Avodah Mailing List

Volume 06 : Number 031

Monday, November 6 2000

• Kiddush intro
• Re: Tinok Shenishbah
• Re: Dor Revi'i website
• ohr lagoyim
• mikatzer
• RE: Tenth Man
• Waiting in a minyan
• tenth man
• Re: Avodah V6 #29
• Taninim Gedolim
• parshat Noach
• Re: parshat Noach
• RE: Beri'ah and dinosaur bones
• Tzohar
• More from Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky
• beriah and dinosaur bones
• Re: Rosh Hodesh bentshen
• teshuvah
• Which animals were on the teiva
• RE: beriah and dinosaur bones
• Tinok shenishbah
• Re: Tenth Man
• RE: More from Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky

From: "Wolpoe, Richard" <richard_wolpoe@ibi.com>
> Al kein Beirach,
> Vayihi Erev
> Al Pi Hashem beyad Moshe

Both answers to kedusha: kadosh and baruch, are pasuk "fragments"

Gershon
gershon.dubin@juno.com

> l'gabi yerusha) that do not apply to a B'N? Also, l'mai nafka minah 
> categorizing this as mored b'malchus as opposed to just saying it is the 
> act of gezel or aiver min hachai or whatever which is mechayev misa?

One nafka mina is that a thief or one who eats aiver min hachai requires a trial
before being punished.  A mored bemalchus can be executed without trial.

Gil Student

My brother and I have launched a website dedicated to our great-grandfather 
(and his namesake) R. Moshe Shmuel Glasner.  The official address is 
www.dorrevii.org, but you can avoid a commercial advertisement by accessing 
it through my brother's site www.math.psu.edu/glasner/Dor4.  The site now
contains my Tradition article about the Dor Revi'i and Y. Elman's abridged
translation of the hakdamah to Dor Revi'i (also from Tradition),  It also 
contains his divrei torah on the parashiot which I am in the process of 
translating from his book Sh'vivei Eish, so check the cite every week
for new divrei torah on the parashah.  As an added bonus, there is also a 
wonderful picture of him.  Further biographical material and translations of 
other of his and his son's works will appear in due course.

Comments and suggestions are hereby invited.

Shabbat Shalom

David Glasner
dglasner@ftc.gov

The topic of whether there is an independent responsibility of being
an ohr lagoyim;  independent,  that is,  of eiva considerations,  was
discussed sometime back.  Rav Yisrael Reisman discussed this
tonight at his Novi shiur.  If anyone is interested I can post mar'eh
mekomos.

Gershon
gershon.dubin@juno.com

Avrohom Weidberg
> Wouldn't it be better for the long davener to be mekatzair when he knows 
> the minyan is waiting for him, like R. Akiva did when he davened betzibur. 

As an add on - 
1.should the Shatz be mikatzer(due to mishum yuhara) if he knows his normal
amidah is longer than the Mora D'atra's?
2. should the individual be mikatzer if he knows that he won't make kiddusha
(I'm fully aware of the shitot of what to do if you're in the middle of
amida and the kahal is up to kiddusha, I'm asking whether it's preferable to
be mikatzer so as not to get into that situation)?

KT and SS
Joel Rich

On 3 Nov 00, at 9:24, Stein, Aryeh E. wrote:
> One possible eitzah might be to have the person who is still davening to
> stop his shemona esrei for a few moments and listen to the chazan say the
> first brachah (until Magen Avraham), after which the person can resume his
> tefila b'lachash.  (I remember that this eitza is mentioned in the Halichos
> Shlomo, but I forget in which context....)

I was taught that if one person knows that he is ma'arich a lot more 
than the others, that person should try to be mekatzer his 
Shmoneh Esrei if there are only ten men. I question the definition of 
"very" in your post and "a lot" in mine. Where I daven in the 
neighborhood, most Shmoneh Esrei's run 8-10 minutes. One of the 
places I daven near work considers three minutes a long Shmoneh 
Esrei....

--- Carl

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

Carl and Adina Sherer
mailto:sherer@actcom.co.il

Regarding the discussion about how long to wait for others to finish
the Amidah, etc - I don't get the point of the question.

To me it seems obvious decency to wait until everyone has concluded the
Amida before continuing on - same for Shma.

If nine people can't start davenning without a minyan - then isn't
it important for that tenth person to be with the others throughout
the davenning (or ANY tenth person, for that matter). Furthermore, if
you were to proceed with the repetition or kadish, then that person or
persons would not have the opportunity to answer - the moral equivalent
of them not being part of a minyan.

If you were serving a fancy, multi-course dinner and a guest was slower
eating the soup, wouldn't the good host wait until the "slow" person
finished before beginning to serve the next course?

A few years back, we organized a trip in which Orthodox and Reform high
school students celebrated a holiday together. Generally we had separate
religious services, but on several occasions we davenned together - within
halachic guidelines. After one of the "mixed" mincha services one of the
Reform kids passionately rose to berate the Orthodox kids for davenning so
fast and familiar and not giving the slower persons a chance to daven at
their pace. He suggested that at any time during the remaining services,
if someone finishes before the others, they can review the text of the
prayer just completed, hum a niggun, contemplate, or do something which
respects the holy place the other "slower" daveners were still at.

That was a profound request - one that would serve us all well as we
build kehilot of prayer wherever we daven together. I think this humane
perspective is slighted in the technical discussions which have been
aired on the list.

Nitpalel b'yachad.

Dear Avodah, With regards to the issue of needing 10 (or 9) to answer 
hazarat hashatz I suggest seeing the Magen Avraham 55:8 cited in Mishnah 
Brurah 124:19.

In a message dated 11/2/00 5:32:37 PM EST, zlochoia@bellatlantic.net writes:
>> Now we know that the
>> dinosaurs perished 65 million years ago as a result of the massive
>> upheaval produced by the asteroid impact in the Yucatan - long before

Yzkd@aol.com wrote:
> WADR I don't know of such! neither do many who do not accept this 
> interpertaion.

WADR, it isn't an interpretation, it is a theory.  The two words conote
significantly different analytical methods.

-- 
Daniel M. Israel
<daniel@cfd.ame.arizona.edu>
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ

RRW:
>
>>I have always assumed that the Taninim Gedolim (Breishis 1:21) is not
>>the fish of Rashi but great lizards - i.e dinosaurs that indeed did
>>not survive a churban such as the mabbul. And it is also possible that
>>since some of those lizards dwelt in swamps and were therefore aquatic
>>in a sense.

From: Eli Linas
> Nessie?

Doesn't one of the meforshim indicate crocodiles (or alligators
to Americans)?

SBA

[FWIW: alligators and crocodiles are separate minim whose heads differ
in shape. -mi]

Question:

How did the animals get from the mideast to other continents eg America,
Australia after the flood?

How come there are animals like the kangaroo found only in Australia
and not in Turkey if they all started at mount ararat?

Eli Turkel

On Sun, Nov 05, 2000 at 03:08:31PM +0200, Eli Turkel wrote:
: How come there are animals like the kangaroo found only in Australia
: and not in Turkey if they all started at mount ararat?

RSRH writes that the differences in flora and fuana are part of HKBH's
processes in separates us in different cultures and languages. IOW,
this is part of the neis of dor hahaflagah.

FWIW, the grape (of all things) was found to originate in Harei
Ararat. (Ararat is a mountain range, not a single mountain.)

-mi

-- 
Micha Berger                 When you come to a place of darkness,
micha@aishdas.org            you do not chase out the darkness with a broom.
http://www.aishdas.org       You light a candle.
(973) 916-0287                  - R' Yekusiel Halberstam of Klausenberg zt"l

>    As can be seen from my treatment, I don't consider this opinion
>    fair to either the Torah or the scientific data. Yet, many popular
>    books have come out in the past two years promoting this kind of
>    position. Perhaps someone else can do it justice.

These popular books have received a negative reaction from physicists. Barry
Simon wrote a scathing review of Schroeder's book in Jewish Action a few
years ago.

Akiva

Even according to the shitah (quoted by Rashi) that "tzohar" means a gem,
there had to be a window. Something had to let light in for the gem
to scatter. So, why the gem?

Why is the os b'ris a rainbow? The keshes shape is straightforward --
it's a bow pointing away from the ground, in keeping with the havtachah.
But why is it a spectrum?

(One simple answer is in the seven colors of the spectrum, kineged the
sheva mitzvos b'nei No'ach. A single light diffracted into 7 parts.)

What happens when ligt shines through a crystal? It diffracts. The
walls of the teiva (according to this shitah) were perpetually
painted with spectra from the tzohar. The rainbow can be seen as a
statement from HKBH that we are among those inside the teiva, who
were zocheh to be saved from the mabul itself.

-mi

-- 
Micha Berger                 When you come to a place of darkness,
micha@aishdas.org            you do not chase out the darkness with a broom.
http://www.aishdas.org       You light a candle.
(973) 916-0287                  - R' Yekusiel Halberstam of Klausenberg zt"l

        Rav Yaakov was asked what the girls' schools should teach the
girls to say in davening. His answer:  

        In the lower grades they should be taught the entire tefila, 
according to their age and abilities.  In the upper grades,  however, 
they should be taught to daven LESS than they had previously been taught;
 i.e. they should daven only what they are required to me'ikar hadin.  

        The reason is that when they get older, and are busy with
families,  they should not make the mistake of thinking that if they
cannot daven the entire davening,  they have accomplished nothing and
eventually wind up not davening at all.  Comments?

Gershon
gershon.dubin@juno.com

My statement in Av. 6:29 ("animals in the teiva" topic) about when
dinosaurs ceased to exist seems to have raised some hackles.  R'
Yitzchok Zirkind is correct when he says that my, "Now we know.."
doesn't include him and others with his mindset.  I would have been more
accurate had I restricted my "we" to those who understand, follow, and
accept established scientific facts even when they fall outside of our
mesorah or contradict traditional teachings.

Those who maintain that there were six literal 24 hour days of creation,
and that Hashem created fossils in the ground and set the ratio of
radioactive isotopes to products such that they would imply an earth
that was billions of years old will not accept the evidence for
dinosaurs that existed from some 200 to 65.0 million years ago.  Nor may
it persuade those who are under the illusion that rates of radioactive
decay can be changed by such things as environmental temperature,
pressure, and chemical state.  You need some familiarity with the facts
before you can be persuaded.  Let me briefly mention the lines of
evidence that there was a catastrophic asteroidal impact with the earth
65 million years ago that wiped out much of life of that period (the
mesozoic era).

There is a thin layer of rock in sedimentary deposits throughout the
world which marks the boundary between the much more substantial
Cretaceous layer (K) below and the Tertiary (T) layer above.  The
fossilized life forms in the K and T layers are much different.  Among
others, there is no sign of dinosaur fragments in the T layer.  At about
1980, it was noted that the K-T boundary layer was greatly enriched in
irridium compared to the layers above and below (as well as its general
abundance in the earth's crust).  Furthermore, the boundary layer
contained tiny spheres of melted rock and quartz crystals which had
striae that had only been seen before in quartz subjected to a strong
shock.  It also contained soot particles.  The evidence pointed to an
asteroidal impact that would have melted the target rock and produced
the shocked quartz grains.  Based on the irridium content of the
world-wide K-T layer, the discoverers calculated that it was contributed
by an asteroid that was some 10 kilometers (km) large.  The matter was
debated for some years in scientific circles, particularly the
implication that such an impact would have had cataclysmic consequences
for life on earth.  Some years later, old oil-drilling geological data
pointed to a buried impact crater in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula which
was some 200 km in diameter.  Sampling revealed a great abundance of
spherulites and shock quartz grains.  The time since the impact was
determined by analysis of the ratio of radioactive potassium in the rock
to the argon (an inert gaseous element) product.  The impact would have
melted the rock and liberated any previously produced argon gas (reset
the decay "clock" to zero).  The result was 65.0 million years since the
impact.  This date is consistent with the 65 million year value for the
world-wide K-T boundary layer.

R' Micah Berger seems to object to my "65 million years since the demise
of the dinosaurs" based on the fact that its not part of the mesorah.
Neither is a 15 billion year universe for that matter.  R' Yitzchok of
Acco introduced that as his own chidush (albeit based on some older
sources).  Nor is the existence of ice ages part of the mesorah, or the
fact that there was a Hittite empire in Turkey, or an advanced
civilization in China.  The Torah is not a book of science or general
history, nor is our mesorah.  Nor am I aware of evidence that chazal's
knowledge of the physical world was more advanced than that of their
contemporaries in the Greco-Roman world.

I recognize that the above presentation is not going to meet favor with
those of us who are very traditional in what they are prepared to accept
as true.  Nor am I trying to change opinions with a brief presentation.
Nonetheless, having some of the established facts on hand for a
discussion is probably worthwhile.

Yitzchok Zlochower

In his question ion Rosh Chodesh bentschen, R' Gershon wrote <<shetechadesh 
alenu es hachodesh hazeh, etc.>>

To add to his question:

What is the meaning of the quoted request made just a few days before
the end of hachodesh hazeh?

My siddur (admittedly, not a common one) says hachodesh haba. It also
requests hayyim arukim. What is the meaning of chayyim arukhim? (arukhim
with an alef)

R' RichW comments on the same subject << I attended a Chabad Minyan this
last Shabbos that omits this entire paragraph al pi Nusach ha'Ari.>>

Accepting that R' Yitzhak Luria Ashkenazi davened in a Sefaradic minyan,
he certainly didn't say the tefilat Rav because the Sefaradim say instead
the four yehi ratzon milifnei Avinu shebashamayim that the Ashkenazim
say after the k'riat haTorah on Mon andThurs.

K"T,
David

> The Rambam makes a point of Kabbalah al he'osid and that a complete Teshuva
> is facing the same situatoinn again and not being overcome by temptation...

> Well, how about a reduction in bad beahvior instead of a total elmination?
...
> In a sense I cannot say eineni oso ho'ish - after all I am STILL subject to
> the yetzer hara of talking.  OTOH, can you dismiss the times I succed in
> resisting even though I am not consistently elimninating talking entirely?

In a simailar vein Rambam defines rasha as more sins than mitzvot.
This implies that a person who constantly changed between tzadik and
rasha every day as he does mitzvot and aveirot. Also a benoni is exactly half
which is statistically improbable.

Some people try and answer that what is imporrtant is the direction the person
is headed rather than the absolute number. Hence, someone who reduces his
talking is heading in the right direction.
While this makes sense I have trouble fitting it into the words of Rambam.

Eli Turkel

From: C1A1Brown@aol.com
> The Netziv ...adds.. the idea of 'tahor' here means 'tamim' (as opposed to
> ba'al mum) - ..Noach's korban which was reiach
> nichoach had to be tamim.

Does he mean 'tahor' plus 'tamim' or 'tamim' even if not 'tahor'?
- in which case it would have been interesting if Noach 
had found 7 pairs of pigs who were tamim?
Or am I misunderstanding it all?

SBA

> accurate had I restricted my "we" to those who understand, follow, and
> accept established scientific facts even when they fall outside of our
> mesorah or contradict traditional teachings.

I think you have to distinguish between those areas of mesorah/tradition
which are "halachic" and those areas which aren't. Following established
scientific facts, if those actions violated halacha, would be wrong.

The existence of Dinosaurs 65 million+ years ago (for that matter, a world
age>5761 years) probably isn't a halachic issue and therefore knowing they
existed (as opposed to belief that they didn't) isn't a problem.

> before you can be persuaded.  Let me briefly mention the lines of
> evidence that there was a catastrophic asteroidal impact with
> the earth 65 million years ago that wiped out much of life of
> that period (the mesozoic era).

The problem with trying to convince non-believers about this issue is that
they can come back and say HaShem created the world 5761 years ago with that
K-T layer placed there.

Akiva

With regards to to your question as to why a gentile cannot plead "tinok 
shenishbah"(=ignorance) to explain his failure to fulfill his Noachide 
obligations. This issue is raised in the first essay of Rav Elchanan 
Wasserman zt"l in his "Kovetz Ma'amarim" titled Ma'amar al Ha'emunah" 
paragrph 4.

Yours truly,
Stuart Fischman

Aryeh Stein wrote:

> To return to a topic that was discussed almost one year ago (see below - 
> waiting for ten people to finish shemona esrei before beginning chazaras 
> hashatz) I just came across this issue in Halichos Shlomo.  According to RSZA,
> "b'shas hadchak," you _can_ include those people that are still davening their
> shemona esrei. 

Over the weekend I came across the Halichos Shlomo and looked it up.  RSZA was 
talking about someone who either came late to shul or davened slowly and started
his silent shemone esreh with the shaliach tzibbur and continued together word 
for word with the sha"tz.  See the footnote beis.

Gil Student

Gershon gershon.dubin@juno.com
:        Rav Yaakov was asked what the girls' schools should teach the
: girls to say in davening. His answer:  

:         In the lower grades they should be taught the entire tefila, 
: according to their age and abilities.  In the upper grades,  however, 
: they should be taught to daven LESS than they had previously been taught;
: i.e. they should daven only what they are required to me'ikar hadin.  

Tov me'at tachunnim bekavanah....

I'm not sure if this was R. Yaakov's kavvanah <pun>, it just makes sense to
me to focus on a narrower set of tefilos when time is pressing. And it makes
sense that students typically have more liesure than do the parents of young
children.

Shalom and Regards,
Rich Wolpoe
Richard_Wolpoe@ibi.com  

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


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