Avodah Mailing List

Volume 16 : Number 034

Monday, November 21 2005

• Re: Calling A Spade A Spade: Rambam and Kollel
• RE: Geirut
• Re: Geirut
• Re: Belief in HaShem
• Re: Pri aitz Hadar - Cedar cone?
• Re: Eliyahu was not a Cohen?
• Re: Eliyahu was not a Cohen?
• The Making of a Gadol
• RE: Eliyahu was not a Cohen?
• Re: Pri aitz Hadar - Cedar cone?
• Another Phantom Chazal?
• RE: Eliyahu was not a Cohen?
• Re: Geirut
• Why 2 angels?
• RE: Another Phantom Chazal?
• Another Phantom Chazal?
• bugs
• re: working as a b'diavad

On Tue, Nov 15, 2005 at 11:16:42AM -0500, David Riceman wrote:
: The Rambam says (my translation from H. Talmud Torah 1:11): "He should
: deduce conclusions [of syllogisms - see Milloth HaHigayon 6:3] from
: their premises, deduce one particular [davar] from another, compare
: one particular to another, and apply the hermeneutic principles until
: he understands their essence [? ikkar hamiddoth - I don't know what he
: means by this] and how to deduce the permitted and prohibited, etc.,
: from traditional sources."

: I had written in an earlier post:
: <Rashi is asking us to deduce general principles from specific laws,
: especially mishnaic laws (e.g., rubo k'kulo from shahat rov ehad b'of
: ...). The Rambam is asking us to find Biblical sources of specific laws,
: and to deduce specific laws from Biblical texts via the 13 middos.>

However, I do not see a focus on darshening texts in the Rambam,
rather, in order: deductive reasoning (acharis davar meirishoso),
logic/syllogistic reasoning (yotzi davar midavar), inductive reasoning
(yidmeh davar ledavar), understanding the system of derashah -- NOT using
it (ad sheyeida hei'ach hu iqar hamiddos), and how do we derive issur
and heter and the like from the things he learned mipi hasmu'ah. Mipi
hashemu'ah does not sound like miqra to me.

The only mention of derashos is in the context of "hei'ach hu iqar",
understanding the derashah system, not applying it. And I would think this
is mucharach, since even amora'im did not make their own derashos, and
the Rambam is writing pragmatically, not theoretically. As is continued
in halakhah 12, "keitzad..."

: RMB had suggested that one of the phrases "deduce conclusions [of
: syllogisms - see Milloth HaHigayon 6:3] from their premises, deduce
: one particular [davar] from another, compare one particular to another"
: might mean deducing general principles from particulars, which I take
: as equivalent to his "lomdus". I don't see it in the words.

so, I got the sense of the Rambam focusing on building sevarah, and on
building a coherent system to understand how sevarah and derashah work.
More from the seifa, where he talks about learning the system behind
deduction, logic, and induction. Perhaps I abused the term, but that's
what I meant when I said "lomdus".

Gut Voch!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger                 Time flies...
micha@aishdas.org                    ... but you're the pilot.
http://www.aishdas.org                       - R' Zelig Pliskin
Fax: (270) 514-1507      

[RZS:]
> "Rich, Joel" <JRich@Segalco.com> wrote:
>> Some time back we discussed what we would tell a ben noach who came to 
>> us and asked whether hkbh wanted him to convert.  I was thinking about 
>> the bracha a ger makes upon geirut.  What mitzvah is he saying it on? 
>> Who is commanded?

> Which bracha? "Al hatevilah"? He says that *after* he has become Jewish,
> and is therefore commanded to immerse himself on certain occasions,
> one of them being on becoming a Jew....
> Now if the ger were to say a bracha "AKBV lehitgayer", then your question
> would make sense.

Let me expand my question.
There are 2 brachot I had in mind:

1. The bracha said by the ger after tvilah - AIUI most authorities(I
believe R'YBS was not among them) hold this bracha is a birchat hamitzvah
said after asiyatan because the ger can't say it over lasiyatan because
he's not yet a Jew. So does that mean he was commanded retroactively? (as
a nonJew what is his tzivui the second before tvila? Is it a mitzva
kiyummit on a nonJew to convert?)

2. The mohel makes the b'racha lamul es hageirim - Is there a mitzvah
to convert nonJews, who does it fall on?

KT
Joel Rich

Rich, Joel wrote:
> 1. The bracha said by the ger after tvilah - AIUI  most authorities(I 
> believe R'YBS was not among them) hold this bracha is a birchat 
> hamitzvah said after asiyatan because the ger can't say it over 
> lasiyatan because he's not yet a Jew.  So does that mean he was 
> commanded retroactively? (as a nonJew what is his tzivui the second 
> before tvila? Is it a mitzva kiyummit on a nonJew to convert?)

"Gito veyado ba'in ke'echad", so to speak. As he immerses himself he
becomes obligated in all the mitzvot, including the mitzvah that a ger
must immerse himself; so he must make a bracha.

> 2. The mohel makes the b'racha lamul es hageirim - Is there a mitzvah to 
> convert nonJews, who does it fall on?

I don't think there's a mitzvah on beit din to convert anyone, but when
a beit din is converting a man, they have a mitzvah to circumcise him.
Call it a mitzvah kiyumit, like shechitah or maakeh (or tzitzit).

-- 
Zev Sero
zev@sero.name

On Thu, Nov 17, 2005 at 03:25:31PM -0500, Samuel Svarc wrote:
: On one side of the debate we find.
: "Gedolim who say".
: And on the other side of the debate we find.
: "I [R'HM] resp[e]ctfully disagree".

If this were lema'aseh, then invoking authority would be relavent.
But this is a discussion list. Give me sevaros. Not some "the
gedolim hold".

: As for, "I'm sorry, I cannot prevent my mind from thinking and denying
: thought is intellectually dishonest". You're being disingenuous, there
: are explicit mitzvos in the Torah that deal with thoughts; some a person
: *must* have, some a person is *not* allowed to have.

The Rambam seems to avoid them. Ahavas Hashem he defines as studying
the beri'ah and the Torah to bring oneself to ahavah. The Rambam begins
hilkhos teshuvah by counting vidui -- not the thought process -- as a
chiyuv. Vechulu.

And I do not find it disingenious to wonder how we can be commanded
to believe something, given how hard it is to excercise bechirah about
whether or not an argument seems convincing. Kavanah, hirhurim -- they
require someone choosing to focus and concentrate. In my experience,
pushing myself to pay attention is far easier.

I find RHM's logistic problems with REW's position quite real,
deserving more than a hand wave.

Gut Voch!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Here is the test to find whether your mission
micha@aishdas.org        on Earth is finished:
http://www.aishdas.org   if you're alive, it isn't.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Richard Bach

On Thu, Nov 17, 2005 at 07:33:47AM +0200, Akiva Atwood wrote:
: While researching an article on Esrogim Gila found the following claim:
:> knife. The etrog is still used today in the Feast of Tabernacles ritual
:> during the holiday of Sukkot. The original ritual called for a fruit
:> of the hadar tree, or the cedar tree whose cone was called kedros in
:> Greek. Kedros was Latinized as cedrus and this eventually turned into
:> citrus.

: Which seems historically accurate (citrus not arriving in the Middle
: East until 500 BCE).
: However, for a frum article she can't use a non-Jewish source. Does
: anyone know of any authoritative Jewish sources for this?

I doubt one would find a frum source saying that we switched from taking
a cedar cone to taking a citron. One would have to explain the bal tosif
/ bal tigra issues. Not to mention justifying the pesul of murqav for
something HQBH didn't even ask for!

My bet is that just as they now realize there were camels in Kena'an in
Avraham's day after all, they're going to find evidence of esrogim in
Yehoshua's Israel.

(Pity about the camels. R' Love has a nice vort based on the idea that
Avraham was unique. If you notice, the first mention of the avos getting
camels is when Avraham is given them in Mitzrayim.)

Gut Voch!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             When you come to a place of darkness,
micha@aishdas.org        you don't chase out the darkness with a broom.
http://www.aishdas.org   You light a candle.
Fax: (270) 514-1507        - R' Yekusiel Halberstam of Klausenberg zt"l

From: Zev Sero <zev@sero.name>
> <SNIP>I'm saying that since Eliyahu knew by nevu'ah that he could save
>him, it was permitted under ordinary halacha as pikuach nefesh. <SNIP>

That Eliyahu knew that he could save the child is a b'fersher Tosfos
(Baba Metzie 114b T.H. Umar Leh). That's the third time I posted the
mareh makom to Avodah (MSS pouts, stamps his foot...). But whence do you
know that it was through *nevuah*? IMHO, Tosfos is mashmia not that way.

KT,
MSS

Samuel Svarc wrote:
> That Eliyahu knew that he could save the child is a b'fersher Tosfos
> (Baba Metzie 114b T.H. Umar Leh). That's the third time I posted the
> mareh makom to Avodah (MSS pouts, stamps his foot...).

Tosfos says that since he knew he could save him it was pikuach nefesh;
the question we've been discussing here is how he could have relied on
knowledge gained through supernatural means. One objection raised was
"ein somchin al hanes".

> But whence do you
> know that it was through *nevuah*? IMHO, Tosfos is mashmia not that way.

How else could he possibly know it?

-- 
Zev Sero
zev@sero.name

> Is a person who knows Shas backwards and forwards with all Rishonim
> and most Achronim a Gadol if no one knows about him?

I think that there is a confusion of terminology. Not all gadlus is
in limud Torah some people are gedolim by virtue of their neshomos and
tzidkus. (That is how R. Volbe said it to me.) When people throw the
term 'Gadol' around they are usually refering to those Gedolim who are
"Manhigim", which is a subset of Gedolim. There are/were great RYs like
R. Abba Berman, R. Beinush Finkel, the Tchebiner Rebbe... who were
Gedolim in limud haTorah and tzidkus but never (or rarely) took the
mantel of manhigus. It seems people often use the term Gadol to refer
to that group which are also Manhigim, which I think is a mistake.

bk

On November 16, 2205 Micha Berger wrote:

> It may well mean that being a navi is necessary to uproot an actual
> chiyuv or issur. Which would therefore require Eliyahu hanavi to act al
> pi nevu'ah that he would save the boy in order to violate his kehunah --
> if you're using "eis la'asos" as the mechanism for explaining how he
> could have been a kohein.

I am not entirely clear on your meaning but in case of any misunderstanding,
I wish to once again clarify that I am not assuming that Eliyahu required
eiss la'assos to be mitameh; rather he performed the tichiyas hamaisim al pi
the hora'as sha'ah mechanism described in the Rambam that a person with
Nevua is able to invoke temporarily.  BTY, although a HS al pi nevua may
possibly be stronger than the geder of eiss la'assos, there is one aspect
about EL that is greater than the HS of a navi and that is that EL can also
be permanent, like the kesivas haMishna, for instance.

Gut voch

Simcha Coffer

Just found this on Wikpedia "Etrog":
> It is possible that the Jews brought the tree with them from Babylonia to
> the Land of Israel on their return from Babylonian captivity. However,
> this theory has been rejected by later scholars (Isaac, Science
> 129:179-85, 1959). Andrews (Agr. Hist. 35(1):35-46, 1961) associates
> the Biblical word hadar with the Assyrian "adaru" (citron), thus placing
> the etrog firmly in Jewish hands in Biblical times.

Hadar has an Assyrian cognate meaning "citron". So much for the cedar
cone.


Gut Voch!
-mi

[Kindly do not send posts to both Areivim and Avodah. -mi]

Eso einay el hahorim - "Al tikri horim elo hoyrim..."

Anyone know a source for this much-used quote?

SBA

From: Zev Sero [mailto:zev@sero.name]
>Tosfos says that since he knew he could save him it was pikuach nefesh;

The way I learn the Tosfos is as follows, "It was clear to him that he
would revive the child, therefore it was permitted because of pikuach
nefesh." It was "clear", not that he had "knowledge" which would
imply nevuah. Reviving the dead is a level; once one attains it, one
has attained it, and need not come onto nevuah to know that he will be
successful. The braissah that the Mesillas Yeshorim is based on says this
almost explicitly, "...Ruach HaKodesh brings to the Revival of the Dead."

MSS:
>> But whence do you
>> know that it was through *nevuah*? IMHO, Tosfos is mashmia not that way.

R'ZS:
>How else could he possibly know it?

He had attained the level of being capable to revive the dead, like we
see other people mentioned in Shas were capable of (the famous story on
Purim...), and he knew he could to it.

KT,
MSS

"Samuel Svarc" <ssvarc@yeshivanet.com> wrote:
> AFAIK it's k'tzas mashmia in the Gemara, that HKBH *is* interested in a
> sincere convert. OTOH, *we* are required to try to dissuade him. I would
> suggest not answering the question directly, but to say something like
> the following, "What would give you that idea? In fact we're required
> to try to dissuade you!"

I don't believe we *are* supposed to try to dissuade him. I think this
is a major misconception. What we are supposed to do is make a full
disclosure, of both the positives and the negatives. Like the army, we
want recruits, but only ones who are committed, and will stay through
the bad times as well as the good. If he is going to quit as soon as
things get tough, we'd rather that he not join us in the first place,
and we certainly don't want him to have a just complaint that we tricked
him, that he didn't know what he was getting involved with.

If you look at "the speech", e.g. in YD 268:2, it says "and just as we
tell him the punishment of the mitzvot, we also tell him their reward,
and let him know that by doing these mitzvot he will merit the Next World
[...] the Next World is hidden away exclusively for the righteous, i.e.
the Jews [...] and we expand on this theme in order to attract him".
What I get from this is that it's just as important *not* to dissuade
a genuine applicant as it is to dissuade one who isn't genuine.

-- 
Zev Sero
zev@sero.name

Since only 2 angels were "on duty" at Avrohom's tent, why did all 3 come?

Couldn't find anybody puzzled by this, including the meforshim to BM 86:

- Danny

[RSBA:]
> Eso einay el hahorim - "Al tikri horim elo hoyrim..."
> Anyone know a source for this much-used quote?

See Breishit Rabbah parsha 68 or yalkut shimoni vayetze 117 for something
close sounding (courtesy BICD)

KT
Joel Rich

> Re the query on a source for:
> Eso einay el hahorim - "Al tikri horim elo hoyrim..."

See Breishis Rabba, Parshas VaYeitzei, second paragraph from the beginning
of the parsha (68:2). Not exactly the way it's been quoted, but I think
close enough.

Yitzchok Brandriss 

[Search the archives for the word copepod... -mi]

it's common knowledge that if a bug isn't visible to the naked eye that
it has no halachik ramifications (vis a vis kashrus at least).

My question is, why doesn't this apply to bugs that aren't distinguishable
from a spec of dirt as well? If something is so small that we can't
distinguish that it's a briah w/o modern technology (i.e. a microscope),
why is it different? Yes, we can "see" it, but if we'd have no idea
what it is w/o modern technology, why is that different?

Or to take it a step backwards, what would chazal have considered
the item?

> I wouldn't characterize "having a job" as being a b'dieved by the
> Torah-Only crowd. They look at it as not the optimum.

In other words, given the choice, one should prefer learning only; it is
only as a second choice that he should take a job. How does that differ
from b'dieved?

> Surprisingly enough, in some way, you agree with them. It would appear
> from your post that you're not from the Torah-Only people. I'm sure
> though, that you stand up for your Rav (and any TC). However, if a job
> is just as optimum as learning, then why are *you* standing as opposed to
> them? Now, I know that you'll answer that in the choice to learn or work,
> neither is better or some such thing, but learning brings along other
> things (knowledge of Torah etc.), and they are the cause that you stand
> for a TC. Fine, but you agree that on some level it's better to learn.

Try as I will, I can't make sense out of this argument. We don't stand
to honor what the person does, but what he possesses. In other words,
if a person spends yomam valailah learning, but has nothing to show
for it, there is no obligation to stand for him. On the other hand,
if he works, but is a talmid chacham, one _is_ obligated to stand.
It's for mi shekana chochmah, not for mi shekoneh; it's for what he
knows, not what he's in the process of trying to obtain. There are,
among those who work, talmidei chachamim who are greater in Torah than
the majority of those in the "Torah only" camp. How does standing for
a talmid chacham impinge on the question of which derech is better?

> Finally, how do people ,who believe in Torah-Only as the optimum,
> deal with the fact that the Torah has mitzvos that apply to working
> stiffs? Well, in a general way, they answer that, "Harboh asu K'Reb
> Shimon v'lo olso b'yotom", since the chait of eitz hadass people by
> definition will need to work, and therefore the Torah tells you how to
> approach it. Similar to the fact that the Torah specifies the korban
> a sinner brings, and teshuvah is a mitzvah. No one understands that as
> condoning sinning.

I don't think the argument is about the fact that there are dinim about
work. It's about the fact that it seems to be preferred to combine
work with one's learning, as indicated by "y'rei Hashem, haholech
bidrachav -- y'gia kapecha ki socheil, ashrecha (ba'olam hazeh) v'tov
lach (ba'olam haba)." And in quoting the harbei asu kR. Shimon, remember
that R. Yishmael al asar disagrees, and considers it obligatory to work.
True, there are t'shuvos permitting taking support and not working,
but the reason given is eis la'asos, not that it is the preferred way.

Furthermore, those t'shuvos were written primarily for rabbonim, and
by extension to their talmidim. It wasn't stated as a general way of
life for every bochur who marries, whether or not he has the potential
of l'hagdil Torah, and with no supervision as to whether he actually is
spending all his time productively.

I know that when the wife is the wage earner, and a baby-sitter does not
arrive, more often than not it is the father who takes off from seder
to care for the children. If Torah is his umnus, is he not indicating
that his wife's is worth more than his, since he sacrifices his for hers?

> Besides, in all honesty, *no one* understands the mind of G-d. Hashem
> gave us mitzvos and *that's* why we follow them.

And according to R. Yishmael, one of them is "v'asafta d'ganecha."

I often am asked to read the k'suba at weddings. When the chasan is a
ben Torah, I am tempted to omit the phrase "amar la . . . va'ana eflach
v'okir v'eizon va'afarnes yasichi lichi," knowing full well that such a
statement was neither said nor intended, despite its being "hilchos guvrin
y'huda'in." Chaza"l apparently did not expect "Torah only" behavior.

EMT

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


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