Avodah Mailing List

Volume 35: Number 136

Tue, 05 Dec 2017

• 1. Tonight (Monday evening) begin Prayer for Rain (Ari Meir Brodsky)
• 2. Re: Davening on Airplanes (Michael Mirsky)
• 3. Knife Sharpening (Prof. Levine)
• 4. Re: What are the main mitzvos to focus on? (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: Davening on Airplanes (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: Davening on Airplanes (Saul Guberman)
• 7. Re: knife sharpeners (Zev Sero)
• 8. Re: Davening on Airplanes (Micha Berger)
• 9. Letzareif (Micha Berger)
• 10. Re: knife sharpeners (Ben Bradley)
• 11. Re: The 13 middos (Micha Berger)
• 12. Re: The 13 middos (Marty Bluke)
• 13. Re: Davening on Airplanes (Rich, Joel)

Dear Friends,

It's that time of year again, when I know many of you are expecting my
annual friendly reminder....

Jews outside of Israel should include the request for rain in daily
prayers, beginning with Maariv tonight (Monday evening), December 4, 2017,
corresponding to the evening of 17 Kislev, 5778.  The phrase *??? ?? ????
?????* "Veten tal umatar livracha" - "Give us dew and rain for a blessing"
is inserted into the 9th blessing of the weekday shemone esrei, from now
until Pesach.  [Sephardim replace the entire blessing of ????? with the
alternate text beginning ??? ????? - thanks to Prof. Lasker for the
reminder.]  I encourage everyone to remind friends and family members of
this event, especially those who may not be in shul at that time.

Diaspora Jews begin requesting rain on the 60th day of the fall season, as
approximated by Shmuel in the Talmud (Taanit 10a, Eiruvin 56a). For more
information about this calculation, follow the link below, to a fascinating
article giving a (very brief) introduction to the Jewish calendar, followed
by a discussion on why we begin praying for rain when we do:
http://www.lookstein.org/articles/veten_tal.htm
(Thanks to Russell Levy for providing the link.)

Wishing everyone a happy Chanukka,
-Ari Meir Brodsky


---------------------
Ari M. Brodsky
ari.brod...@utoronto.ca
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In all the discussions of this topic that I have seen, I haven't seen
anyone address the issue of someone who is in his year of aveilut and needs
a minyan to say kaddish. Do the objections to the possible disturbance a
minyan might cause override this need?

Michael Mirsky
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The following is from an article posted on the 
CRC web site at https://goo.gl/ispg9T


Food service establishments regularly send out 
their knives for sharpening, and it appears that 
there are three potential kashrus concerns with this practice, as follows:
    * The sharpening company may give the 
establishment different knives than the ones 
which the establishment gave them for 
sharpening.  This is an especially likely in 
cases where the sharpening company actually owns 
the knives and lends them to the establishment in 
exchange for the rights to sharpen them.  This 
issue can be avoided if the Mashgiach has a 
tevias ayin on the knives and/or marks them.
    * Knives are typically very dirty when they 
arrive at the sharpening facility, and therefore 
all knives are washed in hot water or a 
dishwasher before the sharpening begins.  This 
potentially allows non-kosher b?lios to get into 
the kosher knives.  See below for more on this.
    * The same machine is used to sharpen the 
(clean) kosher and non-kosher knives, and the 
friction created by the process does heat up the 
knives somewhat.  If that heat would be above yad 
soledes bo, there would be a potential for b?lios 
to transfer between the machinery and 
knives.  However, in tests which Rabbi Neustadt 
performed in one sharpening company, the 
sharpening wheel and the cooling water (where 
that was used) were consistently cooler than 100? 
F and were not hot to the touch.  As such, it 
appears that this does not pose a serious concern.
See the above URL for more.

YL
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On Thu, Nov 30, 2017 at 12:11:31PM +0200, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote:
: The last daf in Makos (24a) states that the Neviim took the 613 mitzvos and
: reduced them to a smaller set for people to focus on.

: Michah gave three Mitzvos for people to focus on - "Asos Mishpat..."

: "Asos Mishpat" is monetary laws;
: "Ahavas Chesed" is bestowing Chesed;

Is "din" necessarily a reference to monetary laws? Din vs chessed is a
recurring dialectic. As in sheim Elokus vs sheim Havayah.

: "V'Hatzne'a Leches Im Elokecha" is escorting the dead and bringing a Kalah
: to Chupah;

I saw the gemara differently, emphasizing tzeni'us itself. As it explains,
one should walk with one's G-d modestly even when doing these two mitzvos,
which normally happen in public. And then the gemara continues with a qal
vachomer al achas kamah vekamah those which are normally done betzin'ah.

So it seems to be closer to the words of the pasuq than the identification
with two specific acts of chessed (one of which is famously "chesed
shel emes") the gemara begins its explanation with. After all, chessed
is already covered in the previous item in the list.

(Parallel gemara at Sukkah 49b.)


: Yeshayah later gave two primary Mitzvos - "Shimru Mishpat va'Asu Tzedakah."

Tangent: You'll notice that Yeshaiah is listed twice, once before Mikhah
(giving 6 principles), and once after. As they were contemporaries whose
nevu'os overlap in content, R' Simla'i's intent is likely chronological
order.

: The mitzva of learning Torah which we understand to be the most important
: and fundamental mitzva does not appear in these lists....

I think the "we" in your sentence are simply following a hashkafah which
isn't majority opinion.

Not only does R' Simla'i skip them, in favor of living to emulate HQBH's
din and chessed, but

- Hillel famously defines all of Torah in terms of using one's empathy to
  avoiding doing what one's chaver would loathe.
  Rashi ad loc includes avoiding what one's Chaver would loathe, but in
  his other discussions of the quote, this aspect is missing.

- R' Aqiva and Ben Azzai argue over which pasuq better captures the Torah's
  kelal gadol, and both are interpersonal.

- In both shasin, "Torah lishmah" is discussed in terms of al menas la'asos
  and/or al menas lelameid. Not knowing for its own sake.
  See also Meshekh Chokhmah (Devarim 218:61) which I blog about at
  <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/learning-and-teaching>

So, who amongst Chazal really does make learning the central goal of a
Jewish man's life?

Jumping ahead to the Isms that today's O world is trying to build from:

- In chassidus, talmud Torah is a means to deveiqus.

- The discussion in Nefesh haChaim sha'ar 4 which denies the previous bullet
  item might be the earliest source for the position you describe as what
  "we understand" was written by the same RCV about whom his son says (in
  the haqadmah to NhC, emphasis mine):
     He regularly rebuked me, because he saw that I did not participate
     in the pain of others. And these were his constant words to me:
     This is the entire person. One is not created for himself, but
     to benefit others with the full extent of his powers. (SHEZEH
     KOL HA'ADAM: lo le'atzmo nivra, RAQ LEHO'IL LE'ACHRINI...)
  
  So, while sha'ar 4 waxes poetic about the chiyus talmud Torah gives the
  world, RCV didn't mean to say that therefore learning is the It of life.
  (And yeshivos tend not to learn shaar 1's discussion of the power of
  maaseh nor shaar 2's discussion of dibbur. Which also yeilds an imbalance
  in how one sees the NhC shaar 4's description of machashavah.)

- Similarly, while we remember R' Chaim Brisker for inventing Brisker
  lomdus, he said his main job was to be a baal chessed. And his family
  agreed; the praise on his matzeivah simply reads "rav chessed".
  Apparently the Pulmus haMussar was about the proper means to come to
  embody the ideal, and not what the ideal actually is.

This notion that learning is the ends rather than a central part of
the means is arguably idiosyncratic. It is far easier to argue that the
central mitzvah is to emulate the Meitiv and bring His Tov to others.

:                                                Additionally, these lists
: seem to consist solely of mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro, are there no
: mitzvos ben adam lamakom that are important enought to appear on these
: lists?

As per what I said above, mitzvos bein adam laMaqom -- or R' Yisrael
Salanter's third category of mitzvos being adam le'atzmo, which includes
talmud Torah as an act of self-refinement -- is more caring for the
goose than the goose's actual laying of the golden eggs.

Rather than a question mark, just end with an exclamation point.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             We are great, and our foibles are great,
mi...@aishdas.org        and therefore our troubles are great --
http://www.aishdas.org   but our consolations will also be great.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Rabbi AY Kook

On Mon, Dec 04, 2017 at 09:02:39PM +0300, Michael Mirsky via Avodah wrote:
: In all the discussions of this topic that I have seen, I haven't seen
: anyone address the issue of someone who is in his year of aveilut and needs
: a minyan to say kaddish. Do the objections to the possible disturbance a
: minyan might cause override this need?

How can it be a zekhus to the niftar to say Qaddish in a way that the
BALC violations make it a net minus?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

My understanding is that kaddish needs to be said once a day.  It is said
multi times a day as a hiddur.  So, missing one davening should be OK and
the zchus of not disturbing other passengers and crew and not creating a
chillul hashem should make up for the missed kaddish.

On Mon, Dec 4, 2017 at 1:02 PM, Michael Mirsky via Avodah <
avo...@lists.aishdas.org> wrote:

> In all the discussions of this topic that I have seen, I haven't seen
> anyone address the issue of someone who is in his year of aveilut and needs
> a minyan to say kaddish. Do the objections to the possible disturbance a
> minyan might cause override this need?
>
> Michael Mirsky
>
> _______________________________________________
> Avodah mailing list
> Avo...@lists.aishdas.org
> http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org
>
>
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On 04/12/17 10:55, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 02, 2017 at 08:01:31PM -0500, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
> : On 02/12/17 15:56, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote:
> : >Are knife sharpeners mekabel taam?? And noten taam?? Do you need
> : >different onces for meat, dairy, pesach, etc?
> :
> : Since they don't ever contact food, I don't see how they could.
> 
> Since they are in heated contact with the knife, aren't there potential
> na"t bar na"t issues?

Knives are sharpened while hot?!   With water?


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

On Mon, Dec 04, 2017 at 03:00:16PM -0500, Saul Guberman via Avodah wrote:
: My understanding is that kaddish needs to be said once a day.  It is said
: multi times a day as a hiddur...

See YD 376:4. The Rama discusses it in terms of a minhag, actually a variety of whatever is "minhag qavu'ah ba'ir". 

: the zchus of not disturbing other passengers and crew and not creating a
: chillul hashem should make up for the missed kaddish.

Especially since it's the avoidance of an actual issur vs a medieval or
post-medieval minhag.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Life isn't about finding yourself.
mi...@aishdas.org        Life is about creating yourself.
http://www.aishdas.org            - George Bernard Shaw
Fax: (270) 514-1507

In Bereishis Rabb 44:1, Rav says
    Lo nitenu hamitzvos ela letzarei bahen es haberios
    And what does it matter to HQBH who shechtas from the throat and
    who shechts from the back of the neck?
    Havei: lo nitenu hamitzvos ela letzarei bahen es haberios

Letzareif is a metaphor of melting. The problem is, whether we mean
smelting / refining, or to meld to thing together (as in "mitzrareif")?

Are we being told that mitzvos were given to refine people, or to connect
them? Or is the word chosen in order to intentionally carry both meanings?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             If you're going through hell
mi...@aishdas.org        keep going.
http://www.aishdas.org                   - Winston Churchill
Fax: (270) 514-1507

': On 02/12/17 15:56, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote:
: >Are knife sharpeners mekabel taam?? And noten taam?? Do you need
: >different onces for meat, dairy, pesach, etc?
:
: Since they don't ever contact food, I don't see how they could.

Since they are in heated contact with the knife, aren't there potential
na"t bar na"t issues?'

Knife sharpeners get hot? What kind of sharpeners are we talking about here? I've never seen a domestic knife sharpener which gets beyond slightly warm.
But even if it did, the food would be na't to the knife, the knife to the
sharpener, the sharpener to the second knife and thence to the food again.
Which is na't bar na't bar na't bar na't.  I thought that's not a problem
in hilchos basar b'chalav?

BW
Ben
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On Sun, Dec 03, 2017 at 11:13:00AM +0200, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote:
: The Gemara in Shavuos (4b) discusses who the Tanna of the Mishna is and
: brings down a fundamental machlokes tannaim about the 13 middos. R'
: Yishmael darshens klal uprat and R' Akiva darshens ribuy umiut. The
: Acharonim point out that these are mutually exclusive and every Tanna
: darshens one or the other but they cannot be mixed (e.g. a Tanna sometimes
: darshens ribuy umiut and sometimes klal uprat). ...

I do not understand this paranthetic comment, as it refers to a kind of
mixture, a tanna who uses both styles of derashah, as an example of how
they cannot be mixed. The willingness of the two batei midrash to use the
others' methodology is stated outright on Bekhoros 51a.

One such tanna is R' Aqiva himself, eg Yerushalmi Sotah 8:1 (vilna 34a).

See RSRH's discussion in Collected Writings V pg 170.

: something so fundamental as the 13 middos be a matter of dispute? Weren't
: the 13 middos given to Moshe at Har Sinai? How could they forget such a
: basic thing? ...

The methodology could have been in use informally before Hillel started
the meta-Torah of the study and formalization of rules to describe that
methodology.

Just as people can use proper grammar before anyone makes a formal study
of the language's grammatical rules.

Since each did use the others' rules, the formalized rule system doesn't
actually define the list of inherited laws.

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 Tuesday, December 5, 2017, Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:...
>
>
> I do not understand this paranthetic comment, as it refers to a kind of
> mixture, a tanna who uses both styles of derashah, as an example of how
> they cannot be mixed. The willingness of the two batei midrash to use the
> others' methodology is stated outright on Bekhoros 51a.
>
> One such tanna is R' Aqiva himself, eg Yerushalmi Sotah 8:1 (vilna 34a).
>
> See RSRH's discussion in Collected Writings V pg 170.


See the Mishne Lamelech avadim 3:9 where he states that it is either or and
the 2 styles cannot be mixed, and his main proof is from the Gemara Shavuos
4b where the Gemara asks on Rebbe how can he darshen a ribui umiut like R
Akiva if in general he darshens Klal Uprat. We see clearly that the Gemara
assumes you darshen 1 or the other but not both otherwise the Gemara would
have no question.

See also tosafos nidda 30a s.v. Ushma mina where tosafos says that we
pasken that we darshen Klal uprat and not ribui umiut. That only makes
sense if they are mutually exclusive. See also tosafos shavuos 25a s.v. Rav
who also assumes that it is either or.

Regarding the Gemara in bechoros 51a it is actually a proof the other way.
The Gemara says that this case is an exception because it is not written in
the normal way of a Klal uprat and therefore in this case only Rebbe can
learn a ribui umiut but in general someone who learns Klal uprat could not
use ribui umiut.

>
> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha
>
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> 
> Especially since it's the avoidance of an actual issur vs a medieval or
> post-medieval 
----------
All very true, yet the Hamon am has invested Kaddish with great importance.
Does that investiture have a halachic chalot?  It seems it does at least in
terms of kavod 
Kt
Joel
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