Avodah Mailing List

Volume 35: Number 2

Thu, 05 Jan 2017

• 1. Re: Tichleh Regel Min Hashuk (Zev Sero)
• 2. Re: electronics on shabbat (Marty Bluke)
• 3. yaakov vs yehuda (saul newman)
• 4. Re: yaakov vs yehuda (Zev Sero)
• 5. Re: yaakov vs yehuda (Ilana Elzufon)
• 6. Re: yaakov vs yehuda (Zev Sero)
• 7. yaakov vs yehuda (saul newman)
• 8. Re: yaakov vs yehuda (Micha Berger)
• 9. Re: yaakov vs yehuda (Zev Sero)
• 10. Re: Tichleh Regel Min Hashuk (Micha Berger)
• 11. Chezkas Kashrus of Sifrei Torah (Micha Berger)
• 12. Re: Tichleh Regel Min Hashuk (Akiva Miller)
• 13. Re: Tichleh Regel Min Hashuk (Zev Sero)
• 14. Re: Tichleh Regel Min Hashuk (Micha Berger)
• 15. Free Will (Rich, Joel)

On 31/12/16 21:08, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
>
> Why do we care about what time people come home from the market on
> Friday night? People DON'T come home from the market on Friday night;
> they come home from the market on Friday *afternoon*.
>
> Unless, of course, the people we're talking about aren't Jewish. Over
> the years, I've heard some suggest that the main target audience for
> this pirsumei nisa is the non-Jews (especially among those who light
> outside). This would seems to support that view.

The sof zman is when the Tarmuda'im go home.  So the pirsumei nisa is to 
them.

-- 
Zev Sero                Have a brilliant Chanukah
z...@sero.name

In the sefer Hachashmal L'Or Hahalacha he assumes as a davar pashut that
a light with no heat is not mav'ir and is only an issur drabbanan, see
http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=8812&;st=&pgnum=149&hilite=
at the bottom of the page where he discusses small fluorescents which
have no heating element. Unfortunately, he brings no source for this
assumption, it seems like it was just obvious to him.

See also http://www.torahmusings.com/2016/08/led-shoes-children-shabbat/
where R' Mann writes that the consensus opinion is that LEDs are not an
issur d'oraysa, again unfortunately no source is quoted.

"The consensus is that activating light-emitting diodes (LEDs) on Shabbat
is not a Torah-level prohibition, but is a Rabbinic level one. One connects
a circuit and light is emitted (by the transfer of electrons through
junctions of semi-conductors). It is not simple to pinpoint what the
Rabbinic violation is (when the diodes do not form writing or pictures).
Some (including Rav S.Z. Auerbach) say it is *molid*(creating something
new), even though there is no explicit Talmudic category of *molid* with
light. Others say it is under the category of *uvdin d?chol*, which is a
sort of catch-all for things that by halachic intuition and precedent, must
be forbidden on Shabbat, which we assume regarding operating electric
systems on Shabbat."

yaakov said who ever had the terafim should die. yehuda said whoever has
the cup should die.
and yet binyamin doesn't.  is the exception the former case or the latter
[ie his curse wouldnt have killed her, having two sisters as wives  was
reason enough]?
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On 01/01/17 15:26, saul newman via Avodah wrote:
>  yehuda said whoever has the cup should die.

Assumption of facts not in evidence.

-- 
Zev Sero                Have a brilliant Chanukah
z...@sero.name

RSN: yaakov said who ever had the terafim should die. yehuda said whoever
has the cup should die.
and yet binyamin doesn't....

Rahel really did deliberately steal the terafim. Binyamin didn't steal the
cup; it was placed in his bag by Yosef's servants.

>
>
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On 03/01/17 04:32, Ilana Elzufon via Avodah wrote:
> RSN: yaakov said who ever had the terafim should die. yehuda said
> whoever has the cup should die. and yet binyamin doesn't....
>
> Rahel really did deliberately steal the terafim. Binyamin didn't steal
> the cup; it was placed in his bag by Yosef's servants.

That shouldn't have made a difference.  A tzadik's curse has an effect 
even if it's conditioned on something that doesn't happen.  Yehuda's own 
pronouncement "vechatasi le'avi kol hayamim" took effect even though he 
did bring Binyamin back.  But in this case we have no information that 
Yehuda ever said the person with the cup would die.


-- 
Zev Sero                May 2017, with its *nine* days of Chanukah,
z...@sero.name           be a brilliant year for us all

my question was, given that yehuda phrased his curse in the passive voice,
whomever the cup is found with.  it was found with binyamin. he did not say
whoever stole the cup. and i assume since he said they were all 'avadecha'
to yosef , that would include binyamin.
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On Tue, Jan 03, 2017 at 08:10:24AM -0500, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
:                                                 But in this case we
: have no information that Yehuda ever said the person with the cup
: would die.

I think RSN had in mind 44:9. "Asher yimatzei ito mei'vadekha vameis".
And it really says "with the cup", not "stole the cup".

I think Zev's distinction is still valid, though. Look at the rest of the
pasuq:, "vegam anachnu nihyeh ladoni la'avadim". Yehudah was not saying
that heaven should cause that person to die, but was acknowledging the
viceroy's right to have him killed, just as he would enslave the others
as accomplices.

Meanwhile, I understand what I took to be RnIE's point. This business
with HQBH fulfilling the words of tzadiqim still has to deal with the
culpability of the one dying. Perhaps Binyamin's total innocence would
have been enough to trump a tzadiq's words.

(TO gild that lily: Not only was Binyamin innocent of this crime,
Binyamin was one of the four people who had no sin of his own to cause
his death, and only died because of Adam's. The man literally never
sinned!)

Last, what about a third, simple balebatishe, answer. Yehudah was a great
tzaddiq. But the avos are the merkavah, Yaaqov's face is on the kisei
hakavod, etc... Is it so hard to believe that for all his greatness,
Yehudah still didn't reach his father's level?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Life is complex.
mi...@aishdas.org                Decisions are complex.
http://www.aishdas.org               The Torah is complex.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                                - R' Binyamin Hecht

On 03/01/17 10:39, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 03, 2017 at 08:10:24AM -0500, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
> :                                                 But in this case we
> : have no information that Yehuda ever said the person with the cup
> : would die.

> I think RSN had in mind 44:9. "Asher yimatzei ito mei'vadekha vameis".
> And it really says "with the cup", not "stole the cup".

Yes, of course that is what he cited in the first place, and it still 
suffers from the same problem I pointed out immediately -- the entire 
premise of the question is the assumption that Yehuda said this, but I 
don't understand where RSN got that idea.  It's not in the chumash.

-- 
Zev Sero                May 2017, with its *nine* days of Chanukah,
z...@sero.name           be a brilliant year for us all

On Sun, Jan 01, 2017 at 11:25:21AM -0500, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
: >Unless, of course, the people we're talking about aren't Jewish. Over
: >the years, I've heard some suggest that the main target audience for
: >this pirsumei nisa is the non-Jews (especially among those who light
: >outside). This would seems to support that view.
: 
: The sof zman is when the Tarmuda'im go home.  So the pirsumei nisa
: is to them.

Or perhaps only "at least to them".

But we don't know how to translate tarmudai. (Shabbos 21b)

The Rif (Rif-daf 9): Tarmuda'im are *Jews* who collect tarmuda wood.

Rashi: Tarmuda'i is a *non-Jewish* ethnic group known for collecting
thin wood. They would sell in the late evenings to those who ran out
of the wood they were planning on burning.

R Moshe Shternbuch (Moadim uZemanim #141): Rashi is referring to
pirsumei nisa to the Jewish customers who would be out as long
as the Tamuda'im are available to shop from. Lehlakhah, Rashi
holds like the Rif.

RSYE (Sheves Yitzchaq, Chanukah ch. 4): Since retailers tend to say later
than their curomers, pirsumei nisa to Jews would end some time before the
Tarmuda'im go home. (C.f. also Taamei deQra, after parashas VaYeishev;
R' Chaim Kanievsky says similarly.) Rashi is talking about pirsumei nisa
to non-Jews.

H/T R Yair Hoffman for the machloqes about how to understand Rashi.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             None of us will leave this place alive.
mi...@aishdas.org        All that is left to us is
http://www.aishdas.org   to be as human as possible while we are here.
Fax: (270) 514-1507            - Anonymous MD, while a Nazi prisoner

On Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 6:39pm -0800, R Saul Newman wrote to Areivim:
: http://www.timesofisrael.com/female-sofrot-inscribe-themsel
: ves-in-history-books

: the commenter predicts OU certified STAM within 5 yr to prove it's not
: female written. but there are so many old sifrei tora and other tashmishei
: kdusha which you can't prove the religious [ie frum vs not] of the sofer.
: no one though has suggested that a tora in non-O hands has defective
: provenance...

To which Zev replied on Tue, Jan 3, 2017 at 8:06am EST
> There was never any need to doubt the kashrus of any old sefer
> torah. There's a chazakah that anyone who writes stam is competent and
> does his work properly. There are many psulim that can't be detected
> with human eyes, so wehave to depend on the sofer's yir'as shomayim.
> If that chazakah ever becomes invalid we'll have to treat with suspicion
> anything written after a certain date.

The SA YD 281:1 says that a seifer Torah fund in the hands of an apiqureis
that you do not know who wrote it should be hidden.

The AhS (se'if 7) quotes the Rambam that if fround by a min, yignaz, but
an oveid AZ -- kesheirah, because they don't write sifrei Torah so you
have to assume it was written by a Jew. Whereas the Tur takes the other
side of the machloqes, and assumes it's pasul. (He rules like the Rambam.)

He also says (se'if 9) that in our dor parutz, where "hasoferim rabu
k'arbeh and in one city we know -- to our heartache -- of hundreds of
soferim and mors are no yir'ei Shamayim at all. Ve'ein beydeinu bemah
leposlam because it is a matter of the heard. But someone whose heart
is touched by yir'as H' should not by tefilling or mezuzos except from
a sofer who is known to be a yarei Shamayim. Similarly with the writing
of a ST."

So, it would see that even in situations when most soferim do not deserve
a chezkas kashrus, we still consider a random ST kosher me'iqar hadin,
and only avoid it as an act of yir'as Hashem.


Students of RYBS have to deal with the question of whether a chazaqah
disvara /can/ change. RYBS famously said that tan lemeisiv cannot:

    Let me add something that is very important: not only the halachos
    but also the chazakos which chachmei chazal have introduced are
    indestructible. We must not tamper, not only with the halachos,
    but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke
    rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon
    permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the
    human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which
    is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example
    the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan
    du mil'meisiv armalo has absolutely nothing to do with the social
    and political status of women in antiquity. This chazaka is based
    not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in breishis --
    harba arbeh itz'voneich v'heironeich b'etzev teildi vanim v'el
    isheich t'shukaseich v'hu yimshal bach -- "I will greatly multiply
    thy pain and thy travail; in pain thou shalt bring forth children,
    and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee".
    It is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality...

Notice RYBS opens with a kelal, "the chazakos which chachmei chazal have
introduced are indestructible." And yet he continues by talking about
the perat, "[t]his chazaka is based not upon sociological factors,
but upon a verse in breishis..."

So, what about the ?


Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Brains to the lazy
mi...@aishdas.org        are like a torch to the blind --
http://www.aishdas.org   a useless burden.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                 - Bechinas haOlam

I thank RZS and RMB for reminding me about the idea of the Tarmudaim. But
what has been cited thus far is not really relevant to the question I
brought. It doesn't matter whether "tarmudaim" are the sellers or the
buyers, and it certainly doesn't matter what sort of merchandise is
involved.

My point is that if the zman of Ner Chanukah is tied to commerce in any way
at all, then if the pirsumei nisa is to Jews, then we need a different zman
for Shabbos, because the Jews are done buying and selling long before dark.
For example, the zman on Friday night might be "until everyone is home from
shul". It might be that the streets are empty of shul-goers on Friday at
the same time that the streets empty of buyers/sellers during the rest of
the week, but it also might be a different time, so until someone makes
that identification, it is irrelevant.

Here's another way of phrasing it: If Pirsumei Nisa on Friday night is
dependent on commercial activity, and there is zero commercial activity
among the Jews at that time, then the Pirsumei Nisa on Friday night MUST be
referring to the non-Jews.

By the way, so far I've been asking about Friday night. What about Saturday
night? How much commercial activity was there among Jews on Motzaei
Shabbos? If there was little or none, yet the mitzva and pirsumei nisa is
still relevant even on Motzaei Shabbos, then this is a similar proof that
Pirsumei Nisa refers to non-Jews.

Akiva Miller
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On 04/01/17 05:53, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
> I thank RZS and RMB for reminding me about the idea of the Tarmudaim.
> But what has been cited thus far is not really relevant to the question
> I brought. It doesn't matter whether "tarmudaim" are the sellers or the
> buyers, and it certainly doesn't matter what sort of merchandise is
> involved.

There's no dispute that they are the sellers, and that what they're 
selling is firewood.  The only dispute is (a) are they Jews, and (b) is 
the pirsumei nisa to them or to their customers.


> My point is that if the zman of Ner Chanukah is tied to commerce in any
> way at all, then if the pirsumei nisa is to Jews,

That's precisely why we were discussing the Tarmuda'im.  Your premise 
that the pirsumei nisa is to Jews is very much in dispute.  The 
straightforward reading of Rashi is that it's to the Tarmuda'im, who are 
not Jews.

-- 
Zev Sero                May 2017, with its *nine* days of Chanukah,
z...@sero.name           be a brilliant year for us all

On Wed, Jan 04, 2017 at 05:53:41AM -0500, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
: I thank RZS and RMB for reminding me about the idea of the Tarmudaim. But
: what has been cited thus far is not really relevant to the question I
: brought. It doesn't matter whether "tarmudaim" are the sellers or the
: buyers, and it certainly doesn't matter what sort of merchandise is
: involved.

But it does matter whether or not they're Jews. As Zev just posted.

...
: Here's another way of phrasing it: If Pirsumei Nisa on Friday night is
: dependent on commercial activity, and there is zero commercial activity
: among the Jews at that time, then the Pirsumei Nisa on Friday night MUST be
: referring to the non-Jews.

I don't know if it is. It's dependent on people walking around in
the street. Presumably that ends earlier on Fri night. Unless your
neighborhood had Fri night father-and-son learning in the winter.

I took the Tamudaim as a reference that made sense to people of that
culture in terms of describing a particular kind of trickle of people
they would immediately visualize. And not about the financial aspect.

The question is how tightly the din is tied to the rationale. Is it
ad shetikhleh regel min hashuq on your street? What if you live in
a retirement village, where evenings end earlier? (Insert jokes about
"early bird special" dinners here. But the truth behind the joke is
that older people do tend to go to bed earlier.)

And what about someone who lives in a town that has significant numbers
of mechalelei Shabbos? Which is the norm nowadays. One can be doing
pirsumei nisa even for a Jewish audience while business is still going
on.

Can you light later on New Year's eve? (Zos Chanukah, this year?)

Or is it that the time is for the typical street on a typical night?
Which would justify applying ad shetikhleh to someone who lives in
the middle of nowhere, lighting just for himself and/or family.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Weeds are flowers too
mi...@aishdas.org        once you get to know them.
http://www.aishdas.org          - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne)
Fax: (270) 514-1507

Consider the following assertion: HKB"H sets the world in motion based on
specific "rules of nature." He allows those rules of nature to interact
with our free will choices. In certain situations he chooses to intervene
in a manner that cannot be proven or predicted in order to produce a
specific result. Each of us is ultimately judged on our free choice efforts
with some combination of results in this world and/or the next. Thus,
suffering or success in this world may be "random" or HKB"H's direct
influence.
What % of Rishonim would find this description accurate? Achronim? Laity then and now?  If this has changed over time, WHY?

KT
Joel Rich


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