Avodah Mailing List

Volume 43: Number 21

Sun, 30 Mar 2025

• 1. Re: Carrying the aron (ark) while walking backwards (Micha Berger)
• 2. hashavat aveida? (Joel Rich)
• 3. trolley revisited (Joel Rich)
• 4. Re: hashavat aveida? (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: orthodox theology (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: standard measures? (Micha Berger)
• 7. Re: A Complete Unknown? (Micha Berger)
• 8. Re: trolley revisited (Micha Berger)

On Mon, Mar 24, 2025 at 10:15:30PM -0400, Yonatan Kaganoff via Avodah wrote:
> According to the Rambam in Hilchos Klei ha-Mikdash ve-ha-Ovdim Bo 2:13:
...
> When [the Levites] carry the ark on their shoulders, they should carry it
> face to face, with their backs pointed outward and their faces inward.
> 
> Thus those in the front will be walking backwards so that they won't be
> turning their backs to the aron.

Or, everyone was walking sideways. It depends which say the badim
ran when they carried it.

Also, it was usually wrapped up anyway. So, maybe this was only when they
took off the tekhheiles cloth and took the aron out of the tachash-skin
covering. So that this din would only apply when setting up or putting
away the Mishkan. And when travelling and the aron was doubly covered,
they walked normally.

The proble is that the Rambam himself doesn't mention this limitation,
no matter how much it makes sense to me.  And even worse for this theory,
halakhah 12 is about not using a wagon to move it, citing David's forgetting
this law and what happened to Uzzah (Shemuel II 6:2-8) And in that instance,
the aron was travelling, not just being put into or taken out of its
coverings. So it's even harder to argue that halakhah 13 is more limited
and yet the Rambam different differentiate, making it look like a list of
laws for the same situation(s).

But perhaps more likely: It's the same reason why the shape of the tablets
in Rembrandt's Moses with the Ten Commandments (1696) are far far more
often depicted than the brick-like shape of the real Luchos. Why be
surprised that artists don't always know their Rambam.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
http://www.aishdas.org/asp    'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
Author: Widen Your Tent       'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                   - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l

If you are walking down the street in Jerusalem, passing by a construction
site where an arab worker is speaking on the telephone facing you and 3
feet past him you see two 100 shekel bills on the street. You can pick them
up and continue walking and no one will never notice. Should you pick them
up and continue walking or just keep walking, or pick them up and ask him
does he know anything about them? If you pick them up and ask him and he
reaches into his pocket and deep concern and pulls out a roll of 23 100
shekel notes do you give him those two? Thought process submissions would
be appreciated
besorot tovot
joel rich
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Note to presenter
Enjoyed your piece on the trolley problem, it?s something I?ve thought a
lot about over the years.

A couple of comments:

One of the things I?ve thought a lot about is the characterization of
Chazal as being consequentialist or deontological, etc. I just wonder if we
are trying to put their thoughts into our paradigms or whether they had
their own different paradigm which was completely consistent with another
theory.

I also wonder about the Chazon Ish?s?maaseh hatzala? postion as to whether
it was driven by a totally rational analysis of the sources or whether much
like the Rav?s clergy/draft responsa, he had an innate sense of what the
answer should be, and then built a case for it

I certainly think that the innate sense would apply to the various
formulations of why war is different.

In any case, I think you did an excellent job of summarizing the various
opinions and approaches. Thanks and bsorot tovot


your thoughts?

Joel rich
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On Wed, Mar 26, 2025 at 06:24:50AM +0200, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
> If you are walking down the street in Jerusalem, passing by a construction
> site where an arab worker is speaking on the telephone facing you and 3
> feet past him you see two 100 shekel bills on the street. You can pick them
> up and continue walking and no one will never notice....

First, I wonder whether if the halakhah in question were chameitz on
Pesach, would one be willing to rely on "no one will ever notice". Or,
would we worry about how reliable that prediction is before relying on
it lehaqeil.

In any case, about the subject line: This isn't a hashavas aveidah
question, it's a qiddush hasheim one.

Hashvas Aveidah is limited -- "... hasheiv tashiveim le'akhikha. Ve'im
lo qarov akhikha eilekha... lekhein ta'aseh lekhol aveidas akhikha..."
(Devarim 22:1-3)

It would seem that in terms of general morality, the Torah considers the
floor to be "finders keepers". Hashavas aveidah is obligatory because
of the kinship of Jews.

That said, if one can create a qiddush hasheim, one is obligated to do
so. The Smag on Hashavas Aveidah (asei #74) even blames our continued
exile on our not impressing other nations with our fiscal ethics. I
translated it at
<https://aspaqlaria.aishdas.org/2011/04/20/semag-why-were-still-in-galus>.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 You will never "find" time for anything.
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   If you want time, you must make it.
Author: Widen Your Tent                        - Charles Buxton
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF

On Wed, Mar 05, 2025 at 06:40:21AM +0200, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
> In a recent discussion concerning whether a specific rabbi was within the
> pale of orthodox theology, I wondered what percentage of the rank and file
> think about theology and what they would define as beyond the pale (or
> within it, for that matter).

I am not sure I can bring this up without people focusing on the case,
which is why this reply is so long in coming. But regardless of whether
you think it is applicable to Lubavitch Messianism, this point is
discussed by R Dr David Berger in his book -- the part that covers
the end of the title "... and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference".
His answer was "very little", as a community we are indifferent to
ideology. As long as their behavior checks the sociological boxes.

The rank and file define membership by observance of the mitzvos in which
we differ most from the heterodox movements. Unless we are talking about
beliefs specific to religions that our always in our face because of our
host culture, belief doesn't play that much of a role.

For that matter, neither do the mitzvos we don't have to face significant
opposition to maintain. Which there would never be a conversation
about whether someone who eats shellfish is Orthodox. But -- just to
pick another to'eivah -- someone who is dihonest in business is assumed
to be O until our embarassment forces us to "no True Scotsmen" him out
of the definition

:-)aBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 The same boiling water
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   that softens the potato, hardens the egg.
Author: Widen Your Tent      It's not about the circumstance,
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF    but rather what you are made of.

On Mon, Mar 24, 2025 at 03:21:29PM +0200, Danny Schoemann via Avodah wrote:
> > I don't know what he would do with a kezayis. Would he follow R Chaim
> > Volozhiner, because the nearest thing to a subjective olive is using
> > the more available olive in NCyour own region and time?
> 
> I'm pretty sure it's a Mishna - to use a medium sized olive, each chochom
> using what he has available.

What he has available, or that a kezayis was an average one of their olives,
which hadn't been bred with olives from other countries and was roughly
the same as one Moshe Rabbeinu may have eaten.

Or more simply -- are they telling you to find a median or mode sized
olive of your own region and time, or that it was a valid way to measure
a kezayis because of the particulars of their region and time?

Given that they name they egori breed of olive (Keilim 17:8), I'm leaning
toward the latter.


> Also see the the Rambam at the end of Keilim ch. 17 (last sentence) where
> he writes:
> Ein medakdekim b'chol hashiurim ho'eilu shekoolom hen midivrei sofrim.
> (When measuring strange shaped earthenware ovens we don't measure very
> accurately is it's Rabbinic impurity.)
> 
> Obviously not applicable across the board.

Shiurim in mitzvos deOraisa are generally halakhah leMoshe miSinai.

In particular, the idea of defining eating and thus what is food by the
kezayis is not HlMmS, it's a derashah on "erez zayis shemen", as taught
by R Yosi beR' Chanina, "eretz shekol shi'ureha kezeisim" (Berakhos 41b).

So, agreed about "not applicable across the board."

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
http://www.aishdas.org/asp    'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
Author: Widen Your Tent       'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                   - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l

On Thu, Mar 20, 2025 at 08:20:19AM +0200, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
> I could not help thinking about R'YBS's presentation of repentance from
> fear(myira) versus repentance from love (ahava). Often the former is
> associated with trying to cut oneself off totally from their past, whereas
> the latter is building on the past, even if it was sinful (haalat hacheit).

In my 10 Yemei Teshuvah Reader, pg 54
<https://www.aishdas.org/media/10YemeiTeshuvah.pdf#page=65> I wrote:
> Teshuvah mei'ahavah, teshuvah caused by love of the Creator, causes the
> aveiros not just to be ignored, but even to be considered as mitzvos.[6]
> Each aveirah can become something to regret, motivation for learning
> a lesson, so that each brings him closer to the ideal Hashem has for
> him. Through teshuvah a person can improve himself to the extent of
> being beyond where he would have been had he not sinned. And in that way,
> it serves the role of a mitzvah, a tool for self-improvement.

> [6] Reish Laqish, Yuma 86b

R AE Kaplan gives a route to understanding Yir'ah as an outgrowth of
Ahavah. I am not talking about Yir'as haOnesh, fear of a petch. But
Yir'as haCheit, fear of the sin itself. The Ramchal says this is the
true Yir'ah when the term Yir'as Shamayim is used. And Yir'as haCheit
coult come from not wanting to violate the Will of one's Beloved, simply
because He is Beloved.

Still, Yir'ah is a "sur meira" motivator. It is only Ahavah in and of
itself that motivates "ve'asei tov".

Which is why it's Teshuvah meiAhavah that can make a sin the cause of
someone's future good, and thus be considered kezekhuyos.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 What we do for ourselves dies with us.
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   What we do for others and the world,
Author: Widen Your Tent      remains and is immortal.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                      - Albert Pine

On Wed, Mar 26, 2025 at 06:27:21AM +0200, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
> One of the things I've thought a lot about is the characterization of
> Chazal as being consequentialist or deontological, etc. I just wonder if we
> are trying to put their thoughts into our paradigms or whether they had
> their own different paradigm which was completely consistent with another
> theory.

These are less paradigms as categories of theories. Rather than object to
forcing Chazal's theories into someone else's "paradigm" I would instead
ask whether Consequentialism vs. Deontology is a false dichotomy, and
the Torah's ethics are a third category.

As I said in a previous musing of yours on the subject of Trolley
Problems, I think the amount of attention paid to Hilkhos Dei'os and
Middos, the Torah appears to take a Virtue Ethics approach. Which is
fairly deontological in that our focus in on rules, not outcomes. The
difference being that Ethics aren't being defined directly as "following
the rules", but on the rules as a way to shape the person. The value
of "Haadam nif'al lefi pe'ulosav", in the Chinukh's idiom.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   Our greatest fear is that we're powerful
Author: Widen Your Tent      beyond measure
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                      - Anonymous


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