Avodah Mailing List

Volume 12 : Number 132

Monday, March 29 2004

• Re: G-d's existence
• Re: Chazal and Super
• Re: omek pshuto shel mikra
• Re: Walking down the aisle
• Re: chametz in the kinneret
• Re: chametz in the kinneret
• Re: R. Elyashiv on pesach
• Re: omek pshuto shel mikra
• RE: Rav Elyashav on Pesach
• R. Elyashiv on pesach
• Re: Is R Marc Shapiro's recent book intellectually flawed
• Re: chametz in the kinneret
• Re: R. Elyashiv on pesach
• Re: R. Elyashiv on pesach
• RE: Re: Is Shapiro's book "Limits of Orthodox Theology"
• Re: Is R Marc Shapiro's recent book intellectually flawed
• Re: Is R Marc Shapiro's recent book intellectually flawed
• RE: Ikkarim of Dwarves
• Re: Vehigadta levincha

T613K@aol.com wrote:
> Of course, it may turn out that there is life elsewhere or even
> intelligent life elsewhere. I think it highly unlikely, but not
> impossible. It would not bother me at all. G-d is perfectly capable of
> creating life in many places.

> But to secular scientists, the existence of life elsewhere in the universe
> has taken on something of the quality of ikrei emunah, because of their
> wish to believe that man is not unique.

I believe you are correct in your estimation of the motivation behind
some of scientific inquiry. But where I think I part company with you is
in judging the results of experimentation. No matter what the source of
experimentation if scientific data become conclusive then one can not
dispute it. This is why until recently there was little discussion of
the age of the universe. Jewish theology seems to teach that the age of
the universe is about 6000 years old. And there are still Gedolim who
believe that to be the case.

But science has conclusively proven that the age of the universe is far
more than 6000 years old. So some Gedolim have gone to sources dating
back to the Talmud and have included medieval and recent commentators
to support a formula theologically compatible with the scienticfic data
which places the age of the universe at about 15 billion years. Rabbi
Aryeh Kaplan did a masterful job in explaining that compatibilty.

It is therefore my contention that the theory of evolution as the origin
of the species is quite compatible with our theology, though not yet
(if ever to be) conclusive. The only problem is the high improbabilty of
the randomness of its occurance. To a scientist not theologically inclined
and who rejects any explanation outside of observable and repeatable data,
randomness... 1) given either an infinite amount of time or 2)even though
the odds are greatly against it, it COULD have happened randomly that
way and the fact that we are here proves that it happened that way and 3)
why go beyond the minimum necessary explanation and include a teleological
one? i.e. you don't need a Creator to explain man's existence.)

But from a theologically based perspective and one which seems like a
better explanation of our existence it seems to make better sense to
believe that God guided our evolution creating first a single celled
being and then "evolving" it into the complex set of cells that we are
today. This would explain all the evidence that science seems to uncover
from time to time showing an evolution of some sort taking place and
at the same time recognize the belief that it is God that created and
guides it.

HM

RRF wrote:
> Before Van Leuwonhook [how did he spell that??]

Van Leewenhoek. (from the lion's corner)

Arie

I wrote:
> :                                         However, I state that even then
> : there are still mutually exclusive things out there, and that mutual
> : exclusivity applies to some interpretations of the Biblical text.

RMB replied:
> Perhaps it does. I'm inclined to think it's only bepo'el that there is a
> law of excluded middle, not bemchshavah. I found R' Tzadoq (Resisei Laylah
> #17) quite convincing. I was only arguing for the possibility. As I said
> about the pluralistic eilu va'eilu.

Look, I agree that RT has such a logic, but you can't convince me, when
Ramban argues against Rashi, or Ibn Ezra, or for that matter, a maamar
'Hazal, and he says that such and such cannot be maintained, that he
means that it can be maintained but he wants to add another pshat. Such
interpretations make a laughingstock of the words of our great Rishonim,
inconceivable. What you can say is that Rav Tzadoq conceived of a world
where the statements of Ramban and Rashi etc. could be reinterpreted,
in perhaps a more true fashion, to be compatible with each other. That
would then be the Tzadoqite way of thinking, which is shared by some
but not all Semites, most notably Ramban, in my example.

I don't think that we can attribute the recognition of partial truth of
an opponent's argument to a protagonist when he states the opposite.

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 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 Rabbi Yoel
	Sirkis, Ba'h, Yoreh De'ah 187:9, s.v. Umah shekatav.

On 28 Mar 2004 at 9:18, Kenneth G Miller wrote:
> I asked <<< Doesn't the concept of shoshvinin meet your definition of
> "slight connection"?>>>

> R' Carl Sherer answered <<< No. There's no aisle mentioned.>>>

> My only point has been that the Shoshvinin constitute a formal procession

But they DON'T. You're reading into it what you want to see in it.
But it's just not there.

The Shoshvinim are two people who hold the chosson up, much like two
Kohanim would hold the Kohein Gadol up on Yom Kippur. Nothing else.

> The only guess I can come up with is that at the beginning, the minyan is
> near the chupa, and the choson and shoshvinin are somewhere else. 

NO. The chosson walks out with the shoshvinim and everyone else follows
BEHIND THEM (or at their side or in front of them in a general ba'al'a'gan
which is what this sometimes deteriorates into, and which is why many
Americans don't like it). There is NO AISLE. Outside of North America,
and some North Americans marrying in Israel, no one has an aisle.

In fact, in Israel, people often stand around the Chupa on ALL sides.

Have you ever been to a wedding outside the US?

-- Carl

On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 04:45:32PM +0200, Arie Folger wrote:
: > IOW, if this dish is mentally, emotionally or existentially associated
: > with dairy, one can relate to using it with meat as though one were
: > mixing meat and milk. The physical presence of milk isn't necessary.
...

: But this goes against the gemara, all Sefardi posqim (who allow te'imat
: qfeilah)...

As I wrote, there's literal ta'am, and tama shebekeli. The above is
about the latter. Most keilim that are labeled nosenim ta'am give off
no taste. Nor do they contain 1:60. And yet bitul doesn't apply. I was
suggesting a sevarah as to why. That the state of a keli goes beyond
what the keli is like empirically, but also how we relate to it.

If it were simply about taste, one wouldn't need to kasher most
dishes. (Issues of 24 hours aside, as nosein ta'am lifgam obviously
assumes there is some kind of ta'am.)

TQ is about determining, bedi'ebed, whether a mixture of less than 1:60
has a physical tase of the smaller item so as to prevent bittul. IOW,
we're no longer talking about applying an adjective to a keli.

-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where
micha@aishdas.org        you are,  or what you are doing,  that makes you
http://www.aishdas.org   happy or unhappy. It's what you think about.
Fax: (413) 403-9905                        - Dale Carnegie

RMB wrote:
> IOW, if this dish is mentally, emotionally or existentially associated
> with dairy, one can relate to using it with meat as though one were
> mixing meat and milk. The physical presence of milk isn't necessary.
> Similarly, if a surface physically has milk, but in a way that we no
> longer associate it with dairy, perhaps we should allow using it with
> meat. Therefore, kashuring should be okay because it's a disasociating
> ritual, regadless of whether molecules of dairy proteins are entirely
> removed.

But this goes against the gemara, all Sefardi posqim (who allow te'imat
qfeilah), as well as against the so many a'haronim who found situations
where even though Ashkenazim won't allow reliance on TQ, they will
aloow reliance on a Jew tasting (such as a kohen tasting Trumah, or,
more contemporary, anybody tasting an onion to see wether it absorbed
some flavour from a knife).

It is true that in practice we don't rely on tasting at all (until,
that is, you work in industrial kashrut and realize how much reliance
on TQ there is), but the reason is not what RMB posits, but rather a
Levush in the beginning of hil. taaruvot, who generally distrusts our
ability to discern taste.

IOW, the 'humra is practical, not theoretical, and on a theoretical level,
the truth may be that many stainless steel pots won't need peeling,
since they may not absorb after all. (this is a reply to RAA)

As to the Kinneret issue, note that RAA is right that mashehu depends
on what falls in, not on taste. In fact, issur mashehu is the opposite
of issur because of notein taam, in that it is independent of taste.

Yet, even issur mashehu may be void in some cases. ROY argues that just
as we rely on birds to eat the chametz lot in our back yard, so too can
we rely on those fishies to do the job in the Kinneret. Furthermore,
the bread falls in before Pessach (although RAA rightly ponts out that
bread could fall in on Pessach, but I'd reply that as long as we aren't
sure of the bread falling in, we shouldn't worry about issur mashehu,
there is a 'hezkas kashrut, and most Jews do observe Pessa'h, in Israel).

Furthermore, there may be a difference between the Kinneret and a well,
although frankly I didn't look into this, because the Kinneret may be
mayim sheein lahem sof, which may mean that it is too different from
a well as well as from a cistern to worry about, since ad absurdum all
water would become prohibited on Pessach, something we never heard about.

All this, unfortunately without the dilligent research, as truly yours
doesn't get much water from the Kinneret on Pessach in Basel, nor do
those waters reach us in any quantity any other time of the year (save
for an occasional bottle of Neviot ;-)).

Arie Folger
-- 
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 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 Rabbi Yoel
	Sirkis, Ba'h, Yoreh De'ah 187:9, s.v. Umah shekatav.

On 28 Mar 2004 at 12:15, Eli Turkel wrote:
> 7. One is required to sell stocks in companies that own chametz

This would likely include any company that has a lunchroom. Is it 
including it with my chametz sold to the goy sufficient? Or does he 
say I actually have to sell the stock? 

> 26. The minhag to leave jerusalem on erev pesach has no basis

Never heard of this.... 

> 27. for taanit bechorot the siyum helps only if one is there for the
> entire siyum. One who finished the mesechta the day before cannot make
> the siyum erev pesach
> (I was confused since the magid shiur always prepares ahead of time)

I usually leave over the last Rashi....

> ??33 One needs to finish maggid and say the second beracha on wine within
> 72 minutes of kiddush. If maggid takes longer than one should stop and
> make the second beracha and then continue with maggid

> (I don't think that was the minhag of most raabanim)

Could he be talking l'shitas ha'Mechabeir that you don't make a 
bracha on the second and fourth kosos?

> !!40. Preferably the person should own the matzah - he should sell it
> to grown children and in-laws

I've heard that one should own the matza, but why should I have to 
sell it to my grown children who are still someich on my shulchan? 

-- Carl

mailto:cmsherer@fandz.com      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.

From RAF:
>inconceivable. What you can say is that Rav Tzadoq conceived of a world
>where the statements of Ramban and Rashi etc. could be reinterpreted,
>in perhaps a more true fashion, to be compatible with each other. That
>would then be the Tzadoqite way of thinking, which is shared by some
>but not all Semites, most notably Ramban, in my example.

>I don't think that we can attribute the recognition of partial truth of
>an opponent's argument to a protagonist when he states the opposite.

I agree with RAF that the Ramban did not think he was offering another
equally valid viewpoint, but rejecting Rashi. So did R' Tzadok. R' Tzadok
is addressing how a 19th century acharon MUST perceive the disagreement.
Kal vachomer a 21st century "acharon."

YGB 

All very similar to what is printed in a wonderful new(ish) Haggadah
based on Torah and Halacha of Rav S.Z. Auerbach, ZT'L. Not surprising
given the family connection. RSZA seemed especially disturbed by
'minhag' of stealing afikomen.

Gary S. Litke
Torys LLP
glitke@torys.com
www.torys.com 

R' Eli Turkel brought some points from <<< a booklet recent appeared
with piskei halachot of R. Elyashiv about Pesach. >>> and invited our
comments. Here are mine:

<<< ? 1 today that we clean the rooms before bedikah one is REQUIRED
(chiyuv midinah) to put out pieces of chametz before the bedikah otherwise
there might be (cheshash) for a beracha le-vatala >>>

My LOR explained to me that once you've done a thorough cleaning on
an area, it gets the status of A Place Where Chometz Is Never Brought,
and is therefore exempt from Bedikas Chametz. Sounds like Rav Elyahiv
holds the same way.

<<< ? 11. in theory one can eat kitniot erev pesach but the minhag is
not to (ashkenazim of course) >>>

I'm curious about this one too. I mean, in theory an ashkenazi can eat
kitnios on pesach itself, but the minhag is not to - right? Perhaps Rav
Elyashiv means that there are two separate minhagim: First, the ashkenazim
avoided kitnios but only on Pesach itself, and then a separate minhag
included Erev Pesach as well. (AIUI, there's a similar situation about
ashkenazim and Matza Ashira on Erev Pesach.)

<<< ?? 33 One needs to finish maggid and say the second beracha on wine
within 72 minutes of kiddush. If maggid takes longer than one should
stop and make the second beracha and then continue with maggid >>>

I can see how a posek might require Hamotzi within 72 minutes of Kiddush,
because of Ein Kiddush Ela B'Makom Seudah. Or, don't allow such a long
gap of non-eating between Karpas and Second Cup. But from First Cup to
Second Cup? What's the logic?

<<< ? 37. Those who eat raw celery its berachah is shehakol as it is
usually eaten cooked in soup >>>

Most of my celery is raw in salad, but obviously that's not Rav Elyashiv's
style.

<<< Everyone stands for "shefoch hamatcha" and RYSE announces - boruch
haba >>>

Baruch Haba? To who, Eliyahu HaNavi? I've been trying for years to tell
people that he comes to a shalom zachar and a bris, but coming to sedarim
is only an urban legend. Could I have been wrong?

Akiva Miller

At 08:46 AM 3/29/2004, [RJR] wrote:
>WADR this is a fine statement of why "no one ever died from a kashe"
>but doesn't deal with the sources RMS brings down. We can disagree with
>his conclusions and say we're sure that R'XYZ was aware of these sources
>and they didn't trouble him so why should they trouble me, but I would
>prefer to try to understand why they didn't trouble R'XYZ.

I have not read DMS's recent work - I generally only borrow books that
exceed my budget, and I have not met anyone from whom I can borrow it -
but I read the TuM essay b'sha'ato, and as we noted here at the time,
afilu a kashye faran nisht dorten. Nohr interesanter, zeidikke he'aros,
ohn groisser nafka minas.

YGB 

> All this, unfortunately without the dilligent research, as truly yours
> doesn't get much water from the Kinneret on Pessach in Basel

but all the water in the world is hhamets.

distilling by evaporation does not un-hhamets it - think whiskey.

there must be some theoretical distinction, i do not know what it is -
perhaps it has to do with mehhubar - but in practice there is no doubt
that just as we do not drink from a vessel wherein a hhartsaf floats but
do drink from the kinereth which gets lots and lots of them all the time,
we act as if there were a quantity limit to isur mashehu.

long sig for first list appearance:
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translator into hebrew and german
also from english and yiddish, sometimes danish
fax by appointment   ruthwi@macam.ac.il
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for the hebrew-enabled: http://www.geocities.com/proppentrecker/
with english: http://mywebpage.netscape.com/abujaftiel/hexerei-01.html sqq.

> 26. The minhag to leave jerusalem on erev pesach has no basis

What minhag is this?  Never heard of it.

[Email #2. -mi]

> water for the entire chag is stored ahead of time in a barrel

And I thought I was joking when I suggested doing this [just in case
someone had thrown some bread in the Kineret].

  CKvS
 -Toby Katz

On 29 Mar 2004 at 12:36, Kenneth G Miller wrote:
> I'm curious about this one too. I mean, in theory an ashkenazi can eat
> kitnios on pesach itself, but the minhag is not to - right? Perhaps Rav
> Elyashiv means that there are two separate minhagim: First, the ashkenazim
> avoided kitnios but only on Pesach itself, and then a separate minhag
> included Erev Pesach as well. (AIUI, there's a similar situation about
> ashkenazim and Matza Ashira on Erev Pesach.)

Our posek holds that Matza Ashira is not Matza and may be used on 
Erev Pesach. 

> <<< ?? 33 One needs to finish maggid and say the second beracha on wine
> within 72 minutes of kiddush. If maggid takes longer than one should
> stop and make the second beracha and then continue with maggid >>>

> I can see how a posek might require Hamotzi within 72 minutes of Kiddush,
> because of Ein Kiddush Ela B'Makom Seudah. 

But you ought to be able to get around that problem by drinking a 
reviis at Kiddush because yayin sa'eed. (Agav urcha to a certain 
offlist discussion, I learned that from my brother in law who uses 
drinking a reviis of wine to be yotzei the daytime kiddush b'makom 
seuda on Shabbos and Yom Tov during Pesach when he does not eat 
mezonos). 

> Or, don't allow such a long
> gap of non-eating between Karpas and Second Cup. But from First Cup to
> Second Cup? What's the logic?

That's why I suspect it's l'shitas ha'M'chabeir, who holds not to 
make a bracha on the second cup. 

 - Carl

mailto:cmsherer@fandz.com      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.

RMB
> If he thinks his opinion of normative hashkafah is more relevent to
> defining O than RYHutner's, RJBS's, R' Tzadoq's, R' Kook's, RAKaplan,
> (and that's only a tiny sample from within the last century), or simply
> didn't think about them, then his assumptions are wrong.

Two issues with this statment.

1) There is much evidence about what the different rabbanim cited above
thought to be true. There is far less evidence about what those different
rabbanim thought to be normative - that anyone denying them in any way is
a kofer (I am pretty sure, for example, that RAK would not classify people
that way). This seems an extrapolation - precisely what RMS is arguing
against - the notion that everyone agrees with the 13 ikkarim, therefore,
these rabbanim must have agreed, therefore they disagree with RMS....

2) THere is a notion that halacha kebatrai except when the latter
authorities did not see the earlier - RMS source material is important
in that it provides much material that is not generally well known - and
therefore any position that is not aware of his material is inherently
flawed, regardless of the gdula of its owner. The question is whether
the owner of the position would still classify as kfira a position if
he knew that certain rishonim held from it...

Meir Shinnar

>>If he thinks his opinion of normative hashkafah is more relevent to
>>defining O than RYHutner's,
>...
>As I wrote, right vs wrong WRT Torah is defined by those who are immersed
>in it and try to become one with it, not those who stand back to get an
>objective, scholar's, perspective of its evolution.
>...
>It's not a historian of ideas' role to define the limits of Orthodoxy.

He is not defining them so much as cataloging them.

Look, when Prof H Soloveitchik in his article (need I specify which one?
but I will: Rupture and Reconstruction) cataloged the different approaches
to halakhah between now and yesteryear, no one argued with his "right"
to do that. That's what an intellectual historian does. You may, as many
did, argue with his explanation for those differences. There might be
even be some who argued with the facts he cataloged (what? no one now
follows mimetics? no one then looked at texts as bases?) -- that is their
right as well -- but the historian is required to write and catalog the
facts as s/he sees them. Yes, and even analyze those facts, despite
what the lay population (we cannot *all* be professional historians,
despite our best intentions; and, yes, even rabbanim are not historians
despite knowing many historical facts) may think of those analyses. But
s/he doesn't have to, nor would s/he mean to, sway public opinion to
one course or another. To get the public to think about the phenomenon
is achievement enough. (Of course, just because the historian doesn't
openly look to sway opinion/behavior one way or another, does not mean
s/he doesn't have an opinion on the issue.) Let the rabbanim -- or
theologians, if they be different -- deal with the data as they see fit.

I recall that before PHS' article was published he lectured about it
in YU and one of the questions asked of him afterwards was by RYBlau
(perhaps he could confirm?) re the implications of his findings for the
contemporary Jewish community . The response was that an historian is not
required to translate his findings to pesak level (not his exact words,
but the idea). So too with re our issue.

You dont wish to be moved by his accumulation of data? Fine. That
is your right. You think he may have erred in his understanding of
the data? Fine as well. You wish to believe that those rabbanim you
named thought through the issues and also discarded or discounted the
anti-Ikkarim data? Fine as well. (RAL in one of my favorite essays of
his writes that "the source of faith is faith itself." )

It is not fine though to say that Shapiro has no right to do what he, as
an historian, sets out to do -- and that is to document the differences
of opinions.

Yisrael Dubitsky

On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 02:26:42PM -0500, Yisrael Dubitsky wrote:
:> It's not a historian of ideas' role to define the limits of Orthodoxy.

: He is not defining them so much as cataloging them.

If this is true, then the book is not an expansion of the thesis of
his article. Nor of the thesis he argued here (and I don't know why the
person who looked up his opinion as expressed on Avodah stopped at the
first post in the exchange).

As I wrote, I assume from the article, the discussion with him here and
the title of the book ("The Limits of Orthodox Theology") that he was
defining them.

And the quote given from the introduction is quite dismissive of the
role of the talmudist. Frankly, I find it insultingly so.

To address RMShinnar's questions:
> 1) There is much evidence about what the different rabbanim cited above
> thought to be true. There is far less evidence about what those different
> rabbanim thought to be normative...

RYBS (as one example close to RMS's heart and mine) on many occasions
analyzed the Rambam's 13 ikkarim and outrights states that they define
normative belief.

Simply put, I disagree, there is plenty. There is also, as I've been
insisting repeatedly, the halachic norms WRT geirus and sharing
wine that none sought to overturn. Admittedly that's an argument
from silence. But my point is more that this is a religious issue in
which the religious perspective, not the academic historian's, carries
the day.

In the quote to which I responded, RMShapiro belittles the grounds on
which the pesaq is made by those "dabblers" in favor of his scholarship.
Yahadus doesn't work that way.

> 2) THere is a notion that halacha kebatrai except when the latter
> authorities did not see the earlier - RMS source material is important
> in that it provides much material that is not generally well known - and
> therefore any position that is not aware of his material is inherently
> flawed, regardless of the gdula of its owner. The question is whether
> the owner of the position would still classify as kfira a position if
> he knew that certain rishonim held from it...

a) The notion you give is very debated. Teh CI and RYBS both say
the exact reverse -- halachah evolves as it evolves, and any evolution
based on ignorance is not to be overturned. The CI invokes a mystical
notion of the idea being hidden because Hashem wanted it so. RYBS
bases himself on the authority of the construction of the covenental
partnership,

b) It's ridiculous to think that the acharonim who decide these major
questions are dabblers in machshavah and don't know these things. Your
#1 concedes the point that there were numerous rabbanim who did.

-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where
micha@aishdas.org        you are,  or what you are doing,  that makes you
http://www.aishdas.org   happy or unhappy. It's what you think about.
Fax: (413) 403-9905                        - Dale Carnegie

RGS
> If you are discussing Shu"t Radbaz vol. 4 no. 187, then I believe that you
> have mischaracterized the teshuvah. The question was regarding a preacher
> who taught that the Dor HaMidbar - or maybe just the Eirev Rav -
> considered Moshe to be a god and Moshe knew about it and legitimated it.
...
> However, the Radbaz concludes by instructing his correspondent to send
> witnesses to tell this preacher in his [the Radbaz's] name that the
> preacher is wrong and give him an opportunity to retract or to state his
> view in front of the witnesses. If he does not retract, the Radbaz was
> ready to rebuke, coerce and chase him until Chormah (which I think is a
> veiled reference to putting him in cherem).

I am truly amazed at the interpretation. The summary is correct -
the radbaz views someone as being a'nus by his reason as therefore not
being considered a kofer, and not susceptible to punishment - precisely
the issue under discussion. Your position was objecting to the following

RGS 
> You are basically setting up a system whereby anyone can hold any belief
> and, since he considers it to be true, can claim that he is not a kofer.

- and that is precisely what the radbaz's statement. 

There is a different issue - a society's right to impose a certain
uniformity, and punish beliefs which are short of kfira - especially those
taught publicly - but nowhere do we see anything that would suggest that
the problem of the radbaz is one of kfira - and the radbaz exempts true
statements (or those that the proponent believed true on the basis of
reason) from kfira.

Meir Shinnar

Akiva Miller wrote:
>My guess at an explanation would be this: Sipur Yetzias Mitzrayim is not
>necessarily done by *telling* the story. Perhaps it can also be done by
>*participating* in a storytelling - whether as teller *or* as audience.
>Proper fulfillment of one's role as an audience member does require the
>person to understand the story being told, but it does not require any
>sort of "shomea k'oneh" because he is doing the mitzvah himself rather
>than by being yotzay from someone else's action....

Hitkavanta l'daat gdolim. *Exactly* this point was made by Rav Asher
Weiss in the aforementioned shiur. His formulation was virtually identical
to yours.

R. Asher went on to say that there is another area of halacha in which
this principle applies, although in a negative context - lashon hara. One
who listens to (and accepts) lashonhara is "over" because that is exactly
what lashon hara consists of - a "m'saper" and a "shomeh". The shomeah
does part of the action itself; there is no element of "shomeah k'oneh"
involved. R. Asher has pointed out dozens of times in his shiurim that
very often mitzvot and aveirot illustrate exactly the same halachic
principle (He often says, with a touch of irony, "Mitzvot ve'aveirot
yardu chruchim b'yachad miHar Sinai."). This is a very good example.

Saul Mashbaum

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


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