Avodah Mailing List

Volume 33: Number 107

Tue, 28 Jul 2015

• 1. Re: Mesora only through Rashi (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: Mesora only through Rashi (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: miryam bat batus (Simon Montagu)
• 4. Re: miryam bat batus (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: Mesora only through Rashi (Kaganoff)
• 6. Re: Mesora only through Rashi (Sholom Simon)
• 7. Sources for Not Covering Hair? (Sholom Simon)
• 8. Molad (Allan Engel)
• 9. Re: Mesora only through Rashi (Micha Berger)
• 10. Re: Mesora only through Rashi (Saul Guberman)
• 11. avelut after 12 months (Eli Turkel)
• 12. Re: Molad (Zev Sero)
• 13. Re: miryam bat batus (Zev Sero)

On Mon, Jul 27, 2015 at 11:153am EDT, R Saul Guberman wrote:
: RGS makes the claim that we would not have TSP & our Mesora without Rashi &
: the Tosafists.
: http://www.torahmusings.com/2015/07/who-was-greater-than-rambam/
: Our *Torah shebe'al peh* is based on Rashi and the Tosafists. If Jewish
: history had not included Maimonides, the Jewish world would have missed a
: great deal. Maimonides enriched our thinking and world view tremendously,
: but the *Torah shebe'al peh* would have survived without him. However,
: without Rashi and the Tosafists, there would not have been any *mesora*,
: any chain of tradition; we could not teach *Torah shebe'al peh* today.

Which is a different statement than the subject line.

I took RGS's expansion of RYBS's idea to mean that we got our mesorah
through all these parallel strands. However, the loss of a codifier who
stands alone, like the Rambam, is less critical to the survival of
mesorah than the parshanim. Rambam added a lot to our mesorah. But
Rashi and Tosafos made it possible for later generations to continue
understanding the gemara.

But one thing RGS loses is RYBS's context. RYBS was saying this in
shiur, in a room where talmidim bring a compact edition of the Rambam
with them for reference. It's a different thing to make this statement
while sitting in Brisk, when you may intentionally state a perspective
re-setting idea more strongly than in other settings.


On Mon, Jul 27, 2015 at 2:43pm EDT, R Sholom Simon wrote:
: We trace Rashi's mesorah pretty easily back to Rabbeinu Gershom -- but
: where did _he_ get _his_ mesorah from? How did it get from Bavel and the
: Gaonim to northern Europe? 

In a teshuvah, Rabbeinu Gershom says he was taught most of his Torah by
"R' Leon". He means Rabbi Yehudah (Leontin) ben Rabbi Meir haKohein.

R' Leontin was from Iraly, but he was in France before reaching Mainz. In
France he picked up talmidim who then followed him to Ashkenaz, including
Rabbinu Gershom and R' Yosef Tuv Elem (Tuv Elem = Bonfils, you will
see him the the Mordechai alot, Tosafos, and [if you ever have occasion
to look] Machzor Vitri).

Rabbeinu Gershom took over the yeshiva upon RYBRM's petirah, which is
probably why he is "Rabbeinu" rather than "Rav".

The thing is, the tradition in Provence is that they came from EY.
For example, in Luneil it was (is?) believed that the city was
founded by refugees from Yericho, who commemorated their city of
origin by using a translation of the same name: yareiach = luna.

Which brings me to RGS's reply to R Sholom, written yesterday, Jul 27,
2015, at 5:59pm EDT:
: Prof. Haym Soloveitchik has a theory of the origin of the German
: mesorah. He calls it the third yeshiva of Bavel. Prof. David Berger
: disagrees with the entire thesis, with arguments I find convincing.

: However, that said, Prof. Soloveitchik makes extremely good arguments
: against the conventional wisdom that Germany's tradition comes from
: Palestine. His essay and response to Prof. Berger can be found in volume
: 2 of his Collected Essays.

If there is any truth to the Israeli Provencial tradition, we have a
link in terms of rabbinic leadership to EY.

However, not only do nusach hatefillah, piyut, and a number of pesaqim
(which RRW educated me on repeatedly on these "pages" in the past)
point toward an EY origin of Ashkenaz, so does something I didn't see
R/Dr Soloveitchik address -- genetics.

A map of the Jewish genetic tree
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3032072
shows the closes affinity for the Ashkenazi gene pool were the Italian,
Greek, Turkish and Syrian communities. Notably all under the Roman Empire.
Whereas the Jews of the geonic lands -- from Bavel through Qairouan,
Tunisia -- form a second grouping.

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

I just posted:
:                                     However, the loss of a codifier who
: stands alone, like the Rambam, is less critical to the survival of
: mesorah than the parshanim. Rambam added a lot to our mesorah. But
: Rashi and Tosafos made it possible for later generations to continue
: understanding the gemara.

I meant to add a different (and to my mind very important) way of looking
at this idea:

In terms of mesorah, a flow of TSBP as a "dialog down the ages" (to
use RYBS's terminlogy), the parshan keeps the chain connected down the
ages in a way that a Yad, designed to be stand-alone, does not.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

On Tue, Jul 28, 2015 at 8:57 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah <
avo...@lists.aishdas.org> wrote:

> Need a Hasmonean who calls himself "Jannus" in Latin necessarily go
> by the same name or even a phonetically related name in Aramaic and
> Hebrew?
>

I don't follow: the Hasmonean and post-Hasmonean kings did all have both
Hebrew and Greek or Latin names, but Yannai is a *Hebrew* name, from the
same root as Yona. I know someone who Hebraized his surname from Taubmann
to Yannai ("Taub" is German for "dove").
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On Tue, Jul 28, 2015 at 09:24:20AM -0700, Simon Montagu wrote:
: > Need a Hasmonean who calls himself "Jannus" in Latin necessarily go
: > by the same name or even a phonetically related name in Aramaic and
: > Hebrew?

: I don't follow: the Hasmonean and post-Hasmonean kings did all have both
: Hebrew and Greek or Latin names, but Yannai is a *Hebrew* name, from the
: same root as Yona. I know someone who Hebraized his surname from Taubmann
: to Yannai ("Taub" is German for "dove").

I believe this is a folk etymology. Where would the alef (yud, nun,
alef, yud) have come from? But more tellingly, Alexander Janneus's Hebrew
name was Yehonasan, like his uncle. See the Latin and Hebrew on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Jannaeus#/media/File:JanaeusCoinPhoto.jpg

If he could be "Alexander Yannai" in one language and "Yonasan" in
another, who knows it there weren't another king whose Latin name
"Janneus" was simply not preserved?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

There are those who argued that Tosfos (in particular Rabbeinu Tam)
essentially created Ashkenazi mesorah by radically changing how we study
and relate to Gemara and how we relate to popular practice.

One might suggest without exaggeration that Tosfos created our Mesora.

In which case Rashi's mesora is less relevant.

Yonatan
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There certainly is a lot of evidence that Ashkenzi minhagim com more
from E"Y than Bavel. 

But do we know of any chochomim that went from
anywhere in the Middle East to Germany? 

I.e., ok, even if we accept
that either there was a third school, or it came from E"Y -- do we yet
know *how* it got to Northern Europe? 

(Or perhaps the answers are in
articles that Haym Soloveitchik or David Berger wrote? (And, if so, does
anyone have any citations?) 

-- Sholom 

On 2015-07-27 17:59, Gil
Student wrote: 

> Prof. Haym Soloveitchik has a theory of the origin of
the German mesorah. He calls it the third yeshiva of Bavel. Prof. David
Berger disagrees with the entire thesis, with arguments I find
convincing.
> 
> However, that said, Prof. Soloveitchik makes extremely
good arguments against the conventional wisdom that Germany's tradition
comes from Palestine. His essay and response to Prof. Berger can be
found in volume 2 of his Collected Essays.

 
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> 2) I knew a talmid who was close to the rav in the 70s ... when
getting married, he told me that he asked the rav all his shailos --
except about head covering for his wife (she did) -- he said that it was
thought problematic to ask him because of the rav's wife

I have a
related story. A talmid who was also close to him. When getting married
he _did_ ask about a head covering for his wife (after apologizing for
asking it). If I remember the story correctly, the Rav smiled and said
that he wasn't the right person to ask. 

-- Sholom 
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Calendars in my home town print the latest times of saying Kiddush Levana,
which equate to exactly fifteen days after the announced Molad time. This
might be an entire night, or an exact time, e.g. Sunday night 22.45.

But since the astronomical Molad can be some distance from the calculated
Molad times, by sometimes as much as twelve hours, does this not mean that
these sof zeman kiddush levana times can be faulty by that same margin?
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On Tue, Jul 28, 2015 at 01:28:42PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote:
: There certainly is a lot of evidence that Ashkenzi minhagim com more
: from E"Y than Bavel. 

Although experts, O Rabbi-PhDs, debate the issue. So what seems obvious
to you or me apparently isn't.

: But do we know of any chochomim that went from anywhere in the Middle
: East to Germany?

I already posted the mesorah from EY to Provence to Rabbeinu Gershom.

Jews really started reaching the Rhineland area at the invitation of
Charlemagne in the 9th cent CE, when he started the Holy Roman Empire.
They came from Provence (again) and Italy. Recall that most of the
captives from EY ended up in Rome, and you can understand how an
Israeli presence in Italy would have already been established.

Far more so than the Jews of the geonate -- who, as I mentioned, were
living outside the Roman Empire.

In mythic form, we have a story of a King Charles invited R' Moshe ben
Klonimus from Lucca to Mainz. In documentation form, Louis "the Pious",
C's son, left charters showing that he too invited Jewish merchants to
provide an economic backbone to his country, and mentions that he was
continuing his father's invitation.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A person must be very patient
mi...@aishdas.org        even with himself.
http://www.aishdas.org         - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov
Fax: (270) 514-1507

AIUI the MN "was all that you needed to study".  Are you/RGS saying that
this is only as a codifier?  RAMBAM did not feel that he was passing on the
mesorah? In the end, it does not matter what he wrote, RASHI vs RAMBAM, you
must have RASHI, RAMBAM is nice but without RASHI you come to a dead end?

On Tue, Jul 28, 2015 at 1:38 PM, Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:

>
> I took RGS's expansion of RYBS's idea to mean that we got our mesorah
> through all these parallel strands. However, the loss of a codifier who
> stands alone, like the Rambam, is less critical to the survival of
> mesorah than the parshanim. Rambam added a lot to our mesorah. But
> Rashi and Tosafos made it possible for later generations to continue
> understanding the gemara.
>
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The gemara says that Yoseph was certainly alive because Yaakov mourned him
the whole time while we know that the dead are forgotten after 12 months
(memory of the bet hamikdash is different)

I have a personal problem with this statement. To my sorry I know of
several people who have lost children especially in the age of 18-25. One
thing I have learned from these people is that one never forgets a child,
It is part of their lives every day.

The secretary of my department lost a son in a flash flood in the negev.
She changed her last name to incorporate the name of that son. Every time
she signs her name she remembers her son, Others who have lost sons in
military actions say kaddish every day for the son many years later.

I would just imagine that Yaakov having lost his "favorite" son would not
forget him after 12 months but indeed would mourn for him forever

-- 
Eli Turkel
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On 07/28/2015 12:41 PM, Allan Engel via Avodah wrote:
> Calendars in my home town print the latest times of saying Kiddush
> Levana, which equate to exactly fifteen days after the announced
> Molad time. This might be an entire night, or an exact time, e.g.
> Sunday night 22.45.

That should be halfway between moldos, i.e. 14d 18h 22m after the
molad, not a full 15 days.  It should also be adjusted for the time
difference between your standard time and Y'm's real time, which
for NY is 7h 20m in the winter and 6h 20m in the summer.   Using
a full 15 days is only bediavad.


> But since the astronomical Molad can be some distance from the
> calculated Molad times, by sometimes as much as twelve hours, does
> this not mean that these sof zeman kiddush levana times can be faulty
> by that same margin?

Yes, but since we have no easy way (other than consulting readily-
available secular resources, of course) of determining when the real
full moon occurs, we use the calculated moldos, *unless* there is a
lunar eclipse, since that by definition happens at the true full moon.


-- 
Zev Sero               I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you
z...@sero.name          intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in
                        the street and commands me to surrender my purse,
                        I have a right to kill him without asking questions
                                               -- John Adams

On 07/28/2015 01:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> If he could be "Alexander Yannai" in one language and "Yonasan" in
> another, who knows it there weren't another king whose Latin name
> "Janneus" was simply not preserved?

Here's a thought: AFAIK there is no mention in the gemara of a second,
bad, King Agrippas.  The only Agrippas mentioned is the first one,
the good one.  Also, as far as I know, there is no record of the
second Agrippas's Hebrew name.  What if the first Agrippas gave his
oldest son Yannai as his Jewish name, after the first Yannai, and that
is how he was known among Jews, and therefore by the Amoraim, while
Josephus called him by his Roman name, Herod Agrippa?

-- 
Zev Sero               I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you
z...@sero.name          intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in
                        the street and commands me to surrender my purse,
                        I have a right to kill him without asking questions
                                               -- John Adams


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