.

After all, isn't this the style Tanakh is written in? Moreso, Chazal
tell us Tankah often exagerates the setbacks, showing imperfections to
of truth, to help us learn from various tzadiqim's failings by bringing
them into a scale we can relate to.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "The most prevalent illness of our generation is
mi...@aishdas.org        excessive anxiety....  Emunah decreases anxiety:
http://www.aishdas.org   'The Almighty is my source of salvation;  I will
Fax: (270) 514-1507      trust and not be afraid.'" (Isa 12) -Shalhevesya

On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 8:41 AM, Lisa Liel wrote:
> Since Hebrew doesn't have commas, the verse can either be identifying
> Mordechai as the great-grandson of Kish, and then saying Mordechai was
> exiled, or it can be identifying Mordechai as the great-grandson of
> the exile Kish. Then it should all be in one long pasuk, and the trop
> should join Kish to "ish yemini" and "asher hoglah".

Not so much the lack of commas. Aside from my trust in our mesorah of
trope for grammar queues, here it's a sof pasuq between "yemini" (2:4)
and "asher" (2:5).

Still, the main point of ambiguity stands, even if I would point to a
different cause.
Who is the subject of the "asher" -- Mordachai or Qish?

This might be related to the question of whether Matisyahu ben Yochanan
Kohain Gadol refers to Maisyahu as the kohein gadol, or as the son of
Yochanan Kohein Gadol.

For similar reasons, there is a shitah dechuyah that would have had
us sign shetaros "[Ne'um:] Re'uvein eid ben Ya'aqov" as opposed to our
ambiguous "Re'uvein ben Ya'aqov eid".

-Micha

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

RZL:
> But in any case, the original issue was not whether the end of the
> eitz ha-daas episode, with the keruvim, must be understood as a mashal.
> It was whether the Rambam's thesis about man's perceptionability of
> melachim would necessarily put the entire eitz ha-daas episode, from the
> beginning, exclusively into the realm of prophetic vision and mashal,
> making the only question "what is the nimshal in the nevuah?", not "what
> species is the tree?". I think not.

But why don't you think that? Your previous post argued:
> ... His
> logic (see 1:49 and 2:6) is that since melachim are not physical beings,
> they cannot be physically seen by humans, and therefore any narrative of
> a person seeing a malach must be speaking of what he saw in a prophetic
> vision.

That logic applies equally to any narrative predicating place of angels.

Furthermore, the Rambam himself (as I cited earlier) says

> if a story in the Bible contains a mal'ach, EVEN AT THE VERY END
> (emphasis mine), the entire story is a retelling of a prophetic vision
> rather than physical history (MN II:42)

The Rambam there makes no mention of "a person seeing an angel", he
mentions (tr. Friedlander) "the appearance or speech of an angel
mentioned in scripture". He says that you can learn the status of the
entire narrative from the appearance of an angel anywhere in it, even at
the end.

Perhaps you could give us a detailed commentary on the first paragraph
of MN II:42. I think you are contradicting its plain meaning.

David Riceman

On 20 March 2014 21:15, Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:
> For similar reasons, there is a shitah dechuyah that would have had
> us sign shetaros "[Ne'um:] Re'uvein eid ben Ya'aqov" as opposed to our
> ambiguous "Re'uvein ben Ya'aqov eid".

If Ya'aqov was the Eid, why would Re'uvein's name be there at all?

One of the underlying points of Rav Wein's piece is that group should 
learn to look at the faults of their own societies, not just the other 
guys weaknesses.  It is always easy and fun to point out the other guys 
problems (a sport which I take part in).

Ben

On 3/20/2014 11:48 PM, Prof. Levine wrote:
> There are those within our community who refuse to realize that there 
> was much wrong with Judaism in Europe. One thing that particularly 
> disturbs me is the fact that the Cheder system in Europe was an 
> abysmal failure (See Saul Stampfer's article about this.),   yet they 
> want to perpetuate this Cheder system. 

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Urim Publications printed a "Haggadah for Passover with commentary based on
the shiurim of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik" by Rabbi Yosef Adler of
Teaneck. On page 26, he quotes the Rambam, Chamtz Umatza 7:1:

"It is a positive mitzvah of the Torah to tell of the miracles and wonders
which were done for our ancestors in Egypt on the night of the 15th of
Nisan, as it is said, 'Remember this day when you left Egypt,' (Shemos
13:3) just as it says, 'Remember the Shabbos day.' (Shmos 20)"

He points out that it is odd for the Rambam to point to the pasuk of
"Zachor", when most other rishonim refer to "V'Higadta." The Rav says that
this "Zachor" (with a kamatz) is not the same word as "Zechor" (with a
sheva). "Zachor" is in both of these pesukim, while "Zechor" can be found
in Avinu Malkenu: "Zechor Ki Afar Anachnu."

He explains: "The word 'zachor' is not the imperative form of the verb 'to
remember'. 'Zechor' is the technical imperative. ... Zachor denotes a state
of constant awareness."

In other words, "Z'chor" (with a sheva) is the imperative "do it now!", and
is appropriate for Avinu Malkenu. But "Zachor" (with a kamatz) is
appropriate for Shabbos which we keep in mind all week, and for Yetzias
Mitzrayim which we keep in mind all year.

Over the years, I have longed for a concordance, not of words and
shorashim, but of vowels and tenses. Such a work would make it simple to
examine similar constructions and their meanings. The drasha above about
Zachor and Z'chor finally motivated me enough to actually gather the data
and publish it, and now I'm offering it to the chevra. Whoever is
interested, send me an email, and I'll tell you more information about the
file format and size. (It includes all words in Chumash, but not the rest
of Tanach.)

For now, let me just tell you some of my findings: "Zachor" (with kamatz)
appears in the two psukim mentioned in the Rambam, and three times in
Devarim: 7:18, 24:9, and 25:17. My list is purely alphabetical, so all the
kamatz-cholam words are together, including "gadol", "chayos" and "Nachor",
among many others. It's not easy to pick out all the verbs, depending on
your skills.

I don't know why Rav Soloveitchik went to Avinu Malkenu for an example of
Z'chor (with sheva) -- it appears in Shemos 32:13, and Devarim 9:7, 9:27,
and 32:7. Perhaps he chose it because it is so familiar, but some of these
four might come close.

These 5 Zachors and 4 Z'chors can be found in any concordance, because you
know which verb they are. The value in the list I'm offering is that it can
tell you what *other* verbs exist with the same structure. For example,
"r'dof" (Bereshis 44:4) and "k'vor" (3 times in Bereshis 23) are clearly
one-time commands. But "machor" (Devarim 14:21) also sounds like a one-time
case. (Interestingly, the vast majority of kamatz-cholam verbs that I
looked up turn out to be the first word of a doubled verb, and I don't
think it's fair to compare those with "zachor", which is just a single
word.)

Akiva Miller
KennethGMil...@juno.com
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