Volume 36: Number 60
Thu, 17 May 2018
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Message: 1
From: Ben Rothke
Date: Mon, 14 May 2018 12:54:07 -0400
Subject: [Avodah] Generators on Shabbos in Israel
I know there are those that use generators on Shabbos in Israel, AIUI,
so as not to be ne'neh from chilul shabbos.
With that, in modern electricity plants, there is so much that is
automated, it's almost on auto-pilot. So what exactly is the potential
chillul shabbos?
Based on that, shouldn't these people also draw their water before
shabbos? As water treatment plants also have workers there on shabbos.
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Message: 2
From: Micha Berger
Date: Mon, 14 May 2018 15:19:14 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] The Real Shiurim -- They're Smaller Than You
On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 02:51:40PM -0400, Saul Guberman via Avodah wrote:
: My daughter informed me that
: one of her seminary Rabbonim wrote a sefer on measurements and his are even
: smaller than RMW. Here is a link. http://margolin.ravpage.co.il/kzayitbook
: It seems to me that everyone is making assumptions and leaps somewhere in
: the base of their calculation.
But does that prevent their pesaqim from being binding? In other words,
the vast majority of the observant community accept that a kezayis
is somewhere between the Rambam's estimate and the Chazon Ish's. Does
that mean that regardless of what an archeologist might prove an actual
olive's volume was, lehalakhah a shitah outside that range would be
invalid anyway?
We know the ammah changed in size over the centuries between Sinai
and Churban Bayis Sheini. Is this due to a change in height of people
causing a change in shiur, or is it that pesaqim in shiurim are more
binding than historical reality?
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice
Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand?
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Message: 3
From: Saul Guberman
Date: Mon, 14 May 2018 15:28:24 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] The Real Shiurim -- They're Smaller Than You
On Mon, May 14, 2018 at 3:19 PM, Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:
> But does that prevent their pesaqim from being binding? In other words,
> the vast majority of the observant community accept that a kezayis
> is somewhere between the Rambam's estimate and the Chazon Ish's. Does
> that mean that regardless of what an archeologist might prove an actual
> olive's volume was, lehalakhah a shitah outside that range would be
> invalid anyway?
>
> We know the ammah changed in size over the centuries between Sinai
> and Churban Bayis Sheini. Is this due to a change in height of people
> causing a change in shiur, or is it that pesaqim in shiurim are more
> binding than historical reality?
>
I would say there would be a change. It seems to me that everyone wants to
be empirically correct on this calculation. The big problems are trying to
area measurement(etzbah), or weight measurements (diram) to equal volume
measurements (kzayis). It would seem that none were precise, unless they
were using a particular persons' thumb and forearm.
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Message: 4
From: Micha Berger
Date: Mon, 14 May 2018 15:06:21 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] minhagim
On Wed, May 09, 2018 at 10:33:02AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
: Brown makes the argument that CI and much of litvishe gedolim in the recent
: past basically rejected minhagim as the practice of the masses. Only those
: practices that can be
: traced to the gemara or rishonim are acceptable...
So, nothing from Tzefat -- eg no Qabbalas Shabbos? They didn't wear
yarmulkas?
I am missing something here.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
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Message: 5
From: Akiva Miller
Date: Tue, 15 May 2018 07:05:47 -0400
Subject: [Avodah] The night of Makas Bechoros
.
Shemos 12:39 teaches us:
> They baked the dough that they took out of Egypt into loaves
> of matzah, because it did not become chametz, for they were
> driven out of Egypt and could not delay. Nor did they prepare
> any provisions for themselves.
Various meforshim deal with halachic problems of this pasuk. For example,
they were commanded to eat matzah, and being rushed out had nothing to do
with it. Or, chometz was forbidden, and being rushed had nothing to do with
it. This thread WILL NOT discuss those issues. If you want to discuss those
issues, please start a new thread.
My questions have nothing to do with halacha. They relate to the sequence
and timing of the events of that night. They relate to "lir'os es atzmo" -
I try to imagine myself in Mitzrayim that night, and certain parts of the
story don't make sense to me.
I have distilled my problem down to two simple and direct questions about
the dough mentioned in the above pasuk:
1) When was that dough made?
2) When was that dough baked?
We were forbidden to leave our homes until morning, and it is totally
irrelevant to me whether you prefer to define "morning" as Alos or as
Hanetz. Either way, there way plenty of time from when Par'oh and the
Mitzrim went shouting in the streets, "Get out!" until we were able to
leave our homes. I estimate that we had several hours to prepare food for
the trip. I find it difficult to imagine that the flour and water were not
mixed until the last 17 minutes before morning.
Another problem: Given that they DID take unbaked dough out of Mitzrayim,
what happened when they finally decided to bake it? Obviously, if they were
able to bake it, it must be that they were not hurrying out of Egypt any
more. So why didn't they just wait a little longer, and allow the dough to
rise? (Someone might suggest that it was only in Egypt that "it did not
become chametz", and that they did let it rise after getting out, but the
pasuk disproves that, by telling us that "they baked it into matzah", i.e.
that the dough never rose at all, at any point.)
There are other questions that could ask, in addition to those, but I'll
stop here for now.
advTHANKSance
Akiva Miller
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Message: 6
From: Marty Bluke
Date: Tue, 15 May 2018 15:11:46 +0300
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Meat in the Midbar and Korbon Shelamim
R' Issac Balbin wrote:
" suggest looking at the Sefer Hamitzvos of the Rambam, Mitzvah Lamed Daled
where he describes that though the Mitzvah of was on the Cohanim to carry
the Aron on their shoulders (Naso 7), the command was fulfilled by the
Leviim, because there weren't enough Cohanim, however, in the future it
would only be done by Cohanim."
There is a fundamental difference between carrying the aron and the avoda
in the mishkan. The Rambam writes explicitly there in the sefer hamitzvos
that the mitzva of carrying the aron, was given to the leviim in the midbar
"v'af al pi shezeh hatzivuy ba laleviim baet hahe". We do not find any such
commandment in the Torah regarding avoda in the mishkan. The Torah ONLY
commands/allows Aharon and his sons to do Avoda in the mishkan. Therefore
there is no room to say that leviim did avoda in the mishkan in the midbar.
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Message: 7
From: Gershon Seif
Date: Tue, 15 May 2018 16:53:47 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: [Avodah] Yom HaMeyuchas
Does anyone here know who coined this phrase Yom HaMeyuchas? I asked many b'nei Torah and nobody seems to know.TIA
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Message: 8
From: Micha Berger
Date: Tue, 15 May 2018 15:31:10 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Yom HaMeyuchas
On Tue, May 15, 2018 at 04:53:47PM +0000, Gershon Seif via Avodah wrote:
: Does anyone here know who coined this phrase Yom HaMeyuchas? I asked
: many b'nei Torah and nobody seems to know.
The oldest usage Bar Ilan and I could find was the one I had initially
thought of -- the AhS. In OC 494:7, RYME gives 3 reasons for not fasting
on that day. #2:
And more: On that day, Moshe told them to becom qadosh. Uregilin
liqroso "Yom haMyuchas" because of this.
<https://www.sefaria.org/Aruch_HaShulchan.1.494.7>
Which makes me think the AhS was saying it's just mimetic. Otherwise,
I would have expected "uregilin le-" to have been replaced by a source.
More than that, his vanilla "uregilin" is more typical of his description
of accepted Litvisher practice. He tends to report others' practices by
saying whom, even if it's a recent import to Litta. For example, se'if
3 mentions that the Chassidim haQadmonim were up all night on Shavuos,
as per the Zohar, "vegam agah harbeih osin kein" and in the morning they
go to miqvah, all as a zeikher leMatan Torah. Staying up all night gets
a "they", not a "we", and is labeled as lower-case-c chassidic / Zoharic
custom.
Chodesh Tov!
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger Today is the 45th day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org 6 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Malchus: What is the beauty of
Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity (on all levels of relationship)?
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Message: 9
From: Cantor Wolberg
Date: Tue, 15 May 2018 15:39:06 -0400
Subject: [Avodah] Bamidbar
THEY DID; SO DID THEY DO
According to the Sages, not a single letter is superfluous in the Torah. Anything repeated is repeated for a definite reason and with additional meaning.
We may not always comprehend the reason or meaning but that doesn't detract from its significance. Also, there may be various interpretations and reasons
given by commentators but that is what makes the Torah so profound. This Shabbos we begin the fourth Book of the Torah, Bamidbar.
This portion is read the Shabbat before Shavuot, with rare exception. This year it is read immediately before Shavuot.
The reason it usually is read the Shabbat prior to Shavuot is because there
is a connection between the subject matter of this portion and the theme of
Shavuot.
There is a verse in Bamidbar in which appears a seeming redundancy. I grappled with it for a while and came up with an interesting chiddush.
The verse states (1:54) "The Children of Israel did everything that God
commanded Moses, so did they do." The first part of the verse already says
"they did everything," etc.
Then at the end it again says: "so did they do." Why is it repeated?
First, the Children of Israel did "everything that God commanded Moses"
because that was what God commanded and they did it as it was a mitzvah.
But then, when it states
at the end of the pasuk "so did they do," it already had become part of
them. In other words, the initial motivation for performing a mitzvah is
because God has commanded it,
but then after doing it, one does it automatically and out of love and joy
(as opposed to being mandatory). It becomes part of the person -- ("so did
they do)."
Similarly, when the Jewish people accepted the Torah they said "Naaseh
v'nishma" (Exodus 24:7) which means "We will DO and (then) we will
understand." In other words,
we first will do out of duty and obligation since we are accepting the
commandments of the Almighty, and afterwards, we will be doing (observing
the mitzvot) out of love and joy.
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Message: 10
From: Micha Berger
Date: Tue, 15 May 2018 18:45:56 -0400
Subject: [Avodah] Settling Catan on Shabbos
R' Mordechai Torczyner (CC-ed) gave 3 shiurim (chaburos?) on koseiv and mocheiq
this past march. Including #2, available here
<https://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/898034>. He raises an
interesting (to me, at least) question:
Catan, formerly The Settlers of Catan, is a game with a board that changes
with each play. The board is tiled from hexagons (and played on the edges
and corners between them), where each hexagon has a picture on it denoting
a kind of terrain, and by implication the reasources one can get from
that terrain. This honeycomb is then held in place by a hexagonal frame,
which is assembled from 6 pieces, each of which has jigsaw-puzzle-like
edges at the join to hold the whole thing together. See
<https://www.catan.com/files/styles/lightboxy/public/gallery/dye_catan_150407_0564.jpg>
RMT cited in shiur SSJ 16:23 (source #5 on the resource page attached
to the YUTorah recording). He says you can play a game with letters or
pictures IFF one is placing letters or pieces of letters or pictures or
their pieces next to eachother. But not if they are made qeva or put
in a frame. And only if they do not attach or stick to one another.
So, here is RMT's question... Catan's hexagons do not combine to make
one picture, but they do combine to make one "message" -- a usable game
board. Is assembling a Catan board mutar on Shabbos?
And if not, I wish to add:
What if the game is played on a pillow, making it hard to keep the pieces
interlocked, and the players agree to end the game before Shabbos? If
the assembly is neither made to last nor is there intent for it to last,
would it then be mutar?
Chodesh Tov!
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger Today is the 45th day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org 6 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Malchus: What is the beauty of
Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity (on all levels of relationship)?
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Message: 11
From: Zev Sero
Date: Thu, 17 May 2018 03:11:05 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Settling Catan on Shabbos
The frame that comes with the newer editions of Settlers is quite
flimsy so I don't believe it can be regarded as "fixing" the hexes
together in a way that could even raise this shayla. But leravcha
demilsa one can simply lay out the board without the frame, as one
does with the older editions (my set is close to 20 years old and
therefore doesn't have this problem.
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Message: 12
From: Zev Sero
Date: Thu, 17 May 2018 03:30:27 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] The night of Makas Bechoros
Further to your question, we've discussed the time of yetzias
mitzrayim before, and some have asserted that it was early in the
morning, but the Torah says "be'etzem hayom", and Rashi explicitly
says this means high noon. At the time of the discussion I couldn't
find this Rashi, but it's in Devarim 32:48. So not only did they
have all night to prepare food for the journey, they also had all
morning. And yet we're to believe they didn't get around to it until
just before noon.
However, leaving aside the improbability of this timing, my
understanding of the actual event is that they started making dough to
bake bread, and would have left it to rise but immediately they got
the announcement that they were leaving, so they shoved it straight
into the oven and baked it there and then, as matzos.
Alternatively, given that they had already been commanded not to bake
chametz, we can say that because of this commandment they always
intended to bake it immediately, but as it happened the command became
irrelevant because the announcement came just as they finished
kneading it and were about to put it in the oven, so even had they
*not* been commanded they would still have had to bake it as matzos.
Which of course is why the commandment was given in the first place.
Either way, though, my understanding is that they did not leave with
unbaked dough but with dough that had been swiftly baked into matzos.
I am positing that one may still call dough "dough" after it has been
turned into bread, if one is speaking from the perspective of before
it was baked.
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Message: 13
From: Professor L. Levine
Date: Thu, 17 May 2018 12:55:56 +0000
Subject: [Avodah] Is one permitted to drink a beverage that had been
From today's OU Halacha Yomis
Q. Is one permitted to drink a beverage that had been left uncovered and unattended?
A. The Gemara (Avoda Zara 30a) discusses the laws of giluy (beverages left
uncovered). Chazal forbade drinking certain beverages that were left
uncovered, due to concerns that venomous creatures, such as snakes or
scorpions, might drink from the beverage and leave behind some of their
venom. Tosfos (Avoda Zara 35a: Chada) writes that in the countries where we
live, this concern does not exist, and beverages left uncovered may be
drunk. Ordinarily, once Chazal issue a gezeira (decree), the gezeira
remains in force even if the reasoning no longer applies. This case is
different since the original gezeira was only enacted for places where
snakes were common. Accordingly, Shulchan Aruch (YD 116:1) rules that one
may drink a beverage that was left uncovered. However, the Pischei Teshuva
(116:1) writes that the position of the Vilna Gaon and the Shelah Hakadosh
is not to leave drinks unattended. The commentaries to the Maaseh Rav
explain that the Vilna Gaon held that there are seco
ndary re
asons for Rabbinic decrees that apply even when the primary reason is no
longer relevant. Common practice is to follow the position of the Shulchan
Aruch, though some adhere to the more stringent opinion
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