Avodah Mailing List

Volume 04 : Number 416

Monday, March 6 2000

• YU Confiscates New York Times
• doctorates among yu roshei yeshiva
• Re: YU/NY Times
• Re: Mishna Berura reference
• Re: YU Confiscates New York Times
• Tehillim
• Re[2]: YU/NY Times -Humor Alert
• Synagogue and State
• Re: Avodah V4 #413
• Re: USA and FRG (was "Re: Avodah V4 #409")
• TuM and TIDE
• Rav Gifter and College
• [none]
• Ten Commandments
• Re: TuM and TIDE
• Proof to anti-English view?
• Re: Avodah V4 #415
• Re: MiSheberach for Cholim
• Re: Synagogue and State

RC Sherer wrote:
     
>>This story appeared in a recent edition of the YU Commentator, and today's 
Jerusalem Post picked up on it (which is how I saw it).>>
     
The day-to-day administration of YU is not done by TuM ideologues but by 
university management.  I don't think a conclusion about R. Lamm's or the Roshei
Yeshiva's attitudes can be derived from this occurence.
     
The Commentator has long complained about the decision-making by management.  In
the late 80s and early 90s there were some long exposes in the Commentator 
specifying various wrongs done by management in an attempt to get them to change
their attitude.  Evidently, it hasn't worked.
     
Incidentally, R. Yitzchak Cohen once related the story that Dr. Revel was 
walking on the campus one Friday morning and saw a student reading the 
newspaper.  He took away the newspaper and asked "Have you been ma'avir sedra 
yet?"

r. heshie reichman has a Ph.D. (in math or operations research) and r.
michael katz has one in jewish studies.

In a message dated 3/6/00 11:22:00 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
cmsherer@ssgslaw.co.il writes:

<< 
 The reason I cited the article this morning was because I wanted to 
 know if any of you thought it was a policy shift at YU with respect 
 to what types of publications they will encourage students to read. 
 (I would not expect them to prohibit reading the New York Times 
 outright - I don't think that accords with YU's hashkafa - but I 
 thought it was possible that they had decided not to encourage 
 reading the Times). I regarded what I was posting as being b'geder 
 "nura bei planya." Reb Rich and Reb Rich obviously both feel it 
 does not signify any sort of policy shift (correct me if I am wrong). 
  >>
I doubt it's a policy change since one is offered the opportunity to receive 
a daily subscription to the Times and the Journal upon registering in the 
dorm.

Kol Tuv,
Joel Rich

PS In the Tora only world - is it considered assur to spend time keeping up 
with the news due to bittul tora? If not, why?

>> I can tell you that the Yerushalmi is at the very end of kiddushin.  RYF 
Perlow has an interesting application of this Yerushalmi in his Sefer Hamitzvos 
leRS"G on the mitzvah of shechitah.>>

RYGB wrote:

>>Nu, vos zogt er?>>

RYF Perlow (Sefer Hamitzvos leRS"G 1:95) notes that R. Sa'adiah Gaon apparently 
counts Devarim 12:20 ("Ki yarchiv...") as a separate mitzvah.  RYFP first 
suggests that the mitzvah is to not be a glutton, mekadesh atzmecha bemutar 
lach, etc. but then notes that it does not fit into RSG's language.

He then suggests that the mitzvah is to enjoy what you can and struggles to 
understand what that means.  Kedarko bakodesh, he quotes an obscure rishon who 
says that the reason is to be marbeh berachos but RYFP rejects that as not 
making sense (he doesn't mention it but berachos lifneihem are only miderabbanan
and this mitzvah is mide'oraisa).  RYFP has a fascinating arichus on this 
subject but I am still left without a satisfying explanation of this mitzvah.

Gil Student
gil.student@citicorp.com

In a message dated 3/6/00 11:41:49 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
gil.student@citicorp.com writes:

<<    
 Incidentally, R. Yitzchak Cohen once related the story that Dr. Revel was 
 walking on the campus one Friday morning and saw a student reading the 
 newspaper.  He took away the newspaper and asked "Have you been ma'avir 
sedra 
 yet?" >>

Hmmm...who did the paper belong to and why did he not wait for an answer?  I 
hope that these questions will be answered before the authorized Artscroll 
biography comes out :-)

Kol Tuv,
Joel Rich

I don't know about a story; however, see Nefesh haChaim Sha'ar 4, where the
issue of this mamar chazal is discussed.

Isn't the NY Times considered "classic" reading for the Beis haKisei?

Richard_Wolpoe@ibi.com


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
  

Kol Tuv,
Joel Rich

PS In the Tora only world - is it considered assur to spend time keeping up 
with the news due to bittul tora? If not, why?

In v4n407, David Finch <DFinchPC@aol.com> writes:
: Absolutely. Judaism -- all real religion, for that matter -- is ultimately
: about the pursuit of purity, the dream of perfection. Politics in a
: democratic state require all sorts of dirty little ...
:                       Religion soils itself when it participates in the
: give-and-take of such politics.

WADR, this is a very non-Jewish view of religion. Judaism isn't about being
pure, about retreating from the world to some place of holiness. Judaism is
about living in this world in a holy way. Retreating from politics is
an abdication of our mission in a very important domain.

:                                 That's why we all suffered the spectacle of
: watching the great Israeli Gedolim endorsing Bibi Netanyahu in the last
: election.

Again, I strongly disagree. We are obligated to minimize evil. And if that
means choosing evil -- we are still obligated to choose the least evil. To
give up the mandate means that we give up the power to make even this small
shift toward what we consider to be Torah's priorities.


Personally, I disagree with David's notion of separation of synagogue from
the State of Israel. I also have the chutzpah (there is no other way to
put it, as I'm a non-resident) to disagree with Carl's view that the only
alternative is to mandate religion.

RYBS notes that we are called an "Am" at Yetzi'as Mitzrayim, but we aren't an
"Eidah" until Har Sinai. "Am Yisrael", he explains, is a community of fate.
(The shoresh is "im", with.) "Adas Yisrael" is a community of shared eidus,
involving our covenant and destiny.

Note that Hashem built the community in two stages: first am, then eidah.

The second return to Tzion also went through the same discrete steps. When
Ezra arrived in Yerushalaim, the community there were intermarried, far from
the ideal of an Eidah.

What we are trying to do in Israel today is overly impatient. We are
trying to create an Eidah without first building that Am, that unity,
that togetherness. We've created a society where religious Jew and chiloni
are engaged in a tug-of-war, but did nothing to first ensure that the rope
between us is strong enough to take the strain. I fear it is on the verge
of snapping. Certainly the popularity of an anti-dati propoganda peice,
described by its creator as a weapon in a kulturkapf, does not bode well.

People need to become frum because they want to, not because it is mandated
by law. The latter tends to breed rebellion, not compliance. Retail kiruv
is also done one step at a time, adding mitzvos and dinim as the student is
ready to accept them. Israel is violating this cardinal rule of kiruv, and
anyone in the business should be unsurprised with its failure.

All that said, I don't think we should separate synagogue from the state.
While Israel shouldn't (IMO, and I want to reiterate my acknowledgement the
chutzpah involved in my stating it to people who live there) be in the
business of mandating halachah, I do not see why it should get out of the
business of enabling those who keep halachah to do so. So, continue support
of the religious educational system, of kashrus in the military, and of
anything else which doesn't force the chiloni into lifestyle changes he
isn't willing to make.

-mi

--
Micha Berger (973) 916-0287          MMG"H for  4-Mar-00: Shevi'i, Vayakhel
micha@aishdas.org                                         A"H
http://www.aishdas.org                                    Rosh-Hashanah 4a
For a mitzvah is a lamp, and the Torah its light.

Gershon Dubin wrote:

<<<
<<Just to quibble slightly, I don't think that when the Torah SheBe'al
Peh
tells us that Lo Tignov means not to kindnap it comes to exclude other
forms of stealing for which one would not be subject to the death penalty

from the category of geneiva.>>

	I'm not sure what you mean here.   Stealing money,  property,  etc. is
ossur,  and is learned from the posuk lo tignovu.  The interpretation of
lo tignov in the aseres hadibros as kidnaping because of the rule of
dovor halomeid me'inyano doesn't mean that other forms of stealing are
permitted,  only that they are not learned from this posuk.  Please
explain.
>>>

What do we learn from lo tirzach?  The asseret ha-dibrot are stating
principles that are more inclusive than individual mitzvot, especially ones 
listed elsewhere in the Torah.  Thus, the Torah she-ba'al peh is pointing
out to us that the principle of lo tignov is to be interpreted at a level of 
generality that makes it comparable in severity to the principle of lo tirzach.
And see below (i.e., parashat mishpatim and elsewhere) for specific
applications of the principles.

<<<
<<Similarly when the Torah she-ba'al peh tells us that Shemini Atzeret is
a regel bifnei atzmah, it cannot possibly mean that it is not also part
of  the general holiday of sukkot, otherwise the Biblical name would have
made no sense at all.>>

	Why not?  After all the korbonos of the 2nd day,  3rd day,  etc  it
tells us what to do on the eighth.  Counting it as the eighth from the
first day of sukkos doesn't make it part of sukkos.  OTOH,  the Mishna
does call it yom tov acharon shel chag.
>>>

If there were not an organic, essential relationship between the first 
seven days and the last day, surely the Ribbono shel Olam would have 
been creative enough to call the festival celebrated on the eighth day 
by some name other than eighth.  That He named it the eighth day 
shows that there has to be an essential connection that allows the first
seven days and the last day to be considered as a unit, while at the same
time as separate and distinct entities.  Day and night are separate, indeed, 
from a certain perspective opposite (paradigmatically opposite!) entities,
but the night is an integral part of a day.  To explain the integral 
connection between the first seven days and the eighth day, my 
grandfather, z'l, relying on the Targum Yonatan ben Uziel at the end of 
parashat Pinhas, wrote in Dor Dorim that there is a mitzvat aseh mi-
d'roaita to return from the sucah (dirat arai) on the eighth day into the 
home (dirat keva).  This provides the conceptual basis for the minhag of 
making kiddush in the home on the night of Shemini Atzeret (by which 
act one then becomes exempt from the obligation to finish the meal in 
the sucah) but to eat in the sucah on the day of Shemini Atzeret.  He 
also showed that the sugya in the gemara in Sucah of meitav yatvinan 
b'rukhei lo m'varkhinan must have been referring only to the day, but 
understood, as a davar pashut, that one is obligated to make kiddush in 
the house at night to fulfill the mitzvah of returning from the dirat arai to the 
dirat keva, thereby bringing the eight day cycle of departure and return 
to a conclusion.  As I write this, I am reminded that in his hesped for his 
father, the Dor Revi'i, who died in Yerushalayim, IhK, 75 years ago on 
the night of Shemini Atzeret, my grandfather compared the p'tira of the 
Gaon on Shemini Atzeret to the return from the dirat arai to the Dirat 
Keva.

David Glasner
dglasner@ftc.gov

In Avodah 4#414, DFinch responded:
>> Read some very recent history of germany
and the Jews in the 20s-30s...and David, don't
turn your back on any of your "teammates" <<
> Again, again: America is not Weimar Germany.
Americans (that's all of us over here, folks,
automatically, as soon as we get off the boat
or sneak over the Rio Grande) aren't Germans.  <
I believe this statement may have been tangential to
your overall opinions on dealing with the Outside World.
Nevertheless, I must point out that many of my [German]
ancestors felt that Germany, land of Goethe and Schiller,
wasn't Russia (or England...or Spain...or...).  If you're
trying to say, in responding to RMiller, that what happened
to Jews in other lands cannot happen here, think again...and,
quite frankly, others (e.g. Rabbi E. Buchwald) have already
pointed out that a "spiritual holocaust" has and is occurring
in front of us -- to put it another way, "o'm'dim olainu
l'chalosainu" includes both the Hellenist methodology
and the Amalekite methodology.  Hakoras hatov for the
method of government in America does not mean embracing
all that (or even some of what) America represents.

All the best from
Michael Poppers * Elizabeth, NJ

In v4n406, R' Harry Maryles defines TIDE and writes that from its perspective:
: a) you need [secular studies] for parnasah and that
: b)it helps one to live in and understand one's environment ...

: I believe that TIDE also grants intrinsic value to secular studies but only
: in an instrumentalist way.

I think this line contradicts A&B, but better captures what TIDE is than they
do. I don't know of any hashkafah that assurs the minimum secular knowledge
necessary to cope with the world and put food on the table. A&B are true
of far more than TIDE (or TuM).

In v4n410, R' Rich Wolpoe <richard_wolpoe@ibi.com> writes:
: RYBS was above the fray as mcuh as I can see it, but was open to W-T. 

On Shabbos I referred this question to someone who I knew had much contact with
RYBS. (Name available upon request; he requested limited circulation of it
in private email only.) He had actually asked RYBS about TuM and TIDE. Three
points stick out in his memory:

1- RYBS spoke of TuM in terms of "literature, philosophy, and science". (Sounds
   more like theoretical scholarship than the professional knowledge we've
   been associating with TIDE. Yet...)
2- He saw TuM and RYSH's TIDE to be one and the same.
3- RYBS considered himself an adherant of the TuM philosophy.

-mi

--
Micha Berger (973) 916-0287          MMG"H for  4-Mar-00: Shevi'i, Vayakhel
micha@aishdas.org                                         A"H
http://www.aishdas.org                                    Rosh-Hashanah 4a
For a mitzvah is a lamp, and the Torah its light.

Sadya N. Targum writes that Rav Gifter "attended [Yeshiva College] for a
semester, decided there was no value to him in it, and left."  I think he is
confusing the facts.  Rav Gifter stated numerous times that he is a graduate
of RIETS, and that without it he would never have gone to Telshe in Europe.
Rav Gifter did attend Yale Graduate School in History for a very short time
and left.

Levi Reisman

Richard -- there is a similar story of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Zatzal
having taken a J for JC pamphlet from a J for JC member who visited him
for dollars -- it was one less Jew who would be exposed to the stuff.  

>: I would agree with you on the drash level by which R. Sa'adiah Gaon and
many 
>: others tried to derive the 613 mitzvos from the 10 dibros. On any other
level
>: I think you are incorrect.  Chazal were establishing that pshat of the
pasuk 
>: refers to kidnapping.
>
>I vaguely remember a d'var Torah that connects the two layers with the two
>sets of trop. Ta'am elyon represents the means of punctuating the pesukim
>to describe 10 prinicipls/categories that include all of halachah. Ta'am
>tachton breaks the statements down into a list of specific mitzvos.

Could someone elaborate on the significance of this?  I certainly see the
value of understanding the psukim both ways (principles vs mitvos), but why
is one prefered in a public reading, and another prefered otherwise, and
not vice versa?

-- Eric

Re; #1,
Fwiw I heard besheim R MD Tendler that TuM was limited sctrictly to the "hard 
natural sciences" and therefore did NOT include social sciences nor humanities. 
And even so, it is a chidush that Torah scholars peer into science, so this 
should not be taken for granted.  (I beleive I saw him quoted in either the 
Commentator or Hamevaser)

Re: #2.
Marc Shpiro's book defines a Berlin school of TIDE to which the SE, Hoffman 
belonged and to which RYBS subscribed.

However, the Berlin school of TIDE did not follow the Frankfurt shcool which had
much more restrictive shitos wrt Austritt and W-T (and possibly Zionism, too)

So while it might be true that RYBS was an heir to this "Berlin" version of 
TIDE, he would not be considered a true Hirschian by the Frankfort adherents.

Re: #3.
My impression of RYBS was that he was both an adherent of TuM but was 
qualitatively more than that. While it is true that Babe Ruth was a pitcher for 
the Boston Red Sox, we must also remember his other career in New York to get 
the essense of his total contribution to baseball. 

Similarly RYBS was not confined to Boston nor to New York nor to YU nor to TuM 
nor to Maimonides, etc.

Richard_Wolpoe@ibi.com



______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________

1- RYBS spoke of TuM in terms of "literature, philosophy, and science". (Sounds
   more like theoretical scholarship than the professional knowledge we've 
   been associating with TIDE. Yet...)
2- He saw TuM and RYSH's TIDE to be one and the same.
3- RYBS considered himself an adherant of the TuM philosophy.

-mi

 Although this doesn't really have much to do with the current TuM thread,
I found this link interesting (not to mention abhorrent and loathsome),
and I wonder what kind of response should me made toward this kind of thing.
It seems to corroborate the anti-Artscroll, anti-anything view of 
translating Sifrei Kodesh into other languages.
 Perhaps R' Menashe Klein had a good point after all. :)

 http://www.hoffman-info.com/talmudtruth.html

Shlomo Weiss

Gil Student wrote:

<<<
>>Just to quibble slightly, I don't think that when the Torah SheBe'al Peh tells
us that Lo Tignov means not to kindnap it comes to exclude other forms of 
stealing for which one would not be subject to the death penalty from the 
category of geneiva. The general heading of geneiva subsumes other particular 
categories, including gezeila.>>

I would agree with you on the drash level by which R. Sa'adiah Gaon and many
others tried to derive the 613 mitzvos from the 10 dibros. On any other
level I think you are incorrect. Chazal were establishing that pshat of
the pasuk refers to kidnapping. >>>

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but it is not the job of Chazal to
"establish" p'shat. P'shat is what it is. It is something we can argue
about and provide reasons for, but a text may be inherently ambiguous or
open-ended and p'shat in such a text cannot be established by fiat. But it
may be elucidated through a process of discussion and argument, comparison
and contrast. Now miserable creature that I am, hardly anyone (with the
possible, but unlikely, excpetion of members of my immediate family) will
lend any credence to anything that I say. And it is entirely fitting and
proper that they do not lend any credence to anything that I say. However,
it still can happen that I will, on occasion, stumble, more or less blindly,
over the truth. And if I should be meritorious enough to do so, people may
then choose, if they so desire, to agree with me on that basis (and no other).
Parshanut did not come to an end with Chazal, so even if Chazal said that
lo tignov means only kidnapping and I say that it means kidnapping and all
other forms of stealing, I would be within my rights to do so. Of course,
a d'var halakha would be an entirely different matter. Lacking a Sanhedrin,
we are bound to follow the drashot established by Chazal to the extent
that they were incorporated into the Talmud and other more or less equally
authoritative sources. But what I am saying certainly does not conflict
with any d'var halakhah of Chazal. And, even if it did, I could certainly
suggest an alternative drasha, just as we find many alternative drashot
in the Talmud that were not accepted l'halakha. Now, having established
that I would have had the right to argue with an interpretation of p'shat
by Chazal, I would deny absolutely that I did in fact do any such thing.
I merely offered my interpretation of what Chazal meant to say. My claim
is that when Chazal say lo tignov means kidnapping, they did not intend to
exclude from the meaning of lo tignov all instances of stealing other than
kidnapping. They meant to stress that stealing includes kidnapping which
is why it is a sufficiently severe offense to be included in the company of
the surrounding capital offenses. Ein mikra yotzei midei p'shuto.

<<<
>>Although one could read Rashi otherwise, I think it is a davar pashut that the
aseret ha-dibrot were providing the most general subject headings without 
excluding any particular applications. Similarly when the Torah she-ba'al peh 
tells us that Shemini Atzeret is a regel bifnei atzmah, it cannot possibly mean
that it is not also part of the general holiday of sukkot, otherwise the 
Biblical name would have made no sense at all.>>

I think you need better proof for your big chidush than the biblical name of the
holiday.
>>>

I don't recall offering a big chidush, only a slight quibble.  The biblical name of
the holiday was not intended to be a proof of anything, just an illustration of how
one might go about understanding what Chazal meant when they said that 
Shemini Atzeret was a regel bifnei atzmah and when they say that lo tignov
means kidnapping.  But we do often find instances in the Talmud when what
is puzzling or doubtful to one is pashut to another.

David Glasner
dglasner@ftc.gov

>From: Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org>
>The reason why I would like to see change is because you lost the
kahal's
>attention. Mi Shebeirach licholim, at least where I daven and have
davened,
>has become a shmooze break.

Our Minyan changed the way the MiSheberach is said; specifically because
of your point.  The gabbai announces that the MiSheberach will be said
and everyone is to say it along with him and insert their own list of
names at the appropriate time. Their is no queuing of a line, no getting
names from the other side of the mechitza and therefore a reduced amount
of talking.  This also reduces the amount of time to say the MiSheberach
and increases the kavana level for the MiSheberach.

________________________________________________________________
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On 6 Mar 00, at 11:20, Micha Berger wrote:

I also have the chutzpah (there is no other
> way to put it, as I'm a non-resident) to disagree with Carl's view
> that the only alternative is to mandate religion.

I'm not sure what you mean by mandating religion. If you thought I 
was advocating going into people's homes and forcing them to 
kasher their kitchens, I was not. 

> People need to become frum because they want to, not because it is
> mandated by law. The latter tends to breed rebellion, not compliance.

I agree.

> Retail kiruv is also done one step at a time, adding mitzvos and dinim
> as the student is ready to accept them. Israel is violating this
> cardinal rule of kiruv, and anyone in the business should be
> unsurprised with its failure.

I'm not sure how you think Israel is violating this rule. Israel - as a 
State - is not trying to be mekarev anyone AFAIK. 

I do not see why
> it should get out of the business of enabling those who keep halachah
> to do so. So, continue support of the religious educational system, of
> kashrus in the military, and of anything else which doesn't force the
> chiloni into lifestyle changes he isn't willing to make.

To put that into American terms, you are in favor of freedom of 
religion, but you are opposed to the establishment clause.

The problem is that there's a gray area in which if you legislate, 
you are establishing religion, yet those effected would argue that 
you are constricting their freedom to be agnostic. Take marriage for 
example.

As we are all aware, in Israel one may only marry based upon the 
permission of the religious body to which one belongs. It is also no 
great secret that the Israeli Rabbinate refuses to perform marriages 
with chayavei lavin (e.g. grusha leCohen hedyot or giyores - who 
has a din of zona - with a Cohen). They also have done their 
darndest not to recognize Conservative and Reform conversions 
performed in Israel (they don't recognize them when they're 
performed outside of Israel either, but the Ministry of the Interior 
does because the Supreme Court forced them to recognize them). 
So where do you come out on this? Do we just allow civil 
marriages? Do we say to the Rabbanut, "look the other way as 
long as the Kiddushin are tofes?" And that's without even 
considering those who just don't want to be married through the 
Rabbinate on principle....

I have to tell you that I waiver on this particular issue. On the one 
hand, I can see that SOME solution to let psulei chitun marry in 
Israel has to be found. And if someone wants to be oiver a lav and I 
look the other way (he's going to live with the woman anyway, and 
the Kiddushin are tofes anyway - if he takes her and goes up to 
two people on the street and says "atem aiday" and puts a ring on 
her and says "harei at mekudeshes" she is probably mekudeshes 
anyway, so it's not lifnei iver), then what have I done wrong? Of 
course, for my own children I would then have to check yochsin 
much more closely, but is that any different from what goes on 
outside of Israel today? 

On the other hand, it is clear to me that the minute we adopt 
something like that, we irrevocably become two nations. Think 
back to our discussion about Rav Elyashiv's proposal for a 
marriage registry a few months ago. If there is civil marriage here, 
there is little doubt in my mind that's where we're headed. Is that 
any better?

Let's take another example that's a sticking point. It is illegal to 
import non-Kosher meat into Israel. (It is also illegal to raise 
chazeirim "on the land of Israel" but for many years there are 
kibbutzim that have gotten around that issur by raising them on 
platforms - yes really!). Why? Well quite simply because it assures 
that if someone makes a mistake and gets the meat mixed up, it 
may not be glatt, but at least it's not glatt treif. It saves you from a 
michshol. On the other side, Kosher meat is more expensive here, 
just like it is everyplace else in the world. So by not allowing treif 
meat to be imported, you're forcing chilonim to either spend more 
money on meat or to eat less of it.

Another example - closing streets on Shabbos. In Yerushalayim at 
least, there is a municipal ordinance that says that any street that 
is 90% fruhm, you close on Shabbos. Every commission that 
studied Bar Ilan Street (and none of those commissions was 
"fruhm" by any stretch) said it should be closed on Shabbos 
because there is not a single non-fruhm Jew who lives on Bar Ilan 
on the stretch between Shmuel HaNavi and Shamgar (and if you 
are going to close that, you also may as well close Yirmiyahu (Bar 
Ilan becomes Yirmiyahu at Shamgar) until the exit from the city, 
because the only access to Yirmiyahu at that point is through 
Charedi neighborhoods with closed streets - Geula on one side and 
Kiryat Belz on the other side). That's part of the "status quo." Yet 
Bar Ilan remains open (during "non-davening" hours) because it is a 
"major thoroughfare." Are there other roads that could be used that 
are open? Definitely. By closing it on Shabbos for the portion of 
Shabbos on which it is closed, am I establishing religion or am I 
interfering in someone else's freedom to be an agnostic? Depends 
which side you look at it from....

Burial. Two weeks ago I went to a "halvaya chilonit." Before I did 
so, I called my Rav and asked a shaila whether I was permitted to 
attend. He said that it was okay, so long as they were not going to 
cremate the body, which they were not. (Agav I never got around to 
asking him why it would have been assur to attend had they been 
cremating the body; I cannot imagine that it would have been more 
than MAYBE mesayea). I have to tell you all that I understand why 
the chilonim want this kind of levaya. I don't know whether or not 
they did a tahara, which to a chiloni is irrelevant anyway. (Agav I 
once heard a shiur where we saw mekoros that said that all that's 
done in a tehara is preparing the niftar to meet HKB"H in the same 
manner in which s/he would have prepared themselves. If that is 
the case, what is the purpose in doing a tehara for someone who 
has never been to a mikve in their life?). Other than that, the only 
differences I saw were the absence of the Chevra Kaddisha, the 
fact that women were allowed to speak (which does happen at 
some DL levayos here as well), the fact that no one hassled the 
children of the nifteres for going to the kever, the fact that there was 
a little guitar music played and the fact that there was no shura. 
Definitely not minhag Yerushalayim, but I could not think of any out 
and out issurim there. So why not allow it for those who choose it? 

Well, this one I have a harder time answering because I honestly 
cannot think of a reason not to allow it (but then again, I don't know 
Hilchos Aveilus well enough to speak to that question; if there's 
someone else on here who has worked more with a Chevra 
Kadisha then please pipe up). In any event, this is an area in which 
I think the Chevros (in Yerushalayim at least) have gone too far and 
have really turned people off. I went to pay a shiva call (yes, they 
sat shiva, although not the way we would R"L), and the nifteres' 
father started to tell me very defensively how mechubad the funeral 
was, and I told him to save it, that many datiyim also have 
problems with the way the Chevros here behave. 

In fact, I have a Charedi friend whose father in law's aron was 
brought in from Chicago, and he insisted that his wife and her 
sister be allowed to attend the kvura and he made sure there was a 
shura afterwards.

Anyway, as you can see, the issues (and there are many more of 
them) are not quite so clear cut, which is what makes it much 
harder. I don't propose to tell someone that they can't do whatever 
they want to do on Shabbos. OTOH I am not willing to be in a 
situation where I or my children are required to work on Shabbos 
so that they can have their pleasure.

One of the problems, quite frankly, is that these arguments tend to 
happen with an "in your face" attitude. That attitude IMHO is what 
makes many of these disputes so much more difficult to solve.

-- Carl


Carl M. Sherer, Adv.
Silber, Schottenfels, Gerber & Sherer
Telephone 972-2-625-7751
Fax 972-2-625-0461
mailto:cmsherer@ssgslaw.co.il
mailto:sherer@actcom.co.il

Please daven and learn for a Refuah Shleima for my son,
Baruch Yosef ben Adina Batya among the sick of Israel.
Thank you very much.

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


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