Avodah Mailing List

Volume 33: Number 14

Sun, 25 Jan 2015

• 1. Subject: Re: cutting tephillin retzuos (David Wacholder)
• 2. Re: cutting tephillin retzuos ()
• 3. Re: cutting tephillin retzuos (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: cutting tephillin retzuos (elazar teitz)
• 5. Re: cutting tephillin retzuos (Zev Sero)
• 6. Bacon and Eggs Comfort Food - Sakana (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi)
• 7. Re: Iron and bronze (was: cutting tephillin retzuos) (Lisa Liel)
• 8. Re: Iron and bronze (was: cutting tephillin retzuos) (Micha Berger)
• 9. Re: Iron and bronze (was: cutting tephillin retzuos) (Zev Sero)
• 10. Re: Iron and bronze (was: cutting tephillin retzuos) (Micha Berger)
• 11. Re: cutting tephillin retzuos (Micha Berger)
• 12. Re: cutting tephillin retzuos (Lisa Liel)
• 13. Learning Tanach At Night (Part 1) (Prof. Levine)

Micha asked an "Eizene Kashya" - a question with solidity.

Moshe gave the oral laws to Yehoshua - and 3000 Halachos [assertions and
statements?] were forgotten in the mourning period or interregnum between
Moshe and Yehoshua. Osniel ben Knaz restores them with His Pilpul -

Is it proper to say:
We prefer to have exact transmission of Torah - as described in the KBH's
teaching of Moshe Rabeinu.

Moshe delivers from his side the Torah perfectly  - metaphorically as if
hewn in stone. Every source from the Ksav was clear and every conclusion
was clear.

Just as the luchos were symmetric and multi-surfaced, the entire Torah was
extending that geometric perfection, including all word meanings and
translations.

Although Yehoshua received an "entire united"  Torah,  that is measured,
exact, and self checking. Without Moshe's light and clarity - 3000 laws (a
symbolic number) became uncertain or misplaced, until Osniel Ben Knaz
returns them.

Did Osniel manage perfection - returning the exact Halacha every time -
like an engineer making a Six sigma perfection? That is the simplest
approach.

Or does he take imperfection and modify it toward a limit of "Zero distance
from Moshe Rabeinu receiving it at Sinai? Is Osniel's "model" or "copy"
identical? Or are we idealizing and visualizing Moshe Rabeinu at Sinai, but
lacking sundry elements of Sinai end up with weaknesses in the Presence of
Shchina (compared to Har Sinai) - which means that we are emulating but
likely falling short of absolute truth.

The first model is more perfect in envisioning it. The second model seems
much more robust. As Exiles and persecutions mount, the advantages of the
visualization of the Sinai Torah, without being able to reach it and get a
successful "self-check" - becomes more and more strength for the long term
adherence as closely as possible to Sinai.

Were there a Machlokes - Tanna Kamma says Barzel is Iron adn Tana Metziasa
says bronzed or tin - we would be forced to say it.

Igeres of Rav Sherira Gaon - address similar issues regarding the Mishnah.
It becomes another machlokes.

Even the actual Hebrew letters can have a similar debate.  Rashi made his
Chet with a flat roof, The gifted grandson - the Gadol Rabeinu Tam
preferred
a roof sloped up at the center - like a camel's hump. For argument's sake,
presume that in chasing Rabeinu Tam's hump - they completely changed the
roof so that Rabeinu Tam would never recognize it as a Ches, nor does Rashi
see any connection; Only the generations of perfectionist scribes
understands the road from Rashi to Rabeinu Tam to over eight centuries
later.

The normative letter - looks to us just like OUR  Ches is supposed to look
and no 850 year old uncle is here to argue -  becomes the Proper Ches - and
Rashi's Ches becomes obsolete - as an ideal.

I was taught that Torah's long term unsettled arguments date back to
Alexander's capture of Judea.  Instead of thriving Torah communities, Greek
culture and language became dominant in many places.  For many, only Greek
texts were comprehensible. thus was Torah forgotten.

-- 
David Wacholder
Email: dwachol...@gmail.com
dwachol...@optonline.net
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20150123/f0155339/attachment-0001.htm>

 


 
: The six metals listed in Mattos, Bamidbar 31:22, are gold, silver,  
copper 
: (presumably including bronze and brass), iron, tin and lead. I  can't 
: imagine on what basis RMB would say these metals were not all known  or 
not 
: widely used at the time the Torah was given. Why would he assume  that 
Betzalel
: "didn't have the technology" to make iron tools?  [--TK]]

Because the oldest evidence of Ironworks in the middle east  is
carbon-dated to 930 BCE, which according to Seder Olam would be one  year
after the split into Yehudah and Yisrael. Even if it existed some  350
earlier, it would at best be rare.... 
-- 
Micha  Berger              




>>>>>
 
 
 
 
See "Carbon Dating Gets a Reset" - Scientific American
 
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carbon-dating-gets-reset/
 
--quote--
 
Carbon dating is used to work out the age of organic material -- in  
effect, any living thing. The technique hinges on carbon-14, a radioactive  
isotope of the element that, unlike other more stable forms of carbon,  decays 
away at a steady rate. Organisms capture a certain amount of  carbon-14 from 
the atmosphere when they are alive. By measuring the ratio of the  radio 
isotope to non-radioactive carbon, the amount of carbon-14 decay can be  worked 
out, thereby giving an age for the specimen in question.
But that assumes that the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere was  
constant -- any variation would speed up or slow down the clock.  ....Various 
geologic, atmospheric and solar processes can influence atmospheric  carbon-14 
levels. 
Since the 1960s, scientists have started accounting for the variations by  
calibrating the clock against the known ages of tree rings. As a rule, 
carbon  dates are younger than calendar dates: a bone carbon-dated to 10,000 
years is  around 11,000 years old, and 20,000 carbon years roughly equates to 
24,000  calendar years.... 
The recalibrated clock won't force archaeologists to abandon old 
measurements  wholesale, says Bronk Ramsey, but it could help to narrow the window of 
key  events in human history.  
--end quote--
 

--Toby Katz
t6...@aol.com
..
=============


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





-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20150123/8ba45a74/attachment-0001.htm>

On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 3:45:11PM EST, RnTK wrote:
: Since the 1960s, scientists have started accounting for the variations by
: calibrating the clock against the known ages of tree rings. As a rule,
: carbon dates are younger than calendar dates: a bone carbon-dated to 10,000
: years is around 11,000 years old, and 20,000 carbon years roughly equates to
: 24,000 calendar years....
: The re-calibrated clock won't force archaeologists to abandon old
: measurements wholesale, says Bronk Ramsey, but it could help to narrow the window of
: key events in human history.

Notice that this means that 14C dating gets things too young. The wrong
direction for most of these questions. E.g. One can't blame carbon
dating for mistakenly saying that some society is older than the flood,
because indications are the error would be in the other direction.

Second, awareness of the need for calibration is now 50 years old --
it's already factored into the ages of things as they're now given.
There are numerous web forms for BP to calBP conversion, it's not
like this is some new secret. Raw numbers would be given as BP (before
present), calibrated ones as calBP, and BC[E] dates are based off calBP.

And last, the effect is non-linear and gets greater with age (10% on
10k years, 4% on 20k years). when you're talking about 3k years ago (BP),
the effect would be only 90 years. Still wouldn't be enough for iron to
be the typical material for swords, more than bronze all the way back
in Betzalel's day.

On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 09:14:16AM -0500, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
} And why would a rare metal be used as the generic term for metal?
} Obviously those dates are wrong.

As I wrote in the post Zev is replying to:
>                 However, taking the general and applying it to a newcomer
> is also something languages do. Such as "corn" (in American English).

So this particular argument doesn't stand... It could be that the
generic term for metal became the name for the new stuff, which had
no more particular name to be called by.

...
: The Rambam certainly had the word "matechet", and yet he says "barzel".
: Since nobody disputes this, it is the halacha.

But there is no indication he was using "barzel" because it's his own
word choice rather than the pasuq's. The Rambam does paraphrase sources
rather than write from scratch routinely.

And in terms of minhag... There are two reasons for the minhag of taking
knives off the table or covering them when bentching. One of them is
nidon didan - the table is like a mizbeiach. The other is a maaseh of
someone from whom the third berakhah was such a depressing reminder of
our lack of a BHMQ, he killed himself -- so we remove all temptation.

Still, the minhag is limited to metal knives. Both R Elyashiv and R Belsky
hold that plastic knives are not included. I mentioned earlier that it's
rare to find a non-disposable knife where even the blade wasn't steel,
but I could not find a source for excluding them.

The other problem is that no iron is found among the usually cited
evidence of qibbush ha'aretz. That doesn't mean that iron was entirely
absent. But it does argue that iron blades and spearheads were not going
to be the primary weaponry of the period.

I opened by inviting Lisa to participate, complete with a personal
CC. She is more equipped than I to assess the archeological evidence.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure.
mi...@aishdas.org        It preserves health, promotes convalescence,
http://www.aishdas.org   and helps us cope with adversity.
Fax: (270) 514-1507         - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei"

     I know little about the historic appearance of iron technology.
However, the Chumash tells us that Tuval Kayin was "loteish kol choreish
n'choshes uvarzel."  Since copper is mentioned along with barzel, it is
obvious that barzel is meant specifically, not as a generic term for metal,
so its technology was known, in some form, long before 930 BCE, and indeed
long before the mizbeiach was constructed; and Rashi's explanation of that
pasuk is that Tuval Kayin was an armorer, creating weapons of killing.

EMT
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20150124/16c9fad1/attachment-0001.htm>

On 01/24/2015 08:01 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> ...
> : The Rambam certainly had the word "matechet", and yet he says "barzel".
> : Since nobody disputes this, it is the halacha.
>
> But there is no indication he was using "barzel" because it's his own
> word choice rather than the pasuq's. The Rambam does paraphrase sources
> rather than write from scratch routinely.

What has *paraphrasing* sources got to do with this?  The Rambam *always*
writes clearly and in plain Hebrew, so anyone can understand him without
the need for any commentary or tradition.  The whole point of his work
is that a person can learn Tanach and Rambam and nothing else.   He *never*
uses an ambiguous word just because his source did.   And he certainly never
uses a  word in a sense that had been obsolete for over 1000 years, and his
readers couldn't be expected to know, just because a pasuk did!  Whenever he
means metal, he writes "matechet".  If he writes "barzel" he means iron and
nothing else.

Akiva Miller wrote - But what of a baal teshuva, or a ger, who has fond
memories of bacon and eggs as a child, and would be comforted by eating
some now in his illness? A Posek might allow it.

OK I will try to ask Reb Chaim Kanievsky this Q
Will anyone volunteer to ask someone else?

Best,

Meir G. Rabi
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20150124/2cd505a1/attachment-0001.htm>

On 1/23/2015 5:25 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 04:06:29PM -0500, via Avodah wrote:
>: The six metals listed in Mattos, Bamidbar 31:22, are gold, silver, copper
>: (presumably including bronze and brass), iron, tin and lead. I can't
>: imagine on what basis RMB would say these metals were not all known or not
>: widely used at the time the Torah was given. Why would he assume that Betzalel
>: "didn't have the technology" to make iron tools?

> Because the oldest evidence of Ironworks in the middle east is
> carbon-dated to 930 BCE, which according to Seder Olam would be one year
> after the split into Yehudah and Yisrael...

> But that wasn't my point. Think in more relative terms. Iron was by far
> not the dominant metal. Most swords were bronze. Why would Hashem ban
> iron and exclude bronze? "Lo sanif aleha barzel" makes more sense if
> barzel were meant in this context as a general term for metal.

The terms "iron age" and "bronze age" have nothing to do with iron usage
any more. Iron wasn't used in Egypt until very late in the Iron Age,
and it was used widely by the Hittites (the ones in what's now Turkey)
in the Bronze Age.

The original idea of three "ages" of stone, bronze and iron pre-dates
archaeology. The terms were used before any real information on metal
usage had developed. The division between bronze and iron was placed
around 1100 BCE due to the misreading of I Sam 13:19. For decades, though,
the terms have referred primarily to pottery styles. The actual words
"bronze" and "iron" are an artifact of the history of archaeological
study.

But metal usage was a big deal. There's no way barzel could have been
a generic term for metal. Particularly at a time when iron wasn't the
most commonly used metal. There can be any number of reasons why Hashem
banned iron for use on the mizbe'ach. The first one that comes to mind
is that iron shavings could have been left on the stone, and when they
rusted, it could have made the whole mizbe'ach look somewhat bloody.
Personally, I don't think we need a reason.

Lisa

One more question...

If one may use bronze or brass to build a mizbeiach, why all that
hullabaloo about the shamir?

Gut Voch!
-Micha

On 01/24/2015 11:42 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> If one may use bronze or brass to build a mizbeiach, why all that
> hullabaloo about the shamir?

They are not strong enough to work stone.  Only steel can work stone.

By the way, the shamir was unnecessary.  The second bayis and and Herod's
bayis were built just fine without it.  Only the mizbeach's stones can't be
touched by iron.  All the other stones are hewn in the normal fashion off-site;
iron tools are only not used on-site.  And the mizbeach is normally built of
natural unhewn stones.  *If* Shlomo used a shamir, it was only because he
wanted not to use iron even off-site.

On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 12:47:05AM -0500, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
: On 01/24/2015 11:42 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
:> If one may use bronze or brass to build a mizbeiach, why all that
:> hullabaloo about the shamir?

: They are not strong enough to work stone.  Only steel can work stone.

Most stones, no. But if the desert was as limestone filled as Yerushalayim,
they had a logical building material that could be cut by bronze.

For that reason, for Shelomo's builders, bronze would have been a
possibility, even though Shelomo wanted to go lifnim mishuras hadin and
not use barzel anywhere. And even in Shelmo's day, far cheaper and more
available than iron, even if presumably more difficult to use.

: By the way, the shamir was unnecessary. The second bayis and and Herod's
: bayis were built just fine without it. Only the mizbeach's stones can't be
: touched by iron....

Yeah, thinking about it... That din can't apply to the mishkan anyway.
They were told how to build both mizbeichos -- no call for stone.

But bamos were permitted concurrent to the mishkan.

:                                        And the mizbeach is normally built of
: natural unhewn stones.  *If* Shlomo used a shamir, it was only because he
: wanted not to use iron even off-site.

Whether or not Shelomo did actually use a shamir wouldn't change things
for our purposes. The story was told based on the need for an alternative
to normal masonry in Shas. Chazal (Sotah 48b, Y-mi Sotah 9:13, 45b)
neither got the halakhah wrong, nor would confuse us by perpetuating a
story that did. The elements of the story would have to work halachically,
even if the aggadita were pure myth.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             I long to accomplish a great and noble task,
mi...@aishdas.org        but it is my chief duty to accomplish small
http://www.aishdas.org   tasks as if they were great and noble.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                              - Helen Keller

On Sat, Jan 24, 2015 at 10:01:39PM +0200, elazar teitz via Avodah wrote:
:      I know little about the historic appearance of iron technology.
: However, the Chumash tells us that Tuval Kayin was "loteish kol choreish
: n'choshes uvarzel."  Since copper is mentioned along with barzel, it is
: obvious that barzel is meant specifically...

Or "copper [and its alloys] and other metal". Perat ukelal style.

In any case, the question isn't when the first person worked iron. It's
when iron outpaced bronze that the RBSO should tell us that iron is a
symbol of killing, but not mention bronze.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "And you shall love H' your G-d with your whole
mi...@aishdas.org        heart, your entire soul, and all you own."
http://www.aishdas.org   Love is not two who look at each other,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      It is two who look in the same direction.

On 1/24/2015 7:01 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> And last, the effect is non-linear and gets greater with age (10% on
> 10k years, 4% on 20k years). when you're talking about 3k years ago (BP),
> the effect would be only 90 years. Still wouldn't be enough for iron to
> be the typical material for swords, more than bronze all the way back
> in Betzalel's day.

The question isn't "was iron the typical material for swords?"  The 
question is "were swords the typical use for iron?"  And I think the 
answer to that question is a definite yes.

> And in terms of minhag... There are two reasons for the minhag of 
> taking knives off the table or covering them when bentching. One of 
> them is nidon didan - the table is like a mizbeiach. The other is a 
> maaseh of someone from whom the third berakhah was such a depressing 
> reminder of our lack of a BHMQ, he killed himself -- so we remove all 
> temptation. Still, the minhag is limited to metal knives. Both R 
> Elyashiv and R Belsky hold that plastic knives are not included. I 
> mentioned earlier that it's rare to find a non-disposable knife where 
> even the blade wasn't steel, but I could not find a source for 
> excluding them. The other problem is that no iron is found among the 
> usually cited evidence of qibbush ha'aretz. That doesn't mean that 
> iron was entirely absent. But it does argue that iron blades and 
> spearheads were not going to be the primary weaponry of the period. I 
> opened by inviting Lisa to participate, complete with a personal CC. 
> She is more equipped than I to assess the archeological evidence. 
> :-)BBii! -Micha 

Other than the Hittites of Asia Minor, iron was typically only obtained 
from meteor rocks.  It was very rare, and almost never used for anything 
other than weapons.  It was a major status symbol to have an iron weapon.

Lisa

 From http://tinyurl.com/pcyukjr

(This should not be relied upon for practical halacha. When a 
question arises a Rabbi should be consulted.)

The Source-

1. Harav Chaim Vital zt"l cites the Arizal that, based upon 
kabbalistic reasons, one should not read the written Torah (Tanach) 
at night. (Shaar Hamitzvos Veschanan page 35b)

This teaching is also cited by the Chida in numerous places (Birkei 
Yosef 1:13, 238:2, Chaim Shaul 2:25, Yosef Ometz 54). He writes that 
there is basis for this custom from the Medrash. The Medrash states 
that when Moshe Rabbeinu ascended to Heaven to receive the Torah, 
Hashem taught him the Written Torah during the day and the Oral Torah 
at night. Therefore, we do not learn the Written Torah at night just 
as Moshe Rabbeinu did not learn it at night.

Indeed, the Rikanti (a Rishon and Kabbalist) writes the following, 
"It should be known that one needs to learn the Written Torah during 
the day and the Oral Torah at night. Similarly, the Medrash states 
that during the forty days that Moshe Rabbeinu was in Heaven 
(receiving the Torah) he learned the Written Torah during the day and 
the Oral Torah at night (Yisro 45a).

See the above URL for more.  YL
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-ai
shdas.org/attachments/20150125/38935d1f/attachment.htm>

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



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


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


**************************************

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.)