Avodah Mailing List

Volume 34: Number 89

Mon, 08 Aug 2016

• 1. Re: pilegish status (Akiva Miller)
• 2. The kashrus status of genetically engineered food (Eli Turkel)
• 3. Re: The kashrus status of genetically engineered food (Marty Bluke)
• 4. Re: birchat kohanim - tenai based on which shitah is right (Jacob Trachtman)
• 5. Re: how do you teach emuna? (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer)
• 6. Re: bnos tzlafchad (Lisa Liel)
• 7. Re: how do you teach emuna? (Marty Bluke)
• 8. Re: how do you teach emuna? (Marty Bluke)
• 9. Re: how do you teach emuna? (Micha Berger)

On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 08:54:58AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote:
:
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torc
h/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/

R' Micha Berger commented:

> 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. ... ...

Well, the author of that article is a woman who prefers that status, so I
think she has pretty much proven that there are indeed such women in
existence.

> 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty
> high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah
> because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense
> sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael.

I'm really not sure what you are saying here.

I have no knowledge of the halachos of pilegesh, but the author there
believes that:

> Such a couple does not have the benefits of marriage
> (spousal support, monogamy etc..), but either party may
> end the relationship at any given point.

The author concedes that kiddushin does have real benefits, and each of us
might add to that list, as RMB did. But it also has drawbacks. Each of us
weighs these factors differently, and given her experiences as an agunah, I
can certainly sympathize with the weight she gives to the ability for a
pilegesh to end that relationship unilaterally.

Akiva Miller
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20160807/d711313f/attachment-0001.htm>

<<I object to the slightly snarky, disrespectful tone of this
question.  The greatest halachic authorities of our generation  and previous
generations -- think of R' Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish, the  Chofetz
Chaim --
were not too uninformed or unsophisticated to deal  with complex
halachic issues.
>>

Of course R Katz left out RSZA who indeed learned modern science after
consulting with experts in the field
Without being disrepectful what modern questions of science did the Chafetz
Chaim deal with?

Eli Turkel
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20160807/a520116b/attachment-0001.htm>

R"n Toby Katz wrote:
"And PS I object to the slightly snarky, disrespectful tone of this
question.  The greatest halachic authorities of our generation  and
previous
generations -- think of R' Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish, the  Chofetz
Chaim --
were not too uninformed or unsophisticated to deal  with complex halachic
issues."

I wasn't being snarky or disrespectful I was being serious. Technology has
advanced in leaps and bounds in recent years making it harder and harder
for the layman to understand how things work let alone someone who has no
secular education whatsoever. You have to be at least able to speak the
same language, understand the terminology and scientific principles behind
it to understand how the technology intersects with halacha. That is very
hard to do with no secular education.

The Mishna in Makkos quoted l'halacha by the Rambam  states that the
Sanhedrin should not hear testimony through an interprator the reason being
that the translator may change the meaning and therefore change the din.
The same idea would certainly apply here to cases of technology if the
posek figuratively doesn't speak the same language as the experts and needs
a translator.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20160807/801b69ec/attachment-0001.htm>

>
>  On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 12:50:31 -0400: Micha Berger wrote:
>


>
> So have them say it al tenai. If the kehunah of a typical kohein today is
> really a safeiq, then one would either be saying BK (withough a berakhah)
> or pesuqim, depending on the tenai.
>
> Along simiar lines... One shouldn't say Hallel on stam any day, which
> is why RYBS didn't say Hallel on Yom haAtzma'ut. Some take a middle
> road and say Hallel without a berakhah.
>
> Seems pretty similar, using a tenai to say "if it's inappropriate, I am
> 'just' saying pesuqim" to allow one to navigate a safeiq between an asei
> and a lav.
>
> I know the poskim use tenaim like that sometimes but I don't understand
how it works. What is the objective reality that decides the tenai? Since
the Torah is *lo bashamayim *is there an objectively right answer (e.g. as
to whether it is appropriate to say hallel) or is the right answer based on
the hachraah of a posek?


~Yaakov Trachtman
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20160807/d223aad0/attachment-0001.htm>

On 8/2/2016 10:10 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
...
> My personal belief is that Hashem designed the world in precisely this 
> way, lacking any unassailable proofs, so as to insure bechira 
> chofshis, which would not be possible if any truly unassailable proof 
> were publicized.

> As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach 
> emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around 
> me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be 
> contagious.

If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it.

Evidence, you will find aplenty.

You yourself make that point in your last paragraph!


[Email #2]

There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly 
understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in 
our day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua 
Yahadus is, indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as 
well.


[Email #3]

On 8/4/2016 4:30 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> I think emunah has to start with the heart. When someone gets a question
> they cannot answer, they could assume there is none and their emunah is
> weakened ch"v. Or, they could shelve the question -- so confident in th
> emunah that they assume an answer exists and hope to sfind out what it
> is someday.
>
> The difference between the two responses is whether their experience
> with Yahadus engenders that confidence.
>
> In general, deductive proofs are built up logically from a set of
> self-evident postulates. However, when not dealing with sensory input,
> what makes those postulates self-evident?

While RMB has some objections (not-yet-enunciated) to the R' Noah 
Weinberg Lakewood Tapes that I love, RNW would call this the "ta'amu 
u're'u key tov Hashem" evidence of God's existence.

KT,
YGB

On 8/5/2016 7:37 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote:
> someone  asked  me  why all of  a  sudden after 40 yr  they were 
>  swept up to be married.  why all of a sudden, he asked 
> rhetorically---and contended that , without a nadden they were not 
> desirable. the sudden promise of land made them desirable.

In the novel The Daughters Victorious, the reason given is that it was 
because of the uncertainty of the inheritance between when they first 
asked about it and when they got their final answer. The book is heavily 
researched and footnoted, so I suspect the author had some source for 
it.  If not, it's a reasonable supposition.

Lisa

On Monday, August 8, 2016, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer <r...@aishdas.org> wrote:
> There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly
> understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our
> day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is,
> indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well.

The Ramban in his introduction to the milchamos writes that Torah is not
mathematics with objective proofs. Rather in Torah you try to find the
opinion that makes more sense to you based on proofs etc.

The same principle applies to discussions about emuna. There are no
absolute proofs and therefore we shouldn't go about claiming there are.

This is exactly the kind of thinking that R' Benovitz was talking about.
When you make absolute statements like "there are no cogent arguments
against intelligent design" it can easily have the reverse effect and turn
people off. Imagine the following. Someone comes to you and asks how does
Judaism deal with evolution etc. and you answer intelligent design and
explain it. He asked a question you answered it, great. He may accept your
answer he may not, but at least he will see that you addressed his question
in a reasonable manner and gave him an answer. However, if you take that
extra step of adding on an absolute statement like "there are no cogent
arguments against intelligent design", it will probably backfire. 5 minutes
after your conversation he will google "arguments against intelligent
design" and he will see that there are over 2.5 million results. Just from
that alone he may conclude that since you stated definitively that there
are no cogent arguments against it and google provides 2.5 million results
that you are wrong and not trustworthy. Even if he actually reads some of
the results, he will probably find arguments that at least at first glance
seem like cogent arguments and will again conclude that you are not
trustworthy and are deceiving him and that Judaism has no real answers. So
your absolute statement which you used to show how strongly you believe in
something will turn out to be cause of his not believing you.

On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 12:03 AM, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer <r...@aishdas.org>
wrote:

> There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly
> understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our
> day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is,
> indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well.
>
> KT,
> YGB
>
>
>
> On 8/4/2016 7:00 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote:
>
> Another important comment from Slifkin's blog:
>
> "Steve Savitsky interviewed Rabbi Moshe Benovitz of the NCSY( Savitsky
> Talks, "Technology and Social Media: How Are They Affecting the Post-High
> School Year in Israel?", 8/1/12, 14:00 in mp3, linked below):
>
> R. Benovitz: ...In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to
> grips with the fact that some of the arguments-- historical arguments,
> philosophical arguments-- that like I said a charismatic educator could
> tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked
> instantly on a hand held device that?s pulled out of a pocket. If those
> arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need
> to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that.
>
> Steve Savitsky: Do you have an example of that?
>
> R. Benovitz: ...This is probably beyond the scope of this limited
> discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But
> examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when
> you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have
> been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The
> chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times
> where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that?s
> a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of
> sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the
> archaeological realm.
>
> We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of
> our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways
> of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they?re not going
> to, nor should they simply accept at face value.
>
> Interview is available here:
>
> https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social-
> media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/"
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Avodah mailing listAvodah@lists.aishdas.orghttp:/
> /lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20160808/5fc26bb0/attachment-0001.htm>

Here is a more complete version of that exchange during R' Steve
Savitsky's interview on OU Radio of R' Moshe Benovitz (13:00 in mp3 at
<http://content.jwplatform.com/previews/VVawzyEB-BMKaoWUn>). The topic
is that Google et al allows students to challenge a lot more statements
than they have in the past. Statements really have to hold water.

   RMB: ... In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to grips
   with the fact that some of the arguments -- historical arguments,
   philosophical arguments -- that like I said a charismatic educator
   could tell a person off the street and who would know better,
   is checked instantly on a hand held device that's pulled out of a
   pocket. If those arguments do not hold water, then we've done more
   damage than good. We need to adjust to that, and we should adjust
   to that.

   RSS: Do you have an example of that?

   RMB: ... This is probably beyond the scope of this limited
   discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers
   here. But examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way
   possible, when you have challenges from other sources, the fact that
   Torah seems to have been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the
   Navi and the like. The chain of the Mesorah there is certain reason to
   believe that there were times where it was if not broken, but then it
   was down to a precious few; that's a challenge, just to use one example,
   [to that] mass revelation argument of sorts. [Similarly there are
   challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the archaeological realm.

   We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips
   of our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we
   have ways of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there,
   they're not going to, nor should they simply accept at face value.

Someone who calls himself "Shades of Gray" posted this transcript snippet
on a number of blogs about 2 years ago. Once in reply to a comment of
mine on Torah Musings, and what I say below is what I concluded then:

The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally
posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such
an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh
implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim
addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a
minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being
taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to
convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's
revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari
Principle -- and they're from our own history!

Someone has said the above on-line, so the kid in yeshiva who needs the
chizuq emunah will "pfff" at famous speaker X's invocation of the Kuzari
Principle.

We need to realize we have a much more critical audience -- in the sense
of critical listening, and not just in the sense of being critical of
anything taught -- than ever before.

It is along these lines that I declined in spelling out what I find
problematic in RNWeinberg's approach to teaching emunah. After all,
if it's working for someone, should I be in the business of putting a
pin in the balloon?

However, since RYGB let on in public that I have such problems, and in
light of this discussion that just showing intellectual honesty has more
value than the specific arguments...

RNW heavily engages in equivocation -- getting the listener to agree
to a sentence using the term in one sense, then changes the sense on
you.

He gets you to agree that man is a pleasure seeker before getting down
to how he defines "true pleasure". Man is a pleasure seeker is true
by definition of the word "pleasure"; inherent in seeking is that we
Another example: When it comes to the opening man as pleasure seeker
had them carry through that agreement once he limits "true pleasure"
to that provided by a search for meaning, and more so, a religious meaning.
And thus explicitly excluding from "pleasure" much of his evidence and
examples of "man is pleasure seeker" when he got you to accept the
notion.

And he does this kind of equivocation repeatedly. He even tells the
kiruv worker that the key is to define the terms for them -- or,
more accurately "redefine", getting them to buy into new ideas by
transvaluing terms in ones they already exist to O counterparts.

And in his set of shiurim to Lakewood, he opens by getting them to
admit they lack a systematic approach to hashkafah and need to think about
their own answers for themselves. And that this is one of the goals of
the shiurim. But then RNW spends nearly all his time on marketing tips
like the one above than on actual hashkafah. They don't leave with a
clearer picture of how to relate to the Borei or their tachlis in the
world -- RNW never gets beyond the vertl uncritical-thinking and thus
blind-to-dialectic level on the actual material. Eg On different days
he presumes each side of the hashkafic Fork in the Road without noting
the dialectic between them. Within the little actual teaching of Torah
in the classes, RNW is relying on a lack of critical thought.

Another example of relying on a lack of critical thought to pass
self-contradiction past the audience, rather than teaching dialectically:
When it comes to the opening man as pleasure seeker, transvaluation step,
RNW invokes the Ramchal about real pleasure being only possible in olam
haba. But in a later shiur he points out that death was an onesh, Adam
qodem hacheit wouldn't have needed an olam haba, and that in the ideal
there would be no olam haba. Which is why Yahadus focuses on improving
olam hazeh.

RNW argues that there must be an absolute truth. Something even more
important now, dealing with millennials, than when RNW first noticed the
relativistic core of modern thought. But not much later talks about
each person having their own world, "bishvili nivra ha'olam" and how
one world could have makas dam while the other has water.

To reduce to three bullet items:

1- Heavy use of equivocation
2- More emphasis on marketing than on teaching
3- Self-contradictory obvious truths

I didn't get to document examples of
4- dismissal by ridicule
because I stopped taking notes by the time that got to me. But he
ridicules subject-matter experts when and their entire field he doesn't
like their conclusion, rather than presenting an actual substantive
argument. He also both tells you to respect the student's intellect
and perspective, and then ridicules how shallow both is. But specific
instances didn't get recorded because by that point I was leaning toward
not replying to RYGB for the above balloon-popping rationale.

If R Moshe Benovitz were more inclined to name names, I have a feeling
R Weinberger and Aish's approach to kiruv is exactly what he is talking
about in terms of techniques that the advance of the information age
rendered useless and even counterproductive.

On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 05:00:14PM -0400, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via
Avodah wrote:
: > As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach 
: > emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around 
: > me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be 
: > contagious.

: If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it.

: Evidence, you will find aplenty.

: You yourself make that point in your last paragraph!

A point RNW makes, but again, I couldn't agree with his version because
he uses equivocation:

a- Get the student to say they'll accept O if we had proofs
b- Tell him we have proofs
c- ... but that "proof" doesn't mean what he thinks it does, it means
   "as strong evidence as you demand for other decisions".
d- And then in other parts of the shiurim talk about the same proofs as
though they are proofs of the sort the student was thinking of in step (a).

I think that most such decisions -- whether to become a BT or go OTD --
are based on experience and emotions, not logical debate. (I think both
R' Yisrael Salanter and every secular psychological theory since would
insist as much.) And the only reason why I wrote "most", because really
I believe it's "all" is because the two categories overlap. Noticing a
rebbe is making statements that don't stand up to scrutiny, or won't
honestly discuss your question, is itself an emotional experience.
Even ideas themselves -- such as a non-O Jews first encounter with
hilkhos eved kenaani or mechiyas Amaleiq -- can evince emotional response.
And frankly I hope they do. We will never reach someone with too much
orlas haleiv for the question to bother him. As long as he has enough
other experiences to motivate his sticking around for an answer.

Which isn't the same thing as what RYGB is saying about evidence.
As far as I can tell, RYGB's evidence includes arguments that are strong,
but not the incontrovertible proof. (Since there are no such things.)
I am talking about experience, from sensory inputs to the kind of math
proof of shitah one would judge to be beautiful (not that judgment,
the features that cause that judgment), to the satisfactions of one's
search for meaning that Shabbos provides.

I think it's the less rational side of people which decides

1- which givens are self-evident and which you question. And no deductive
   proof even starts without its first principles / postulates. Look at the
   intro to Moreh Nevuchim cheileq 2.

2- when you get convinced a question is an upshlug, and when it is just an
   interesting problem to be shelved for later.

So that reason follows the conclusion one's life experience predisposed you
to accept. Or, as one version of my signature file reads:
    The mind is a wonderful organ
    for justifying conclusions
    the heart already reached.

RYGB writes:
: There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly 
: understood....

I think this is true, but too much is hidden in "properly understood".
ID started out just being the argument that no matter what science finds
about origins, the evidence of design shows Divine Guidance behind that
science.

The original ID would include evolution with G-d using loaded dice.

But then it got caught up in proving design (such as irreducible
complexity) and became in the hands of Xian Fundamentalism a wedge to
get Young Earth Creationism into science class, and then the atheists took
this as the defining ID, with everything else being a Trojan Horse...

And it's that which will yield 2.5mm hits of disproofs of ID.

On Mon, Aug 08, 2016 at 08:14:45AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote:
: The Ramban in his introduction to the milchamos writes that Torah is not
: mathematics with objective proofs. Rather in Torah you try to find the
: opinion that makes more sense to you based on proofs etc.

: The same principle applies to discussions about emuna. There are no
: absolute proofs and therefore we shouldn't go about claiming there are.

MB here, but the Rambam wouldn't. Moreh ch. 2 is largely just such
a proof. Which is why the Ramban objects. As does the Kuzari, before
either of them. See Kuzari 1:13, 1:62-65. Whatever one philosopher can
"prove" another will just as convincingly prove the opposite. Just working
off different sets of givens, and considering different sets of questions
irrefutable problems vs details to be worked out later. But that is
less "based on proofs", as we would have for halakhah, and more "based
on what fits what I have lived through".

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Zion will be redeemed through justice,
mi...@aishdas.org        and her returnees, through righteousness.
http://www.aishdas.org
Fax: (270) 514-1507


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



_______________________________________________
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.)