Avodah Mailing List

Volume 35: Number 123

Fri, 20 Oct 2017

• 1. Re: Interesting Insight on Noach (Zev Sero)
• 2. Re: Interesting Insight on Noach (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: R. Akiva, Bar Kochba and Zecharya HaNovi (hankman)
• 4. Shliach Tzibbur (Rich, Joel)
• 5. ?the miracle of judging by smell? was (Re: R. Akiva, Bar Kochba and Zecharya HaNovi) (hankman)
• 6. Re: R. Akiva, Bar Kochba and Zecharya HaNovi (Micha Berger)
• 7. Re: "the miracle of judging by smell" was (Re: R. Akiva, Bar Kochba and Zecharya HaNovi) (Joshua Meisner)
• 8. Re: ?the miracle of judging by smell? was (Re: R. Akiva, Bar Kochba and Zecharya HaNovi) (hankman)
• 9. Re: R. Akiva, Bar Kochba and Zecharya HaNovi (hankman)
• 10. Re: Torah precheit? (Akiva Miller)
• 11. Re: ?the miracle of judging by smell? was (Re: R. Akiva, Bar Kochba and Zecharya HaNovi) (Zev Sero)
• 12. Re: R. Akiva, Bar Kochba and Zecharya HaNovi (Micha Berger)
• 13. Re: Interesting Insight on Noach (Zev Sero)
• 14. empiricism (Rich, Joel)

On 18/10/17 09:37, Richard Wolberg via Avodah wrote:
> However, just today
> as I was studying various commentaries, I came across the following amazing
> account in Tanchuma, R?eh, 3.
> 
>  From the moment that God gave the Torah, it is only he who sins that will be punished,
> though before that, the whole generation was responsible for the sin of the individual.
> Thus there were many righteous men swept away with the deluge in the time of Noah.
> Hence, since Noah was the ?most? righteous, he was spared although the other righteous
> were not, as a consequence of collective guilt at that time.

According to R Avin, what was Avraham's argument, "chalila lach"?  If 
that had been Hashem's SOP for the past 2050 years, and would be for 
another 400, why didn't He just tell Avraham "Yes, this is how I do things"?

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

On Wed, Oct 18, 2017 at 09:37:17AM -0400, Richard Wolberg via Avodah wrote:
: ... account in Tanchuma, R?eh, 3:

:> From the moment that God gave the Torah, it is only he who sins that will
:> be punished, though before that, the whole generation was responsible
:> for the sin of the individual. Thus there were many righteous men swept
:> away with the deluge in the time of Noah. Hence, since Noah was the
:> "most" righteous, he was spared although the other righteous were not,
:> as a consequence of collective guilt at that time.

The text is available at <http://j.mp/2xQClM9> or
<https://www.sefaria.org/Midrash_Tanchuma,_Re'eh.3.1?lang=bi> The siman
opens with quoting Eikhah 3:38, "miPi Elyon lo seitzei hara'os vehatov"
and then immediately starts with this statement from R' Avin. However,
the quote has that after Matan Torah, whomever sins, "HQBH poreia mimenu",
and before that, the whole generation "meshaleim chet'o". Arguably this
translation might be missing something by leaving the language of Hashem
collecting, as though on a debt.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik,
mi...@aishdas.org        but to become a tzaddik.
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507

R. Micha Berger wrote:
?This doesn't really rule out miracles, but it does rule out ones that
leave a permanent change in the natural orer. There is a line. Which is
how he rules out the historicity of "vegar ze'eiv im keves..." etc...
They don't mearly "needn't" happen, he rules out the possibility of
their literal meaning being part of the future, because they cross his
line of olam keminhago noheig".?


Kodem cheit Adam haReshon, not just  Adam was only permitted to eat plant
life but so too was the nature of ALL animals that they too only subsisted
from plant life ? ie., much like "vegar ze'eiv im keves..." 
So perhaps olam keminhago noheig means keminhago KODEM HACHET without requiring any change to the ORIGINAL natural  order.

Kol tuv
Chaim Manaster
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The S"A in O"C 53 discusses what to look for in a Shliach Tzibbur. We seem
to not fully actualize these recommendations (rationalizations include the
fact that he is no longer being motzi those who can't pray). Do you think
this result is sociological or halachic driven? Does an individual (e.g.,
avel) who pushes to be a shatz, etc., when there are more qualified
individuals (or especially if they are not qualified), accomplish more good
or bad? See especially Aruch Hashulchan 53:5.

KT
Joel Rich

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?the miracle of judging by smell?

Really should be a knew thread.

When we learned this sugia recently in the daf yomi I asked the magid shiur
that lechora this was keneged torah which requires eidim for most
judgements. He answered that perhaps it means that one smell from Moshiach
would be enough to get the person to be modeh al ha?emes. I replied that
would only work for judgments in choshen mishpot (hodoas bal din) but not
for cases involving arayos, malkos, or misah where two eidim are required
and we are not permitted to accept his confession as ein adam meisim atzmo
rasha. How would this ?miracle? allow for a proper halachik judgment? That
is where we left it for now. Could this meimre of chazal be limited to just
cases involving choshen mishpot?

I imagine many meforshim address this issue, can anyone clarify?

Kol tuv
Chaim Manaster
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On Wed, Oct 18, 2017 at 11:12:50AM -0400, hankman via Avodah wrote:
: R. Micha Berger wrote:
:> This doesn't really rule out miracles, but it does rule out ones that
:> leave a permanent change in the natural order. There is a line. Which is
:> how he rules out the historicity of "vegar ze'eiv im keves..." etc...
...
: Kodem cheit Adam haReshon, not just Adam was only permitted to eat plant
: life but so too was the nature of ALL animals that they too only subsisted
: from plant life -- ie., much like "vegar ze'eiv im keves..."

I doubt the Rambam, the "he" I am trying to understand in the text
you quoted, would agree with this premise about animals before the
eitz hada'as.

On Wed, Oct 18, 2017 at 11:44:50AM -0400, hankman via Avodah wrote:
:> the miracle of judging by smell

: Really should be a new thread.

: When we learned this sugia recently in the daf yomi I asked the magid
: shiur that lechora this was keneged torah which requires eidim for
: most judgements. He answered that perhaps it means that one smell from
: Moshiach would be enough to get the person to be modeh al ha'emes....

I think it HAS to be be its own thread, because this too works with
assumptions the Rambam would not agree with. Odds are the Rambam
wouldn't take "demorach" literally.
See Lecham Yehudah on Hil' Melakhim 11:3, aveilable at
<http://www.hebrewbooks.org/rambam.aspx?mfid=16226&;rid=15018>.

But to get back on topic to the original thread (which is why I'm posting
it here):
Notice that the BLY (R Yehudah Iyash, Levorno mid-18th cent) assumes that
such guilt-smelling would defy the Rambam's "chidush bema'aseh bereishis"
rule, and thus couldn't be literal. Even though it's a localized miracle /
revelation and not a permanent change in the natural order.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Every child comes with the message
mi...@aishdas.org        that God is not yet discouraged with
http://www.aishdas.org   humanity.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                   - Rabindranath Tagore

On Oct 18, 2017, at 11:44am, hankman wrote:
> When we learned this sugia recently in the daf yomi I asked the magid
> shiur that lechora this was keneged torah which requires eidim for
> most judgements. He answered that perhaps it means that one smell from
> Moshiach would be enough to get the person to be modeh al ha'emes. I
> replied that would only work for judgments in choshen mishpot (hodoas
> bal din) but not for cases involving arayos, malkos, or misah where two
> eidim are required and we are not permitted to accept his confession as
> ein adam meisim atzmo rasha...

Reaching a correct psak in any area of halacha requires obtaining
a full picture of the situation, including all relevant details and
the particular context. This requires that the posek have skill in
asking questions that will clarify these points and recognizing when,
intentionally or not, the answers he is receiving do not reflect the
whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Perhaps it is this sense that the navi is referring to.

Joshua Meisner

R. J. Meisner wrote:

?
Reaching a correct psak in any area of halacha requires obtaining a full
picture of the situation, including all relevant details and the particular
context. This requires that the posek have skill in asking questions that
will clarify these points and recognizing when, intentionally or not, the
answers he is receiving do not reflect the whole truth and nothing but the
truth.

Perhaps it is this sense that the navi is referring to.

Joshua Meisner?


But no matter how skilled the judge is at getting at the truth, even if all
he need so is be moreiach, this still does not lessen the requirement of 2
eidim for many judgments.

While reading your response to me, another thought occurred to me and upon reflection it may be that this is also what you meant.
Perhaps when the gemara stated that he can be moreaiach veda?in that the
gemara meant not that he would only need to question the defendant, and
could smell whether he is guilty or not and pasken  based on the surety of
his conclusion, but perhaps the gemara meant that when questioning the
EIDIM he was able merely smell them and then judge the credibility of the
eidim whether he should accept them as credible or not and thus pasken the
case accordingly.

Kol tuv
Chaim Manaster


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R. Micha Berger wrote:

?I doubt the Rambam, the "he" I am trying to understand in the text
you quoted, would agree with this premise about animals before the
eitz hada'as.?

So how does the Rambam explain Bereishis 1:30?

Kol tuv
Chaim Manaster
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.
R' Chaim Manaster asked:

> I have been trying to understand what the geshtalt of Torah
> was precheit of the eitz hadaas. It could not have resembled
> anything that we ( I ) would recognize today. Consider:
> There was but one mitzva. Most if not all the mitzvos of the
> Torah we are familiar with could not have existed, at least
> as we understand them today. Had Adam been successful in his
> one day tafkid the purpose of the bria would have been
> accomplished and Adam (mankind) would have gone to olom haba
> ? mission accomplished nothing more to follow but for reward
> in olom haba.
>
> The many consequences seem to be as follows: there would be
> no avdus in Mitzrayim, therefore no ... ...

One can ask similar questions about other turning-points in history.
What if Kayin had not killed Hevel? What if the world has not gone to
Avodah Zara a few generations later? What if Yishmael and/or Esav had
not gone of the derech? What if Moshe Rabenu had acted differently by
the rock?

I believe that people are too hung up on the idea that "Torah" and the
Chumash are identical. They are not. "The Torah has 70 faces", and ONE
of them is the written scroll that we read from in shul. Another is
the Torah Sheb'al Peh. Another was that one singular mitzvah that Adam
HaRishon was given. None is less holy than any other. They are but
different facets of the same diamond.

And there are yet others. Torah manifests itself differently to a
kohen than to a levi, and differently to a woman than to a man. And so
on. For example:

> As there would never be an Eretz Yisroel, then there would not
> be all the mitzvot hateltuot ba?aretz ? trumos, masros etc., etc.

Or perhaps Gan Eden would have had that status. Eretz Yisrael is
actually a great example: Consider the idea that true nevuah can exist
only in Eretz Yisrael. But also consider that this restriction only
started when EY got its kedushah - prior to that point one could have
nevuah elsewhere too. Logically, I would think that the kedusha of EY
enabled this thing that couldn't exist without such intense kedusha;
but counter-intuitively, this thing that has long existed is now
suddenly restricted to a specific area. Because times change, and
people change; the Torah stays the same but it shows a different face.

We are so used to how things are today, that we think things have
always been this way. But it ain't so.

> So what is the nature of Torah in such a world. How do we
> see it as an ever constant ever present and unchanging
> Torah? How does a Torah with but ONE mitzva look? How does
> it still identify with a Torah with 613 mitzvot?

There are many mitzvos that apply only at specifc times and under
specific circumstances. Consider the back-and-forth of when bamos were
allowed and not allowed. We went for quite a few centuries with
choosing a human king. I am deliberately trying to avoid mitzvos that
have sociological criteria, like the existence of a Sanhedrin, or
whether or not we are capable of tochacha. Rather, my point goes to
this "Torah with 613 mitzvot" that you refer to. It doesn't exist
today, and I don't know if it ever has existed. There has certainly
never been a person to whom they all applied, and I wonder whether
there was ever a generation when they were all in force.

> Sorry if my thoughts were very rambling. I just typed as
> things came to mind ? maybe not always a good idea!

On the contrary, brainstorming is often a fruitful way of developing
new thoughts! Personally, it was many decades ago that someone asked
me, "If there is life on other planets, might they possibly have a
Torah? But Mitzrayim doesn't exist there, and Moshe never lived
there!" That question bothered me for a very long time, until I
realized that even on *this* planet, Noach had his version of Torah,
and that was centuries before Mitzrayim or Moshe came to be.

(To conflate two threads, I think what I'm saying here is very similar
to what R"n Lisa Liel wrote in the "eitz hachaim" thread. These things
aren't static; their roles change to fit the situation.)

Akiva Miller

On 18/10/17 11:44, hankman via Avodah wrote:
> ?the miracle of judging by smell?
> Really should be a knew thread.
> When we learned this sugia recently in the daf yomi I asked the magid 
> shiur that lechora this was keneged torah which requires eidim for most 
> judgements.

Moshiach is a melech, and not bound by the rules of a beis din.

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

On Wed, Oct 18, 2017 at 06:44:42PM -0400, hankman via Avodah wrote:
: R. Micha Berger wrote:
:> I doubt the Rambam, the "he" I am trying to understand in the text
:> you quoted, would agree with this premise about animals before the
:> eitz hada'as.

: So how does the Rambam explain Bereishis 1:30?

Well, if you look at Moreh 1:30, you'll see that the Rambam considers maaseh
bereishis to be atemporal, 6 logical stages of unfolding of reality, not
steps separated in time.

So I don't know if I should assume anything about how he reads pasuq 30.

But I do note that if taken literally, the pasuq merely says that Hashem
gave the  plants to the animals for food. A statement about one of the
functions of plantsl and that Adam can't hord all the plants for himself,
since animals need it too. It needn't mean that only plants served a food.

The statement from Chazal (quoted by Rashi) is a derashah. The Ohr haChaim
spends time justifying it, if you want to see the medrashic steps in
detail. But it's not peshat, and therefore not necessarily the Rambam
would take literally.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             There's only one corner of the universe
mi...@aishdas.org        you can be certain of improving,
http://www.aishdas.org   and that's your own self.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                 - Aldous Huxley

On 18/10/17 11:09, Richard Wolberg wrote:
> What I?m saying is that our theology is fraught with inconsistencies and 
> contradictions
> and we have plenty of ?teikusl? ?You?re a black and white person and 
> don?t see shades.
> Not everything can be reconciled.

Impossible.  Toras Hashem Temima, and can't contradict itself.  If there 
are two pesukim that seem to contradict each other, there's a third 
pasuk that resolves it and makes sense of both.

It's not possible that R Avin was unaware of Avraham's statement, nor is 
it possible that he would dismiss Avraham's view as mistaken.  Therefore 
there must be something in R Avin's view that's not what it appears.


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

Rabbi Jason Weiner's, "Jewish Guide to Practical Medical Decision-Making" -
"The Talmudic sages performed post-mortem examinations and had considerable
knowledge of anatomy and pathology. Indeed, the rabbis of the Talmud were
among the first people in history to operate on corpses in order to learn
medical information that had halakhic ramifications. See Tosefta Niddah
4:17, Niddah 30b, bekhorot 45A . . ".
Wiki s- Initially, the Ancient Greek philosophers did not believe in
empiricism, and saw measurements, such as geometry, as the domain of
craftsmen and artisans. Philosophers, such as Plato, believed that all
knowledge could be obtained through pure reasoning, and that there was no
need to actually go out and measure anything.
Please look at the three sources quoted by R'Weiner, are they support or really maaseh lstormaaseh l'stor as to a general approach?
Kt
Joel rich

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