Avodah Mailing List

Volume 04 : Number 124

Tuesday, November 9 1999

• Rational Kabbalists
• Re: Sanhedrin LeAthid Lavo
• Doing mitzvoth for social pressures
• Tzniuth -- The 5th position on Limuday Chol
• Re: Avodah V4 #107
• Re: Friendly fundamentalists
• Re: Rational Kabbalists
• Re: Doing mitzvoth for social pressures
• [none]
• Re: Friendly fundamentalists
• Re: Rational Kabbalists
• Re: Yoatzos, once again
• Fund Raising
• Re[2]: Rational Kabbalists
• haaretz article on haredim
• Shailoh
• Rav Moshe
• Etiquette Police
• Re: Kol Kevodah vs. Hatzneia Leches
• Hatzneia Leches Humor alert
• RE: Rav Moshe
• Re: Etiquette Police
• Re: Sin'at Chinum and Hachnassat Orchim.

Further clairfication

A rational kabbalist is a kabblist who w/o Kabbala or mysticims would be a 
rationalist or scientifically oriented, analytical, a thinker, a philosopher, 
etc.

A non-rational Kabblastist is one who sans Kabbaollo might be an artist, a poet,
a musical composer, a free-spirit, a Bohemian, etc.

EG if RYBS learned kabbolo, he would likely fall into category 1 

EG, if a poet like Ibn Gvirol learned  kabbolo, he would likely fall into 
catagory 2.

Rich Wolpoe  

Sources, please

Rich Wolpoe 


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Sanhedrin LeAthid Lavo 
Author:  <avodah@aishdas.org> at tcpgate
Date:    11/8/1999 10:37 PM


What I said

No Sanhedrin can just "repeal" Rishonim. THey have to 
- ---be greater in number
- ---greater in wisdom
- ---have a good reason (eg an error in a rishon) 
- ---not do it too often

The last stipulation is important

applies to Mashiach also
The only catch is that Mashiach sanhenrin will 
be bigger in number than the other sanhedrins

BUT...that is only one of the 4 stipulations 
Russell
___________________________________________________________________ 
Get the Internet just the way you want it.
Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! 
Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj.

Q: How does davening with a minyan enahcne kavono?  Why cannot one concntrate 
when davening biyichidus.

A: Lhavdil, people who "work out" generally concentrate better, work harder, in 
a gym or in an aerobics class.  I don't know if social pressure is the precise 
motivator.  I would like to call it "group spirit" pr envrionemntal 
encouragement.  People find themselves uplifted and motivated when surrounded by
like-minded people engaged in the same activity. Maybe that's why learning in a 
Beis Medrash is important, not due to peer pressure so much as feeding off the 
common group spirit.

Rich Wolpoe

Im kein wouldn't Yeshiva College - which is isolated from issues of tznius - 
would fit the chareidi dfeinition of tznius, be ok?

Rich Wolpoe


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________


The people I have spoken to from Charedi to secular all agree that 
the real reason people discourage or encourage people to go to 
college is because of "what goes on there".

I don't really believe that anyone cares if someone takes an hour 
or so and learns some trigonometry. I know that is what they 
say...but the real issue is the immodesty that goes with
Limuday chol

I would like to see some more openness here...the real issue 
is WHO we learn with not WHAT we learn. (This is true
when I speak to chardiites also)

Russell
___________________________________________________________________ 
Get the Internet just the way you want it.
Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! 
Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj.

On Sun, Nov 07, 1999 at 01:40:22PM +0200, Carl M. Sherer wrote:
> When I was a bochur, my Rebbe once complained in shiur that 
> they always had girls from a certain seminary (where his wife 
> taught) for Shabbos, and all the girls used to sit at the table like 
> queens. It goes without saying, that thereafter any guys who were 
> invited to the Rebbe's house for Shabbos insisted on clearing the 
> table and washing the dishes. After all, we're better than the girls, 
> right? :-) 
> 
> A year and a half later, during Sheva Brachos for my wedding, my 
> Rebbe's wife told me that she used to have to re-wash all the 
> dishes that we washed.

i was looking forward to another ending of the story:  all the bochrim
were taught to wash dishes perfectly, and that the girls had started 
being better guests when they heard everything didn't break down on 
gender lines.

i suspect that the girls weren't so bad, but it was just a matter of
contrasts.  sometimes i've been for shabbos at the same time as male 
guests and was treated as the mother's helper while the male guests
weren't asked to do anything (and didn't do anything spontaneously 
either, and weren't involved in a mitzvah such as learning they would
have been interrupted from).  given that this is the base case, the male
guest who does one thing extra is seen as better than the female guest
who does one thing less.  

also, if they were BTs, it might have been an issue of being afraid of
treifing the entire kitchen somehow or something similarly irrational.
when i first started going to others' for shabbos, i was afraid to do
anything lest i do it wrong and offend everyone.


usually, i can succeed in enlisting the nearest male guest not engaged
in conversation in clearing the table, but usually they don't persist
in doing so after one dish.

this isn't unique to the frum world, btw.  at most dinners everywhere,
there's the tendency of women to decide simultaneously to clear the table 
while the men sit oblivious to the fact that work needs to be done.  (when
it's all women, those who didn't cook clean up.)  i have to admit that 
changing this tendency is my radical feminist agenda.

janet

In a message dated 11/8/99 6:38:54 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
hmaryles@yahoo.com writes:

<< 
 Once again, just to be clear: I am NOT advocating
 inviting them over for shabbos cholent.  I am only
 advocating joining forces with them politically for
 purposes of mutual interst.
  >>

Yes, like the Christianization of our public schools. Listen, kids, in my 
humble opinion, inasmuch as too many of this list has no realistic point of 
reference to be able to discuss this, I suggest we drop this thread. 
Otherwise, I may get angry at the almost pathetic indifference many posters 
here show to those Jews who are not part of the Avodah community. Since you 
don't even understand the problem, there is no explaining it. 

Jordan 

Ahem.

Rationalists cannot be poets? Sounds like Brisko-centrism to me...

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

----- Original Message -----
From: <richard_wolpoe@ibi.com>
To: <avodah@aishdas.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 1999 7:51 AM
Subject: Rational Kabbalists


> EG, if a poet like Ibn Gvirol learned  kabbolo, he would likely fall into
> catagory 2.
>

richard_wolpoe@ibi.com wrote:


> 
> Q: How does davening with a minyan enahcne kavono?  Why cannot one concntrate 
> when davening biyichidus.
> 
> A: Lhavdil, people who "work out" generally concentrate better, work harder, in 
> a gym or in an aerobics class. 


For myself, I simply can't daven at home, period. Between the kids and the
dog, there's just too much going on to even attempt to concentrate. How
can I finish the amidah when my three year old is tugging on my shirt
"abba, abba, abba, abba..."?

And alone is not much better. Then I tend to either just say the words, or
get so caught up in the form of the words that I lose sight of the
meaning.

But in a minyan, I have the quiet I need (or the same words I'm saying
being said aloud) for kavana, and just about the right amount of time to
say the words with meaning, while knowing that if I linger too long on the
word(s), I'll be left behind to catch up and lose out that way. It works
out just right.


---sam

From: harry maryles <hmaryles@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Friendly fundamentalists

<<Once again, just to be clear: I am NOT advocating
inviting them over for shabbos cholent.>> 
	Not even Friday night?

Sorry
Gershon

--- TROMBAEDU@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 11/8/99 6:38:54 PM Eastern
> Standard Time, 
>
> Yes, like the Christianization of our public
> schools. 

What makes you think they are not already (de facto)
Christianized?

HM

=====

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com

--- "Yosef Gavriel and Shoshanah M. Bechhofer"
<sbechhof@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> wrote:
> Ahem.
> 
> Rationalists cannot be poets? Sounds like
> Brisko-centrism to me...

If Art is in the realm of Poetry, (at least more so
than it is in the realm of Science) then one of the
greatest artists of the millenium is also one of the
greatest scientists of the millenium: Lenny DiVinci.

One must admit however, that those who choose one
discipline are usually  uncomfortable in the other.

HM

HM

=====

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com

Me thinks, 15 posts from one person, no matter how important he may be, are
too much for one time.

I realize that this may not be the most appropriate topic for this forum,
but other than e-mailing the entire subscriber list individually, this is
the best way to tap the collective wisdom.

Baruch Hashem, my kehilla is growing, and we've just bought our own
building. Now it's time to find money. We've got a dedication list for all
the usual things a shul needs, as well as some others that aren't so usual
(like the building itself, the parking lot, etc...).

I'm not soliciting donations from listmembers (though I wouldn't turn them
down either), but I know that some of us are Shul rabbis and the like, and
I wonder if you (plural) have any suggestions. Off-list, please.

Thank you very much and tizkeh lamizvot.


---sam

poets CAN be rational, they are typically more emotional touchy feely types.

R. Shcwab was highly rational, wrote a kinno, and was presumed to be learning 
kabbolo be'seiser, but I would not call him a mystic nor a mekubbol.

As I said there is overlap.

I don't see people as strictly either/or....
Rather it's a tendency, a prediposition...

Rich Wolpoe



______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________

Ahem.

Rationalists cannot be poets? Sounds like Brisko-centrism to me...

Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer

see today's haaretz for article on the chareidi youth who come to Hallel,
the group to aid 'chozrim lisheila'

<<> Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 19:49:09 -0500
> From: Russell J Hendel <rjhendel@juno.com>
> Subject: Re: Yoatzos,  once again
> 
<<First, I am flattered you quote me.>>
> > 	Don't be;  I quoted you to show the inconsistency of your 
> > position.
> 
> No NO...you  showed its consistency (See below). You are like a 
> student
> who trusts his teacher when he sees an inconsistency and asks for 
> guidance. I am deeply flattered.>>

	If you need to infer flattery I will not deprive you of that pleasure.

<<You are equating being able to ANSWER a shaila to being 
> able 
> > to POSE one.  This is patently incorrect.
> 
> YES YES...THAT IS ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. FOR EXAMPLE IF YOU
> KNOW HOW TO ASK A SHAIILA ABOUT BASAR BECHALAV
> WITH A CHECK LIST
> - ---Cold/Hot
> - ---used within 24 hours
> - ---absorbing material
> - ---discrete/liquid
> - ---1/60 th ratio
> - ---used for food, taste, preserve
> then you really don't have to ask the question (think about it). 
> 
> In fact no one ever asks a shaiila. Rather the rav and person enter
> dialog to try and clarify the question--"was it cold", "was it 
> hot"...
> In other words asking a shaiila is nothing other than learning
> HOW to ask it. Once you learn HOW to ask it you know how
> to pasken.>>

	Asking a shaila is not filling out a questionnaire.   Agreed,  if the
answers to each question uniquely determine the answer to the shailo,  we
can replace all our rabonim/educated baalei batim/yoatzos with a
computer.  However,  the answer to a shailo is the proper weighting of
the factors,  not yes/no on a checklist.

Gershon

> From: Yzkd@aol.com
> Subject: Re: Rav Moshe

> As this has been written in public I feel I must make a public 
> Macho'oh  against this style of self righteousness, and indignation to
true 
> Gedolim.
	I too wanted to make a macho'oh lichvod haTorah but RHM did it much
better so I answer Amen.

From: harry maryles <hmaryles@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: Rav Moshe

> I think it is unconcionable to castigate a giant like
> R. Moshe based on anecdotal information from one
> person who may is nogeah b'davar, especially if she
> was the one asking the shailo.  No one this list was
> there.  No one heard from the other side, (as did R.
> Moshe).  Even if everything happened as described,
> this is an isolated case from which no infference
> should be drawn.
> 
> R. Moshe was a gentle soul whose Kavod HaBrios was
> unrivaled.  I doubt that anyone had more sensitivity
> about these kinds of issues than he did. Anyone, for
> example, who accuses him of not having compassion for
> Agunos because of his well known position, just didn't
> know him. All of his psokim were based on his clear
> understanding of Halacha and not on emotion.
> 
> That doesn't mean he can't be critisized.  There are
> many issues which he paskined on which are not
> accepted. And there are many poskim that paskin other
> than he does. One does not have to follow his psak if
> there are legitimate poskim who disagree.  But one
> thing is certain. He was one of the most
> intellectually honest men of our time as well as one
> of the most compassionate.
> 
> HM

Amen
Gershon

R' Mechy Frankel recently wrote:

<<< The note from Mrs Boulbil (note to the etiquette police - you guys
need to come up with some appropriately courteous female honorific to
complement the generous e-mail semikhas so freely bestowed on those of
the male persuasion) >>>

May I suggest we use     M'     for this purpose?

It has the advantage of being a valid abbreviation for: MRS., MISS, MS.,
MARAT, and MARAS.

It unfortunately can't stand in for Yoetzet, but where appropriate it can
mean Mikvalady.

Any comments?

Akiva Miller
___________________________________________________________________
Get the Internet just the way you want it.
Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month!
Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj.

In message , Pawshas@aol.com writes
>This is why I termed it an "extension" of "Hatzneia Leches." The underlying 
>principle is the same, but "Kol Kevodah" adds a point which applies 
>specifically to women.
>
>To expand:
>
>Hatzneia Leches implies that a person's relationship with HaShem should be a 
>personal one (Rashi Michah 3:8); it says little about one's general behavior, 
>and it says nothing about the spotlight. See Succah 49, which makes this very 
>clear with its examples of Hachnasas Kallah and Hotzaas haMeis as Mitzvos 
>which should be performed with Hatzneia Leches. As the Gemara points out, 
>these are very much "spotlight Mitzvos." Hatzneia Leches only demands a 
>personal, private relationship with HaShem.
>
>Kol Kevodah, on the other hand, places an emphasis on actually being away 
>from the sight of others (Rashi Tehillim 45:14, and others there). This does 
>not necessarily refer to being indoors, but it does mean staying out of the 
>spotlight, as a general course of behavior (see Avodah Zarah 18a, Rashi there 
>sv Dikdekah - it is clear that the problem is not with being in public, it is 
>with being in the spotlight).
>
>Is this clearer?
>

I have no problem with your expansion.  But rather, at least to me, your
expansion emphasises that these are two different halachic concepts (not
one an extension of the other).  That is, one deals with our
relationship with G-d, and one deals with being in the spotlight.  There
is a linkage through the word tzanua, and while one might expect from
the pshat of the pasuk that there would be a connection, such a
connection does not, IMHO, either appear from your expansion or from
those sources.

That is, as you have stressed here, hatzneia leches is a positive
command - this is how one *should* behave.  While, kol kavuda (as per
Ariyeh) while sometimes something to be praised (eg Sarah in her tent),
as I tried to show in my previous post seems to operate, at least on
basic halachic principles, as something that "lets women off", ie
excuses them from doing what a male in that circumstance would be
required to do.  And while it is hard to think of situations in which a
violation of Hatzneia Leches would be praiseworthy or permitted, it is
not difficult (as I showed with Avigayil) to think of situations where a
violation of kol kavuda is praiseworthy and/or permitted. 

We also need to separate this discussion from that of the pshat of the
posuk of kol kavuda.  The simple pshat of the pasuk is the issue raised
here by Eli Clark, ie that internals are of greater value than excessive
consumption (even for a king's daughter, golden garments are excessive -
even Tamar only wore multicoloured ones).  The classic drash of this
pasuk is closer, but still is aimed as much at men - ie the crown of
Torah (created by working on oneself internally) is greater than he who
wears golden garments (ie the cohen gadol).  However, Torah too is a
public event in the beis hamedrish, so it is not on all fours with an
outside/inside spotlight/no spotlight distinction.

That is why I have focussed on the use of the pasuk in halacha - which
is where it is used to specifically refer to women in contradistinction
to men, and it seems to me there that the two concepts of kol kavuda and
hatzneia leches are functionally quite different.

>Mordechai Torczyner

Regards

Chana

PS any idea why tzneius is not one of the desirable traits mentioned in
Avodah Zara 20b (and hence in Mesillas Yesharim)?
-- 
Chana/Heather Luntz

<snip>

PS any idea why tzneius is not one of the desirable traits mentioned in 
Avodah Zara 20b (and hence in Mesillas Yesharim)?
-- 
Chana/Heather Luntz<<

Probably too shy to come out from hiding

Rich Wolpoe

--- Akiva Atwood <atwood@netvision.net.il> wrote:
> > And there are many poskim that paskin other
> > than he does. One does not have to follow his psak
> if
> > there are legitimate poskim who disagree.  But one
> 
> Picking and choosing between Poskim? Based on *our*
> preferences? I thought
> we were supposed to ask our LOR and then abide by
> *his* Psak.

This is what Chasidim do.  

In reality the correct approach should be that, once
the shaila has been asked to an individual, and
answered by that individual. then, with rare
exception, that is your psak and you have to abide by
it. That does not mean you always have to go to the
same Posek. Especially if you are looking for a
specific psak that and you are aware that there are
legitimate divergent opinions.  The key, then, is to
try and find the posek that will rule in your favor.  

Lest you think this violates some sense of impropriety
vis-a-vis "shopping for a heter",  I can tell you that
a legitmate Posek will often sense that you are
"looking" for that heter and if he is Machmir will not
paskin for you and tell you to ask some one else. 

This is exactly what happened to me with a shaila I
had regarding a medical issue impacting my father
(post surgery) and Shabbos.  I asked R. Aaron and he
told me politely that "he didn't know the answer"  to
what seemed to be a relatively easy shaila.  He told
me to ask some one else. I was puzzled at the time but
I did ask another reputable Posek here in the city and
got a kula.  It was only later that it dawned on me
that R. Aaron would have most likely been machmir and
created a great hardship for my father.

HM

=====

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com

On Tue, 9 Nov 1999, Kenneth G Miller wrote:

> R' Mechy Frankel recently wrote:
> 
> May I suggest we use     M'     for this purpose?
> 
> It has the advantage of being a valid abbreviation for: MRS., MISS, MS.,
> MARAT, and MARAS.
> 
> Any comments?
> 

She is a Rabbanit. RSB woulld be appropriate. 

YGB

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

--- "Shoshana L. Boublil" <toramada@netvision.net.il>
wrote:

> I would like to share with you my daughter's
> experience this past Shabbat in
> Meah Shearim.
> wearing Tzniusdika
> clothes  they entered Me'ah She'arim 
> a little boy who ran after them shouting "Shiksa".  
> She also
> saw on the walls (above street level) signs that
> stated that zionist
> religious were Amalekites.
> As they walked down, people started
> shouting at them to get
> out, women shouted from the windows at them to
> leave, they saw boxes of
> glass shards ready to be thrown, water bags of
> detergent were thrown at
> them, and a girl got hit in the leg by a plastic bag
> of milk that was thrown
> at her.   
> 
> The girls got scared, started running away and found
> their exit blocked by
> another crowd of men (the women shouted
> impreciations from the windows and
> threw things at them).  They cried and shouted that
> the other side is
> blocked and finally they were let out of Me'ah
> Shearim.
> 
> Some men in the crowd knocked the rabbi's kippa off
> his head telling him to
> take it off. 

The above excerpted story, is one of the most
upsetting I have heard comming out from those
quarters.  This is of course not the first story of
it's kind.  There are many such stories in the holy
city.  So, it doesn't come as too much of a shock.  

However, without casting any aspersions on the
veracity of Shoshana's account (I'm convinced that she
is sincere), there seems to be something missing from
the story because even with the type of rancor that
exists toward modernity in Meah Shearim (MS), members
of that community don't respond that way in those
kinds of situations. I have often been on the streets
of MS with my very Tznius daughters, dressed in a
manner as described above, and found no such
hostilities.  Nor have I seen anything even resembling
it, even to obviously non-religious women tourists,
since many of these tourists are sources of income for
these people, MS having become a major tourist trap.

I am perplexed! 

Tzarich Iyun

HM

=====

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com

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


[ Distributed to the Avodah mailing list, digested version.                   ]
[ To post: mail to avodah@aishdas.org                                         ]
[ For back issues: mail "get avodah-digest vXX.nYYY" to majordomo@aishdas.org ]
[ or, the archive can be found at http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/              ]
[ For general requests: mail the word "help" to majordomo@aishdas.org         ]