Avodah Mailing List

Volume 22: Number 3

Wed, 06 Dec 2006

• 1. Re: Yetzer HoRa Issues (kennethgmiller@juno.com)
• 2. Re: Yetzer HoRa Issues (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: Yichud and fostering (Chana Luntz)
• 4. Re: Yichud and fostering (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: [Areivim] Tsniut (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: Yetzer HoRa Issues (Litke, Gary)
• 7. Re: Sinai - Rambam - heard all or nothing? (Zvi Lampel)
• 8. Re: BLC (Rich, Joel)
• 9. Re: Putting oneself in danger (ben waxman)

R' Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer referred to
> the fundamental statement made by Chazal (Koheles Rabbah 4:15)
> ... that while  one is  born with his or her yetzer ho'ra, the
> yetzer ha'tov only begins its development at the age of bar or
> bas mitzvah.

Then he noted nine questions which someone raised on that Chazal. I'd 
like to add three more:

10) Many children do seem to have a desire to do good. How can this 
be explained, if they do not yet have a Yetzer Tov?

11) Has anyone noticed (either in themselves or in someone else) that 
this desire to do good either appears or gets stronger at bar/bas 
mitzvah age?

12) Many cartoons feature scenes in which a character is trying to 
make a decision, and observes the argument between an angel on one 
shoulder, and a satan on the other, trying to influence that 
character to do right or to do wrong. If children do not yet have a 
yetzer tov, how can we explain the fact that children understand this 
metaphor and can relate to it?

(Disclaimer: Several weeks ago, I was involved in a thread 
titled "Knowledge of Good and Bad". I have not abandonded that topic, 
but have been trying to learn Rav Dessler's views on it (found in 
Michtav meEliyahu vol 2 pp 137-141, and Strive for Truth vol 5 pp 12-
17). I hope that someday soon I'll make another post to that thread. 
I mention this because I suspect that the two issues might be related 
to each other -- i.e., when do children get their yetzer ra and 
yetzer tov, and when did Adam haRishon get his yetzer ra and yetzer 
tov.)

Akiva Miller

On Mon, December 4, 2006 9:25 pm, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote:
: Apropos my essay on the topic of Pinocchio as a paradigm of Jewish
: Education ..., I have been asked to address the ... Chazal (Koheles Rabbah
: 4:15)... viz., that while  one is  born with his or her yetzer ho'ra, the
: yetzer ha'tov only begins its development at the age of bar or bas
: mitzvah....

"Begins development" isn't the lashon in QR.

But in any case, IMHO, what does the Pinocchio essay imply about having a
yeitzer hatov? That as long as one is easily swayed by an outside authority he
isn't really responding to a yeitzer hatov as much as a Jiminy Cricket -- even
if it goes by the titles "mom, dad and rebbe". One obeys one's parents and
authority figures out of either a reward-punishment system or a Freudian
superego recording "proper behavior", but one's ability to act on a desire of
wanting to do good is obscured by wanting to conform to expectation.

: 6.     What happens at thirteen that makes the yetzer ha'tov come to
: life?  Is it biological? Is it related to sexual development?  Is it social?

With adolecence, the child realizes that the world doesn't stop if they don't
conform. Jiminy Cricket lost his voice. For many teens, this leads to teenage
rebellion, testing the limits. But it also for the first time opens up the
possibility of doing good because of an internal calling. There is finally
room in the psyche for the yeitzer hatov to move in.

I have used the above thought, with references to the Pinocchio essay, in
Shabbos morning derashos (2 shuls, 2 derashos).

This would explain how the child has a yeitzer hatov in the sense learning
Torah in the womb, but isn't not called *having* a yeitzer hatov until years
later. And it would also explain Rashi on Rivqa's difficult pregnancy, which
implies that Yaaqov and Eisav already had inclinations. Even the yeitzer hara
doesn't develop until birth -- Antoninus and Rebbe on Sanhedrin 91b.

Even with the above mehalakh totally changing the implication of the ma'amar
Chazal, we would still need to separately address Rav Assi's (Vay' Rabba 1:1)
concept of starting learning miqra with Vayiqra because the tehorim should
learn taharos. It would seem that someone who has a yeitzer hara and no
yeitzer hatov can still be more tahor than the rest of us! What then does
taharah mean when used as a middah or attribute of a neshamah (rather than a
halachic state)?

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha@aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter

> 
> On Tue, Nov 28, 2006 at 11:00:02AM +0000, Dov Kay wrote:
> : My wife and I know a young unmarried lady in town who fosters
children.
> :                                ....  She eventually 
> :contacted a dayan in London who permitted the boy to live with our
friend for a 
> :month until a permanent foster family could be found.
> 
>

And RMB writes:

>R' Dovid Cohen (Flatbush) who is Ohel's poseiq, is quite meiqil, since
foster care is inherently a she'as hadechaq. 
>In this he follows Rav Moshe -- the basic din holds, minus every
possible qulah.

...

> This wasn't lema'aseh for nidon didan, but a number of 
> poseqim (I recall the Tzitz Eliezer VI, but not whom else) 
> permit treating a child who entered your home in infancy as 
> one's own child for all of these dinim. 

Rav Moshe himself holds in Even HaEzer vol 4 siman 64 (2) that where a
husband marries a woman with a daughter and so adopts the daughter, that
yichud is permitted for short periods with the daughter because "because
it is possible to say that he will be afraid from his wife that she will
be suspicious of  him and when she returns she will question and
investigate her daughter" and all will be revealed.

I wonder whether this could be considered the basis of the psak referred
to above.  After all, if a child is being placed in foster care, the
authorities, especially in the first month, are likely to be crawling
all over the placement and asking loads of questions and it could be
expected that the foster carer would have a fear of discovery not
disimilar to that of the husband referred to above (and while the
husband's marriage might be at stake, so is the profession and income of
the foster carer - which unquestionably would be ruined by any
intimation of anything untoward). 

If anything it might seem to be a kal v'chomer, as the daughter of a
man's wife is an actual torah erva and hence yichud is prohibited
d'orisa, while yichud with an unmarried lady (as is the case here) is
prohibited only d'rabbanan (well gezera of Dovid haMelech).  And surely,
despite the Rambam, the fact that he is a minor ought to be another snif
l'kakel.

And presumably if the child was placed with a non Jewish family there
are all the issurim of allowing a chinuch aged child to eat treifus and
violate shabbas - and in addition there is presumably also the risk that
if placed with such a family, there is no guarantee that later when the
frum foster family is available they will necessarily be able to extract
him from the current arrangement, meaning that the violations of shabbas
and kashrus might well continue once he is bar mitzva and hence on a
d'orisa level.  If the legitimacy of violating shabbas for pikuach
nefesh reasons can be said to have a basis in the logic that it is
necessary to violate one shabbas to allow the keeping of many shabbosos,
then, again as a kal v'chomer, it would seem surprising that a
prevention of the violation of what must be at most a single d'rabbanan
should be allowed to potentially cause the violation of many shabbasos
and countless other d'orisas.  And if kavod habrios can push off a
d'rabbanan, then again by kal v'chomer one would have thought this
could.  And might there not also be some justification to say that this
is a kind of a case of pidyon shevuim?

Just some thoughts.

Regards

Chana

On Tue, December 5, 2006 6:25 pm, Chana Luntz wrote:
:... RMB writes:
:>R' Dovid Cohen (Flatbush) who is Ohel's poseiq, is quite meiqil, since
:>foster care is inherently a she'as hadechaq.
:>In this he follows Rav Moshe -- the basic din holds, minus every
:>possible qulah.

: ...
: Rav Moshe himself holds in Even HaEzer vol 4 siman 64 (2) that where a
: husband marries a woman with a daughter and so adopts the daughter, that
: yichud is permitted for short periods with the daughter because "because
: it is possible to say that he will be afraid from his wife that she will
: be suspicious of  him and when she returns she will question and
: investigate her daughter" and all will be revealed.

: I wonder whether this could be considered the basis of the psak referred
: to above.  After all, if a child is being placed in foster care, the
: authorities, especially in the first month, are likely to be crawling
: all over the placement and asking loads of questions...

This is, unfortunately, not the norm in NY or NJ since well before Rav Moshe's
arrival in the States. So, if that were the basis of RMF's pesaq, it would
have based on a misunderstanding of the metzi'us. Gov't agencies aren't "all
over the case", to the point that foster children are killed by abuse in
stories covered by NY media, every couple of years or so, and in NJ, more than
annually.

Rather, Rav Moshe relies on incest usually coming out to the wife (or, I
presume husband in the reverse case) eventually, and inappropriate foster and
adoption relationships would similarly. But this does require that the foster
parents be a couple who live in the same home. For RMF this is true for all
children, for the TE, it's only for children who enter the home at a young
age.

That's WRT yichud; normal parental kissing and hugging is mutar according to
RMF. (I am told RSZA is machmir, and only allows with younger children. For
me, this would be ein yachol la'amod bah, so I never checked anyway.)

BTW, are you sure you didn't confuse #64 (2), with #7 (also in EH 4)? Because
I believe this sevara is in #64, whereas #71 is the one usually cited about
marrying a woman with a daughter.

In any case, as I opened, there is obviously a critical need for ehrlicher
foster parents. Particularly those of us who live in dense Jewish populations
large enough to have a number fo Jewish foster kids. Al tehi tzadiq harbei and
worry overly much about yichud problems; there are children losing their
neshamos out there.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha@aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter

On Fri, December 1, 2006 11:30 am, Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote:
: R' Moshe Feldman:
:> Are you agreeing with my psychologist acquaintance that there is
:> always some subconscious sexual element to dressing attractively, and
:> that the difference between attractive and seductive is whether the
:> woman *intends* to use sex appeal in their dress? ...

: No, I don't agree with your psychologist acquaintance....

Me neither. But I think there are many ways to look beautiful that don't
involve sexuality. There are stunning little children; no sane parent would
think of therefore dressing their daugher seductively. (I thought of the Jean
Bonet Ramseys, and added the word "sane.")

But I think we're still misdefining tzeni'us. LAD, tzeni'us is the vehalakhta
bidrakhav of tzimtzum, and the outward manifestation of anavah. That
definition, you will note, has nothing to do with sexuality.

Tzeni'us is why a man should decline initial offerings of davening for the
amud. Nebich, a minyan needs a sha"tz, so someone has to give up their prized
tzeni'us for the sake of the group. If we had that attitude, there wouldn't be
battles over the role of women in the synagogue or organizational Judaism.
Questions yes, not vehemence over the answers. No one should WANT those roles.
It's a maqom she'ein ish -- someone must be STUCK with the prominent jobs.

It's nothing to do with the gender of the one on stage, what they're on stage
for, or their gender in contrast to the audiences.

The word tzeni'us only relates to sexuality in that sexual attraction is one
powerful way of making calls of attention to oneself. It's a kind of stage to
put oneself on.

From this perspective it should be clear that I believe tzeni'us is fully
incombent on both genders equally and the sexual alluring thing is a
consequential meaning, not the primary one.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha@aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter

RYGB writes: "I have been asked to address the fundamental statement
made by Chazal (Koheles Rabbah 4:15) 
that is a core issue in the education of high school age students -- 
viz., that while  one is  born with his or her yetzer ho'ra, the yetzer 
ha'tov only begins its development at the age of bar or bas mitzvah."

GL: There are also ma'amarei chazal (including some in the Zohar, I'm
told) to the effect that one's neshomo first appears at age 12/13 and/or
20. Seems that we are discussing a process, not sudden appearances. When
the process ripens it becomes fully a 'yetzer tov' or a 'neshomo'; not
to say there is no yetzer tov whatsoever before that time.





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R. David Guttmann" <david.guttman@verizon.net> wrote on Sun, 03 Dec 2006:
 
> ... The Rambam's lashon is "Vehakol medaber eilav, Veanu shome'im, "Moshe, Moshe, lech emor lahem kach vekach" . In MN ...the medaber ... means that they apprehended that Moshe was telling them what he got from God, not necessarily the thing that he told them.
 
> The problem that we have is with the "kach vekach," and I believe it
refers to what they heard from Moshe. In other words, when Moshe said to them
"Kach vekach," they understood that it was coming from hashem.
 
> This is further supported by MN 1:33 where he says" vehu hakol asher hissig
moshe vechol ysrael mimenu anochi velo yehyeh lecha, ve'hishmiam Moshe et
zeh bemilim bechituch otyot hanishmaot" in other words they apprehended that
God told Moshe to tell them something but the content was given by Moshe. <
 
Another suggestion: Evidently, we are forced to say that even when Rambam in Mishneh Torah states they heard Hashem telling Moshe [to] tell them kach ve?kach, the Rambam must mean not that they were able to distinguish clear words from Hashem, but only that they apprehended His awesome Voice. Once we assume this, the "kach ve-kach" can be referring to Hashem?s instructions as the people actually perceived them: When witnessing the Voice, they did not distinctly discern what specifics Hashem was telling Moshe to convey to them. This is what the Rambam means when he says they perceived that Hashem was telling Moshe to tell them ??something??--"kach ve-kach."
 
(By the way, the Sefer HaIkarrim (3:19) says that the people heard Hashem telling Moshe, ??Tell them to go return to their tents...?? This corresponds to his own shita--not the Rambam?s--that the first two dibros the people heard Hashem saying clearly, the rest of the dibros they heard only the His Voice and needed Moshe to delineate the words, and the rest of the 613 mitzvos they heard only from Moshe.)
 
R. Daniel Eidensohn (Sun, 03 Dec 2006) objected: 
> Your approach has one major problem. The Rambam in Yesodei HaTorah is 
asserting that Moshe was validated - not by miracles - but because they 
all heard Gd speaking to him. This point is also made by the Rashba and 
the Ohr HaChaim. If Moshe merely reported what he had heard - there is 
no basis for validation. Similarly the position expressed in Moreh 
Nevuchim that the people did not hear Gd speaking is criticized by the 
Avodas HaKodesh and the Shaloh for not providing any basis of validiation. <
 
The Moreh Nevuchim does not say that the people did not hear G-d speaking, only that although they heard his Voice, they were not at the prophetic level to make out the words. I share the objections other rishonim to the Rambam?s shita (the Abarbanel can be added to the list). But I think RDG would point out that a careful reading of the Mishneh Torah tolerates the Moreh Nevuchim?s shita:
 
The Rambam is explaining why Yisrael believed in the fact that Hashem speaks to Mosheh, and the invalidity of his miracles for this purpose. The proof that Hashem communicated with Moshe is not the fact that we saw Moshe performing miracles, but our witnessing the awesome sights and sounds at Mt. Sinai. The symmetry indicates that what one might have thought the miracles verified--the authenticity of Moshe as a prophet, the fact that Hashem speaks to Moshe--was really verified by the Sinai experience. The verification was not dependent upon our hearing distinct words, only knowing that the Voice did indeed speak to Moshe. Therefore, even though the words spoken were indistinguishable, we definitely "overheard" a conversation going on between Hashem and Moshe (??Moshe y?daber, va-Hashem ya?anennu b?Kol??), and that is all that was needed for us to know that Hashem spoke with him.
 
Granted, this is not the sense I would have gotten from the Mishneh Torah without seeing the Moreh Nevuchim. But as I said, it?s tolerable. I would also like to call attention to how the Moreh Nevuchim, particularly in the passage under discussion, bases every statement on Chazal.
 
Zvi Lampel
 
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> Based on what theory? Perhaps that it's impossible to have such thoughts
> without acting on them in some way?
> Joel Rich

The /Doleh U'Mashkeh/ says he asked R' Chaim Kanievsky if someone
who has negative */thoughts/ *about another person needs to ask him
/mechilah/. RCK said that it may well be so.

rav hankman wrote:
> If under the same circumstances but
> for the difference that instead of Reuvain committing suicide to further
> the war aims, Reuvain R'L has to kill his fellow soldier (or civilian)
> Shimon to further the war aims, would even this be permitted under the
> rules of war?

i thought that i had read that under certain circumstances, yes. for
example shimon in the middle of battle falls into a panic, starts
screaming that they are going to be killed, and starts running away. he
can be shot. however i can't a source for this. however what i did find
in this week's netziv (20:8) is that he writes thats in war there is no
issur in bringing yourself to die, even actively putting yourself in a
position where this will happen.

> Clearly there are an entire set of halochos governing war, so what
> is their point if you do not have to consider them when prosecuting
> the war?

just like anything else, the more you think and prepare for the various
scenarios, the more you will be able to deal with them b'sh'aat ha'emet.

i was in a different situation during the war. i wasn't called up this
time, but i did go up north several times to help in zefat and quiryat
shemona. afterwards several people (not great rabbis) told me that i may
have been over doing this. by placing myself in a makom sakana, which i
didn't have any right to do, i lost whatever protection i may have had
as someone doing a mitzva. personally i found the idea that we should
simply abandon each other and worry about ourselves to be reprehensible.

Kol Tuv
ben waxman


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