Avodah Mailing List

Volume 39: Number 45

Fri, 14 May 2021

• 1. Re: Can One Take In Shavuot Early? (Akiva Miller)
• 2. Re: The Chasam Sofer on the Zohar (Zev Sero)
• 3. Re: Can One Take In Shavuot Early? (allan.en...@gmail.com)
• 4. More on When Was the Zohar Written (Prof. L. Levine)
• 5. The chiyuv hishtadlus of parents for children (Marty Bluke)
• 6. Video: The 3 Most Central Mitzvos of the Torah -- and Shavuos (Micha Berger)

.
R' Yitzchok Levine cited an article by Rabbi Yaakov Hoffman:

> ... It is astonishing, then, that this practice is so
> entrenched, especially since it has no basis in Chazal
> or the Rishonim. According to strict Talmudic law, ...

This is not the first time I've seen this sentiment. Why do I see a disdain
for the Acharonim so often?

There are many practices that are not discussed in the Gemara and Rishonim,
and did not surface until the days of the Acharonim, just as there are many
practices that are not discussed in the Gemara and did not surface until
the days of the Rishonim. Why do some people have the attitude that there
is a cutoff point beyond which halacha can no longer develop?

Akiva Miller
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On 11/5/21 8:18 pm, Prof. L. Levine via Avodah wrote, quoting R N Slifkin:
> 5. Nevertheless, Chasam Sofer was of the view that the vast majority of 
> the Zohar was not written by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, but was instead 
> written much later.
 >
 >[...]

And RYL added:
> The Chasam Sofer is in *Yoreh Deah siman 233*.


No, it is not.  As RSBA likes to quote his rebbe R Weissmandel, "Hastu 
nachgeschaut"?  A very quick Nachschauung shows that this teshuvah only 
briefly mentions the Zohar and does not even address its authorship.  It 
deals with the question of Kedushas Eretz Yisrael, and with the Chasam 
Sofer's shita on the creation of new holidays and rituals, and therefore 
with his criticism of the Lag Ba'omer practices in Meron.

AFAIK the only hint to the Ch"S's view on the authorship of the Zohar is 
in Vol 6 #59, where he praises Yaavetz's sefer Mitpachas Sofrim.


>  Rav Ovadiah Yosef said 
> <http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2010/10/rav-ovadiah-yosef-on-zohar.html> 
> that because of the serious questions that arise with attributing the 
> Zohar to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, one cannot call someone a heretic for 
> rejecting his authorship of it.

Again, a simple Nachschauung shows that this statement misrepresents its 
purported source.  Even if one takes R Yehuda Naki's recollection of 
ROY's words as accurate, he absolutely did *not* say that there are any 
serious questions about the Zohar or its authorship.  He said that the 
Darda'im "have found in it [the Zohar] all sorts of questions that *in 
their minds* show a contradiction to what is written in the Torah".  In 
other words, the Darda'im *falsely believe* that the Zohar contradicts 
the Torah, and therefore can't be blamed for rejecting it and accepting 
the Torah, and therefore in his view they do not have the formal status 
of heretics, their synagogues do not have the status of churches that 
are assur behana'ah, and they can be counted in a minyan.  This does not 
mean one cannot *call* such a person a heretic.

It is widely believed that before ROY accepted R Kafah as a legitimate 
dayan he asked him to swear that he rejected his grandfather's 
teachings. By its very nature this is obviously not written anywhere, 
one can't expect it to be, so skeptics are free to doubt it; but I am 
not aware of any actual evidence against it.


-- 
Zev Sero            Wishing everyone a healthy summer
z...@sero.name

The issue with this particular practice is that it is based on an 'drasha'
on a word in a passuk that was never darshened until relatively recently,
and new drashas on pessukim have been outlawed since the era of the amoraim.

On Wed, 12 May 2021, 13:38 Akiva Miller via Avodah, <
avo...@lists.aishdas.org> wrote:

>
> There are many practices that are not discussed in the Gemara and
> Rishonim, and did not surface until the days of the Acharonim, just as
> there are many practices that are not discussed in the Gemara and did not
> surface until the days of the Rishonim. Why do some people have the
> attitude that there is a cutoff point beyond which halacha can no longer
> develop?
>
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R. Avraham Yari in his sefer Toldos Chag Simchas Torah comes to some
interesting conclusions about when the Zohar was actually written.  His
conclusions are based on when the name Simchas Torah was first used to
designate the second day of Shemini Atzeres. See

http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/zohar_yaari.pdf

YL
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Rav Slifkin quoted a psak from Rav Zilberstein (
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hHXxuQkIrjU/YJvlXCGteoI/AAAAAAACUE0/5ZptYy3hBh82XV0INVJu_3L00VG98TctgCLcBGAsYHQ/s933/ChildSiren.jpg)
<https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hHXxuQkIrjU/YJvlXCGteoI/AAAAAAACUE0/5ZptYy3hBh82XV0INVJu_3L00VG98TctgCLcBGAsYHQ/s933/ChildSiren.jpg>that
parents have no chiyuv to wake up sleeping children when the air raid siren
goes off and take them to a shelter. His reasoning is that going to a
shelter is hishtadlus and children have no chiyuv hishtadlus.

I don?t understand this at all. If he is right, we shouldn?t take children
to the doctor either, that is also hishtadlus. We also wouldn?t need to
watch that they don?t do anything dangerous, that is also hishtadlus. Yet,
I never heard of anyone who doesn?t take their children to the doctor when
they are sick. What am I missing?
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I gave a shiur last night on Zoom and Facebook Live. (Also uploaded
to YouTube, etc...)

The topic was the three mitzvos massiyos connected to Shavuos in
parashas Emor. Yes, there is an esrog, sukkah or matzah like mitzvah
in the parashah's description of Shavuos. These are also the 3 of the 4
mitzvos Chazal say MUST be taught to a prospective geir, singled out in
instructions to give a general survey. (And the fourth is related.) And
repeated in the Rambam. And probably underlies Megilas Rus's association
with Matan Torah.

Hint: NOT Shabbos, Kashrus and Taharas haMishpachah

Giveaway, if you bought the book: The shiur covers ideas I had since writing
    Widen Your Tent sec. 7.10.

I left a video, audio, and the slideshow (PDF) online at
https://www.aishdas.org/asp/3-central-mitzvos-shiur

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Today is the 47th day, which is
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer.
Author: Widen Your Tent      Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF             unity-how does it draw out one's soul?


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