Avodah Mailing List

Volume 01 : Number 041

Tuesday, September 8 1998

• Request from Hebrew College/Shamash (fwd)
• Re: Parshas Ki Setze and Megilas Esther
• being choshesh for the daas hamachimir
• RE: SELICHOS
• Re: being choshesh for the daas hamachimir
• Re: being choshesh for the daas hamachimir
• Re: being choshesh for the daas hamachimir
• Re: Avodah V1 #38

While bt is now part of avodah, as an act of hakoras hatov, I am
forwarding this to whomever remains on the rolls.

YGB

Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer
Cong. Bais Tefila, 3555 W. Peterson Ave., Chicago, IL, 60659
ygb@aishdas.org, http://www.aishdas.org/baistefila


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1998 05:24:02 -0500
From: Nathan Ehrlich <nehrlich@tiac.net>
To: sbechhof@casbah.acns.nwu.edu
Subject: Request from Hebrew College/Shamash

Greetings,

Hebrew College (home of Shamash) would like to inform participants of
baistefila@shamash.org of new Hebrew College online courses.

Considering that we are late as usual with promoting these courses, I would
appreciate it very much if you would post the following notice to
baistefila@shamash.org with the included subject line. Please let me know
if you were able to do this.

If there are other forums through which you can help us spread the word, we
would also be very grateful.

Thank you very much. --Nathan

Nathan Ehrlich
Director, Center for Information Technology at Hebrew College
Director, The Shamash Jewish Internet Consortium

=============

SUBJECT: Hebrew College Announces New Online Courses

Hebrew College is pleased to offer 6 online courses during the
1998/99 academic year. Conducted via the Web and e-mail, these
courses can be taken for credit or non-credit. This is an
opportunity to participate in a dynamic learning community
with "virtual classmates" from all over the world.

o Finding Your Jewish Voice: A Creative Writing Workshop
o Women in Jewish History: Rabbinic Discourse & Social Reality
o Introduction to the Bible: The Book of Genesis
o Justice, Forgiveness, & Reconciliation in Jewish & Christian Thought
o Jews Among Christians and Muslims
o Playwriting on Jewish Themes

As with all Hebrew College online courses, technical assistance
and support will be  provided to course participants. Non-credit
students earn 3 CEUs (Continuing Education Units) towards a
Certificate of Jewish Studies which requires 36 CEUs.

For course descriptions, instructors' bios, cost, registration forms
and information about Hebrew College, please visit our Web site,
http://hebrewcollege.edu/online. You may also contact Nathan
Ehrlich, nathan@hebrewcollege.edu, or phone (617)278-4929.

Akiva Miller wrote:
<<Not only is the phrasing strikingly similar, but the trop is EXACTLY the
same for both of these.>>

My understanding of ta'amei hamikra (based on Breuer) is that the placement
of the trop is systematic and therefore the fact that the trop is the same
is no more surprising than the fact that the nekudos are the same. What is
really the point is that the same words or phasing is used in the two
places. I agree that it seems to be significant.

Eliezer Appleton

First an apology. As mentioned here before, I have had severe computer
problems, and when my computer was finally fixed, I only initially
loaded a very old email package, that for some reason seemed to have
added junk to the end of my postings when they appeared in this forum
(even though the junk does not appear at the end of my message in my
outbox).  I have now switched email packages, and am *hoping* we will
not have a repeat performance, but I apologise for the gibberish
everybody received last Sunday.


In message , Lawrence M. Reisman <LMReisman@email.msn.com> writes
>Dear Mr. Mayles:
>
>    In your recent posting to the Avodah list, you wrote "Is it possible, as
>another poster suggested, that the idea of being choshsesh for the daas
>HaMachmir (as the term Bal nefesh Yachmir suggests)is not the correct
>approach to dealing with differing opinions
>in halacha,and the correct approach is to treat it as and Elu VeElu
>Divrei Elokim Chaim?"
>
>    While I am not a boki in shas, if I remember correctly, the quote
>(Eruvin 13b) continues "Vehahalacha cedivrei bais Hillel."  Furthermore,
>when this announcement was made from above, Bais Shammai stopped holding to
>its positions.

I think the more interesting and pertinent discussion is found slightly
earlier in Eruvin, namely on 6b, which also deals with the Beis
Hillel/Beis Shammai question (and may suggest an answer somewhat
different to the one you have posited above).

Just to set the scene - we have a  peculiar shaped mavoi in Nahardoi and
there is a question as to how to make it mutar for carrying (Rashi has a
picture on the daf, if you are interested in the particulars) - to which
was applied the chumra arising out of the position of Rav and the chumra
arising out of the position of Shmuel (non eed here to go into the
detail of what the two positions were).  And the gemorra there raises
the question as to whether one can posken like two chumras - does it not
say in a braisa (tosephta actually) "l'olam the halacha is like beis
hillel, and whoever wants to do like beis shammai can do so - but one
who does like the kulas of beis hillel and the kullas of beis shamai is
a rasha and one who does the chumras of beis hillel and the chumras of
beis shammai about him the posuk says "the fool goes in darkness",
rather one if like beis shammai, then like the kulas and chumras of beis
shammai, and if like beis hillel, like the kulas and chumras of beis
hillel".  The gemora then asks - in itself there is a kasha, initially
it says that the halacha is like bais hillel, and it then says that if
you want you can go like bais shammai - and the gemorra answers, lo
kasha this is before the bas kol, and this is after the bas kol - or
alternatively say both this and this are after the bas kol, and it goes
according to Rabbi Yehuda who doesn't pay attention to a bas kol (this
is a reference, as Rashi explains, to Baba Metzia and the position lo
b'shamayim he meaing that one does not pay attention to a bas kol) or
alternatively this is what the braisa is saying - any place where you
find two tannaim or two amoraim that disagree treat them like the
maklokus between beis hillel and beis shammai and don't do like the kula
of one and like the kula of the other and not like the chumra of one and
the chumra of the other but rather if like the kula of this one, like
his chumra also do,  or like the kula of that one, like his chumra also
do [and the gemorra goes on to try and reconcile the psak in Nahardoi
regarding the mavoi with only one position].

This particular piece of gemorra (at least the part of it bringing the
braisa - although not the reference to two tannaim and two amoraim
disputing) is also brought in Rosh Hashana 14b and Chullin 43b.

In Rosh Hashana the reference is directly to a machlokus of beis hillel
and beis shammai (at least initially), and Rabbi Akiva is the one who
initially appears to be choshesh for two opinions - but the conclusion
is that he is not in fact being choshesh for two opinions, he just
didn't know which opinion was the one held by beis hillel (ie it appears
that you can be choshesh when you know who you follow, you just do not
know what they hold).

Note also the tosphos at the bottom of the page there d'h "hachasil
bechoshech holech" - this is even if he knows that the halacha is like
this one, and is machmir on himself like that one and it does not come
to teach that Rabbi Akiva was doubtful as to who the halacha was like
and acted l'chumra, but he knew that the halacha was like beis hillel

In Chullin the reference is even more interesting in that Rava initially
poskened that an ox was treif by following the chumra of Rav and the
chumra of Shmuel whereas if he had followed one or the other, it would
have been kosher, and Rav Aba made him pay the owners back for the loss
of the ox (as it had already been fed to the dogs). 

[Note the Rishonim appear to agree (or at least those I checked - ie
Rashi, Tosphos, Ramban and the Rashba) that if he made a mistake and
poskened like the chumras of two amoraim, then it would be a mistake in
a d'var mishna - but due to a disagreement as to when a rav has to pay
ie where it is a mistake in a dvar mishna or a mistake in shikul hadaas
some, such as the Rashba on our daf in Chullin, who hold that a Rav only
needs to pay if there is shikul hadaas and not a mistake in a dvar
mishna, are forced to conclude from this that Rava's mistake was in
shikul hadaas - see there].

Note also that the Ramban has a kasher which he brings here on Chullin,
and asks - but don't we know the rules for deciding - if one of them is
greater in chochma and in minyan we go after that one and if not, if is
a Torah matter we go after the more machmir and if it is a rabbinical
matter we go after the more makil - and concludes that we are dealing
with a matter in which there is both a chumra and a kula attached ie if
you follow one opinion it turns out a chumra in one circumstance and a
kula in another, so that you cannot make this selection (the Rashba says
the same thing on daf 44a).

In a similar vein, Tosphos notes (at the top of Chullin 44a and also in
Eruvin) that in the case of beis hillel and beis shammai, the torah laid
down the rule "achrei rabbim l'hatos" and as beis hillel were more
numerous than beis shammai, the bas kol was only coming to support the
torah understandin (but on the other hand beis shammai were sharper so
there may have been doubt).

So perhaps one can say that the beis hillel/beis shammai problem was an
issue of contradiction between "chochma" and "minyan". (I would be
interested to know if that is the general conclusion elsewhere - ie if
everywhere we have a contradiction between chochma and minyan, do we, as
a general rule, follow minyan?)
 
>    Where possible, we try to hold with all existing opinions (such as out
>text of Modim deRabbanan, or why we blow 100 kolos on the shofar rather than
>the nine required dioraisoh).  Where holding to all opinions is impractical,
>we follow a more mekel shitah, which is why most of us don't daven vasikin.

Unfortunately i do not have any achronim on shas at home with me, so I
have not been able to check and see how they deal with these gemoras (In
terms of Rishonim, I had a quick look in the Rif and the Rosh in the
appropriate place in Chullin and Eruvin, but didn't see anything there
that seemed to be relevant). Perhaps some of the Achronim explain why it
is that we don't appear to follow what would seem to be the pshat of
these gemoras - which would suggest that to be choshesh for all shitas
as you indicate we do is in fact a taos in a dvar mishna (when it comes
to poskening) and at the very least renders us fools walking in
darkness.


>
>Best wishes,
>
>Levi Reisman
>

Shavuah tov

Chana

-- 
Chana/Heather Luntz

My question is how CAN one say the PizMon 
BaMotzoi MeNuCha (MotZoi Shabbos) on Sunday morning?

Half the shuls in Stamford Hill, North London seem to be saying it at night
all round about Chatzos some being more makpid about before chatzos then
others.
20 years ago th only ones saying it at night were the Gerers but ... it has
become fashionable for lots of others to also say it at night.

mendel

ORIGINAL Message ---------------------------------
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1998 00:08:37 -0400
From: bjk1@pipeline.com
Subject: SELICHOS

those shuls that say selichos  at night before chasos who are they relying
on?

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

What I believe was meant when it was said that we follow all shittas when
possible is that all shittas which aren't contradictory are to be followed
so we can be yotze as many opinions as possible. We do this all the time,
by We I mean the Mishnah Brurah for sure and to a large extant even the
shulchan aruch does this. Any in depth analysis of halacha will show this
to be true. The rishonim had rules in which to posken halacha (ie. rav in
issur, shmuel in mamon etc.) but we, when settling a dispute between
rishonim or achronim often follow as many shittas without making a
contradiction. I
believe the gemara in eruvin as well as the others all are cases where
holding like the two opinions create a contradictory psak, it is there
where we are walking in darkness if we do like both, but to be choshes for
as many non contradictory shittas as possible is most common.
Elie Ginsparg

In a message dated 98-09-07 15:35:31 EDT, you write:

<< 
 So perhaps one can say that the beis hillel/beis shammai problem was an
 issue of contradiction between "chochma" and "minyan". (I would be
 interested to know if that is the general conclusion elsewhere - ie if
 everywhere we have a contradiction between chochma and minyan, do we, as
 a general rule, follow minyan?) >>

I believe I once heard R' H. Schachter(but I could be wrong on attributing
this to him) say that the issue was who is oleh lminyan. While bet hillel
clearly had numbers, the question may have been- was the difference in chochma
so great(mchaddidei tfei) that among those whose votes should be
counted(apparently some level of sharpness) bet shammai actually had the
majority. I would guess that in the sanhedrin chochma counted only to the
extent it allowed the chacham to convince the others of the correctness of his
position.  In later days I think we've seen both approaches(i.e the compilers
who weigh the number of rishonim/acronim on each side of the issue vs. those
who go by the strength of arguments no matter how many who hold that position)

ktiva vchatima tova
Joel Rich

In a message dated 98-09-07 20:26:50 EDT, you write:

<<  I
 believe the gemara in eruvin as well as the others all are cases where
 holding like the two opinions create a contradictory psak, it is there
 where we are walking in darkness if we do like both, but to be choshes for
 as many non contradictory shittas as possible is most common.
 Elie Ginsparg >>

Most common is a difficult call without doing a survey of all poskim and
perhaps correlating the results with the time, place and outside influences. 

If a posek studies an issue in depth and is convinced that he understands the
issues and what the outcome should be after considering all opinions-should he
follow that result or still be choshesh for other shittas as long as they
don't require a contradictory result elsewhere?  Is this a partially hashkafic
issue(ie do we focus on results or process)?

ktiva vchatima tova

Joel Rich

I heard a story quoted by the Manchester Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Yehuda Segal  in hesped on the Chofetz Chaim.  The Chofetz Chaim met a professor and asked him how he knows the sun will rise the next morning. The Chofetz Chaim said I know it from a possuk.  The possuk is the reality.

********************


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