Avodah Mailing List

Volume 39: Number 54

Tue, 15 Jun 2021

• 1. Re: When was Pi haAretz created? (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: Can One Take In Shavuot Early? (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: Gelatin (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: eating for brachot rather than brachot for eating? (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: eating for brachot rather than brachot for eating? (Zev Sero)
• 6. Re: When was Pi haAretz created? (Akiva Miller)

On Tue, Jun 08, 2021 at 07:43:29PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
> > But, what Moshe (Bamidbar 16:30) says is, "ve'im beri'ah
> > yivra H' ufatzesa ha'adamah es piha..."
> > But according to Avos, the mouth was already created well
> > before Moshe spoke!?
...
> Read the words carefully. The new creation is not the earth's mouth. The
> mouth already existed. Perhaps it was even a well-known geological
> formation.

So you are arguing that "beri'ah" can refer to an event, rather than an
object or place?

I find the idea startling. I thought the whole point of asiyah meaning
both "doing" and generic "making" was because it's in that niche.

I don't see how to get the whole yeish mei'ayin implication would fit
an event that happens with / performed by pre-existing objects.



On Tue, Jun 08, 2021 at 09:18:00PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
> As RMB often points out, HKBH is outside time, so to talk of when He creates
> something is confusing...

I do often point that out, but I don't think it works here.

The idea you're referring to is my observation that one cannot talk about
when Hashem decided to do something. Saying Hashem rewarded someone in
response to their mitzvah and saying that He set up a system by which
the mitzvah causes its own reward are really identical. Because His
"Decision" to reward a person has no time. Saying each happens in response
to the action, or the whole system was set up that way initially are just
time-bound models for a timeless "Decision".

But the actual reward does have a well-defined "when". It is an event
that happens to a human being living within the timeline.

Similarly, the pi ha'aretz started existing at a given when.

For that matter, there are bechirah chafshi problems if the prayer is
answered before it is made. Again, Hashem "Decided" to answer the prayer
in a timeless way, but the answer itself, the effects within this world's
timeline, have to post-date the prayer. Or else, what's left of Moshe
Rabbeinu's bechirah to daven?

> was done so because Moshe in the year 2451 was going to call on Hashem to
> create it.  Hashem, answering Moshe's prayer, created the world that way.

In any case, I didn't ask about Moshe praying for the earth to open, but
his calling for something new as a conditional, "Ve'im beri'ah yivrah H',
ufatzesah ha'adamah es piha uval'ah osam..."

In my OP, I associated "beri'ah" with the pi ha'aretz, not the opening,
for the reason given in the first part of this email. But that's not
"yivrah", it's "bara".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   but to become a tzaddik.
Author: Widen Your Tent                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF

On Mon, May 24, 2021 at 10:59:21PM +1000, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote:
> I wasn't clear. This was a comment the CC made on other issues where
> he disagreed with the Netziv and for which the Netziv's support was his
> own new interpretation of a passuk. R Schachter often mentions this in
> his Shiurim. I wasn't commenting on this specific instance.

Can you give examples where the CC does object?

Actually, I'm more interested in how many cases does the Netziv appeal
directly to pesuqim to make a halachic point. The CC's objection doesn't
surprise me as much.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

On Wed, May 26, 2021 at 06:18:57PM -0400, Meir Shinnar via Avodah wrote:
> Famous story of RSZA telling head of Michlala that his American students
> can go eat at their RZ families in Israel who keep Rabbanit hashgacha --
> because it is kasher, and even though he has different shittot, they can
> eat there.

I would want to hear details about which "RZ families in Israel". There
is a big difference between relying on your host's shitos because they
are valid, and between being meiqil on some issues for the sake of kibud
av va'eim and shalom bayis, and not making enemies of extended family.
Much inheres in details of both the case and the wording of the answer.


But sof kol sof, I agree:
> So yes, for almost everyone, ehrlichkeit is more important...

Because for most of us, knowing we can rely on them actually keeping to
their standards is more important than which standards they're keeping.

(This is aside from the question of which is more important for *them*
-- the mashgichim's own spiritual well being, for which DE qodmah laTorah
would apply.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
Author: Widen Your Tent      and it flies away.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                          - Rav Yisrael Salanter

On Tue, Jun 08, 2021 at 10:00:40PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
> Did bnai yeshiva not eat granola bars in the time of Moshe Rabbeinu due
> to safeik brachot? When did the approach of eating for brachot rather
> than brachot for eating take off? Why?

I am on a hunt... So, the AhS OC 208:9 points you to Tosafos on Berakhos
36a, d"h "Kol Sheyeish Bo". Then I saw the Tur (ad loc) did first,
advising not to eat raw or boiled wheat outside of the se'udah. The Tur
says "shayeish lizaher". The AhS -- "shenachon". The Tosados themselves
say "vetov lehachmir".

Whatever each phrase means, the idea of modifying what one eats so as
to avoid safeiq berakhos is at least as old as that anonymous Tosafos.

I remember the phrase "Yarei Shamayim, ra'ui lo lehachmir velo lehikaneis
lesafeiq berakhos" but I can't find a primary source for it. In any case,
that refers more to the safeiq whether or not a berakhah is needed (eg
was it a kezayis / revi'is I just ate?) and not which berakhah to make.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Life is a stage and we are the actors,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   but only some of us have the script.
Author: Widen Your Tent                  - Rav Menachem Nissel
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF

On 14/6/21 6:39 pm, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 08, 2021 at 10:00:40PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:

>> Did bnai yeshiva not eat granola bars in the time of Moshe Rabbeinu due
>> to safeik brachot? When did the approach of eating for brachot rather
>> than brachot for eating take off? Why?

> I am on a hunt... So, the AhS OC 208:9 points you to Tosafos on Berakhos
> 36a, d"h "Kol Sheyeish Bo". Then I saw the Tur (ad loc) did first,
> advising not to eat raw or boiled wheat outside of the se'udah. The Tur
> says "shayeish lizaher". The AhS -- "shenachon". The Tosados themselves
> say "vetov lehachmir".

Indeed.  Note, however, that it advises *not* eating this food without 
washing on bread, rather than *eating* something that is definitely each 
of the brachos in question, and then eating the food mimah nafshach.   I 
suspect R Joel may be right that that's a recent phenomenon, and it may 
not be correct.

Almost 40 years ago, when I was in yeshivah, one of my colleagues, now 
Dayan Levi Raskin of London's Kedassia Beis Din, published a student 
note making this very diyuk, and questioning the propriety of saying a 
bracha when one has no desire to eat the thing it's on, and is only 
eating it in order to resolve a halachic question.

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

.
I suggested:

> Read the words carefully. The new creation is not the earth's mouth. The
> mouth already existed. Perhaps it was even a well-known geological
> formation.

R' Micha Berger responded:

> So you are arguing that "beri'ah" can refer to an event, rather
> than an object or place?
> ...
> I don't see how to get the whole yeish mei'ayin implication would
> fit an event that happens with / performed by pre-existing objects.

Words can mean slightly different things when they are in different
contexts. One of my favorite examples is "melacha", which is defined
differently for Shabbos, for Chanuka, and in business. Sometimes a "yad"
means an arm in general, and sometimes it means specifically a hand.

It seems to me that the "yeish mei'ayin" connotation of beriah applies
either to the Creation week as a whole, or specifically to the first day.
But when we start getting into details, not so much.

Specifically, the Torah refers to the creation of Adam and Chava in several
places (Bereshis 1:27, 5:2, 6:7, Devarim 4:32). But they were explicitly
made from pre-existing things - Adam from adamah, and Chava from Adam. And
yet, although the raw material was pre-existing, there was clearly
something very new about them. Perhaps this new aspect was their neshama,
or bechira, or something else. But whatever it was, it was so significant
that the word beriah could be used to describe it.

So too for the opening of the earth's (pre-existing) mouth. It was such an
unheard-of thing that describing it could be called a creation.
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