Avodah Mailing List

Volume 37: Number 21

Tue, 19 Mar 2019

• 1. Re: Brisk (Micha Berger)
• 2. A Purim Thought From Rav S. schwab (Professor L. Levine)
• 3. Autonomous Vehicle vs. Bor biRshus haRabbim (Micha Berger)
• 4. Is there a mitzvah to honor step-parents? (Professor L. Levine)
• 5. Re: Is there a mitzvah to honor step-parents? (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: Derech psak (Micha Berger)
• 7. derech psak (Eli Turkel)
• 8. Re: Derech psak (Ben Bradley)
• 9. vaccinations (Eli Turkel)

On Fri, Mar 15, 2019 at 05:15:36PM +1100, Dr. Isaac Balbin wrote:
: The Mesora is huge in Brisk. Not sure how you discount the mimetic
: tradition? Look at the brouhaha regarding Techeiles...

Not mimeticism. RYBS and RHS use the word "mesorah" to refer to
the rishonim and acharonim who enter the room when Rav Moshe Soloveitchik
gave shiur, or the dialog down the ages RYBS experienced during his
shiurim.

To RHS, it's the flow of the pesaq. If it's mimetic at all, it's the
mimetic tradition of posqim, passwed down from mentor to apprentice.

For that matter, R' Chaim Brisker's objection to techeiles wasn't
about mimeticism. Rather, it was about halakhah having to stand
pristine, not subject to external first principles. Archeology
cannot change the din; only if halakhah would somehow prove the
identity of the chilazon would the identification have halachic
import.

(No, I don't know how this would have worked.)

But could you picture a Brisker making an argument like the AhS's
that the widespread acceptance of community eiruvin is as clear
as a bas qol that they must be permitted?

: In that matter I think R Asher Weiss made up his mind and then formed
: a Psak relying on the inauthenticity of archeology...

RYBS said he did this himself. And what about when the Rambam says
"nir'eh li"?

I would think it's the one non-controversial use of what has come to be
called "daas Torah". One would expect soeone who spent decades mastering
a topoc to have a feel for how the question is going to be answered
even before working out a line of reasoning to justify that answer --
or occasionally surprise them by showing the instinct was wrong.

But that instinct in the Brisker case isn't informed by "the masses
can't be *that* wrong". Mimeticism doesn't enter it much.

And that's why so many people now wait for a friend before saying
Vayekhulu Friday night. Or stand when saying it in Qiddush.

: Would you not say Rav Schachter pasken through the Rav's lens?

There si some similarlity, but not the same lens. You mentioned
tekheiles. That's a pretty good counter-example.

Gut Voch!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "I think, therefore I am." - Renne Descartes
mi...@aishdas.org        "I am thought about, therefore I am -
http://www.aishdas.org   my existence depends upon the thought of a
Fax: (270) 514-1507      Supreme Being Who thinks me." - R' SR Hirsch

The following is from today's Hakhel email bulletin. (Please note that all extemporaneous symbols and misspellings were in the email that I received.)

PURIM MOMENT: HaRav Shimon Schwab, Z"tl (Rav Schwab on Prayer, Artscroll,
p.526) poses a question: Why does the Megillah in some detail, and why do
Chazal subsequently in Ahl HaNissim, spend the time and effort to describe
that Haman was hung on a tree, and that his 10 sons were hung on the tree
almost a year later. Why do we have to remind ourselves of this every year
in the Megillah and in the Ahl Hanissim so many times??  Indeed, Rav Schwab
points out?even in the Maoz Tzur off Chanukah we sing ???Rov Bonov
Vekinyanav Al Hoetz Tolisa?Haman and a good number of his sons were hung on
the tree.??? What special significance does the tree have to this very
special day?

Rav Schwab answers:  Chazal (Chullin 139B) teach that Haman is alluded to
in the Torah with the Eitz HaDaas--Hashem asks Adam:?  ???Hamin Hoetz
Asher?---Did you eat of the tree which I commanded you not to eat?? What is
the relationship of Haman to the Eitz HaDaas ?is it merely a play on words
of Haman and <Hamin? Obviously not. There is a great lesson here. Haman
intended to commit the most heinous crime imaginable--the genocide of an
entire people. The aveirah of Adam and Chava at first blush seems to be of
no comparison whatsoever.  After all, they wanted to grow spiritually--to
know the difference between Tov and Ra (Beraishis 3:5)--it was an Aveira
for them to eat only because Hashem did not want to grow in this way at
this time. They succumbed to the appeal which the fruit had to their
senses--albeit a supernal and lofty one. As Rav Schwab teaches: This was
the most exalted form of an aveirah ever committed.??? Nevertheless, the
Megillah and Chazal teach that the worst possible
  aveirah known to man?genocide-- had its origins in the sublime and
  elevated desire of Adam and Chava.?  This is the route of aveira, this is
  the path of the Yetzer Hara. Those ???worst kind??? of aveiros start
  somewhere--they have their origin in the slightest of aveiros. Haman's
  aveira only began?because of the Hamin that engendered it.

So, when we read and refer to--and even pray about --the Tree of Haman this
Purim, let us make sure that we glean its great lesson. We will tell the
Yetzer Hara--No, I am not going to begin?--the one word of Lashon Hara, the
one bite of questionable food, picking up the muktza item because there
must be some heter, not paying the worker what he asks because you want to
teach him a lesson? all of the good intentions, all of the practically no
aveira of what you may be thinking, doing or saying?remember that 50 Amos
high tree-- look up to its top?and to the little sapling! We will not
follow Haman--we will follow Mordechai!

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The Torah says that baal habor only has to pay the nezeq his bor caused
if the injured is a person or an animal, not keilim. And in fact even
when it comes to animals, we learn that since a healthy animal walking
in the daytime watches where it foes, any hezeq done to the animal in
such a circumstance would be the animal's fault.

People, OTOH, our eyes don't point down at the floor, and even when
we try to watch where we're going, we can be distracted by other
thoughts. Animals don't have such distraction.

(And yet adam mu'ad le'olam? Why is it that when speaking of an outright
maziq, a person is culpable for not watching his own klutzy elbows,
but here...? Anyway, back to the question...)

Keilim would only fall into the bor if someone was transporting them
through a reshus harabbim, either by hand or by animal. But when porting,
the person carrying would normally be paying attention to where they
are going, and the baal habor can't be held accountable if they didn't.

Notice here I'm saying two conflicting explanation of the din. The
opening sentence makes it out to be a gezeiras hakasuv, but Chazal
provide explanations for the various aspects of the din.

Now we get to autonomous vehicles. Say my self-driving car hits a pothole
someone else made in the road and incurs damage. (I picture reparing
those things won't be cheap!) Let's assume further it isn't the kind
of pothole most mass produced cars would notice, so it's like more an
animal going in the dark. Does the baal habor have to pay, because there
was no human porting my keli and thus it has the din of a beheimah? Or
is it a keli and thus exempt because of the gezeiras hakasuv?

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
mi...@aishdas.org         'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
http://www.aishdas.org    'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
Fax: (270) 514-1507                     - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l

From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis.

    Q. Is there a mitzvah to honor step-parents?

    A. There is a Torah obligation to honor a step-mother or a
    step-father so long as one's father or mother is still alive. Once
    the parent passes away, there is no further obligation to honor
    the step-parent. However, the Gemara (Kesubos 103a) relates that
    Rebbi Yehuda HaNasi instructed his children before his passing
    to continue to show honor to their step-mother, and this is the
    accepted practice of all G-d fearing individuals even though it is
    not a formal obligation (Aruch Hashulchan YD 240:43).

    The Birkei Yosef (YD 240:16) writes that one is obligated
    to show honor to their step-mother even if their birth mother
    objects. Honoring their step-mother is a means of honoring their
    father, and the birth mother's objections do not remove this
    obligation. However, Halachos Ketanos (1:28) writes that if there
    is a question of who should be honored first (e.g., one's mother and
    step-mother both ask for a drink of water), one is obligated to honor
    one's mother first. Though they are both Torah obligations, the honor
    that is due to a parent is greater than that due to a step-parent.

On Mon, Mar 18, 2019 at 02:40:10PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote:
: From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis.
...
:     The Birkei Yosef (YD 240:16) writes that one is obligated
:     to show honor to their step-mother even if their birth mother
:     objects. Honoring their step-mother is a means of honoring their
:     father...

Similarly, one is obligated to show kavod to one's rebbe's wife, as it
is part of the chiyuv of showing him kavod.

Although, if you truly believe in the zekhuyos accorded to the Zevulun
in a Yissachar-Zevulun relationship, why wouldn't we be obligated to
stand for the rebbetzin because "sheli veshalekhem, shelah hu?" (But
that's not how the SA phrases the chiyuv to stand for her.)

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
mi...@aishdas.org         'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
http://www.aishdas.org    'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
Fax: (270) 514-1507                     - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l

On Fri, Mar 15, 2019 at 01:01:42PM +0000, Ben Bradley via Avodah wrote:
: R Micha wrote:
: > I think lomdus is more in the style of Tosafos, focusing on how we
: > understand the gemara, with "only" implications about practice. Rather
: > than focusing on getting to a lemaaseh. It's just a different subject.

: Firstly, I think we overemphasise the chidush of lomdus. Granted, R'
: Chaim's derech and subsequent Brisker development was something new in
: its explicit conceptual tools. But to say that being able to see all
: sides of a sugya with great clarity is a new thing, well isn't that
: part and parcel of classic ameilus batorah? ...

Except I didn't. I likened it to Tosafos, a precedent. The use of a tool
for understanding shitos in a straight ameilus beTorah as though it were
a tool for pesaq -- that's a chiddush.

...
: In general, the impression one gets is that the basic learning of the
: batei medrash of the amoraim was to to do exactly what we call lomdus,
: just that the format of the gemara doesn't record exactly how that process
: happened, presumably to maintain the oral/mimetic nature of the process
: of learning Torah. Nonetheless we don't find that this amoraic/tannaitic
: lomdus inhibited the ability to arrive at halacha l'maaseh.

What do you call the shaqla vetarya of the gemara if not Rav and Rav
Yehudah's (as founders of Sura & Pumpedisa, respectively) style(s)
of lomdus?

: Slightly derech agav, drashos on pesukim seem to be used both to create
: new halachos and also verify oral traditions. The Netziv in the hakdama
: to Vaykira in Haemek davar makes this explicit and the Rambam in the
: Shorashim (2 or 3?) seems to say the same, although there seems to be
: some comtemporary debate about this issue...

I think it's use to verify runs to the end of shas or so, but the use
of derashos to create halakhah dies off well before then. Perhaps with
the composition of the mishnah. Rav Meir had already closed the door
on darshening cheseiros and yeseiros for pragmatic reasons. The gemara
(Pesachim 66a, nr bottom) invokes ein adam dan gezeira shava le'atzmo
to a maaseh involving Hillel. (There it's contrasted to qal vechomer,
where one may. So what about the other rules of derashah -- like g"sh,
already put to rest, or like qv"ch?)

Li nir'eh, though, that it's safe to say amora'im weren't creating
new dinim or interpretations of dinim using derashos.

...
: All of which still leaves me uncertain as to why (some) Briskers find it
: so hard to pasken rather than cover all bases. Of note, despite claims
: by some talmidim that RYBS wasn't really a posek, more a Rosh Yeshiva,
: because he changed his mehelach in gemara sugyos freqently, a la Brisk,
: it's clear that he was very clear and consistent in many issues of psak
: over a long period of time when dealing with shailos for the RCA rabbonim
: as recorded in their documentation. So at least one Brisker didn't have
: trouble paskening l'maaseh despite his aptitude in lomdus.

Boston, a lot more often than the RCA. Think how much more often people
had questions about their kitchens or taharas hamishpachah compared to
the number of questions RCA faced. And for individual RCA rabbanim,
RYBS often (usually?) helped them reach their own pesaq than impose his
own pesaq on the moreh de'asra.

But I think he did show signs of Briskness. How many other posqim
(beyond Brisk's influence) would tell balebatim to observe yahrzeit in
both Adars? And as for ignoring mimeticism.... Sitting for Havdalah is
one example that really caught on in some YU circles.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "As long as the candle is still burning,
mi...@aishdas.org        it is still possible to accomplish and to
http://www.aishdas.org   mend."
Fax: (270) 514-1507          - Anonymous shoemaker to R' Yisrael Salanter

While much of the discussion has centered about Brisk I mention two others.
First the Chatam Sofer was a major figure both in lomdus and psak and had
no trouble combining the two ( I do not mean to dismiss many others)

Second while there was a claim that R. Chaim wa like a rishon some would
disagree and give the example of Chazon Ish who was more like a rishon in a
straightforward explanation of the gemara (and of course was a gadol in
both sevara and psak)


-- 
Eli Turkel
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From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Sent: 18 March 2019 04:57
> What do you call the shaqla vetarya of the gemara if not Rav and Rav
> Yehudah's (as founders of Sura & Pumpedisa, respectively) style(s)
> of lomdus?

Not sure of your point. My point was exactly that lomdus is implicit in
classic ameilus batorah. The shakla v'tarya of the gemara leaves so much
work for us to fill in that we can't be sure what the shakla v'tarya
of a beis midrash in the amoraic period sounded like in practice, what
conceptual tools they used etc. The written record we have just doesn't
give us information to do more than work out our own approach to the
material. The closest we have is probably the small number of mishnayos
scattered through shas which give a direct recording of a conversation in
one place and time, and which differ in style from any discussion in the
gemara. Eg mishna in brachas 'dayo lavo min ha din lihiot ka'nidon'. I
think they all involve comparing and contrasting agreed cases to derive
a din for the case under machlokes.

> Boston, a lot more often than the RCA. Think how much more often people
> had questions about their kitchens or taharas hamishpachah compared to
> the number of questions RCA faced. And for individual RCA rabbanim,
> RYBS often (usually?) helped them reach their own pesaq than impose his
> own pesaq on the moreh de'asra.'

> But I think he did show signs of Briskness. How many other posqim
> (beyond Brisk's influence) would tell balebatim to observe yahrzeit in
> both Adars? And as for ignoring mimeticism.... Sitting for Havdalah is
> one example that really caught on in some YU circles.

I was thinking of his role as posek for the RCA as a whole rather than
for individual rabbonim. Those decisions are recorded. I have no idea how
many Boston baaleibatim asked routine shailos in yoreh deah or otherwise
in the 60s and 70s. Nor how how he paskened for them.

Re Yahrzeits, keeping it in both Adars is a Maharil brought by Rama,
so not a Brisk thing.

In any case, point was being a Brisker lamdan doesn't have to limit
decisiveness in pask.

Ben

<< The vaccination is not like that ? even when made and used
> correctly, we still expect about 1 in 1,000,000 children to die from it.
> That?s pretty scary,

Everything in life has some risk. Travelling by car probably carries a risk
greater than 1 in a million.
Safek pikuah nefesh is docheh shabbat. Obviously one can't violate shabbat
for every minuscule problem. I have heard in the name of R. Elyashiv that
anything less than 1 in a thousand is not considered in halacha.

-- 
Eli Turkel
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