Avodah Mailing List

Volume 03 : Number 201

Saturday, September 4 1999

• Re: Toward a Definition of Psak (was: of Chumra)
• Re: Toward a Definition of Psak (was: of Chumra)
• Re: Definition of Ba'al Teshuva (was Eit Sheker Sofrim)
• Baby Wipes: Toward a Definition of Psak (was: of Chumra)
• Re: Baby Wipes
• Paskening for oneself (was: Toward a Definition of Psak)
• Definition of Ba'al Teshuva
• Definition of Ba'al Teshuva
• Re: resource allocation
• Re: Definition of Ba'al Teshuva
• Re: Avodah V3 #200: kiddushei ta'ut

On Fri, 3 Sep 1999, Micha Berger wrote:

> 
> I make this point because from this perspective the "Chumrah of the
> Month Club"  and Conservative Judaism aren't all that far apart. In both
> cases people are seeking a particular answer from halachah and will even
> follow a da'as yachid if it gives them the opportunity to do so. If the
> chumros are even mostly but impurely lisheim Shamayim that is
> Conservativism. 
> 

What about when the "Chumra of the Month Club" adopts one that is not a
da'as yachid, but many members of Am Yisroel (including, in these cases,
myself) are lenient regarding, for example: Yoshon, Baby Wipes and Opening
Cans on Shabbos? Where do you draw your lines?

YGB

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

R' YGB wrote:

> What about when the "Chumra of the Month Club" adopts one that is not a
> da'as yachid, but many members of Am Yisroel (including, in these cases,
> myself) are lenient regarding, for example: Yoshon, Baby Wipes and Opening
> Cans on Shabbos? Where do you draw your lines?


I'm not going to get involved in the discussion at hand, but this caught
my attention. What's wrong with baby wipes?


---Sam

--- "Shoshanah M. & Yosef G. Bechhofer"
<sbechhof@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> wrote:
> If we all should be Ba'alei Teshuva - as one might correctly argue
> - then
> should a new sociological/definitional term be found for a segment
> of
> society that, for various reasons, is distinctive?
<snip>
> Are "Ba'al Teshuva" and "Oved Hashem" synonymous?

I would think that Oved Hashem is the larger class and Ba'al Tshuvah
is a subset.  We all should strive to be ba'alei tshuvah, but not
everyone achieves this status.  Some may not even try to attain this
status but may be ovdei Hashem for other reasons; surely, a person
can be an oved Hashem even if he doesn't do everything 100%
correctly.


Kol tuv and shabbat shalom,
Moshe
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On Fri, 3 Sep 1999, Sammy Ominsky wrote:

> I'm not going to get involved in the discussion at hand, but this caught
> my attention. What's wrong with baby wipes? 
>

If I held there was something wrong with them I would not use them :-).

Let us wait to see if someone who does not use them wants to tell you why. 

YGB

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

--- "Shoshanah M. & Yosef G. Bechhofer"
<sbechhof@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Sep 1999, Sammy Ominsky wrote:
> 
> > I'm not going to get involved in the discussion at hand, but this
> caught
> > my attention. What's wrong with baby wipes? 
> >
> 
> If I held there was something wrong with them I would not use them
> :-).
> 
> Let us wait to see if someone who does not use them wants to tell
> you why. 

OK, I don't use baby wipes.  Basically, the problem is s'chita
(squeezing)--the one which is a toldah of m'farek. (Not m'laben,
since I'm not trying to clean the baby wipe.)  I am squeezing the
water (or whatever liquid) out of the baby wipe in order to make it
easier to wipe the gook off.

I have heard people argue that you don't really want to squeeze out
the water; you just want to have a wet cloth because wet cloths clean
more easily than dry cloths.  But, in reality, you do want some
liquid on the baby, because that makes it easier to clean the baby.

There is a contraversial tshuvah (offhand I don't remember which) by
Rav Moshe permitting people to use wet napkins to wipe a table.  In
"Children in Halachah," Rav Simcha Bunim Cohen notes (in a special
hebrew appendix devoted to this issue) that Rav Moshe's son claimed
that the tshuvah was meant to address only the case of a slightly
damp napkin where the dampness was serving the function of attracting
small crumbs to the napkin; not the case where you squeeze out water
from the napkin in order to clean ingrained dirt.

Rabbi SB Cohen quotes some poskim who permit using a baby wipe which
was been squeezed out (or hung to dry) and is no longer tofe'ach al
minat l'hatfi'ach (when you rub it against the baby's skin, there is
so little moisture that if you were to place your hand on the skin,
you hand would not become moist).  Some people I know buy only
certain brands of baby wipes which they claim are not tofe'ach al
minat l'hatfi'ach; whenever I've checked those brands, I've always
found that they are tofe'ach al minat l'hatfi'ach.

Please, convince me that I may use baby wipes on Shabbat!

Kol tuv and Shabbat shalom,
Moshe
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Based on the articles by Rabbi Michael Rosensweig in both
the Torah U'Maddah Journal (vol 1 OR 2) and in the volume by the
Orthodox Forum entitled "Personal Autonomy and [Halacha]" I would say
the following: The brother of the Marahal emphasized that each person
is different and that is why the Torah was given with shiv'im panim;
in fact, each person at Mt. Sinai understood something slightly
different.  So personality does count.  Nevertheless, the posek must
ensure that he is striving for "truth" within the shiv'im panim. 

While Carl Sherer has argued that a recognized posek should go to
another posek for psak because of a fear of negiot, I would
argue--aderabeh--that the posek should pasken for himself because
there is value in the posek following his own kabbalat hatorah.

Kol tuv,
Moshe

--- Moshe Feldman <moshe_feldman@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Is it true that a rav must ask a different rav a she'elah with
> regard
> to something that is not clearly paskened in the Shulchan Arukh? 
> Even if he paskens for his ba'alei batim on this issue all the
> time? 
> Somehow, this doesn't ring true.
> 
> True, there is an issue of noge'a badavar.  But that is an issue
> that
> applies to all aspects of life, such as whether to give more
> tzedakah, spend time helping someone, etc.  See Rav Dessler's essay
> in Michtav Me'eliyahu dealing with the negiot people have and the
> extra help we need from Hashem to overcome the negiot.  Ultimately,
> we have to make our decisions and realize that we will be judged by
> Hashem for our actions.
> 
> The issue of noge'a badavar as a halachic concept (barring a person
> from ruling) AFAIK deals with monetary disputes between two
> individuals (or perhaps other bain adam la'chaveiro issues).  There
> a
> person cannot say, "trust me; I have to answer to Hashem for my
> actions" because someone else will lose out.
> 
> BTW, I notice that both Carl & Akiva understand "aseh lecha rav" as
> a
> requirement to find a rav for psak.  This isn't necessarily the
> pshat
> in the Mishnayot in Pirkei Avot (1:6 and 1:16).  I searched the
> phrase in my computer CD ROM (sorry, Russell wasn't available) and
> found 4 parallel cites in Avot D'rabbi Natan.  In nusach aleph
> perek
> 8, the mishnah states: "How does one make for oneself a Rav?  This
> teaches that one should make his Rav permanent and learn from him
> mikra, mishnah, midrash, halachot, va'agadot... Rav Meir says: One
> who learns Torah from one Rav, to whom is he similar?  To one who
> had
> one field and planted part of it wheat and part of it barley, part
> of
> it olives and part of it trees, and that person finds himself full
> of
> good and blessings.  But when he learns from two or three [rabbis],
> he is similar to one who has many fields, one he planted wheat, one
> barley, one olives, and one trees, and that person ends up
> scattered
> among the lands without good and blessings."  Also in Avot D'rabbi
> Natan nusach bet perek 18 it states: "Nitai of Arbel says: Make for
> yourself a Rav for wisdom (chochmah) and acquire for yourself a
> friend (chaver) for mishnah."  Both of these sources imply that
> 'aseh
> lecha rav' means that one should make for oneself a teacher of
> Torah
> (not necessarily a posek).


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On 9/3/99 Rabbi Bechhofer wrote:

>If we all should be Ba'alei Teshuva - as one might correctly argue - then
>should a new sociological/definitional term be found for a segment of
>society that, for various reasons, is distinctive?

>Furthermore, just as the Eskimos (case in point, who prefer to be called,
>I believe, Inuit) have many words for different types of snow, >perhaps
>there should be - and I believe RAEK in his remarks was refelcting this
>idea - different terms to describe people who differ in where they hav
>come from and where they are going.

I don't think terminological distinctions are very important or useful
from a theological perspective, but if anyone thinks they are helpful
in a sociological framework, I suggested terminology in a prior
posting (V3#164, #194) for three distinct models of teshuva that, while not very colorful, would probably serve adequately, namely, (1) the historical or traditional ba'al teshuva, (2) the modern or
contemporary ba'al teshuva and (3) the hybrid ba'al teshuva. 

Rabbi Bechhofer further inquired:

>Are "Ba'al Teshuva" and "Oved Hashem" synonymous?

No. Teshuva, like tephila, limud haTora, gemilus chasadim, etc., is a
particular type of avodah in which every oved Hashem should engage.

Good Shabbos
David

P.S. I will be out of town next week and unable to retrieve or respond to e-mails. I wish the entire list a ksiva vchasima tova.

In recent days I came to suspect that RYGB has been writing
tongue-in-cheek, but now I see that he is very serious: <<< Perhaps I did
not make my point clear. If we all should be Ba'alei Teshuva - as one
might correctly argue - then should a new sociological/definitional term
be found for a segment of society that, for various reasons, is
distinctive? >>>

First, can someone please tell me where there is a practical value for
these labels? Everyone's life experiences are different, and just as one
cannot pigeonhole Democrats or Briskers into a specific category, nor can
one do so for baalei teshuva. Does it have to be a yes/no question? Why
not just learn from what the person did and said? What is the big deal?

Second, I read RYGB's paper on AishDas a couple of times, and I can't
figure out what is so distinctive about Dr Birnbaum that raises this
whole question. It seems to me that his organizational and publishing
activities occurred after he became a [baal teshuvah or whatever], and
are irrelevant to this question. So my guess is that he is focusing on Dr
Birnbaum's being raised by observant parents and/or his participation in
Jewish cultural activities.

But that confuses me also. If the problem is that he was raised in an
observant home prior to abandoning Orthodoxy (as RYGB put it) there is
already a trend to label such people as "chozer b'teshuva", rather that
"baal teshuva", which should satisfy RYGB's desire for another term. And
if the distinction is that he was always active in Jewish cultural
activities, then that would also apply to a great many people today, who
were committed to their Judaism, and active in their Reform and
Conservative communities, and later became shomer mitzvos. Would Rabbi
Bechhofer prefer to label them too, as *not* baalei teshuva?

Confusedly yours,

Akiva Miller

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I found the following line from this week's US edition of the Jerusalem Post 
of interest as it addresses an issue I've raised here before that may now 
become l'maaseh -

'The Haredi leaders have also warned that should a ceiling be put on 
deferments, it could cause tremendous problems and friction because of the 
difficulty of choosing who should stay in the yeshiva and who should go to 
boot camp'

KVCT and Shabbat shalom
Joel Rich

On Fri, 3 Sep 1999, Kenneth G Miller wrote:

> First, can someone please tell me where there is a practical value for
> these labels? Everyone's life experiences are different, and just as one
> cannot pigeonhole Democrats or Briskers into a specific category, nor
> can one do so for baalei teshuva. Does it have to be a yes/no question?
> Why not just learn from what the person did and said? What is the big
> deal? 
>

I think that you make the advantage of labels quite clear: It is
advantageous to know who is a Brisker and who is a Telzer; who is a
Lubavitcher and who is a Gerrer; who is a Chosid and who is a Misnaged; 
who is a Yekke and who is a Sefardi. If, as RDNadoff proposes, we all
should be Ba'alei Teshuva, and that Ovdei Hashem are a larger set, the
subset of which is Ba'alei Teshuva, some of which are those who were once
non-observant and now are, and some of which are those who were always
observant, but, as R' Sa'adia Gaon said, are doing teshuva each day on the
previous day's shortcomings (if I understand RDN correctly), then it would
be helpful to know whom we are talking about. 
 
> Second, I read RYGB's paper on AishDas a couple of times, and I can't

I do not think, at this point, that this conversation has anything more to
do with the paper on Aishdas.

YGB

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

>Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1999 14:59:07 -0400
>From: "Feldman, Mark" <MFeldman@CM-P.COM>
>Subject: kiddushei ta'ut
>
>A couple of months ago, Rabbi Michael Broyde and others discussed kiddushei
>ta'ut.

....snip snip...

>Rabbi Rackman responded with a piece rebutting their
>arguments.  I wasn't impressed with much of what he wrote, but the following
>paragraphs are probably his strongest points.  Does anyone have any
>responses to his arguments? ...snip snip...

From the tone of your note I get the impression (perhaps wrongly) that you
have decided a priori that Rabbi Rackman by definition, can't be right, and
you are now trying to figure out why.  Do  you allow for the possibility
that Rabbi Rackman may be correct and that the RCA Beit Din might be wrong?
Perhaps you should **ALSO** ask if some list members can come up with
material to bolster Rabbi Rackman's position?  Wouldn't that be more
intellectually honest?

hg


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