Avodah Mailing List

Volume 03 : Number 002

Monday, March 22 1999

• onset of night
• Re: Acharonim and Rishomim again, and again,..
• Re: onset of night
• Chazal and math - source
• Chazal discovered logarithms
• Re: Avodah V3 #1
• Today's Daf
• Niskatnu

I'm way behind in reading the list, but am posting a question (I hope
to be caught up enough to read the answer by the end of Nisan).  I
observe two definitions of the onset of night in halachic literature
(extending from Tannaim on to today).  One is based on astronomical
phenomena observed at the onset of night (e.g. number of observable
stars of some dimension).  The other is a duration of time after shkia
(which is an observable astronomical phenomenon no matter which
definition you choose).  The sources seem to view these as
interchangeable.
  The problem is that they're not: the duration of time type is a
function of latitude (and, a local physicist - yes, Elie, he's frum -
adds, atmospheric pollution).  So the practical question is: how does
one deal with poskim who codify the latter type of definition?  Do we
assume that they would change their numbers depending on latitude and
air pollution? Do we assume that they're paskening only for people who
live in their latitude? Do Athenian Jews have to change their ancestral
custom and end Shabbos later due to increased air pollution?

David Riceman

On Fri, 19 Mar 1999 Michael.Frankel@dtra.mil wrote:

> More on yiridoh: While RYGB blew off RET for questioning how the
> proposition of continual yiridoh should be understood in light of
> implications for chazal's relative measurement against their own
> non-jewish contemporaries, I couldn't help noticing that he never
> actually responded to the question, mostly delivering a paean to the
> giduloh represented by the unbroken chain of qabboloh. since I have also

But, as a paean, I hope, it was suitably moving?

> given passing thought as how a yiridoh concept could be understood
> within the context of constant external interactions - and internal as
> well- i.e. did this apply to the ordinary joe, including perhaps jewish
> amei ho'oretz, or is this yiridoh to be restricted just to talmidei
> chachomim? Etc.  I would actually be interested in a more substantive

I always tended to believe that the yeridas ha'doros axiom applied only to
the select few, although I have heard it said in the name of the GRO, that
he would have given all of his Torah learning to be a simple Ba'al Haayis
even duting the time of Bayis II, which indicates that not necessarily in
scholarship, but in kedusha, the level of Bayis Sheni was far higher. I do
not know if the statement is accurate, and, again, yesh l'chalek bein
scholarship l'kedusha.

> response from him which directly treats the issues raised. (I've been
> all over the place on this myself over the years) I may also comment on
> the assertions he did make at another time, though I am sad to note that
> his characterization of the difference between the yeshivoh and
> non-yeshivoh was not only inaccurate but bordered on that which we've
> not come to expect from our usually even keeled house moderate-c.
> 

Oh no!

Now you are holding my reasonable-c status over my head as a threat!

Nevertheless, at continued peril to my status, I reassert my position.
This unrelenting stance was something I mulled over a bit on Shabbos when
reading some passages in Fishbane's "The Exegetical Imagination" of what
in yeshiva-world mode would have been highly moving and inspirational and
was reduced by academic-world mode to something far different. Free
association led me to conclude that a similar affliction may well affect
Orthodox journals that are academically oriented. I am happy - and will do
my best to remain reasonable - to pursue this thread.

YGB

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

On Mon, 27 Aug 1956, David Riceman wrote:

> I'm way behind in reading the list, but am posting a question (I hope

Oh boy, just wait till you catch up!

>   The problem is that they're not: the duration of time type is a
> function of latitude (and, a local physicist - yes, Elie, he's frum -
> adds, atmospheric pollution).  So the practical question is: how does
> one deal with poskim who codify the latter type of definition?  Do we
> assume that they would change their numbers depending on latitude and
> air pollution? Do we assume that they're paskening only for people who
> live in their latitude? Do Athenian Jews have to change their ancestral
> custom and end Shabbos later due to increased air pollution? 

I believe that it is actually as Dr. Leo levi, posits, degrees beneath the
horizon. Where does that fit in?

YGB

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

As a follow up on Josh Backon's reference in V3 no.1 to an article on
Chazal's knowledge of probability, I would like to call this forum's
attention to the fact that the material in this article, as well as a
lot of other material, was published by the author, Rav Nachum Eliezer
Rabinovitz, in a book entitled "Probability and Statistical Inference in
Ancient and Medieval Jewish Literature", University of Toronto Press,
1973 [ISBN 0-8020-1862-9]. The author is one of the two Rashei Yeshiva
of the Yeshivat Hesder "Birkat Moshe" in Ma'ale Adumim. For those less
interested in mathematical matters, I call attention to the author's
work "Hadar Itmar" (a "hadran" on each massechet in Shas), as well as
his multi-part commnetary on Yad Hachazaka (more details about the
latter can be found at the site:
http://www.virtual.co.il/education/birkat)

Saul Stokar

I had told my chavrusa (who not only has smicha but also a PhD in physics)
what I had posted on AVODAH re: Chazal and math (probability theory) and
he said, "Remember Napierian logarithms from high school math ? Look in the
gemara in Ktuvot 68a (and the Yerushalmi there 6:6) on "Bat hanizonet min
ha'achim'. Chazal came up with natural logarithms 1500 years before Napier".
I first looked in my college math book which I haven't looked at in 30 years
and then in the gemara. The sugya is this: "Bat hanizonet min ha'achim,
notelet issur shel nechasim. Amru lo l'rabi (Yehuda hanassi): Mi sh'yesh lo
esser banot u'ben, ein lo l'ben bimakom bnot klim ? Amar lahem: kach ani omer:
Rishona notelet issor nechasim, shnia bameh sh'shyara harishona....."
Then I looked in the Yerushalmi (where the sugya is called 'issorayta d'vei
rebi')  "Nimtza habanot notlot trein cholkim pra tzavchar [a fraction less
than 2/3] v'haben notel chelek v'ohf zavchar [a fraction more than a third]".

This is the formula    (1  - 1/n) nth power. The exact figure is indeed
0.36787944 (a fraction more than a third).  1/e = lim (1 - 1/n) nth

Josh

>>>What does Yiras shamayim have to do with the Halachic process? These former
gedolei hador could tie anyone one of us in knots in a Torah discussion - but
their halachic conclusions are irrelevant - why?  Daniel Eidensohn<<<

The gemara you cite merely states that they received no reward - i.e. their
teachings did not merit acceptance, their children were not talmidei
chachamim, they did not enter olam haba, etc - they gemera does NOT say that
an individual who sat in the bais medrash next to them and heard their Torah
is mechuyav to think it is all falsehood.  How do you approach the gemera in
Chagiga where R' Meir learned from Acher even as Acher was being mechalel
Shabbos? 

In any case, that is a technicality - no one argues that yiras shamayim is
irrelevant to being a ben Torah.  

What is troubling (at least to me) is the attitude that being a critical
questioning student somehow goes hand in hand with a lack of appreciation of
earlier doros.  Aderaba, see R' Chaim Volozhiner on 'havei misavak b'afar
ragleihem' - avak=fight, disagree.  M'techila na'aseim sonim zeh
lazeh...ul'bsof ohavim, as the gemara in Kiddushin says. The fact that the
Ra'avad in Hil Lulav writes that he had ruach hakodesh in his bais medrash
never stopped the Rambam and other Rishonim from disagreeing.  

-CB  

Just like to note an example of the unique level of divine relationship
with the Amoraim indicated by the visitation of slav to the generations of
R' Yehuda, R' Chisda and Rabbah.

YGB

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

>>In terms of niskatnu hadoros, we should remember that the gemara is trying
to explain the relative paucity of miracles in later generations -- despite
having greater knowledge of Torah. I like the Lubatcher Rebbe zt"l's
understanding of this story based on the "midgets on the shoulders of giants"
metaphor.<<

BTW, I heard this in Ner Yisroel over 30 years ago when my rebbe explained how 
the halocho is kebasroi despite niskatnu hadoros.

Rich Wolpoe

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