Avodah Mailing List

Volume 15 : Number 060

Tuesday, July 26 2005

• Re: harry potter and kishuf
• Re: harry potter and kishuf
• kishuf
• The permissability of atypical shuckling...
• Re: The permissability of atypical shuckling...
• Re: Rav Lichtenstein's halachic analysis of whether soldiers may refuse orders
• Rav Lichtenstein's halachic analysis of whether soldiers may refuse orders
• Swimming pool is a kosher mikveh
• Re: maaris ayin
• Re: maaris ayin
• Re: Rav Lichtenstein's halachic analysis of whether soldiers may refuse orders
• Re: maaris ayin
• maaris ayin
• Re:Covenant and Conversation - Pinchas
• RE: Rabbinic laws & spirituality
• The permissibility of atypical shuckling...
• Re: The permissability of atypical shuckling...
• Re: Swimming pool is a kosher mikveh
• Mechachmascha
• [hirhurim] [Hirhurim - Musings] Laws of Charity IV

R' Zev Sero wrote <<< Communicating with sheidim may not in itself
be kishuf, but IMHO kishuf is asking or commanding sheidim (and other
non-Hashem entities) to do something, by rituals intended either to gain
their favour, or to bind them to the mechashef's will. >>>

R' Micha Berger responded <<< ... kindly ... explain why singing "Borkhuni
leshalom" as part of Shalom Aleikhem doesn't qualify as kishuf by your
definition. TIA! >>>

When I ask the mal'achim "Borkhuni leshalom", I view it the same way as if
I would ask a tzadik "Please give me a brocha." In BOTH cases, I am merely
ASKING someone to pray to Hashem on my behalf. Since the malach/tzadik has
the option of not praying on my behalf, not to mention that Hashem is the
option of not answering that prayer, I don't see where there's any kishuf.

Akiva Miller

Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 21, 2005 at 12:36:09AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote (emphasis mine):

> : Communicating with sheidim may not in itself be kishuf, but IMHO KISHUF
> : IS ASKING or commanding SHEIDIM (AND OTHER NON-HASHEM ENTITIES) TO DO
> : SOMETHING, BY RITUALS INTENDED either TO GAIN THEIR FAVOUR, or to bind
> : them to the mechashef's will. And without seeing the Chinuch inside my
> : first thought is that this is a second approach, an alternative to the
> : first one, and incompatible with it.

> RZS, kinly look at the portion I highlighted and explain why singing
> "Borkhuni leshalom" as part of Shalom Aleikhem doesn't qualify as
> kishuf by your definition. TIA!

Because a blessing isn't *doing* anything. It's a wish that Hashem
should do things. It's OK to ask for a blessing from a living human,
a dead human, a mal'ach, a sheid, or anything else. It's also OK to ask
any of these to convey prayers to Hashem, or to add their own prayers
and intercede on our behalf. What's not OK IMHO is to ask them to *do*
something, e.g. to heal the sick. (Except that of course it's OK to ask
living humans to do things that are physically within their power.)
(Then, of course, you have Lot, who addressed Hashem through the
mal'achim, though the literal text is mashma that he was praying to the
mal'achim themselves.)

-- 
Zev Sero
zev@sero.name

> By my logic (which was admittedly shaped by the culture in which
> I've grown up), we can say that something works if we test it in a
> controlled environment, with double-blind tests, including placebos as
> appropriate, etc., etc., doing whatever we can to ascertain that *this*
> thing really did cause the help to occur, and that we are not being
> fooled by coincidence or whatever. For example, to the modern mind,
> the bottom line is: All else being equal, did it work in a significantly
> higher percentage of cases than without it?

I believe that a woman living in Geulah/Meah Sharim could not maintain
communal respect and be allowed to continue living there let alone to
continue practicing, there, a process/behavior which the rest of that
particular neighborhood believes to be wrong and kishuf. We all know
Meah Sharim and know that such a lady wouldn't be able to continue her
work if that community had problems with it. Also I believe that, unless
there is decept on her part (which I don't believe), that she would be
able to become well known and sought out unless there was some basis for
people to spread her reputation in a positive light. If her practices
did not have an actual positive result then she could not have attained
her reputation. That is my belief. You can come up with any number of
academic logical ways to disprove this. All I'm saying is that I believe
this to be true.

Therefore I believe that since it's true she is allowed to remain doing
what she does in Meah Sharim, and her reputation continues to spread
and people continue to go to her that she is in fact creating positive
effects/results. I dont' know what those results are or how to measure
them. But that is what I call "working".

I think often people need to justify pursuing this kind of thing so
by analysing it, it will somehow fit or not fit with their world view.
I simply ask, would it be so terrible to not know for sure either way
but still be open to the idea and even try it if the need arises. (And
I don't wish that need upon anyone.)

brent kaufman

On Thu, Jul 21, 2005 at 06:42:26PM +0200, Daniel Eidensohn wrote:
: Rabbi Falk "Modesty - an Adornment [for Life" -mi] page 47. "It is
: wrong to do most of these things even with pure intentions because ,
: they after all attract attention which is the antithesis of tznius....
:                                  It is similarly unrefined for a girl
: to sway excessively during davening as she displays her pious qualities
: for all to see....

Thank you so much for showing me this. I've always said this and was
always considered way out in my opinions on the subject. I probably
still am. But I've always said that all of the common things that
women consider vital to their self-esteem such as, makeup, perfume,
sheitlach, high heels... are done for one purpose and that is to attract
the eye. That is the very definition of lack of tznius. The desire to be
seen and for women that validation that they get from men's attention is
the very opposite of tznius. I've never gotten it and I believe that most
people fool themselves about this issue. I've discussed this often and
never have I not heard the response from women that it's only to make
themselves presentable and to feel better about themselves. (In other
words, women, all women except for those plain hippies, all other women
are not presentable in public with their natural faces and unless they
falsify (enhance, if you'd prefer) their looks they cannot feel good
about themselves.) I personally believe that rabbis have backed down
from making an issue of it because they're afraid of the women in the
community. Think about it.

[Micha:]
> Then how is it mutar for men? Tzeni'us is not a gender specific value.

Sure it is. What attracts men to women is not the same thing as what
attracts women to men.

brent kaufman

On Tue, Jul 26, 2005 at 04:13:11AM -0500, brent wrote:
:> Then how is it mutar for men? Tzeni'us is not a gender specific value.

: Sure it is. What attracts men to women is not the same thing as what
: attracts women to men.

Tzeni'us isn't primarily about sexuality. Again, my example of turning
down the role of sha"tz.

-mi

R' Moshe Feldman wrote:
> For the overwhelming majority of DLs, the thought that we may be
> expelled from EY is unthinkable--why would Hashem have brought about
> this historic event only to undo it?

Perhaps it is a tremendous opportunity. Remazim in the Torah that were
discovered post-facto nonwithstanding, do you think that the original
malkhut and the second commonwealth were destined from the outset to
be failures? (I don't mean in the "ha-kol tsafui" sense, but rather
from our human perspective). Yet we're now in 3 weeks of mourning for
the fact that it didn't work out. We're told explicitly that Chizkiyahu
could have been mashiach, and presumably, had everything gone right,
bayit sheni could have been the final, lasting one as well.

Is Medinat Yisra'el "reishit tsemichat ge'ulateinu"? Some are certain
that it is, and others are certain that it can't be. I hope and pray that
it will be, but I believe that the answer may as of yet be undetermined,
and contingent on whether or not we can pull it together and build a
society that is worthy of it. Besides the mitzvah of yishuv ha-arets,
which is applicable in every generation, I have extra motivation to make
`aliyah from the fact that my family and I can do our little part to
try to build that society and make sure that `Am Yisra'el passes the
test that our generation is extremely blessed to have been dealt.

The thought that we may, c"v, be expelled from Erets Yisra'el again before
the ge'ulah sheleimah, may be "unthinkable" in the sense that we dread
the thought, but I think that we dare not regard it as an impossibility.
If we take Erets Yisra'el for granted (and how can we do so when we say
"ve-hayah im shamoa`" twice daily?), then we may fail to recognize the
challenge that our generation has been given, and not see the need to
rise to meet it.

If the geopolitical environment and security situation mandate that we
withdraw from part of Erets Yisra'el (and that may or may not be the case
at present, but this is not the place to discuss politics), then I think
we would need to take the prudent course of action, without presuming
to be able to read Hashem's mind and have insight into the situation
that secular analysts do not. We should, though, in such a situation,
engage in some communal introspection and think about the signal that
Hashem is sending us through the fact that the situation mandated this
step backwards. As I once heard somebody who was involved in Gush Emunim
put it, "if we were correct when we rejoiced in seeing the 6-day War as
a Divine message, then we have to be willing to see Oslo as a Divine
message as well." I would suggest that this introspection should not
consist primarily of pointing a figure at "them" and focusing on the
failures of the "other" segments of the society.

Does this view make me a "bad religious Zionist"? Perhaps according
to some, but I think that it gives Medinat Yisra'el, and the task of
building it physically and spiritually, a lot more significance than
it would have to one who believes that now that we have it, we can just
sit back, relax, and wait for Mashiach.

 -D.C.

>>PM Sharon is the closest thing
> Eretz Yisroel has to a Melech and he is not declaring any such war.

This is apparently an actual halachic discussion. I don't know how the DL
world poskens on this matter but I did have to sit through a few months
of shiurim from R. Riskin (Efrat) giving his basis for holding that Rabin
had a din of Melech. I can't say that I agreed with his conclusion but
his reasons based upon Rishonim and poskim was really interesting.

Sharon being the closest thing does not give him a din of Melech.

However, if you hold that he actually has that din, then this may be a
moot discussion since he has decreed this to be.

brent kaufman

[Rn Toby Katz:]
> My father zt'l told a young FFB woman who found out that the young man
> she was seeing was a long-time BT (and a ben nidah) not to worry about
> it, because "yeshiva is a mikva."

>Presumably that means that Torah study and observance can rectify any
>bad midos or pegum resulting from mistakes made by the BT's parents.

When I learned in Torah Ohr it was well known and spoken about by the
other rebbeim there that R. Sheinberg always says that limud Torah has the
ko'ach to be mesaken the p'gam of being a ben/as nidah. (I'm sure I heard
him say it also, but not as much as others there said it in his name.)

brent kaufman

On Mon, 2005-07-25 at 21:35 -0400, Micha Berger wrote:
> I think our case is more parallel to the gezeirah against fleishig milk
> (milk found in the cow after shechitah). After the fact, the milk is
> identical to any other and there would be no way to resolve confusion.
> Would that make a difference?

right, but according to the deah that we don't have the ability to make
new gezeirot or takanot, it shouldn't matter, should it. i.e. this is
a totally new thing and one can't really genuinely say that previous
gezeirot or takanot had in mind to take it into account.

On Mon, Jul 25, 2005 at 10:16:32PM -0400, Shaya Potter wrote:
: On Mon, 2005-07-25 at 21:35 -0400, Micha Berger wrote:
:> I think our case is more parallel to the gezeirah against fleishig milk
:> (milk found in the cow after shechitah). After the fact, the milk is
:> identical to any other and there would be no way to resolve confusion.
:> Would that make a difference?

: right, but according to the deah that we don't have the ability to make
: new gezeirot or takanot, it shouldn't matter, should it...

If that were true, margarine would not have been a problem.

Mar'is ayin is a general gezeira with applications that change based on
social reality. I am arguing that something that is THAT indistinguishable
from fleishig would qualify in some of the more extreme ways -- just as
fleishig milk did.

Not a new gezeira, a new manifestation of an old one.

-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow
micha@aishdas.org        man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries
http://www.aishdas.org   about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                       - Rabbi Israel Salanter

I had written:
> I think that RAL would respond that we ask experts not only for their
> pure military analysis, but also for their **political/diplomatic**
> analysis: is a withdrawal from Gaza likely to lead to peace.

From: Zev Sero <zev@sero.name>
> The problem with this
> is that it is explicit and undisputed halacha that we must not take
> such matters into account. They are halachically irrelevant, because
> the gemara says so, not a single rishon disagrees, and the the Shulchan
> Aruch quotes it lehalacha. When the goyim besiege a border city, which,
> if they occupy, will make it easier for them to conquer the land, we must
> fight and resist them even on Shabbat (i.e. it counts as pikuach nefesh),
> even if they claim that they have no designs or further claims, and if
> only we surrender the city to them they will take booty and go away in
> peace. The halacha is that we must not trust them, and expose the whole
> land to danger if they should happen to be lying or to change their minds.

I don't think that this halacha proves your assertion. This halacha
(found in Eiruvin 45a; Rambam Hil. Shabbos 2:23; S"A OC 329:6; discussed
extensively in Tzitz Eliezer chelek 3 siman 9) is saying that if the
Jews are afraid that the occupation of the border city could lead to
pikuach nefesh, then they are allowed to violate Shabbos to save it.
What would happen if the Jews-even on a weekday-would decide that the
goyim truly have no further designs and that it is not worthwhile risking
lives to fight them? I don't think that this halacha is saying that
the Jews *must* fight the goyim no matter what.

Here's somewhat of a proof: In Melachim II 23:29, Par'o Necho wanted his
army to pass through Eretz Yisrael on the way to fight the King of Ashur.
Yoshiyahu went out to fight him. Chazal say that he thought that the
bracha of "v'cherev lo sa'avor b'artzichem" should have applied because
the Jews (so Yoshiyahu thought) were keeping mitzvos. In fact, however,
Yoshiyahu was wrong: the Jews were not keeping mitzvos. Therefore,
Yoshiyahu should have let Par'o Necho's army pass through, even though
this would have exposed the land to danger, because he had the right to
trust Paro Necho's promise (see Divrei HaYamim II 35:21 where Paro Necho's
messengers tell Yoshiyahu "I have not come to fight against you today").

Moreover, this halacha deals only with a situation where the goyim are the
ones who make the claim that they have no further designs. This is not
the same as the situation at hand, where the Israeli government is making
a political/diplomatic assessment that a withdrawal will lead to peace.

[Email #2. -mi]

Harry Maryles hmaryles@yahoo.com wrote:
> But who gives a Hesder RY the right to declare a Milchemes
> Reshus? That belongs to the Melech.

Reread what I wrote:
> The point is that there is a
> mitzvah (according to Ramban) to conquer and settle EY, and we can see
> from the *example* of milchamah that the mitzvah of yishuv ha'aretz is
> meant to be docheh pikuach nefesh even if a milchama is not declared.

Later on, RHM responded to a different point:

I wrote:
> Sharon has not
> asserted that a tremendous number of Jewish lives will be saved by the
> Gaza withdrawal.  Therefore, Jews should be willing to hold onto holy
> land even if this number of lives will be lost, and it is halachically
> assur to transfer land to save this number of lives (see point #1).

RHM responded:
> We do not know how many lives will be lost in one scenario versus
> another. This is where RAL makes his point about relying on the govenment
> rather than on individual RYs of Hesder Yeshivos.

My point is that Sharon is not stating how many lives he believes
will be saved. From Sharon's hashkafic perspective, a withdrawal
is justified even if relatively few lives are saved. But from Mercaz
Harav's perspective, only the saving of a tremendous number of lives can
justify a withdrawal. So, even if RAL's point is accepted that poskim
must accept factual assertions made by Sharon as being correct, Sharon
has never provided a factual assertion which would allow a Mercaz Harav
posek to pasken that a withdrawal is permitted.

Kol tuv,
Moshe 

On Tue, 2005-07-26 at 07:28 -0400, Micha Berger wrote:
> f that were true, margarine would not have been a problem.

> Mar'is ayin is a general gezeira with applications that change based on
> social reality. I am arguing that something that is THAT indistinguishable
> from fleishig would qualify in some of the more extreme ways -- just as
> fleishig milk did.

> Not a new gezeira, a new manifestation of an old one. 

my point is that mar'is ayin is a general gezeira and hence applies to
things today.  It doesn't seem that fleishig milk was characterized as
such a general gezeira and hence would seem to be a chiddush to
understand it as such.

Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org> wrote 
> I would suggest that with cloned meat we're at the early, not yet
> prevelant, stage.

I am wondering what you would say about Rice Milk or Soy Milk.

Some of my children drink rice milk due to milk allergies and when the
have it with meat, I try and make sure the container is on the table.

I have heard that when creamer first came out, that this was also done
but now that it is prevelant it is not necessary.

I wrote <<< ... gezeros or takanos which the chachamim institute have to
be approved by a majority of the people, or else they're not binding. >>>

R' Saul Mahbaum answered <<< The gzerot and takanot are inoperative if
most of the people *cannot* abide by them. There does not seem to be
any *approval* process ... >>>

"Cannot"? As in "As long as the people are *able* to follow it, then it
is binding"?

I thought that the criteria was "*do* not". As in, "Even if the chachamim
*thought* that the people would be able to follow it, if we see that
the people don't do it, then it is not binding."

The two classic examples that I am aware of are Pas Palter and Tevilas
Ezra. If the people would have followed these, they'd have become
binding. But too many people found them to be too difficult, and so
they remain "on the books" as a good thing to do, but undisputedly
NON-binding. Anyone know of other examples?

Akiva Miller

 From Daniel Eidensohn <yadmoshe@012.net.il>
> We all know that if one transgresses the Torah there are consequences 
> which include spiritual dimensions such as loss of Olam HaBah and damage 
> to the neshama. What happens when a rabbinic law is transgressed? I can 
> not find any sources which indicate that there are any spiritual 
> consequences. This of course is assuming that Rabbinic laws are not 
> viewed as a type of Torah law i.e., lo sasur.

R. Shimon Shkop in Shaarei Yosher 1:7 (s.v. u'v'ha d'hiksha ha'Ramban;
see also 1:2 and 1:3) argues that the reason that safek de'oraisa is
l'chumra while safek drabbanan is l'kulah-despite the existence of the
Torah prohibition of lo sasur-is that if there is a de'oraisa issur and
you are violate it b'safek, you did an act which is assur (therefore,
eating treif damages you even if you didn't realize it was treif).
But if there is a safek issur d'rabbanan and you violate it, you did
not do anything which is intrinsically assur; you also didn't violate lo
sasur because that is violated only when you deliberately disregard the
chachamim's commands, not when you do so unknowingly. In other words,
an issur de'oraisa creates a chefzah of issur which damages a person
even if he violates the issur unknowingly, but an issur d'rabbanan is an
issur gavra-forbidding a person to knowingly act against the chachamim's
commands, but the act is not intrinsically assur. R. SS notes that this
works well if we assume that if one does an issur d'rabbanan b'shogeg
there is no need for kapparah and it's as if one had not violated the
issur at all.

Based on this, I would argue that eating an issur d'rabbanan b'meizid
doesn't damage you because you did not eat a cheftza of issur; all you
did was go against the words of chachamim.

Kol tuv,
Moshe

On Thu, Jul 21, 2005 at 06:42:26PM +0200, Daniel Eidensohn wrote:
> Rabbi Falk "Modesty - an Adornment [for Life" -mi] page 47. "It is
> wrong to do most of these things even with pure intentions because ,
> they after all attract attention which is the antithesis of tznius....
>                                  It is similarly unrefined for a girl
> to sway excessively during davening as she displays her pious qualities
> for all to see....

The subject line presupposes that "typical" shuckling is permissible. The
statement below by Rav Yaakov Emden from page 38 of The Hasidic Movement
and the Gaon of Vilna by R. E. J. Schochet (taken from Hasidic Prayer by
Louis Jacobs, p. 57) seems to question the validity of this supposition.

    I trembled when I heard only recently that a new sect of foolish
    hasidim had arisen in Volhynia and Podoha, some of whom have come to
    this country, whose sole occupation is to study moral and kabbalistic
    works.
    They prolong their prayers for half the day, far longer than the
    hasidim of old who used to spend no more than an hour in prayer
    itself. Moreover, these men perform strange movements, weird and ugly,
    in the prayer of the eighteen Benedictions. They clap their hands and
    shake sideways with their head turned backwards and their face and
    eyes turned upwards, contrary to the ruling of the rabbis that the
    eyes should be directed downwards and the heart upwards. The Tanhuma
    only advocates that the eyes should be directed upwards when the
    Kedushah is recited and even then they should be closed. R. Menahem
    Azariah in a Responsum forbids any movement at all in prayer. I
    stormed the battlements time and again in order to discover some
    compromise whereby some slight and gentle motion of the body to and
    fro might be permitted, and this alone is permitted in order to bestir
    the vital powers. The teachers of old used to recite their prayers
    without any physical sensation. There is a maxim, based on the Zohar,
    "When they stood, they let down their wing? [Ezekiel 1:24]. But these
    men make wings for themselves wherewith to fly in the heavens. Ask
    yourself if they would dare to do so in the presence of a king of
    flesh and blood. Why, he would have them thrown out so that their
    limbs would be shattered and their bones broken. Verily, if I ever
    see those who do these things, which our fathers, of blessed memory,
    the true hasidim, never dreamed of doing, I shall break their legs
    with a bar of iron.

Yitzchok Levine

[I didn't write the below. In fact, my thesis is that sexuality is
not a defining feature of tzeni'us, just one of many ways in which a
person can inappropriately stand out. Ervah is a different din.- mi]

Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org> wrote:
> What attracts men to women is not the same thing as what
> : attracts women to men.

This brings up the question (again?) of whether attraction is a relative
phenomenon or an absolute phenomenon.

I don't know if there is an absolute standard for physical attraction. One
can posit that there is such a standard and that it is reflected
in Hilchos Erva. But I'm not sure that's true. That one culture is
attracted in ways that another isn't can be said to be a function of
desensitzation... or the reverse, over-sensitization.

In western culture, I would say that a woman's unbared upper arm is not an
attracting feature, eventhough it is considered Erva. That is because we
have become desensitzed to it. OTOH in a highly religious Muslim society
even the unbared face of a woman is an attracting feature, though it is
not Erva. In both examples it is a question of how one is sensitized.

IMHO, Hilchos Erva is a chok. Eventhough there are some clear Hirhur
situations that apply to all, they do not include all situations of
Halachic Erva. (Of course one can say that exposure to even the most
explicit Erva of a woman is not a universal cause of Hirhur since
homosexuals would not have any hirhur from such exposure. But I do
not include them since the are a minority veiw and Batel Datam Etzel
Kol Adam.)

HM

From: T613K@aol.com
> My father zt'l told a young FFB woman who found out that the young man
> she was seeing was a long-time BT (and a ben nidah) not to worry about
> it, because "yeshiva is a mikva."
> Presumably that means that Torah study and observance can rectify any
> bad midos or pegum resulting from mistakes made by the BT's parents.

Correct.
I have heard a very similar statement beshem the CI z'l.

SBA

From: "Gershon Dubin" <>
> Second try-anyone have a source for or explanation of the piece we say
> after putting on the shel rosh?

I too asked this question [though I don't think it was on this illustrious
forum] several years ago.

IIRC, I never got an appropriate reply. 
I searched quite a few siddurim but didn't find anything useful.

However I just looked up the Likutei Maharich and he explains [bederech
efshar] that the first part refers to the Zohar calling the 4 battim
of the tefilin shel rosh Chochmo, Bina, Chesed, Gevuro, while "veshemen
hatov" refers to the gemoro Shabbos 153a "veshemen al roshcho al yechsar -
elu tefilin sheberosh.."

Sounds OK to me.

SBA 

Continuing with where we left off in last year's slightly abridged
translation of Shulhan Arukh's laws of charity:
    <http://hirhurim.blogspot.com/2004/07/laws-of-charity.html>
    <http://hirhurim.blogspot.com/2004/07/laws-of-charity-ii.html
    <http://hirhurim.blogspot.com/2004/07/laws-of-charity-iii.html

Ch. 251

1. One is not obligated to support or lend money to someone who is
an intentional (and frequent--Shakh) sinner in one of the Torah's
commandments and has not repented.

Rema: We support the non-Jewish poor with the Jewish poor (and even not
with the Jewish poor--Shakh), because of "the ways of peace."

2. One is not allowed to redeem from captivity someone who is a spiteful
sinner, even on only one commandment such as eating non-kosher meat when
kosher is available. Rema: However, one may redeem one who sins out of
desire if one desires, but there is no obligation to do so.

3. It is considered to be tzedakah to give money to one's over-age
children (over the age of six--Shakh) in order to pay for their Torah
education for the boys or proper guidance for the girls; similarly, one
who gives present to his needy father. Additionally, these poor relatives
must have preference over other poor people. Even a relative who is
not one's child or parent has preference over others. A brother through
one's father has precendence over a brother through one's mother. The
poor of one's household have precedence over the city's poor, and the
poor of one's city have precedence over the poor of another city.

Rema: Those who are established in the city are considered the poor of
the city. They have precedence over the poor who come from other places.

Shulhan Arukh: Those who live in Israel have precedence
over those who live outside of Israel. (See this post
<http://hirhurim.blogspot.com/2004/10/local-and-israeli-poor.html>.)

Rema: One's own livelihood takes precedence over other people and one
is not obligated to give charity until one has one's own livelihood.

After that, one must give precedence to the livelihood of one's
parents, if they are poor, and they come before the livelihood of one's
children. After one's parents come one's children, who have precedence
over one's siblings. The siblings have precedence over other relative,
and these other relatives have precedence over neighbors. The neighbors
have precedence over the people of one's city, and the people of one's
city over the people of another city. This also applies if they are
captured and one must redeem them.

4. We obligate a father to feed [i.e. support] his son. Even if the son
is and adult, we obligate the father more than other wealthy people in
the city.

5. One who gave money to the charity treasurers, neither he nor his
heirs have control over the money and the community leaders should do
with it as is proper in the eyes of God and man.

Rema: However if, before the money arrives in the hands of the treasurer,
the donater vowed to give charity without specifying to whom, we give
to his poor relatives because we assume that his intention was to his
relatives. However, this is only if he had poor relatives at the time of
his vow. But if he had rich relatives who later became poor, we do not
give this money to them. This is all speaking about when he donates money
alone. However, when he donates money with other residents of the city,
he vowed with the intent of following the city's residents and whatever
they want to do should be done.

6. One should make the poor members of one's household.

7. One must feed the hungry before clothing the naked.

8. A man and woman who come to ask for food, the women receives
preference over the man. Similarly if they come to ask for clothes.
Also if a male and female orphan come to receive money for their weddings,
we give precedence to the female orphan.

9. If there are many poor people before you and not enough money to
support, clothe or redeem all of them, the Cohen has precedence over the
Levi, the Levi over the Israel... This is only talking about when they
are equal in wisdom but if a mamzer Torah scholar and an ignorant Cohen
come before you, the mamzer Torah scholar has precedence (Rema: Even
if the scholar requires only clothing while the ignorant one requires
even food. And a scholar's wife is considered like a scholar.) Whoever
is greater in wisdom has precedence. If one is a greater scholar than
one's father or mentor, the father or mentor still have precedence over
their greater student/child.

10. One who comes and asks to be fed, we do not investigate him to see if
he is deceiving us but, rather, we feed him immediately. If he comes and
asks to be! clothed, we investigate to see if he is deceiving us. However,
if we recognize him then we clothe him immediately.

12. Two poor people who are obligated to give charity, can exchange
equivalent money with each other.

13. A community that has to hire a rabbi and a cantor but cannot afford
both, if the rabbi is an expert in laws and giving rulings, he has
precedence. If not, the cantor has precedence.

Rema: One should not support the city's rabbi from charity money because
it is a disgrace to him and to the people of the city. Rather, they
should support him from another fund.

--
Posted by Gil Student to Hirhurim - Musings at 7/25/2005 10:25:00 PM

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


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