Avodah Mailing List

Volume 14 : Number 039

Monday, December 6 2004

• Re: Credit Cards
• Re: minyan vs tzibbur
• Tal u'Matar and Birkat Kohanim
• Re: Vayeishe Yaakov
• Re: Yisrael
• Midrash Avkir
• Re:Asking questions
• Re: Kuzari question
• Contemporary Tzniut
• Re: minyan vs tzibbur
• Credit Cards
• Three angels real or a vision?
• Re:Asking questions
• Re: Asking questions
• Re: Tal u'Matar and Birkat Kohanim
• Ou sont les neiges d'hier?

[In reply to the same quote. -mi]

> This actually made me think of an interesting halachic question.
> I believe that many charges are actually processed by the banks on the
> following day, not the day that a charge is made. If you know that to
> be the case, would one be prevented from making a purchase on a Friday?
> Or would the day that the charge was processed be irrelevant--the key
> ingredient being when the purchase was made.

> There may be teshuvas on this subject--although I'm not aware of any.

charges are not done on the following day. This is my experience from
writing the credit card processing software for the SOY (YU) Seforim Sale.
(wrote it in jan/feb 2001, so its possible things have changed a little,
but I doubt it)

Credit Card processing takes place in 3 stages

1) Authorization - This just checks if the card holder has enough in
his limit to let the sale goes through and puts a lock on that amount of
money (if using a check card, it removes your ability to use that money).
This usually lasts for a certain amount of time.

2) Sale - This is when the merchant requests the bank remove money from
the buyer. The merchant still doesn't have the money.

3) The Batch - This basically says all the "Sales" since the last batch
will now be moved to my account.

For instance, we would run the batch for the day's sales after the sale
closed for the night (say 11pm).

Usually the authorization and sale steps happen very quickly, the batch
is done rarely (for instance once a day) as a pain in the neck to see
lots of small amounts, easier to see X dollars per day.

As long as the batch (and perhaps the "sale") doesn't happen on
shabbos, no money was transfered to the merchant on shabbos, and hence
no transaction (al pi halacha) has been accomplished on shabbos as no
merchandise was given to the buyer or money to the seller on shabbos.
(at least this is my understanding from R. Heinemann's psak allowing
web sites to stay open on shabbos).

David Riceman <driceman@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>> We have a second minyan affiliated with the main shul out in the suburbs 
>> (at a house owned by the shul).... R. Apple ruled that we do not 
>> read a double parasha the following week as we can be considered subsumed 
>> within the larger community.

> If krias hatorah is a hiyuv on the tzibbur and your minyan is not a tzibbur 
> why read Torah at all?

That's a good question: I don't know the answer. Something that might shed
light/further complicate the issue is the 'derech agav' statement of our
LOR that a minyan arai (an accidental minyan) doesn't read the Torah at
all. So perhaps the criterion for Kriat HaTorah is simply a minyan kavua
(one which has arranged to meet at such and such a time), whereas to
read double one needs a tzibbur. But I never asked the question.

Jonathan Cohen
jcoh003@yahoo.com

From: Jonathan Cohen <jcoh003@yahoo.com>
> That leads me to another question: do Edot HaMizrach in chu"l say
> Birkat Kohanim every day? I know that according to the old Temanim at
> my grandfather's shul they used to in Teman... and the SA would appear
> to agree. I'm coming to YU for a year from January, so I'd like to find
> a shul where I can duchen every day. Any ideas?

I don't know what the story is in YU country, but the local Syrian shuls
here do, AFAIK (IOW I was at one where they do and presume the others
do as well).  You could come here for Shabbos <g>.

Gershon
gershon.dubin@juno.com

Micha Berger wrote:
>However, as we say every morning "Eilu devarim she'adam ocheil peiroseihem
>ba'olam hazeh, vehaqeren qayemes lo li'olam haba..." Olam hazeh need
>not be at the expence of olam haba. Or conversely, why couldn't Yaaqov
>avinu expect to enjoy those peiros?

Horios (10b): R' Nachman b. Chisda said what is the meaning of 
 Koheles (8:14) /There is a vanity which is done on the earth, that 
there are righteous men to whom it happens according to the work of the 
wicked. Again there are wicked men to whom it happens according to the 
work of the righteous.../ It means "Happy are the righteous who suffer in 
this world like the wicked in the world to come, woe is to the wicked 
men in this world who prosper like the righteous in the world to come." 
 Raba objected, Would the righteous find it distasteful if they enjoyed 
both this world and the next? The verse in fact means "Happy are the 
righteous who enjoy this world like the wicked in this world and woe is 
to the wicked who prosper in this world like the righteous in the next 
world." R' Papa and R' Huna were once asked by Rava whether they 
had mastered this or that gemora? When they said yes he asked them 
whether they were a little bit wealthier? They replied, "Yes because we 
bought some land". Rava then said "Happy are the righteous who prosper 
like in this world like the wicked in this world."

Daniel Eidensohn

Rn TK <T613K@aol.com> wrote:
> Why are we called "Yisrael"? Because we can defeat angels?...

The most notable thing about Yaaqov's fight with the mal'ach was not the
fight, but that he was capable an enountering mal'achim at all! Recall
that Hashem Himself repeats the mal'ach's renaming when He charges
Yaaqov with the berakhah, land and mission first given to Avraham. (Ber'
35:10) Both need to be taken into account when looking at the meaning
of the name.

The mal'ach doesn't say Ya'aqov succeeded, but "ki sarisa in H' va'anashim
vatuchal -- you showed mastery WRT G-d and man, and were capable."

In RSRH's terms, Jews have the eight-ness of Shemini Azteres, of tzitzis
and milah -- we go beyond the world created in 7 days and are charged with
bringing the "shamayim chadashim" and "aretz chadashah" into being. Thus
we alone can experience the me'ein olam haba of Shabbos even before the
Yom Shekulo Shabbos.

We are Yisrael because we alone are charged to not only be the "seven"
of the mitzvos benei Noach, we not only aspire find the holiness inherent
in creation, but to create new holiness and go beyond creation. Truly
living in both this world and heaven, and aspiring to be the ladder
(as per Yaaqov's dream) unifying the two.

This is the capability of being both among men and in the presence of
G-d that the angel praises, and the mission that Hashem refers to when
repeating the renaming.

:-)BBii!
-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: (270) 514-1507                        - Dale Carnegie

From: HG Schild <hgschild@yahoo.com>
> Who compiled Midrash Avkir that is quoted in Yalkut Shimoni, etc. Was
> it published by itself? Is the sefer in print or in a library? available?

See
<http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=593&letter=M&search=Avkir>
for the state of knowledge as of 100 years ago. The entire work seems
to have been known to one or two rishonim.

There's a somewhat longer article with some quotes of the midrash brought
from sources other than the Yalkut Shimoni in Eisenstein's Otzar Yisrael,
pp. 48-49, at <Ahttp://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdf/ozar1.pdf>

   - jon baker    jjbaker@panix.com     <http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker> -

R Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote:
> It is your prerogative to assume RCS committed such errors. It is my
> prerogative, knowing his gadlus, to assume he did not.

Given the authority of at least one of the sources, it's as difficult to
dismiss the quote out of hand as it is to think RCS made a fundamental
error.

I therefore am scratching my head trying to figure out what RCS really
did mean by his comment as reported by his grandson. There must be a
second way to understand it, other than the one usually presented.

IOW, when something doesn't make sense, it's usually a misunderstanding /
miscommunication.

:-)BBii!
-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: (270) 514-1507                        - Dale Carnegie

R Akiva Miller wrote:
> The issue of the greatness of the Jewish people is raised in sections
> 1:92-94, and in section 1:95, the rabbi attempts to prove that the Jews
> are indeed superior to others....

I thought at this point the king already accepted the premise that the
Torah is accurate, and here the rabbi is explaining the how and why of
chosenness, rather than proving it exists.

Still, if you're personally curious about these questions...

> 1) Why is it accepted unchallenged that Shes was indeed greater than his
> brothers, or that Enosh was greater than his brothers, or that Shem was,
> and so on?

It's trivial to argue that Sheis was greater than Kayin, whose kapparah
for murdering Hevel wasn't finished until his death. Hevel had no
descendents, so he's sort of out of the running.

The Torah singles out Enosh's lineage, as well as Sheim's. That implies
something superior about their legacy, no? IOW, we know Enosh was superior
because he is a noted cause of Noach, and similarly Sheim and Avraham.
Besides, Sheim's spiritual superiority is noted by Noach explicitly.

> 2) If the answer to the above is that all three of the clergy summoned
> by the king accept that genealogy, it would certainly stop at Yitzchak,
> because the Moslems would say that the greatness of Avraham went to
> Yishmael. Perhaps this point is raised further on in the Kuzari?

The king already bought into the Torah, it was on that grounds, not the
common theme of the three clergy. (Interestingly, the Kuzari is written
as though there were four clergy, putting the philosopher on the same
ground as the priest and the imam.)

> 3) Even if all this is an acceptable demonstration that Yaakov was greater
> than any other human of his generation, where is the logic in changing
> the rules so that this greatness can now suddenly be shared by all his
> children? Why can't the same be said about all of Noach's children,
> or all of Adam's, for that matter?

Because there was no parallel to "ki miYitzchaq yiqarei lakha zarah". This
is why Yaaqov was Yisrael, the image of man on the kisei hakavod. The
Torah stops dwelling on one line to the exclusion of the others. Therefore
if the king accepted the divinity of the Torah, he had no problem.

:-)BBii!
-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: (270) 514-1507                        - Dale Carnegie

An attached-document copy of my "Contemporary Tzniut" article (49 pages)
in the current Tradition magazine is available upon request to the above
e-mail address.

Rabbi Yehuda Henkin

I think I have a better handle on the issue. The key source is MK 22b-23a:
"Nasi shemeis battei midrashos kulan bteilin ubnei haknesses nichnasin
l'beis haknesses v'korin shiva v'yotzin". Rashi: "d'ein mispallin b'beis
haknesses ela kol echad v'echad mispallel b'beiso."

The Or Zarua miust read this as defining a hiyuv of kriah b'tzibbur.
The tzibbur, even when it doesn't daven, still has the obligation
of reading the weekly segment of the cycle of reading the Torah.
Under normal circumstances the tzibbur divides into minyanim ("batei
midrashos") and they all read, but that's just a kiyum. The hiyyuv
resides in the beis haknesses with the tzibbur's main minyan.

Hence your Rabbi's decision that your minyan is ancillary to the tzibbur.

I would like to know the source for

From: "Jonathan Cohen" <jcoh003@yahoo.com>
> the 'derech agav' statement of our LOR that a minyan arai (an accidental 
> minyan) doesn't read the Torah at all.>

It sounds plausible to me but I haven't yet found a source.

David Riceman

[R Michael Feldstein:]
> This actually made me think of an interesting halachic question. I
> believe that many charges are actually processed by the banks on the
> following day, not the day that a charge is made. If you know that to be
> the case, would one be prevented from making a purchase on a Friday? Or
> would the day that the charge was processed be irrelevant--the key
> ingredient being when the purchase was made.

R' Heineman (from Baltimore) has a t'shuvah (in English) on the subject
of e-commerce on Shabbos. He touches upon this point. See
<http://www.star-k.org/kashrus/kk-win04-hotline.htm>, and then the
correction in <http://www.star-k.org/kashrus/kk-spring04-hotline.htm>.
KT,
MYG

Yesh Leha`ir:

For a fascinating synchronic "post-modern" reading of all this, see the
Keli Yakar on "Vehu Yosheiv" (Same pasuk, 18:1) in which while apparently
explaining an idea in another Rashi, successfully in a FEW lines (without
saying so) resolves ALL the classic positions (he mentions none of them):

Rashi: First HaShem came, then the angels
Rashbam: The first pasuk is a title; then the angels ("the vision")
REALLY came in REALITY ("Klal UPrat")
Rambam: The first pasuk is a title, followed by a PROPHETIC VISION(("Klal
UPrat")
The guests and HaShem really came as guests, AND it was a vision
Rashi/Ramban are right
as well as tying together several larger thematic issues 

And he makes it look easy (and compelling.)

Breathtaking!

Nachman Levine

At 09:24 AM 12/3/2004, [Micha] wrote:
>Given the authority of at least one of the sources, it's as difficult to
>dismiss the quote out of hand as it is to think RCS made a fundamental
>error.
>I therefore am scratching my head trying to figure out what RCS really
>did mean by his comment as reported by his grandson....

There is a very simple way to understand it, as I have noted several
times - that it is sichas chullin shel TC, from which one can learn,
but which should not be mistaken as literally and completely accurate.

YGB

On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 10:12:56AM -0500, RYGB wrote:
: There is a very simple way to understand it, as I have noted several
: times - that it is sichas chullin shel TC, from which one can learn,
: but which should not be mistaken as literally and completely accurate.

Do you think it's in character for RYGB to repeat sichos chullin without
being clear that that's what he's doing and why?

:-)BBii!
-mi

On Thu, 2004-12-02 at 23:25 -0500, Gershon Dubin wrote:
> From: Jonathan Cohen <jcoh003@yahoo.com>
>> That leads me to another question: do Edot HaMizrach in chu"l say
>> Birkat Kohanim every day?...
>>           I'm coming to YU for a year from January, so I'd like to find
>> a shul where I can duchen every day. Any ideas?

> I don't know what the story is in YU country, but the local Syrian shuls
> here do, AFAIK (IOW I was at one where they do and presume the others
> do as well).  You could come here for Shabbos <g>.

I know of no shul in washington heights that duchens everyday (or even
shabbos), though there are a lot of small shuls that I've never been to
so I could be wrong.

I'm just wondering what happened to Adam and Hava in the rest of Tanach.
The only unambiguous reference to Adam (the person, not the species)
I found is at the beginning of the geneologies in Divrei HaYamim.
There are no mentions of Hava after the beginning of Breishis.

Even Shoshan lists five passages in Nach which mention Eden.

Given Adam and Hava's prominence in Hazal, and the number of psukim
Hazal read as referring to them, this silence seems strange.

Any explanations?

David Riceman 

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


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