Avodah Mailing List

Volume 07 : Number 039

Friday, May 11 2001

• Re: Maaser (was: Working Women and Kollel Husbands)
• Re: gazing at the moon
• Re: Lubavitch and the State of Israel
• Olam HaBa status
• Re: Maaser (was: Working Women and Kollel Husbands)
• Chabad and Israel
• Miktzas ha-Yom ke-Kulo
• Re: shir shel yom
• RE: Maaser (was: Working Women and Kollel Husbands)
• Maaser
• Re: Maaser (was: Working Women and Kollel Husbands)
• shir shel yom - Aleinu
• Mekatreig
• Tallit/talles
• inyonei Kaddish
• Re: Pesach Sheini
• Does the Torah include all of Maddah?
• Making 3 Shidduchim
• Fwd: Re: Lubavitch and the State of Israel - off list
• Re: Lubavitch and the State of Israel
• Re: VIDC #9: MC vol. 1 p. 98

In a message dated Thu, 10 May 2001 9:36:04am EDT, Micha Berger
<micha@aishdas.org> writes:
> I once again must ask -- is it so clear that ma'aser is a halachah,
> and not "merely" a minhag yafeh? (R' Frand concludes the latter.) If "only"
> a minhag, is it meaningful to kler such detailed she'eilos?

IMHO it's part of a need to try to bring certainty into an area that has
always been part technical halacha part "lev" - priorities in tzedaka
versus maaser and within those categories as well. There are newer english
sfarim dealing with this (Maaser Kesafim has been out for a while, I
believe there is a fairly new artscroll book out which combines stories
and halacha on this topic). Interestingly this is probably one of the
areas that is real "halacha lmaaseh" for all of us.

KT
Joel

At 06:12 PM 5/9/01 -0400, Mordechai <Phyllostac@aol.com> wrote:
>However, mentioned separately just before that, in MB # 13, appears
>what seems to be a separate inyan of not gazing at the moon, for which
>a reason is not given in the MB. I guess my query is prompted by that
>Mishna Berura, rather than the former, where the reason seems clear,
>as R. Aryeh pointed out.

The issur is in the Shela"h h'K' - see R' Moshe Tzuriel-Weiss's Beis 
Yechezel (vol. 1) p. 37.

KT,
YGB
ygb@aishdas.org      http://www.aishdas.org/rygb

At 04:55 PM 5/10/01 +0300, Carl M. Sherer wrote:
>Does this go so far as to claim that Chabad accepts the three
>shvuos as still being in force today? Or is their problem with the
>depiction of the State as aschalta d'geula and maybe also with it's
>secular basis?

Beyond my area of expertise, but I am bcc'ing my cousin for more
information (he is an occasional - but not regular - reader of Avodah,
and may pick up on this directly).

BTW, I will try to get to last week's VIDC, which does not seem to
have sparked that much interest, later today, and post a new one,
BL"N on both projects!

KT,
YGB
ygb@aishdas.org      http://www.aishdas.org/rygb

I was asked the following question, following the latest terror attack
near Gaza that left Rumanian workers dead and a third wounded: What is
the status of Goyim who were killed instead of Jews "*Al Kiddush Hashem*".

There is the story about Papus and Yulyanus, that some sat were Goyim
who were killed by the Romans.

What d'ya think?
Besorot tovot,
Amihai

On 9 May 2001, at 21:39, Feldman, Mark wrote:
> Is it clear that the cost of educating one's children doesn't count towards
> maaser? ...

IIRC there is a tshuva of Rav Moshe's where he says that at least with
respect to girls, the norm today is to educate them beyond the age of 6
(which is where the Gemara stops the obligation of support) and that
therefore tuition as a whole is not deductible from Maaser.

However, does one who wants to pay tuition from maaser money need to go
through the calculation that RYW proposes? I thought all you have to
do is find out the minimum that people who are on scholarship have to
come up with from their own pockets (I don't know what that is today,
but when my two oldest were in Yeshiva Ktana of Passaic in 5751 it was
$1800 per child) and anything over that could be considered Maaser.

I should caution that I never asked this question l'maaseh, because I
never deducted tuition money from my maaser....

-- Carl
mailto:cmsherer@ssgslaw.co.il
mailto:sherer@actcom.co.il

>                                              Official Chabad doctrine,
> harking back to the Rebbe Rashab, is that Chabad is more anti-Zionist
> than Satmar, it is just that: a) they see no reason to publicize that
> stance; b) they are committed to the security of the people and land
> while possessing a strong aversion and antipathy to the State.

One obvious difference is that Satmar and Eida haCharedit refuse to
accept money from the state (at least in principle) while Chabad
actively seeks budgets from the state.

Eli Turkel

My understanding was always that mitktzas hayom ke-kulo was relevant
when you are counting somethin (e.g. shiva, shiva nekiim for a zava
gedolah for tevila etc.) Assuming that, is the break from sefira for
Lag ba'Omer for those of use who keep Aveilus from Rosh Chodesh Iyyar
only during the day or at night as well?

From: Phyllostac@aol.com
>Siddur Eizor Eliyohu (Yerusholayim 5760) in notes on / under shir shel yom
>states that shir shel yom does not appear in early Ashkenaz siddurim, but the
>Ram"a says to say it and it appears in the (presumably early) siddurim of the
>Sepharadim. This seems to indicate that it was first accepted by the
>Sepharadim and only later by the Ashkenazim.

>Perhaps that has something to do with the matter - and also the time when
>aleinu was accepted by these respective communities as a daily recitation at
>the end of tefillah (perhaps at different times), in addition to it's
>original (ikar) role in musaf of Rosh Hashanah.

I don't really want to be cryptic, but I will explain these differing
customs fully b'n in my series on Kaddish. So I will not get involved
in the discussion now, not because I don't want to repeat myself, but
because the subject is complex and would require one of my lengthy posts.

The ReMo' is also not so poshut. When we get to it, we will see that
saying the shir shel yom in Ashk'naz postdates the ReMo', and what the
Sepharadim used to do was also not the shir shel yom. The posters are
right that it is a later custom, but there is a clear source for how
the custom developed.

Seth Mandel

From: Carl M. Sherer [mailto:cmsherer@ssgslaw.co.il]
> However, does one who wants to pay tuition from maaser money 
> need to go through the calculation that RYW proposes? I thought 
> all you have to do is find out the minimum that people who are on 
> scholarship have to come up with from their own pockets...

Why should this be true? If the minimum paid to a Yeshiva is $1800 but
you earn enough so that the Yeshiva requires you to pay $7000 (and in
fact, that amount is the true cost of educating your child--you are not
subsidizing anyone else), why should the difference between $7000 and
$1800 be considered Maaser?

Kol tuv,
Moshe

FWIW Rav Moshe has a teshuva on using maaser to educate daughters. I
don't recall the final psak but he does discuss the chiyuv of educating
daughters.

I also once spoke to Rav Dovid Feinstein about this issue and he told me
one could not even use maaser to pay for extras like a building fund. The
rationale is that really a school would like to charge that money as
tuition but they realize they could never get away with it so they call
it something else. However, if one can't afford to pay the money or if
the school says you can owe them the money then one can use maaser.

Also, and this requires personal honesty, when one is desparate for funds,
should one be giving ma'aser at all? This is partly dependent on the
machlokes whether ma'aser is a din or a minhag. I know that R. Hershel
Schachter tells yungerleit who are supported by kollel stipends and
parents not to give ma'aser.

Gil Student

From: Phyllostac@aol.com Mordechai
> Perhaps that has something to do with the matter - and also the time when 
> aleinu was accepted by these respective communities as a daily recitation at

> the end of tefillah (perhaps at different times), in addition to it's 
> original (ikar) role in musaf of Rosh Hashanah.

Aiui - Aleinu was added at the end of the daily Tefillos after the
Crusades. fwiwi Aleinu was chanted as a "martyr's song" during the
Crusades. This is analogous to the "ani maamin" chanted during the
Holocaust.

I don't know how Aleinu got a kaddish after it. Sephardim with whom I
occasionally daven {i.e. Minhag Aleppo}, do not say Kadish after Aleinu.
In Frankfort de Main, Kaddish was not said after Aleinu either.

Shir Shel Yom - as a stand alone Mizmor - gets its own kaddish. This
is apparent on Tisha B'av when it is rectied BERORE Asherei at Mincha.
Simlarly, Mizmor Shir Chanukas {30} ... is recited stand alone before
Baruch She'amar and gets its own Kaddish.

Shalom and Best Regards,
Richard Wolpoe
Richard_Wolpoe@ibi.com

From: "Rena" <free@actcom.co.il> (on Areivim)
>                           Are you actually trying to be m'katreig on an
> entire group, accusing them of being vandals?

Without regard to the rest of the post, that's an  interesting word,
mekatreig.  It comes from the word kategor, Gr. (xaTnyopoc - as close
as I can approximate in ASCII), accuser, public prosecutor.  But
to become more pronounceable as a reflexive verb, it becomes mekatreig.
And it's not just a modern back-formation, either, Jastrow attests it
in Yerushalmi and Midrash Rabbah - maybe it's an EY-dialect word?  Was
Midrash Rabbah edited in EY?

        Jonathan Baker     |  Daffynition: Omernasolaryngologist:
        jjbaker@panix.com  |  Iyar, nose & throat doctor.
     Web page <http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker> Update: Rambam 13 Principles

SBA posted an article from the Philologos column of Forward about the
word tallis to Areivim. Since I was one of the posters about the word
several months ago, and I was m'qattzer in some of my comments, I feel
it necessary to bore everybody with a brief review of the issue.

PHILOLOGOS explains the following: <One occasionally does come across
Hebrew-derived Yiddish words that do not take a Hebrew plural; the word
sotn, for instance, "devil" (from Hebrew satan), is not pluralized as
stonim (Hebrew setanim) but rather as sotons. And the reverse is also
sometimes true: There are a few non-Hebrew-derived words in Yiddish that
take Hebrew plurals, such as dokter, "doctor," which becomes doktoyrim,
or "poyer," peasant, which becomes poyerim.
<But why -- as is the case with tallis -- should a Hebrew-derived Yiddish
word take a Hebrew plural but an incorrect one, using the Hebrew masculine
plural ending -- im for the feminine Hebrew word tallit instead of the
Hebrew feminine plural ending -- ot? The answer becomes obvious if one
looks at other members of the small group of Yiddish words in which
the exact same thing happens. This group includes shabbes, "Sabbath,"
pluralized as shabbosim, although Hebrew shabbat is feminine and becomes
shabbatot; taynis, "fast day," pluralized as taynisim as opposed to
Hebrew ta'anit/ta'aniyot; takhlis, "goal, practical purpose," pluralized
as takhlisim unlike Hebrew takhlit/takhliyot; and shtus, "foolishness,"
pluralized as shtusim whereas Hebrew has shtut/shtuyot. What all these
Yiddish words have in common is that their singular form ends in an "s"
-- and since the feminine Hebrew -- ot plural becomes -- es in Yiddish,
using it for them would yield such slightly-difficult-to-pronounce
"double s" endings as tallises, shabbeses and shtuses, which Yiddish
rejects as uneuphonious. This is the reason that it ungrammatically
chooses the masculine -- im for such words instead. (Of course, you
might ask why in the last three of these cases the Yiddish doesn't
simply follow the Hebrew more closely and give us tayniyes, takhliyes,
and shtuyes, but for that I have no answer.)>

Philologos' explanation is fine as far as it goes, but there is a lot
more going on here. He is answering the question posted by a reader: "I
always knew the Yiddish plural of tallis to be talleysim, but in Hebrew I
see tallitot. Moreover, while [in Yiddish] tallis is masculine in gender,
the Hebrew dictionaries tell me that tallit is feminine." Philologos uses
the Yiddish plural to explain the gender difference as well, presumably.
But an examination of the facts clearly show that there are more factors
at work.

First of all, as he notes, the plural of tanit is taaiyot, the plural
of shtus is shtuyot. And that is correct: in all Hebrew words ending in
-- ut or –it, the final tav is just a feminine ending (in other nouns,
ending in a consonant, it was -- at, which became qomatz he unless in
s'mikhut). So the feminine plural ending, -- ot, was added on to the root
ending in -- u or -- i, and the result was -- uyot or -- iyot. The same in
Leshon Hazal: the plural of malkhut is malkhuyot (malkhiyot is the correct
form in Leshon Hazal, since the plural ending was standardized for both,
but that is not the point here). Similarly a word for a vegetable that
takes an -- im ending even though it is feminine (like hitta -- hittim,
s'ora-s'orim): qishut (variously translated as a kind of melon or squash,
again not the issue here) has the plural qishu'im; the tav is dropped,
since it is only the feminine singular ending. Therefore, if there
really were a Hebrew word tallit, the plural would be talliyot. The
plural tallitot itself proves beyond a doubt that this is not a real
normal Hebrew word.

Secondly, the form tallit. Where is that pronunciation from? The
word in not in the Bible, so it presumably comes from the traditional
pronunciation of the various Jewish communities and the mss. of the
Mishna with vowels. But surprise, surprise: the form tallit is MOA. Not
attested at all.

Sefaradim pronounced the word (up until recently) as tallet (dagesh in the
lamed, tzere before the tav). Ashk'nazim pronounced the word in accordence
with the Ashk'naz pronunciation rules: "tales," with a single lamed, and
a shva after the lamed, as is standard for an unstressed syllables (just
like shabbes, not pronounced shabbos). Certainly no reason to think that
the vowel after the lamed is a hiriq any more than a tzere or a qomatz
or anything else. The plural taleysim would imply, if anything, a tzere.

Teimanim pronounced the word t'lit. Shva after the tet, sinle lamed. What
about mss. with vocalization? All of the early mss. (including the most
reliable, like Kaufmann and Parma A & B) have tallet. Dagesh in the lamed,
tzere after the lamed. The ancient siddur of Worms/Vermayze has the word
as talet: with a segol after the lamed (which alternates with tzere,
as is common in the ms.) and no dagesh in the lamed (omission of the
dagesh is also common). So it would seem that in the 13th century the
word in Ashk'naz had a tzere, and that was still clearly the case in the
16th century, when the Bohur in HaTishbi punctuated the word as tallet.

So how do the dictionaries and everyone else know that the word is tallit?

The dictionaries follow the father of Hebrew dictionarydom: Eliezer ben
Yehuda, who decided, by royal droit (or droit du roi, if you want the
French order), that really the Ashk'nazim meant to say tallis in the
singular. He had no evidence, but since he was the first of the modern
dictionaries, he arrogated the right to make his own decisions as he
saw fit.

Since the evidence points to tallet, then the word is not a normal Hebrew
word with an -- it ending. So where is the word from?

Look in Even Shoshan, and he says it is possibly from the Aramaic root
tll. Yes, indeed, the root tll is well atttested in Aramaic, as in
the word m'tallalta for Hebrew sukka. The root tll (initial tet) is
the Aramaic cognate of the Hebrew root tz-ll, as in the word tzel. If
this is correct, a Hebrew word would have to have a tzadi, the Aramaic
word a tet. All find and dandy, except... there is no Aramaic word
tallit/tallet attested anywhere in Aramaic. Unlike Mishnaic words like
ilan, a common Aramaic word, this word seems to have been created ex
nihilo by the Mishna.

Furthermore, there is another, less well-known word in the Mishna which
is certainly associated in meaning (remember, in the Mishna, tallet/t'lit
does not mean exclusively "prayer" shawl). The word in most modern printed
editions is vocalized itzt'lit: aleph, tzadi, lamed, tav, with some immot
qriah thrown in as well. Look in Yoma 7:1 and Gittin 7:5. That word in
the manuscirpts is written in various ways: the Kaufmann ms. has estalet,
with no yod at all, a segol under the aleph, then a samekh, then a tzere
after the lamed (which has no dagesh). The Rambam own hand ms. of the
Mishna also has the word without a yod before the tav, indicating the
vowel is not a hiriq. That word, as the various spellings give away,
is the Greek word stolé (also borrowed in English, by way of Latin,
as meaning robe, commonly used as in mink stole). Aramaic and Leshon
Hazal could not tolerate two consonants together beginning a word, and
so a proclitic vowel was added to such Latin and Greek words, as also in
words like itztadion (stadium) and many others. That Greek word, with
the feminine Aramaic ending, was then estaleta/estalet or estalit. It
seems clear that tallet was either a shortened form of this loan word,
or some original Aramaic word from the root tll (which word is unattested)
became influenced by the Greek loanword and its pronunciation. That would
explain both tallet and t'lit: the Greek loanword had a short a vowel
(commonly used as a reflex of the Greek omicron), so it either became
a shva in Hebrew (and hence the Teimani form) or a pasah (which would
require doubling of the lamed with a dagesh). Not only does a foreign
origin explain the varying forms of tallet/t'lit, it would provide an
explanantion for the third point, namely:

Ashk'naz rishonim use the word as masculine. As I pointed out, the terms
talles qoton and talles godol are from the Ashk'naz rishonim, not the
S'faradim. Other adjectives show that the word was masculine in Ashk'naz,
even though it is feminine in the Mishna (and in Greek). Ashk'naz rishonim
did not take such liberties with other feminine words with the im plural,
such as taynis or shtus or shabbos. It is very plausible that the word
was still felt to be a foreign one by the ge'onim and came in that way
to Ashk'naz. This also would explain how an abberant plural like tallitot
developed: take the singular and just add an -- ot. This was common with
Greek words, and then was transferred by analogy to native Hebrew words.
Eg. the Rambam has the plural of miqva as miqvot, but the standard form
in Ashk'naz was miqva'ot, an analogy to Greek words ending in -- a.

So Philologos' explanation why the plural -- im may be partially
correct. But it is also true that in Ashk'naz the word was treated as
masculine. And the plural taleysim is correct, since the singular was
tales, with a tzere. What about taneysim, the plural of taynis? That
can be a simple analogy from the more common talis: tales (remember,
shva after the lamed): taleysim = tanis (similarly shva): taneysim.

Philologos also does not mention (he does not have to, it's not directly
germane) that the Hebrew plurals -- im and -- os fit right in to the
Yiddish scheme of things. -- Os was pronounced -- es, with a shva,
since it was unstressed, and that almost exactly equalled the Yiddish
plural -- s/-es. The plural -- im/-in was pronounced -- em or -- en,
which almost exactly equalled the Yiddish plural -- n. As a matter of
fact, one of the words that Philologos does not mention is makhloykes
(squabble, defined by R. Noakh Vebster as what people on Areivim do),
and the plural is makhloiykesen, not -- kesim.

Just as in the mishan -- im and -- in alternate, I suspect that in early
Yiddish the "Hebrew" plural form used for Hebrew words alternated between
-- em and –en. And the fact that this "Hebrew" plural form is built
on the analogy of the Yiddish plural ending explains what Philologos
didn't solve with his teyretz: why the Yiddish plural is not tayiniyes,
takhliyes or shtuyes, as would have been if these were really the Hebrew
plurals of the words taken into Yiddish. My answer is they are not: the
plural endings -- em/ -- en and –es in Yiddish operated as Yiddish plural
endings, which are added on to the base form in the singular. If the
singular was shtus, the plural -- es had to be added drirectly on to it.

So: pronounce talitot if you wish. It is not a correct form, but neither
is taleysim. One has the original tzere, but a non-original (even if
justified by the fact that it was felt to be a loan word) masculine
plural. The other has a "Ben Yehuda" vowel, with no tradition behind
it. Or, even better, if you like the hiriq esthetically, use a plural
t'litot. That would be from the Teimani form, except then you will have
to say t'lithoth.

All the betht,
Theth Mandel

From:   sethm37@hotmail.com (Seth Mandel)
> I don't really want to be cryptic, but I will explain these differing 
>  customs fully b'n in my series on Kaddish...
> The ReMo' is also not so poshut.  When we get to it, we will see that saying 
> the shir shel yom in Ashk'naz postdates the ReMo', and what the Sepharadim 
> used to do was also not the shir shel yom...

Thanks for the feedback.

When is the (how many parts will it be comprised of) projected and
anticipated series on Kaddish going to appear? I hope I will be zoche to
read it lifnei bo yom Hashem hagodol vihanora.........when 'Vihisgadalti
vihiskadashti......'(Yechezkel 38:23) [Btw, after that day will Kaddish
still be said as it is today? Will it be said at all? Will the nusach be
changed?]. Will you have it for us before Zman Matan Toraseinu (Shavuos)
[bli neder]?

Another thing - I would be interested to hear feedback re various
works on Kaddish that have appeared in recent years - e.g. the sefer
'Hakaddish' by R. Dovid Assaf z"l and the work by R. David Telzner z"l -
though their focus is somewhat different than our discussion here.

Mordechai

Joelirich@aol.com wrote in Avodah V7 #37:
>Why don't we say tachanun at the mincha of the day prior to a non-tachanun
>saying day?

We ordinarily don't, except on Pessah Sheni (and erev Rosh Hashana and erev 
Yom Kippur).

We don't say Tahanun on Pessah Sheni (itself) because of the qorban Pessah, 
which was eaten on the night of tet-vav.  Thus, minha of erev PS is "lifnei 
shelifnei," to use the terminology of Harav M. Genut.

BTW, Sefardim *don't* say tahanun on erev Pessah Sheni (but do on erev Rosh 
Hashana and erev Yom Kippur).

(Incidentally, on rereading the question, it appears that I may have 
answered a different question, also interesting <g>.)

-----------------------
IRA L. JACOBSON
-----------------------
mailto:laser@ieee.org

From: Isaac A Zlochower <zlochoia@bellatlantic.net>
> The question of what factual knowledge is contained in torah she'be'al
> peh has long been a point of contention between the rationalist and
> pietistic schools of thought...
> Moreover, the halachic literature contains more than a few instances of
> error in matters of physical fact. There is no such thing in reality as
> the spontaneous generation of complex living forms...

Here are a few points aisi

1) Do we KNOW 100% of TSBP
2) Do we fully understand 100% of the TSBP that we do know (e.g. Bahir,
Yetzira, Zohar, etc.)
3) Do we fully understand the implications of certain medical and scientific
observations made by Chazal (IOW is there a communication gap between OUR
technical jargon and THEIR technical jargon?)
4)  Are today's scientific paradigms set in stone -or are they subject to
revision?  Afaik, the protein that causes mad cow's diseases is a phenomenon
only beginning to be understood. How can a protein sit inertly and cause
disease when it has been presumed for the last century or so that only
microbes (i.e. viral and bacterial) could transmit disease....

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

Illustration:
My ninth grade biology teacher asked us:
"how come squirrels bury acorns and then forget them"
I replied "in order to plant trees!"
He answered "no, it is in order to squirrel away food for the winter, but
they forget where they bury them... and as an indirect result they plant
trees..."
Well why quibble. I knew then at age 14 that if HKBH gave BOTH The instinct
for squirrels to continue burying acorns when He denied them long term
memory, there MUST be a tachlis for this...
and Squirrels, afaik have not given up burying acorns despite their repeated
experience of forgetting where they bury them
Now do squirrels consciously plant trees?  I doubt it. But I will say that
it is apparent to me that HKBH designed it this way.

Torah-oriented scientists will notice this, secular scientists will not.  So
we are back to a the uncertainly principle of what is science if not in the
eyes of the OBSERVER and not in the yes of the observed. Regardless whether
or not we are certain if Heisenberg expressed his uncertainty to this
extent, it is a fact that facts are often subjective anyway. 

Os, so we have an incomplete knowledge of science, and several pieces of
Masorah that probably died with R. Akiva's talmidim, so it's hard to say how
much true madda we have in our understood subset of Torah.  OTOH, I would
not hesitate to suspect at least SOME scientific truth in a given Maamar
Chazal, even if the apparent or literal meaning seems presposterous by
current scientific standards.

Bottom line:
Should we give a maamar Chazal the proverbial benefit of the doubt?  

Shalom and Best Regards,
Richard Wolpoe
Richard_Wolpoe@ibi.com

From: "Howard Schild" <hgschild@hotmail.com>
Subject: Making 3 Shidduchim

After checking archives and searching over the net, I see there is no
answer to this question... is it just a "women's saying" or is there
an actual citable source to the statement that "a person who makes 3
shidduchim gets a chelek in olam haba"?
==========
I've heard this for a women who has 7 sons...

SBA

From my cousin:

>It seems that in theory it would be in force today also - I heard many 
>times the Rebbe say (when speaking about not giving back shtachim) that it 
>has no connection with the three shvuos, which would indicate that they 
>are in force but have no relevance to the matzav in EY today. In other 
>words, holding on to EY for PN issues has no connection to them. Whether 
>the original founding of the state was mutar - it seems the problem was 
>mainly aschalta d'geula etc. (and possibly that itself made the problem 
>with the shvuos then) - but now we have a PN situation KN"L.
>(I don't know if the Rebbe ZTL ever dealt at length with the  issue of the 
>3S, but this is my impression!).
>I also want to stress (in response to some statements being made on list 
>for example the following quote:

>> "But it is more than being quiet.  They make strong implications of 
>> support for the State. They seem very patriotic about Israel.  They are
>> less Patriotic than Rav Shach"

>that for all the Rebbe was against the state, the security of Israel 
>v'hayoshvim bo was in the forefront of everything he did - and not CV as a 
>kiruv "ploy" as the assertion is being made. this is obvious to anyone who 
>had any connection to The Rebbe since 1950.There may be a serious hashkofo 
>problem with EY KN"L IN THE Rebbe's eyes - but there was no greater 
>"patriot" for am hayoshev bEY simply out of concern for their 
>security.This was clear to anyone who heard the Rebbe speak about these 
>issues from 1967 on! [You have right to hold a diffrent shita than the 
>Rebbe etc.but this was what the Rebbe stood for ].
>the same for the following quote

>> A good example of that is their views about Giyur K'Halacha, which is 
>> something that they of course support. When the secular world found out 
>> the truth about their views they rejected Lubavitch because they had 
>> always believed Lubavitch to be tolerant about pluralism, a myth that 
>> they were only to happy to allow them to believe because it gave them 
>> easier access to the Conservative and Reform  Rabbis and their membership 
>> base. Lubavitch had to do some major damage control after that.

>The Rebbe NEVER hid his view of GKH - from 1970 on it was a major topic in 
>EVERY farbrengen. There never was a myth "about pluralism" etc. etc.

RYGB wrote in Avodah V7 #38, in holding that Habad is anti-Zionist:
> From my cousin, a Rosh Yeshiva in one of the Lubavitcher Yeshivos, and a
> Talmid Chochom of considerable stature:

>> Correct. I have myself heard the Rebbe ZTL many times speak out against
>> the whole concept of aschalta degeula in the sharpest terms etc.

Ma nafqa mina?  Does one have to accept the concept of at'halta degeula in 
order to support the state, run a network of mamlakhti-dati schools, accept 
public funding, have a kenesset member who belongs to a coalition party?

This is a far cry from an unbased claim (not RYGB's, I hasten to add) that:
> Lubavitvch does not B'Shitah participate on a political level because
> it does not recognize the legitimacy of the State.

It is also a far cry from RYGB's claim that Habad:
> is more anti-Zionist than Satmar

Must every Jew be classified as Zionist or anti-Zionist? What ever became
of pro-Zionists and non-Zionsts?

-----------------------
IRA L. JACOBSON
-----------------------
mailto:laser@ieee.org

We asked:
>The Shitta Mekubetzes BK 11b writes in the name of "Talmidei Rabbinu
>Yisroel" that if a bechor is killed within thirty days we would have
>followed the Rov that most infants are Bar Kayama and required post-mortem
>pidyon, if not for an exclusion based on the word "Ach". Thus, despite
>the fact that we do not normally follow a Rov by Mammon, since Pidyon
>ha'Ben is a Mitzvah we would follow a Rov thereby.

>This would seem to contradict the Tzemach Tzedek 125 who rules that in
>a safek if a mother is a Bas Kohen or not we do not follow the Rov that
>most women are Bnos Yisroelim, because Ein Holchin b'Mammon Achar ha'Rov.

>Voss Iz Der Chilluk?
>What derachim have you employed to reach that chilluk?

This one obviously did not make the all-time hit list :-) .

[Personally, I was stymied, not disinterested. -mi]

RCPS resolves the VIDC by saying that where the bechor was killed within 
the thirty days, the father was definitely in the parasha of Pidyon, and 
the Mitzvah is assumed to be in place. Now the question becomes one of 
"Issur": Did he then become patur from the Mitzvah because of the safek? - 
this is then like any safek d'orysa where we follow Rov.

The case of a safek in the mother, however, is in the relevance of the very 
parasha of Pidyon, and the nature of that chiyuv is one of Monetary Payment 
- in determining that chiyuv, we cannot, therefore, employ Rov.

I have a tough time categorizing this chilluk. Suggestions welcome.

(RCPS cites a Haflo'oh that Ein Holchin b'Mammon achar ha'Rov is only when 
the Mammon stands on its own, with no relevance to Issur - but RCPS notes 
that this chiddush is zehr mechudash.)

While this would not answer the Shitta on its own terms, I would be sorely 
tempted to apply Rubba d'Issa Kamman vs. Rubba d'Leisa Kamman principles. 
The former is a Leisa Kamman and the latter an Issa Kamman.

Alternately, one can employ Rov b'Teva vs. Rov b'Mikreh.

The Maitchiter klerrs whether Ein holchin b'Mammon achar ha'Rov is because 
of semoch mi'utta l'chazoko v'isra lei rubba, or because no matter how many 
sefeikos you are marbeh - rov still remains a form of a safek - ha'motzi 
mei'chaveiro alav ha'ra'ayah - and a safek is not a ra'ayah. Not sure if 
you can use that chakirah here, but thought I would bring it up.

Too not smooth. I'll shoot for a better one this week.

KT,
YGB
ygb@aishdas.org      http://www.aishdas.org/rygb

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


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