Avodah Mailing List

Volume 36: Number 74

Fri, 29 Jun 2018

• 1. Waiting After Some Cheeses Before Eating Meat (Professor L. Levine)
• 2. [Commentary] Rabbi Meir Soloveichik: Why Christians Are Reading the Rav (Eli Turkel)
• 3. Re: How could Aharon and Miriam have been in the mishkan or chatzer when tamei? (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: changing paradigms? (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: R Asher Weis on Torah leShmah (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: bli neder? (Micha Berger)

From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis


Q. I know that we are supposed to wait after eating certain cheeses, before
we can then eat meat. After which cheeses should one wait, and what is the
basis for this practice?



A. The Rama (Yoreh Deah 89:2) writes that the custom is not to eat meat
after eating hard cheese. The waiting time for this is equivalent to the
amount of time that one waits after eating meat, before then eating dairy
foods. (See Taz ibid. 89:4, Aruch HaShulchan ibid. 89:11, Chochmas Adam
40:13.)

There are two reasons that one needs to wait after meat before then partaking of milk; these two reasons apply as well to eating certain cheeses after meat.

The first reason is that of basar she?bein ha-shinayim ? meat that gets
stuck between the teeth ? which takes a considerable amount of time to
dislodge or disintegrate, before which one may not consume milk. (Rambam,
Hilchos Ma?achalos Asuros 9:28) The second reason for waiting after eating
meat is meshichas ta?am ? an aftertaste left in the mouth, due to meat?s
fattiness; only after a substantial lapse of time does this aftertaste
dissipate, whereupon one may then consume milk. (Rashi in Chullin 105a s.v.
?Assur?)

Poskim apply both of these reasons to cheese: Hard cheese, due to its firm
and brittle texture, is like basar she?bein ha-shinayim, and is termed
gevinah she?bein ha-shinayim ? cheese that gets stuck between the teeth.
One therefore needs to wait a considerable amount of time for such cheese
to dislodge or disintegrate before then consuming meat. (Sifsei Da?as Yoreh
89:2) Also, cheeses that are very pungent and leave a noticeable aftertaste
are like meat that has meshichas ta?am; one must wait for the aftertaste to
dissipate before then eating meat. (Taz Yoreh Deah 89:4)

Although some classical poskim argue as to whether one or both of the above
rationales for waiting apply to cheese, contemporary poskim rule that both
apply. The next installment of Halacha Yomis will discuss further details.

View OUKosher's list of Aged Cheeses<http://links.mkt3536.com/ctt?kn=12&;ms=MjA2NzkzOTcS1&r=MjM3MTAxNzY3NzIS1&b=0&j=MTI0NDAxNTQ3NwS2&mt=1&rt=0>.


YL
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20180625/1e33d627/attachment-0001.html>

[RET emailed me this under a subject line that began "Too long for Avodah
thought you might be interested..." But I thought his reluctance was
missplaced. I just held on to the piece for its own digest. -micha]

Jun 20, 2018

    The nature of the dilemma can be stated in a three-word sentence. I
    am lonely.
                    - Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

In 2015, I was invited to a conference held at a Catholic University in
Spain, celebrating the first Spanish translation of *The Lonely Man of
Faith*, the seminal philosophical essay of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik (my
great uncle), reverently referred to by many Orthodox Jews as "the Rav."
Published 50 years earlier, the essay contrasts two biblical accounts
of the creation of man and teases out two personas, known as Adam the
First and Adam the Second. In the first chapter of Genesis, humanity
is created in the image of God and instructed by the Almighty to "fill
the world and subdue it." Adam the First, Rabbi Soloveitchik suggests,
is majestic; through his God-like creative capacities he seeks scientific
breakthroughs, to cure disease, to build cities and countries, to advance
the health and comfort of mankind.

But then there is Adam the Second, who in Genesis 2 is created from the
dust of the earth and remains in the sanctity of the garden of Eden,
"to work and protect it." This represents the religious aspect of man,
man who is ever aware of his finitude, who finds fulfillment not in
majestic achievement but in an intimate relationship with a personal God.

These two accounts are given, Rabbi Soloveitchik argued, because both
are accurate; both Adam I and Adam II are divinely desired aspects
of the human experience. One who is devoted to religious endeavors
is reminded that "he is also wanted and needed in another community,
the cosmic-majestic," and when one works on behalf of civilization,
the Bible does not let him forget "that he is a covenantal being who
will never find self-fulfillment outside of the covenant." The man of
faith is not fully of the world, but neither can he reject the world. To
join the two parts of the self may not be fully achievable, but it must
nevertheless be our goal.

In his letter of invitation to the conference, the president of the
Spanish university reflected on how Rabbi Soloveitchik's writings spoke to
his own vocation. As a leader of a Christian school, he said he grappled
constantly with the challenge of being an *hombre de fe* in a Europe that,
once the cradle of Christendom, was now suddenly secular:

    As Adam the First understandably and correctly busies himself with
    the temporal concerns of this world, we encourage our students to
    not lose sight, within their own hearts, of Adam the Second, the
    thirsting Adam that longs for a redemption that our technological
    advances cannot quench. We hope that our students, who come to our
    university seeking degree titles that will translate into jobs, will
    leave it also with awakened minds and hearts that fully recognize
    the deep aspirations that lie within their youthful spirits, and
    which *The Lonely Man of Faith* so eloquently describes.

The letter reflected a fascinating phenomenon. As Orthodox Jews mark
this year the 25th anniversary of Rabbi Soloveitchik's passing, more and
more of his works are being studied, savored, appreciated, and applied
to people's own lives -- by Christians. As interesting as this is, it
should not be surprising. *The Lonely Man of Faith* actually originated,
in part, in a talk to Catholic seminarians, and today it is Christians
who are particularly shocked by the rapidity with which a culture that was
once Christian has turned on them, so that now people of faith are quite
lonely in the world at large. In his essay, Rabbi Soloveitchik notes that
though the tension between Adam I and Adam II is always a source of angst,
"the contemporary man of faith is, due to his peculiar position in secular
society, lonely in a special way," as our age is "technically minded,
self-centered, and self-loving, almost in a sickly narcissistic fashion,
scoring honor upon honor, piling up victory upon victory, reaching for
the distant galaxies, and seeing in the here-and-now sensible world the
only manifestation of being."

Now that the world of Adam I seems wholly divorced from that of Adam II,
people of faith seek guidance in the art of bridging the two; and if,
70 years ago, Reinhold Niebhur was a theologian who spoke for a culture
where Christianity was the norm, Rabbi Soloveitchik is a philosopher
for Jews and Christians who are outsiders. The Catholic philosopher
R.J. Snell, in a Christian reflection inspired by the Rav's writings,
wrote that "like Joseph B. Soloveitchik in *The Lonely Man of Faith*,
I am lonely," and he tells us why:

    In science, my faith is judged obscurantist; in ethics, mere animus;
    in practicality, irrelevant; in love, archaic. In the square, I am
    silenced; at school, mocked; in business, fined; at entertainment,
    derided; in the home, patronized; at work, muffled. My leaders are
    disrespected; my founder blasphemed by the new culture, new religion,
    and new philosophy which...suffers from an aversion to the fullness
    of questions, insisting that questions are meaningful only when
    limited to a scope much narrower than my catholic range of wonder.

Yet Rabbi Soloveitchik's thesis remains that even when society rejects us,
we cannot give up on society, but we also cannot amputate our religious
identity from our very selves. Adam I and Adam II must be bridged. This
will not be easy, but a theme throughout Rabbi Soloveitchik's writings
is that all too often religion is seen as a blissful escape from life's
crises, while in truth the opposite is the case. In the words of Reuven
Ziegler, Rabbi Soloveitchik insisted that "religion does not offer an
escape from reality, but rather provides the ultimate encounter with
reality." Traditional Jews and Christians in the West face cultural
challenges to their faith -- disdain, scorn, and even hate -- but if
the challenge is faced with fortitude, sophistication, and honor, it
will be a religious endeavor worthy of being remembered.

And as both traditional Jews and Christians face this challenge, it will
often be as compatriots, in a fellowship that we may not have foreseen
50 years ago. After attending the conference, I was emailed by another
member of the administration, the rector of the university. He thanked
me "for the pleasure of sharing that deep friendship which is a sign of
the community inspired by the principles of the second Adam," and added,
"[I] really enjoyed the time we passed together and the reading of the
book of Rabbi Soloveitchik," which was, he reflected, "so stimulating
for a better understanding of my own life and my faith." To be a person
of faith is indeed to be lonely in this world. But more and more, lonely
men and women of several faiths may be brought together by *The Lonely
Man of Faith.*

On Sun, Jun 03, 2018 at 11:54:52AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote:
: Based on this I was bothered by a similar question in last weeks parsha.At
: the end of Behaloscha we have the famous story of Miriam and Aharon talking
: against Moshe and then Hashem calls the 3 of them to go outside. Rashi
: comments that Aharon and Miriam were both temeim b'derech eretz (e.g. tumas
: keri) and tehrefore were screaming for water. If so we can ask the same
: question, how could they be in the chatzer of the mishkan while tamei? A
: Baal keri is prohibited from going there.

Or to put it less obliquely... The pasuq there (Bamidbar 12:4) refers to
their location as Ohel Mo'ed. But the idiom is not necessarily referring
to the Mishkan. Moshe went to the Ohel Mo'ed to get nevu'ah *outside*
the camp. (Shemos 33) It had a pillar of cloud at the door, not at a
mizbeiach. In Bamidbar 11:16 we learn that the 70 zeqeinim, after getting
ruach haqodesh at the Ohel Mo'eid, returned to the camp.

The Sifrei Zutra where (Bamidbar 11) writes:
    And he set them round about the tent the tent for speaking which
    was outside the camp. They made two tents, a tent for service and
    a tent for speaking. The outer tent had the same dimensions as the
    inner one, and the Levites served in both with the wagons.

Two ohel mo'eds, the mishkan, and the nevu'ah center.

The Ohel Mo'eid in this story also has a cloud at the door. So, I
would think it was Moshe's place of nevu'ah, not the Mishkan.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and
mi...@aishdas.org        this was a great wonder. But it is much more
http://www.aishdas.org   wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a
Fax: (270) 514-1507      "mensch"!     -Rav Yisrael Salanter

On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 01:18:14PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
: The more I learn Shulchan Aruch and Mishna Brurah the more I understand
: the Maharshal's opposition to codification vs. relearning the basic
: sources to obtain the clearest understanding possible of Chazal's
: underlying theories for extrapolation to new cases...

This is why the Maharal (Be'er 1, ch 19 or so) says that the Tur is
only usable because of the BY, and SA, because it comes with the suite
of nosei keilim.

Speaking after years of learning AhS daily... There is a strong feel for
the flow of the pesaq and how each area of halakhah is reasoned through
by going to Tur, BY, SA, nosei keilim, AhS.

It could be the Maharshal too would be more bothered by the Yad than
by the other codes, IFF once studies the Tur or SA (or MB) with the
other texts that explain how we got there.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "The worst thing that can happen to a
mi...@aishdas.org        person is to remain asleep and untamed."
http://www.aishdas.org          - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 03:51:17PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote:
: <https://en.tvunah.org/2018/06/12/learning-torah-lshma>...
: R' Asher Weiss give a nice survey of opinions about what the "lishmah"
: of "Torah lishmah" means.
...
:> Defining Lishmo -- Three Opinions
:> 
:> We find throughout the generations what seem to be three differing
:> opinions as to the definition of Lishmo.
:> 
:>     1. The opinion of the Ba'al Shem Tov, as seems clear from the opinion
:>     of one of his major disciples[26] and from two disciples of subsequent
:>     generations[27] is that Lishmo means that one has intent purely to
:>     fulfil the will of Hashem. Due to this, the early Chassidic practice
:>     was to stop in the middle of learning in order to refocus one's mind
:>     on this thought.
:> 
:>     2. Rav Chaim Volozhiner writes[28] that it is improper to be pausing
:>     in the middle of learning. Furthermore, we say lishmah, not lishmo
:>     [for "its" sake, not "for His sake"]. Rather, says Rav Chaim,
:>     one should have intent solely to understand the Torah which one is
:>     learning. This is also the understanding of the Chasam Sofer.[29]
:> 
:>     3. The Reishis Chochmah[30] and the Shlah[31] writes that Lishmoh
:>     means for the sake of the mitzvos -- commandments. One needs to
:>     learn in order to know what to do. Accordingly, the word lishmah
:>     is to be understood as the feminine singular -- for her sake --
:>     i.e. for the sake of the mitzvah -- commandment. This is similar
:>     with the requirement stated in the Yerushalmi[32] that one must
:>     learn Torah in order to fulfil it.
:> 
:> Support for these Positions
:> 
:> All three of these opinions seem to have a basis in the words of the
:> Rishonim.
:> 
:>     1. Rav Chaim Volozhiner quotes the Rosh[33] as his source. The Gemara
:>     in Nedarim states as follows: Asei dervarim lesheim pa'alan vedabeir
:>     bahen lishman, which the Rosh explains as follows: "Perform the
:>     commandments for the sake of Hashem, and learn Torah for its own sake,
:>     that is, to know and to understand and to increase one's knowledge."
:> 
:>     2. The Mefaresh[34] had a different text in this Gemara, and his text
:>     reads, vedaveir bahen lesheim shamayim-- learn Torah for the sake
:>     of Heaven. This is also seems to have been the text of the Rambam,
:>     for he writes[35] that Lishmo is when one learns Torah purely out
:>     of love for Hashem. This would seem to indicate like the opinion of
:>     the Ba'al Shem Tov.
:> 
:>     3. In support of the opinion of the Reishis Chochmah, both Rashi[36]
:>     and Tosfos[37] write that Lishmo means in order to act.

Along the lines of #3, Yesushalmi Beraikha 1:1 (vilna 1a), Shabbos 1:2 (vilna
7b):
    One who learns but not in order to do, would have been pleasanter
    that his umbilical cord would have prolapsed in front of his face
    and he never came into the world.

The Meshekh Chokhmah, Devarim 28:61, explains this in terms of the idea
that the soul learns Torah with a mal'akh before birth. Someone who
wants to learn as an end in itself would have been better off staying
with that mal'akh! And (citing the intro to Qorban Aharon) a soul that
was not born is a seikhel nivdal who grasped his Creator. All that is
being given up by being born. But, if one is learning al menas laasos,
which one can only do after birth, then their birth had value.

The other opinion in the Y-mi is that someone who is lomei shelo al means
lelameid is better off not existing. Again, the MC, notes, because the
point of learning is to bring it into the world. The MC also gets this
from Sanhedrin 99b, where the gemara concludes that "adam la'amal yulad"
is for amal peh -- speaking Torah.

While the gemara doesn't say al menas lelameid is a definiition of
lishmah, the transitive property would lead me to conclude that's the
implication. Al menas and lishmah... can they be distinguished?

And if not
4. Al menas laasos.

(I have discussed this MC before. He ends up showing that in terms of
priorities, one who is going somewhere to teach doesn't have to stop to
do mitzvos maasiyos; but someoen who is actually learning (and not teaching)
has to stop even for a hakhsher mitzvah (maasis). This is one of my
favorite shtiklach; worth a look!

(There is a complete copy with a bad translation scattered among
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/learning-and-teaching>.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The waste of time is the most extravagant
mi...@aishdas.org        of all expense.
http://www.aishdas.org                           -Theophrastus
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 01:19:19PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
: Question - is the reward that one receives for doing the stringency
: greater if one takes it on as a requirement vs. saying bli neder?

It depends why gadol hametzuveh ve'oseh.

The accepted theory is that it's because the YhR chimes up when a
prohibition -- issur or bitul asei -- is involved (what pop-psych would
describe as the attractiveness of "forbidden fruit"), so so one gets
greater sekhar for winning the greater battle. Lefum tzaara agra.

In which case, the YhR would work against keeping a neder, and so one
should get more sekhar for fighting that battle.

I argued that it's that someone we are obligated to do is indeed obligated
because we need its effects more than someone who isn't. In which case,
no one *needs* the chumerah for basic development; because if they did,
it would have been obligatory.

Then there would be no added value for keeping the chumerah in terms of
the substance of what he's doing, but there is added value to keeping
a neder.

Meanwhile, it's subject to the Chullin 2a:

   "Tov shelo tidor
   mishetidor velo meshaleim." (Qoheles 5:4)
   Utanya:
       Tov mizeh umizeh, she'eino nodei kol iqar. -- Divrey R' Meir.
   R' Yehudah omer: Tov mizeh umizeh, nodeir umeshaleim.

The gemara then continues by limiting R' Yehudah to nedarim of "harei
zu" not shavu'os of "harei alai". Which would appar to include maintaining
a chumerah.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The goal isn't to live forever,
mi...@aishdas.org        the goal is to create so mething that will.
http://www.aishdas.org
Fax: (270) 514-1507


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



_______________________________________________
Avodah mailing list
Avo...@lists.aishdas.org
http://www.aishdas.org/lists/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://www.aishdas.org/lists/avodah/avodahareivim-membership-agreement/


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/lists/avodah/avodah-acronyms
(They are also visible in the web archive copy of each digest.)