Avodah Mailing List

Volume 16 : Number 074

Tuesday, December 27 2005

• Joseph and His Father
• Re: a person who is in the "wrong body"
• Leil nittel
• Re: a person who is in the "wrong body"
• Re: a person who is in the "wrong body"
• RE: Length of Maaseh Breshis has no impact on halacha
• Re: Length of Maaseh Breshis has no impact on halacha (science of origins is speculative and suspect)
• Re: Length of Maaseh Breshis has no impact on halacha (science of origins is speculative and suspect)
• Re: Joseph and His Father
• RE: Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky and Length of Maaseh Breshis
• Re: Length of Maaseh Breshis has no impact on halacha (science of origins is speculative and suspect)
• age of the universe
• RE: Length of Maaseh Breshis has no impact on halacha (science of origins is speculative and suspect)
• RE: age of the universe

There are 4 opinions in the gemara on the status of the androgynous: 

a) doubtful male and doubtful female [Tana Kama in Mishna Bikkurim 4;
R. Yosi in the mishna in Yevamot 81a and Resh lakish in the gemara there]

b) a *birya* unto itself and its status has not been determined [Braita
in Yevamot 83a; Ramban in last section of Yevamot and in his Hilchot
Bechorot Chapter 6; ROSH Bechorot Chapter 6 Siman 8]

c) partially male and partially female [Tosfot Yevamot 83a; RAAVAD on
Rambam Hilchot Shofar 2:12 and in Hilchot Terumot 7:16]

d) definite male [R. Elizer in the Mishna Yevamot 81a]

Most halachic decisors have ruled as per #1 (doubtful male and doubtful
female) [RIF in Yevamot; Rambam Hilchot Mila 3:6; Rambam Hilchot Ishut
2:24; TUR Orach Chaim 331 # 5; TUR Yoreh Deah 194; BACH in TUR Yoreh
Deah 265; GRA Even haEzer 172 s"k 18].

The androgynous is required to observe all mitzvot (even "she'hazmna
gerama"). Many of the laws are detailed in the Encylopedia talmudit
under *androgynous*.

PLASTIC SURGERY: by halacha it is forbidden to perform plastic surgery
to change the sex to female even if chromosomal tests indicate female
gender [Tzitz Eliezer Chelek XI Siman 78]. Many reasons are given for
this prohibition. See also the article in ASSIA (Volume 1 pg. 142) by
Rav Moshe Steinberg. The Nishmat Avraham [Even ha'Ezer 44 #3] however,
indicates that *if* all internal reproductory organs are female then one
may perform plastic surgery [as per Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach]. This
was the case too in the Tzitz Eliezer XI 78 when he in fact permitted
surgery when all organs were female

[Email #2. -mi]

The Ramban (Miketz 42:8) asks why Joseph did not contact his mourning
father for 22 years, being a mere 6 days distance from Egypt to
Hebron. Some mefarshim find his explanation difficult. I thought of
another explanation in the 1970's, based upon peshat (and supported by
Midrashim) which basically proposes that Joseph thought his father was
"in it" together with his brothers, and had no interest in knowing his
situation. I carried this chiddush around with me for about 10 years,
when I finally found someone who said it before: Looking through the
front and back material of the Talmud Yerushalmi, I came across a work
called "HaSh'mattas Mi-HaYerushalmi, by Shmuel Shraga Feigenson (where
he quotes passages from sefarim that quote passages of the Yerushalmi
that we don't have in our editions). At the end of this work, he is
left with a half page of blank paper, and says that in order not to
waste space, he will fill it with two of his chiddushim, one of which
is the mehalach I have given for why Joseph did not inform his father
he was alive. He closes by wondering why no of the "ba'aley ha-peshat"
have suggested it!

In earlier Avodah posts, I have seen RYGB and others refer to R.
Shmuel David Luzzatto's commentary which also gives this explanation. (I
have yet to see it.)

I paste in a shiur of R. M. Liebtag also available on his site for
Vayeshev that says something similar but in a wider context.

Why Doesn't Yosef Write Home?  
Until this point, we have focused on the brothers' perception of the
"bechira" process. Now, we shift our focus onto Yosef's perception of the
"bechira" process, in order to answer our second question: Why didn't
Yosef write home? First, let's explain our question. Considering Yosef's
very close relationship with his father [recall that he was Yaakov's "ben
zkunim" - _see 37:3_ (http://www.tanach.org/breishit/miketz/text1.htm) ],
one would expect him to have made every possible attempt to contact his
father. Yet, even after his appointment as head servant of the House of
Potiphar, Yosef makes no effort to inform his father that he is alive
and well. And surely, after his appointment as the Commissioner of
Egypt, second only to Pharaoh, Yosef should have no problem whatsoever
contacting his father. Nevertheless, Yosef doesn't seem to bother. It
appears that Yosef has wiped his past from his memory.

[The rest of the devar Torah is available at
<http://www.tanach.org/breishit/miketz/shiur4.htm>. I couldn't make
sense of the formatting of the rest of RML's post. -mi]

T613K@aol.com wrote:
> I was asked the following question/series of questions off-list and I
> wonder what this chevra would answer. My sense is that what is talked
> about here must be assur, but what about ex post facto, what would be
> the status of this person?

According to Tzitz Eliezer, the operation is halachically effective, and
a post-op M2F transsexual is now a woman; her wife does not need a get,
because she is no longer an "eshet ish", and there is no such thing as
"eshet isha". She is also now patur from mitzvot asei shehazman grama,
etc. She may marry a man (at least to the extent that any woman known to
be barren may do so), and if she has relations with a woman the issur of
"nashim hamesolelot" (whatever it means) applies. And the reverse is
true for a F2M: he is now chayav bemitzvot, may marry a woman, and may
not be with a man.

As for whether the operation can be permitted lechatchila, in principle
it seems obvious that it is not, because it is surgical sterilisation,
which according to some is assur even for benei noach. However, it seems
to me that this issur is only in principle, and never applies in practise.
AFAIK, it is impossible to get this surgery, at least in any Western
country, without a determination by a psychiatrist (and I have a vague
impression that at least some jurisdictions require two psychiatrists)
that the person suffers from extreme gender dysphoria, to the point
where the surgery is necessary for the patient's mental health. IOW if
the person does not have the surgery, serious consequences may result.
It seems to me that in such a case the surgery should be mutar, because
of medical necessity. And since AFAIK *every* case falls under this
exception, it turns out that in practise the exception is the rule.

Kol zeh, of course, is purely le'aniyut da'ati.

-- 
Zev Sero
zev@sero.name

 From: "Menachem Butler" <menachembutler@hotmail.com>
> R. Daniel Z. Feldman has a shiur entitled "Nitle Nach," delivered
> this past year at Yeshiva University, available at www.YUTorah.org
> (http://www.yutorah.org/showShiur.cfm?shiurID=706369).

Sorry Rabbi feldman commences his Shiur by saying that the word Nittel
comes from death or "hanging"- and therefore commemorates the death of
Yoshki. Firstly, 25th December celebrates his birth. secondly, Nittel
comes from the latin Natal meaning birth....

It's good to get your starting position right!!

Harry Maryles <hmaryles@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I don't think there is any question. A person's gender does not change
> halachicly because of the mutilation of his or her genitalia.

Do you have a makor for that? The only source I know of that discusses
the question is Tzitz Eliezer, who says that the operation does indeed
change the person's halachic sex. Now maybe there is someone else who
holds differently, and has proofs or arguments against the Tz"E, but I
don't know of anyone.

-- 
Zev Sero
zev@sero.name

Zev Sero <zev@sero.name> wrote:
> According to Tzitz Eliezer, the operation is halachically effective, and
> a post-op M2F transsexual is now a woman; her wife does not need a get,
> because she is no longer an "eshet ish", and there is no such thing as
> "eshet isha". She is also now patur from mitzvot asei shehazman grama,
> etc. She may marry a man (at least to the extent that any woman known to
> be barren may do so), and if she has relations with a woman the issur of
> "nashim hamesolelot" (whatever it means) applies. And the reverse is
> true for a F2M: he is now chayav bemitzvot, may marry a woman, and may
> not be with a man.

I find this shocking. Are there any other Poskim who speak about this
issue? It woiuld seem to me that a Crus Shafcha is still considered to
be a male. A woman who has male genitalia surgically attached should
still be considered a man. And a man who has his genitalia removed should
still be a man.

I would think that the gender of an individual is dertermined by
birth. For example an Androgenus is an Androgenus, even if he/she has
his/her male genitalia removed, isn't he/she?

HM

Thu, 22 Dec 2005 R. SSC <rivkyc@sympatico.ca> wrote:

On December 22, 2005, Daniel Eidensohn wrote: 
> S & R Coffer wrote [quoting me -- ZL]: 
>>"One may want to introduce new, unheard of interpretations of the psukim 
>>and chazal, but this is not Torah following a mesorah. Such methods 
>>were used to buttress Christianity, Islam and Shabbzai Tvi-ism, and 
>>have no place among bnai Torah. As Rambam says regarding the Karaites, 
>>once they rejected the mesorah of Chazal, they were free to interpret 
>>the Torah at will." 

RSC:
> Within context, the quote obviously means that 
> whenever someone comes up with chidushei Torah, they must be advanced 
> in a responsible format such that they reflect the general traditions 
> of our collective messorah.

I thank Reb Simcha for clarifying my thoughts. "Unheard of
interpretations" was a poor choice of words. "Devarim shello shema'assan
ha-ozen" (as in Eruvin 54b) are surely to be appreciated.

(Note to Reb Micha: There is no conspiracy to avoid objections to
repeating one's previous posts, by like-thinkers taking the tack of
re-posting each others' posts. It just turned out that way, and I for one
will try to avoid repeating this in the future ("barring extraordinary
circumstances," as they say in Congress ;-) )

Zvi Lampel 

On 12/26/05, Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org> wrote:
> Not at all. Noether's Theorem shows that for conservation of energy
> to hold now, the laws of the universe must be unchanging. IOW, current
> conservation testifies to a lack of historical change.

There is no proof of conservation of energy. There was an older law
of conservation of energy that was disproven by Einstein and replaced
with a new one. There is nothing that says that our current law won't
be replaced.

Kol Tuv,
Shmuel

On Mon, Dec 26, 2005 at 02:59:50PM -0500, Shmuel Weidberg wrote:
:> Not at all. Noether's Theorem shows that for conservation of energy
:> to hold now, the laws of the universe must be unchanging. IOW, current
:> conservation testifies to a lack of historical change.

: There is no proof of conservation of energy. There was an older law
: of conservation of energy that was disproven by Einstein and replaced
: with a new one. There is nothing that says that our current law won't
: be replaced.

Actually, Einstein redefined energy. Not the law of conservation. IOW,
energy is still conserved, but since mass turns out to be energy, the
law is now the conservation of mass + energy.

But in any case, you're appealing to the fact that science is a process
of successive approximation. Yes, that means that every theory is likely
to contain errors. But it also means that as the experiments accumulate,
the margin of error decreases over time. IOW, we have reason to believe
they're closer and closer to the truth.

As already pointed out by more than one party -- their agreement that
the universe actually had a begining, regardless of when, is WAY closer
than the steady state model of the universe that preceded it.

As frum Jews we should have MORE confidence in scientific results than
ever before, not less.

-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

On Fri, 2005-12-23 at 14:39 -0500, Zvi Lampel wrote:
> I thought of
> another explanation in the 1970's, based upon peshat (and supported by
> Midrashim) which basically proposes that Joseph thought his father was
> "in it" together with his brothers, and had no interest in knowing his
> situation....

Sun, 25 Dec 2005 R. Shaya Potter <spotter@yucs.org> posted:
> Does this pshat really fit with "Ha'od Avi Chai?"

Yes. Very well. I thought it was clear in the presentation. Yosef could
not imagine his father would have refrained from rescuing him or getting
in touch with him, unless either he felt as the brothers did, or he was
not alive. Upon hearing from Yehudah that Yaakov thought Yosef was killed
by a beast, he burst out "I am Yosef!

Zvi Lampel

Last night I went to sleep reading that sefer to see if I could
find it. I saw that piece, but in all fairness I don't think it can be
characterized as "where the justification for holding this view is stated
clearly." He doesn't mention the time of MB once. He _does_ mention that
time is relative, but that is not in connection to the A of U. He speaks
about the fact that other worlds were destroyed in order to make ours;
this doesn't require time, and he doesn't state that it took time.

Bottom line: I doubt that any one reading the sefer (which I highly
recommend) will realize that R' Belsky believes that to be a valid belief.

KT,
MSS

On 12/26/05, Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org> wrote:
> But in any case, you're appealing to the fact that science is a process
> of successive approximation. Yes, that means that every theory is likely
> to contain errors. But it also means that as the experiments accumulate,
> the margin of error decreases over time. IOW, we have reason to believe
> they're closer and closer to the truth.

Science is on a twisty path. Ultimately they ought to get to the truth,
and they should be getting closer. But, if the path is pointing in a
certain direction, Science tends to say that the truth is that which
appears to be straight ahead when in fact, Science knows that the path
is likely to make = a sharp turn some time in the future.

Just because Cosmology has come to a closer agreement with the Torah,
is no proof that it will there. It's just a coincidence. Tomorrow there
will be some data that will take it farther away and the next day there
will be mor= e data that will bring it closer again.

Kol Tuv,
Shmuel

JSO presents a lengthy post of difficulties with cosmology.
IMHO he misses the key point. While no serious scientist will deny that
there are serious problems in cosmology including dark matter and many
other mysteries this has absolutely nothing to do with the minimal age
of the universe. No serious astronomer will date the universe as less
than several billion years based on many different pieces of evidence.
It is easy to throw out that maybe the speed of light is not constant.
However to be taken seriously one needs to show hoe this variable speed
accounts for the red shifts and many other details of spectroscopy. It
also needs to account for the background radiation at a specific
temperature which is one of the main proofs of the age of the universe.
As I have before I again recommend the book "The Big Bang" by Singh
that details the fights between the steady state advocates and the big
bang people and why big bang won. He also discusses some of the dating
techniques.

JSp states
> I have spent most of
> my adult life working with engineers and scientists and have a healthy
> respect for much of their work.

However, in fields like geology, earthquake theory and even meteorology
is there a strong use of changes over eons of time. Not all uses of an
ancient universe/earth are pure speculation.

The "anti-science" rabbis harp on the fact that science is not perfect. It
has made mistakes and many things are in state of flux. They mistake the
frontiers of science which indeed do change to more basic science which is
accepted by everyone. It would be equivalent to say that we don't have a
cure for cancer and so the theory of circulation of the blood in suspect!

In fact theories of how hereditary qualities are passed to children in
the gemara and rishonim are simply wrong. Sternberg's article points to
many difficulties since chazal and rishonim and even early achronim did
not know about the circulatory system. Should we reject modern genetics
and circulation because medicine has its problems and say we rather
trust chazal more than medicine (in fact some modern poskim actually
take that viewpoint).

kol tuv,
 --
Eli Turkel

> [JSO]
>: Again, on the issue of VSL (variable speed of light) theories, I quote the
>: published scientific literature which RMB then ignores without bringing
>: legitimate sources of his own to back up his position.

> [RMB]
> Because citing three crackpots does nothing. Why not at least 
> cite Dirac, who has some name recognition. Then I can cite 
> why his idea didn't get anywhere, and why Gamow ran with his 
> idea that G descreases over time while e increases -- to 
> produce the same effect, and it is more logically sound.

I find it strange that you appear to think that peer reviewed venues such
as Cambridge University Press and Physical Review Letters and science
magazines such as Scientific American are populated with "crackpots"
(and by the way with many more than three should you take the time to
follow the references I provided). After Dirac passed away, many new
experiments and problems have appeared and the new brand of VSL theories
actually date from John Moffat's work in 1992, and it is true that he
found it hard to get his work published because they were considered
radical. However, all this changed and by 1999 his work was published in
the journal "Physics Letters" and VSL theories are now plan B. Finally,
I consider all these theories to be speculative (again please see my
demarcation criteria) and I merely use these sources for showing the
weakness of uniformitarian assumptions and a variety of other untestable
suppositions that are present in all dating methods. I think you need
to understand the published scientific literature and if the sources I
quote are considered crackpot then you should easily be able to prove
this from the published scientific literature, but until then I see
little point in continuing this discussion.

Just to put Dirac into perspective and to lighten matters :-) I heard
from Prof. Nathan Aviezer that they were discussing prophets (e.g. Allah
is G-d and Mohammed is his prophet) to which Wolfgang Pauli remarked,
"If I understand Dirac correctly, his meaning is this: there is no G-d,
and Dirac is his Prophet." Wikipidia relates a well known joke about Pauli
in the physics community which goes as follows: After his death, Pauli
was granted an audience with G-d. Pauli asked G-d why the fine structure
constant has the value 1/(137.036...). G-d nodded, went to a blackboard,
and began scribbling equations at a furious pace. Pauli watched Him with
great satisfaction, but soon began shaking his head violently...

>: Is string theory in trouble? [New Scientist interview with Stanford
>: physicist Leonard Susskind inventor of string theory, 17 
>: December 2005 ] ...

> Back a step. Is "String Theory" a theory? Ask a theoretical physicist.
> It's not. There is no resulting formula and no falsifiability, yet.
> There are hundreds of versions of the "theory" and at this 
> point they're still winnowing down which ones are viable.

Agreed, but as we see from the article it is called "string theory" and
it is in trouble and it (or something) is needed to resolve fundamental
contradictions between QM and relativity, which may have a fundamental
impact on any resulting theory of origins. However, the main point of
bringing this quote was the demarcation problem -- i.e. the point at
which naturalists leave the legitimate domain of scientific knowledge
and make it into a religion -- as Susskind states:

"If, for some unforeseen reason, the landscape turns out to
be inconsistent - maybe for mathematical reasons, or because it
disagrees with observation - I am pretty sure that physicists will go
on searching for natural explanations of the world. But I have to say
that if that happens, as things stand now WE WILL BE IN A VERY AWKWARD
POSITION. WITHOUT ANY EXPLANATION OF NATURE'S FINE-TUNINGS we will be
hard pressed to answer the ID critics. ONE MIGHT ARGUE THAT THE HOPE
THAT A MATHEMATICALLY UNIQUE SOLUTION WILL EMERGE IS AS FAITH-BASED AS
ID." [emphasis added].

Kol Tuv and a freilichin Chanukah ... JSO

 From: Eli Turkel [mailto:eliturkel@gmail.com] 
> JSO presents a lengthy post of difficulties with cosmology.
> IMHO he misses the key point. While no serious scientist will 
> deny that there are serious problems in cosmology including 
> dark matter and many other mysteries this has absolutely 
> nothing to do with the minimal age of the universe. No 
> serious astronomer will date the universe as less than 
> several billion years based on many different pieces of evidence. 

I agree that cosmology faces serious problems. I agree that scientists
date the world to billions of years at a minimum and I never said
differently.

However, the question is whether these experts are making the same kind of
mistake made by Einstein (and his contemporaries) when he thought based on
the theories and evidence of his day that the universe was static with a
minimum age of t = -\infinity. My own method is to attempt to demarcate
theories that are credible because they are based on sound empirical
evidence and those that are less credible because they rely on untested
presuppositions (see my posts over the last year for the details). My
challenge to you is, provide any evidence on dating that you like, but
please, also provide along with it any untested foundational assumptions
(if any), vast extrapolations, stubborn anomalies etc.

Another point due to Richard Weaver is that as a layman I do not question
the facts assembled by qualified scientists, although what constitutes a
fact is itself sometimes debatable. So let's say that I do not question
the empirical evidence. But if men are to be convinced that we are merely
the product of billions of years of unsupervised chance and necessity,
then we have the right to ask about the connection between the factual
evidence and the conclusion when that connection is not apparent and
does not follow the necessary laws of thought. The layman has the right
to ask about the way in which the facts have been handled and whether
all the relevant facts have been taken into consideration.

Kol Tuv ... JSO

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


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