Avodah Mailing List

Volume 10 : Number 131

Monday, March 24 2003

• Re: Toras Purim
• RE: Toras Purim ahava/simcha
• Re: Avodah V10 #130
• Re: Zecher and zeicher
• megila
• Rav Betzalel Stern z'l
• Beracha Acharona
• RE: why not yotze?--Oats
• Re: why not yotze?
• Re: Gilgul
• Re: Gilgul
• Re: Gilgul
• Re: Gilgul
• gas masks
• Re: Toras Purim 5763, part 2: Megilla and Eydus
• In country
• Re: gilgul
• Re: gilgul
• Re: gas masks

On Wed, Mar 12, 2003 at 01:33:30PM -0500, Brown, Charles.F wrote:
: Techeiles leads to kisay hakavod , which is a mixture of yirah and ahavah,
: din mixed with rachamim....

WADR to the NE, he left me confused.

Is it? Don't we say "Kel Melech Yosheiv al kisei rachamim"?

:                          However, N.E. is medayek that Mordechai went
: out "*blevush* techeiles", the din represented by techeiles was covered
: by a levush and was rachamim gemurim.

I'm not raising this as a point of confusion, just noting a machloqes.

I was looking up more about clothing, inspired by last week's question
asked by RCB about the importance of techeiles and RRD's reply.

According to RSRH, the shoresh of "levush", /lbs/, is related to that of
"lash" /lvs/. Levush implies a unity of wearer and worn.

Kesus is about tzeni'us, it's from /ksh/, to cover.

Beged is clothing that denotes a higher purpose. Such a bigdei malkhus.

Interestingly, none of these words are used in the story of the Eitz
haDa'as. Adam and Chavah make chaguros, and H' makes kusanos or. R'
Me'ir, whose al tiqri changes the clothing from leather to light, calls
them begadim. But the pasuq itself does not.

A kohein wouldn't have the din of a zar only if he's *meluvash* 4 begadim.
To become one with the message of the uniform. (As opposed to unity by
ch"v degrading it.)

Note that in the two parshios requiring tzitzis, "tzitzis haqanaf" and
"pesil techeiles" is on "kanfei bigdeihem". Which "gedilim ta'aseh lekha"
is on "kesusekha asher takheseh bah".

Mordekhai went from "levush saq" to "levush malkhus", not merely the
trappings, but went from being be'etzem in mourning to being majestic.
(The interplay in the megillah between begadim and levush becomes
interesting, but I have not had the time to look at it in full.)
That sense of majesty was in "tekheiles Mordekhai" -- and not merely
"tekheiles bigdei Mordekhai".

-mi

-- 
Micha Berger                 "And you shall love H' your G-d with your whole
micha@aishdas.org            heart, with your entire soul, with all you own."
http://www.aishdas.org       Love is not two who look at each other,
Fax: (413) 403-9905          It is two who look in the same direction.

>>>I also seem to recall that he discuss Ahvah vs Yirah and says that
the highest level is Ahavas Hashem from understanding that Hashem is
always there and giving (similar to ahavah bet man and wife) while 2nd
highest level is yiras haromimus. <<<

Gemara in Sotah 31 "gadol ha'oseh m'ahavah yoteir min haoseh m'yirah..."
The man-wife analogy is from the Rambam in tshuvah ch. 10.

>>>While I agree with Chaim in regards to Purim, the idea of simcha and
yirah is discussed inteh Drashos HaRan on the possuk "Ivdu es Hashme
B'Yirah V'gilu Birada". The obvious question is how does yirah lead to
a sense of joy. The Ran answers that it is referring to yiras haromimus
and when I person achieves that level he realizes he is in a state of
shlaimus and this leads to a level of simcha.<<<

Before you get to the Ran, the gemara is already bothered by that pasuk
and explains it b'makom gilah shem t'hei re'ada (brachos 30), i.e. it
doesn't mean rejoice in yirah (chazal took that to be a contradiction in
terms), but rather in the place of rejoicing (in shul, or acc to yoma 4
mattan torah) the joy must be tempered by fear. The Yerushalmi explains
the pasuk that on the day of yirah (i.e. geulah) you will rejoice.

The Ran asks the kashe in derush 10, and it's also in Ikkrim III:35
more strongly. You summed up Ran's answer, but left out a detail the
Ikkrim spells out. The reason there is no stirah between yirah and
simcha is because calling this yirah is a misnomer. Sotah 31 - Tanya R'
Meir omer ne'emar yirei Elokim b'Iyov, vne'emar yirei Elokim b'Avraham,
mah yirei Elokim ha-amur b'Avraham m'ahavah, af yirei Elokim ha-amur
b'Iyov m'ahavah.

Ikkrim (III:35) - "Since not all people can reach this madreiga [of the
type yirah you described], one who reaches it is called 'oveh m'ahavah'
and not just 'yirei Elokim'."

Abarbanel (Devarim 10) asks on the Ran - "I do not know what brought
these wise people to describe this intellectual level (ma'alah iyunit)
as yirah...it is more fitting to call it ahavah." He repeats again
"it is more correct to call this ma'alah with the name ahavah". Even if
you accept the Ran's position on a semantic level and insist on calling
this yirah (abarbanel says no proof in pesukim or chazal for Ran),
the fundemental point still remains - the reason you can talk about a
yirah that leads to simcha is because you've redefined yirah to make it
indistinguishable from ahavah.

>>>The simchah that inheres in Ahavas Hashem, which the Ikkarim admits
is different than other Ahavos, is because of the Yirah in which it
is wrapped.<<<

Reverse. Ikkrim (see above) doesn't say ahavah causes simcha because
it includes yirah; he says a yarei can have simcha because it is called
an oveid m'ahavah.

Bottom line, the point is largely semantic - there is some madreiga
which if you like you can call yirah, but it is synonym for (and acc to
abarbanel is) oveid m'ahava and therefore has all the same properties
(like simcha) of the higher madreiga of ahava.

-Chaim

B"H

Something very start-ling to read and comprehend on Emor.
<http://www.israelvisit.com/top/Emor.shtml>

Re: <<Was the Gra suggesting this change as his own chidush based on his
understanding of the language, or was he citing variants which existed
prior to his time?>>

I think some posters are beginning to forget that R' Hayyim Volozhiner
also wrote, in his letter printed as an introduction/haskama to Ma'aseh
Rav, that M"R was wrong because R' Hayyim clearly heard the Gra say
zeikher. Perhaps he changed his mind in his old age.

If the Tanakh had both forms, the mesorah would have commented. That they
didn't,indicates that are all the same. The most authoritative source,
ben Asher himself in Dikdukei Hat'amim 36, says tzeireh. Ohr Torah and
Minchat Shai have tzeireh.

AFAIK, and as posted in the past (perhaps in the Mesorah sub-list), the
first source for six dots (two segols) is the printed editions of the
Radak which says for parashat zakhor only: six dots and some say five.
According to RV"H, the manuscript he had has it reversed and some say
five always.

As to someone's question re zekher as s'mikhut: The smoky s'mikhut of
'ashan is 'eshen as in 'eshen hakivshan at Har Sinai in Yitro. Minchat
Shai, who backs the tzeireh, then mentions the story of Yoav who killed
all the males because the Torah commands "Wipe out the males of Amalek."
Perhaps Yoav didn't say zakhar Amalek but thought, as with smoke, the
s'mikhut of zakhar was zekher.

But, I vow that although a neder has six dots, in s'mikhut it drops to
five as in neider almana So even if the word is zekher, in the smikhut
of zeikher Amalek and zeikher rav tuvkha it might still be a tzeireh.

After the Radak, the next time we seem to hear comments about zekher is R'
Shabtai Sofer (1618? IIRC) who justifies and puts six dots in his siddur
followed by R' 'Azriel and R' Eliyahu who copied from him in their siddur
(about 1704?).

But all the above discussion is unimportant. What is important to me
is that ALL of the ancient and accurate manuscripts considered to
be T'veryani'im, including the Keter (eidut of R' Ya'akov Sapir in
M'orot Natan) and Leningrad, Sassons etc., have zeikher with five dots
exclusively.

In later manuscripts, according to Prof. Yitzhak Penkower who checked
century by century, the majority of the Sefaradic manuscripts are also
five dotters. The Ashkenazi manuscripts are mixed and most Italian
manuscripts have zekher.

Most of these later manuscripts that do not have zeikher exclusively are
those that also have many other un-Tveryani variants or inaccuracies in
nikkud, etc. and are not considered to be reliable.

Remember too, that the linguistic experts (R' Seth?) tell us that in many
pronunciations of that time there was little or no difference between
the pronunciations of tzeireh and segol.

So, if R' Hayyim was wrong, which I doubt, the Gra was not originated
anything but might have been influenced, in old age (?), by the generally
accurate siddurim of R's Shabtai, 'Azriel & Eliyahu and/or inaccurate
manuscripts. IF R' Hayyim was wrong.

It appears to me, however, that those who stand on five legs from
ancient times to this day are very much more stable than those that try
to experiment by standing on six.

k"t,
David

[Note that this sat at my end from Fri until the following Wed. -mi]

the issue of when the ikkar kiyum is kriah or pirsume nisa is abig
issue what about kriah on 11-13? (prob kriah w/o p"n)?
see the following shiur <http://www.vbm-torah.org/purim/dpurim.htm>
i think he dist btwn night and day
also - the diff readings of a purim meshulash may also have this distinction

[Email #2, which is beying sent a bit more timely... -mi]

regarding whether the "ikkar" kriah of megilla is pisume nissa - i would
suggest looking into the following issues, which suggest that at times,
the theme of pirsume nisa is stonger than at others:

1. is there generally a requirement of "10" - and difference between
bizmano and not (see megilla 5)
2. kriah of night vs day (shehkhiyanu or night)
3. kriah on of 11th - 13th - especially night reading - see makhlokes
btwn ran and ritva
4. kriah of woman vs men - is the behags shita a chiyyuv of pirsume nissa
5. what about purim meshulash (is it considered shelo bizmano?)


david brofsky

From: Phyllostac@aol.com 
> I would guess that what is involved here is the minhog to lein krias 
> shema with the taamei hamikro ('trope'). 

> IIRC, R. SBA has in the past reported that (non-'Yekke') Rabbonim in 
> his down under kehillo practiced it as well. 

Rav Betzalel Stern z'l said KS with the troppen.
(He was a very strong SA man...
As someone here said, you just followed his actions and you saw the
SA everywhere.
He would walk into Shul via one door - and before leaving always kissed
the poroches then approached the other door and walked out backwards -
kissing the mezuza and bowing slightly.)

SBA

From: Gershon Dubin <gershon.dubin@juno.com> 
> I heard yesterday for the first time of a minhag to have all people in 
> the tzibur say the beracha after the megila themselves instead of the 
> shatz being motzi them. Comments? 

I've never seen it any other way.

SBA

On Mon, 17 Mar 2003, Newman,Saul Z wrote:
> from star-K pesach guide----------MATZOH, OAT Kosher for 
>> Passover ... Whether the obligation of eating 
>> matzoh on the first night of Pesach can be fulfilled with 
>> these oat matzohs is questionable. A Rav should be consulted.----

From: Ari Z. Zivotofsky - FAM [mailto:azz@lsr.nei.nih.gov]
> the problem is that oats may not be one of the chamash minim.
> Prof. Felixs had alot to say on the matter.

I know that R. Hershel Schachter doesn't believe that oats is one of
the chamesh minim based on evidence that oats didn't grow in the Middle
East during the time of chazal. I didn't realize that view that oats are
questionable has spread outside YU to the star-K....or are they merely
telling people to check whether their rav is a YU-musmach (even if Rav
Heinemann himself may not be choshesh for the problem)?

Kol tuv,
Moshe

dmill945 (veniqra shmo/shmah beYisrael ???) wrote:
> Perhaps because oats might not be shiboles shual and
> thus their bracha would be ha'adama.  

Wouldn't it remain mezonot, akin to rice? (I don't know, but if so, may be we 
can achieve matzah status by mixing a small amount of wheat with a larger 
amount of oats, and obtain a very low gluten matzah which will still have 
ta'am matzah, again, akin to what the Talmud says about rice?)

RMB: time to move this to Avodah?

Arie
-- 
If an important person, out of humility, does not want to rely on [the Law, as 
applicable to his case], let him behave as an ascetic. However, permission 
was not granted to record this in a book, to rule this way for the future 
generations, and to be stringent out of one's own accord, unless he shall 
bring clear proofs from the Talmud [to support his argument].
	paraphrase of Rabbi Asher ben Ye'hiel, as quoted by Rabby Yoel
	Sirkis, Ba'h, Yoreh De'ah 187:9, s.v. Umah shekatav.

[From Areivim. I was looking for a place to snip between the kibbitzing
about the talking fish and the serious subject of the place of "gilgul"
in yahadus. -mi]

From: Seth Mandel sm@aishdas.org
> You and I can carp ad infinitum about what I want to be, but as I
> understand it from you I have no hope of being a fish, since only tzaddiqim
> go there.

> My zeide told me, however, that there are no gilgulim by us, and R. Saadya
> says Jews don't believe in them, so my n'shomo would have to get by them,
> and both were pretty tough characters...

WADR to RS and your zeida... last night I saw that the Chasam Sofer z'l -
who according to most Areivimites was no chosid - writes - that tzaddikim
are megulgal in fish...

SBA

From: sba@iprimus.com.au
> WADR to RS and your zeida... last night I saw that the Chasam Sofer z'l -
> who according to most Areivimites was no chosid - writes - that tzaddikim
> are megulgal in fish...

I did not intimate that only chasidim believed in gilgulim, nor that no
rishonim did.  The Zohar was a rishon, if not earlier, and it did.  But R.
Saadya apparently considered it a non-Jewish belief.  In such a machloqes I
do not try to convince people con or pro, but I am interested -- l'shittas
those who hold by gilgulim -- in the source of this idea why tzaddiqim
become fish, when it would seem to me (someone who obviously has no
influence at all on the matter) that there are many easier creatures into
which a n'shomo could be reincarnated...
Seth

SBA

I have no doubt that there is an explanation farvos davka fish.

RSM wrote:
> I did not intimate that only chasidim believed in gilgulim, nor that no
> rishonim did.  The Zohar was a rishon, if not earlier, and it did.  But R.
> Saadya apparently considered it a non-Jewish belief.  In such a machloqes I
> do not try to convince people con or pro, but I am interested -- l'shittas
> those who hold by gilgulim -- in the source of this idea why tzaddiqim
> become fish, when it would seem to me (someone who obviously has no
> influence at all on the matter) that there are many easier creatures into
> which a n'shomo could be reincarnated...

IIRC, you won't find transmigration into other life forms in the
Zohar. That is a 'hiddush which was (depending on your understanding of
Qabbuleh) either revealed or originally formulated by the sainted Ari,
of blessed memory. The Zohar and those who lived at the time of its
publication merely spoke about transmigration into another human body,
in line with RSM's preferred destination for the gilgul candidates.

The Ari also originally formulated the idea that one is not a gilgul of
just one neshamah, but one's neshamah is a gilgul of a multitude of other
neshamot, akin to a genetic blueprint. The Ari's coneption of gilgul
has its attractive and less attractive points, but let me stress that
according to him, one ought not to find the gilgul of Mr. X, since he is
megulgal into many, many bodies (including fish and fowl), and shares
the space with other soul fragments. Every (human?) being has then its
own unique configuration, a soul which never again enters another human
body (but I am not sure about animal bodies) in the exact same makeup.

(entering deep lurk, Pessach preparations) Kusher'n in frailikhen
Paisse'h,

Arie Folger
-- 
30 prior to the onset of a holiday, we expound on the laws of that
particular holiday

PS: according to the biggie Tosafot on the first 'amud of TB Avodah
Zarah, we would be obligated to constantly expound on hilkhot Shabbat,
since even a weekly religious observance is called a holiday (alas,
they are talking about Sunday for Christians, but you get the point).

Can someone please enlighten me as to the heter for bearded men to use a 
mask with a mapuach (blower) which must be turned on and off on Shabbat. 

Even getting this down to a derabanon (battery operated, klachar yad 
etc.) is this better than closely trimming beard (which pikud haoref 
says can give full atima)?

Shabbat Shalom- May this question be theoretical.
menucha

RYBG wrote:
: This seems counter-intuitive, because the greatest gillui of Kevod
: Hashem was at Har Sinai. V'aderaba, at the time of Mordechai it seems
: that it was simple fear of death that motivated the great teshuva of
: "Lech kenos es kol ha'yehudim."

R' Micha wrote:
> ...I suggested that "kafah aleihem hahar kegigis" was the neis nigleh
> and onesh nigleh of bayis rishon. The gigis was not removed from overhead
> until the period of hester panim.

I remember hearing in a shmooze from R' Kulefsky, z"l (RY of NIRC) where
he said in the name of the Meshech Chochmah that "kafah aleihem hahar
kegigis" is not to be taken literally. Rather, after the yidden saw
all of the nisim geluim, this took away their bechira. In other words,
everything became so clear to them that they knew that if they wouldn't
accept the Torah, life wasn't worth living.

(I still remember R' Kulefsky's mashal: we all have the "bechira"
to enter into a burning house, but we don't because we know that we
will perish. So too, at Har Sinai: we could have chosen to not accept
the Torah, but without Torah we would perish; thus, there was not a
true bechira.)

In the time of Purim, OTOH, all of the miracles were hidden, and the
yidden could have chosen to overlook the hand of Hashem. They instead
chose to mekabel the Torah once again, this time using their own sechel.

KT
Aryeh

Is anyone aware of any written discussions vis-a-vis the halachik
requirements/allowabilities of a student in Israel (or their parents)
leaving/forcing them to leave due to terrorism/war? In particular
the issues of safek sakanah(how measured), rules of war and individual
vs. tzibbur responsibilities?

KT
Joel Rich

>The Ari also originally formulated the idea that one is not a gilgul of
just one neshamah, but one's neshamah is a gilgul of a multitude of other
neshamot, akin to a genetic blueprint. The Ari's coneption of gilgul
has its attractive and less attractive points, but let me stress that
according to him, one ought not to find the gilgul of Mr. X, since he is
megulgal into many, many bodies (including fish and fowl), and shares
the space with other soul fragments. Every (human?) being has then its
own unique configuration, a soul which never again enters another human
body (but I am not sure about animal bodies) in the exact same makeup.

I just like to add that in the Zemiris Divrei Yoel, it says that tsadikim
are especially m'gugolim in salmon(loks). This is why the minhag of many
Hungarians is to eat specifically salmon on Shabbos. The fish story form
New Square was specifically regarding carp.

[Email #2.]

In the same Divrei Yoel - because it is on a higher level not requiring
shechita to be kosher.

[Email #3.]

I am not an expert but in the likkutim from Ramchal in Kisvei Ramchal as I remember it, it depends on how many portions of the neshama have not been m'tukan. It seems that it would be possible for a large part with many components of a single neshoma to be mgulgal in one site. Then. again, I hardly understand this topic at all. Can someone out there who knows Shaar Hagilgulim tells us more about it?

M. Levin

On Fri, Mar 21, 2003 at 01:05:12PM -0500, Mlevinmd@aol.com wrote:
: In the same Divrei Yoel - because it is on a higher level not requiring
: shechita to be kosher.

I thought we hold "asifasan hi materes osan" (Hil Shechitah 1:3). May
not be shechiltah, but still there is a mandated machshir.

:-)BB!!
-mi

On 21 Mar 2003 at 7:41, menucha wrote:
> Can someone please enlighten me as to the heter for bearded men to use a 
> mask with a mapuach (blower) which must be turned on and off on Shabbat. 

> Even getting this down to a derabanon (battery operated, klachar yad 
> etc.) is this better than closely trimming beard (which pikud haoref 
> says can give full atima)?

I was wondering about this myself, although AIUI trimming the beard does
not help (and in any event how are you going to do it in the three minutes
you have from the time your alarm goes off to the time that you have to be
in the sealed room?). But I figure I have another heter to use my blower -
I'm asthmatic and asthmatics are also entitled to masks with blowers.

-- 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.

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


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