Avodah Mailing List

Volume 22: Number 9

Fri, 15 Dec 2006

• 1. Re: Yaakov's division of his family into two camps (Mordechai Torczyner)
• 2. Re: Halachic Infertilit (Arie Folger)
• 3. Re: Halachic Infertilit (Chana Luntz)
• 4. Re: Fwd: Kissing Places In A Sefer Torah (SBA)
• 5. Re: Halachic Infertilit (Arie Folger)
• 6. (no subject) (sober@pathcom.com)
• 7. Re: Prophet - mashgiach or godol hador? (Micha Berger)
• 8. Chanukah priorities (JRich@Segalco.com)
• 9. Re: Yetzer HoRa Issues (Zvi Lampel)
• 10. Re: Yetzer HoRa Issues (Micha Berger)
• 11. Re: Halachic Infertility (Chana Luntz)

On Tue, December 5, 2006 10:49 pm, Litke, R Gary wrote:
: 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.

The Ben Ish Chai writes (Rav Pealim I Sod Yesharim 3) that the neshamah fully enters the body only at Bar/Bat Mitzvah. This is part of his explanation of the nature of mitzvos performed in one's minority. As I recall, it also ties into how we handle the question of sefiras ha'omer for one who becomes a gadol during the omer, according to the Bahag that counting the omer is one long mitzvah.

Be well,
Mordechai


Congregation Sons of Israel, Allentown, PA www.sonsofisrael.net
HaMakor - References on Torah Topics - www.hamakor.org
WebShas - An Index to the Talmud - www.webshas.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20061214/a048b739/attachment.html 

On Thursday, 14. December 2006 16:46, Chana Luntz wrote:
> Yes, but I was asking a different question.  Even if you take the simple
> reading of the Rambam, regardless of his source,I f rov rishonim do not
> agree that bottom line this is the difference between ziva and nida, do
> we not treat the Rambam as a daas yachid, at least for cases of halachic
> infertility ?

I did not imply the opposite, I merely explained what the Rambam's source 
seems to be and that there are other ways of reading Rambam. Anyway, the 
matter is quite irrelevant, since we treat nidut like zivah. On a deOraita 
level there are considerable differences, but practically, we function in the 
post Rabbi Zeira period.

R'nCL:
> > > I don't really understand this - because even if you take the most
> > > machmir position regarding onset, if you get long enough
> > > then you must be out of the yamei ziva and into the yamei niddah, and
> > > most women -  even with short cycles, do do that.

Me:
> > You mean the opposite. If a woman bleeds long enough, she is out of
> > yemei nidah and into yemei zivah. That is fairly obvious. The
> > reverse, however,  isn't true, as once she has the requirement of 7
> > neqiim, she  needs them in
> > order to become tehorah again.

R'nCL:
> No, I do not mean the opposite.
>
> Let my try and explain.  
> <SNIP>
> Now let us suppose that that bleed on day one and following is in fact a
> nida bleed and she does need shiva nekiim.  Well she had them, and does
> that not mean that, assuming her  next bleed is weeks away, she is again
> definitely in her yamei nida by her next bleed.

I am sorry, but I am confused. I don't understand what you want. Since we are 
talking about a woman who, prior to becoming a vadai nidah, was tehorah, 
therefore, mideOraita, there is no doubt and she wouldn't have needed to 
observe shiv'ah neqiyim. Why do you write that "she does need shiva nekiim"? 
And if you mean to say that after Rabbi Zeira she needs 7 neqiyim, how is the 
fact that in a previous menstrual cycle she had observed 7 neqiyim relevant? 
Yet, you imply that what happened last time around is relevant, as you 
write "Well she had them".

> And were the bleed on days 1-5 to be any combination 
> you like of nida and ziva, do you not come to the same conclusion, so
> long as she waits the first shiva nekiim and then there is enough time
> after she finishes bleeding to make sure she is out of any yamei ziva
> that are out there?  Why does this not work according to everyone bar
> the Rambam?

The fact is that your example is confusing and one needs a reasonable amount 
of concentration to follow that you seem to be arguing that Rabbi Yehudah and 
Rabbi Zeira's positions should only be relevant when there is a real safeq 
deOraita. Now, since it requires some mental acrobatics to follow, you will 
readily grasp why it was assumed that most women would most of the time not 
keep track of their menstrual cycles in a sufficiently detailed way to 
*easily* and *consistently* know whether they are at the moment nidot or 
zavot. Hence, 'Hazal decreed a stringency, which was later beefed up by the 
benot Yerushalayim and codified by Rabbi Zeira.

Safeq may have played a role in the early deliberations, but since, we have 
moved on to the level of rabbinic prohobition.

> Now I am not (and assume the Doctor quoted in Ha'aretz) is not assuming
> that she will do this kind of calculation for every period BUT, if she
> is trying to fall pregnant and the ovulation tests are showing she is
> not doing so because she is ovulating during the shiva nekiim, why,
> under the supervision of a Rav, cannot she do this kind of analysis
> until she falls pregnant?

I am not going to claim I can pasqen about whe it is or isn't appropriate to 
override or circumvent an issur deRabbanan meant to protect us from issurei 
karet, but my feeling is and my experience supports that feeling, that we do 
not override issurim deRabbanan, except where there is a clear halakhic 
requirement to (heim amru veheim amru), an exception I cannot find anywhere 
in hilkhot nidah. OTOH, there are other leniencies that may be applicable in 
difficult cases (shortening the waiting time until the hefseq taharah), more 
so for Sefardim than for Ashkenazim (especially taking a shower instead of 
waiting 4/5 days). All of this still involves overriding dearly held 
minhaggim and should thus be discussed with one's rav.

BTW, I find Rav Dr. Benyamin Lau's argument, that often we don't need to go so 
far, asking more she'elot will often suffice to enable a woman to start the 
hefseq taharah earlier, because she may otherwise be excessively ma'hmir with 
certain shades of brown, very convincing.

> <SNIP> ... we are (I am assuming) not talking about the usual case, 
> but about a woman who has proven (and today we have the medical evidence
> via a simple home test) that she is ovulating during the shiva nekiim
> and who is desperate to fall pregnant. 

Your questions are very good, they require further study.

Kol tuv,
--
Arie Folger
Check out my new website http://www.ariefolger.googlepages.com

> R'nCL wrote:
> > I agree this does not work with the Rambam, as you needed 
> > to have kept  count since you first got your period at around 12 or
so, 
> > and nobody has done that - but is not the Rambam a daas yachid?
> 
> The Rambam's source seems to be Midrash Tan'huma, Warsaw 
> (there are two main texts of MT, the Warsaw edition is the one that
was printed 
> first IIRC). IIRC, there are other ways of reading that midrash, but
it 
> seems, at face value, to support the Rambam. OTOH, there have been
attempts 
> at reading the  Rambam differently, because of the difficulty
reconciling 
> biology with the simple understanding of the Rambam.
> 

Yes, but I was asking a different question.  Even if you take the simple
reading of the Rambam, regardless of his source,I f rov rishonim do not
agree that bottom line this is the difference between ziva and nida, do
we not treat the Rambam as a daas yachid, at least for cases of halachic
infertility ?

> > I don't really understand this - because even if you take the most
machmir position regarding onset, if you get long enough 
> then you must be out of the yamei ziva and into the yamei niddah, and
most women -  even with short cycles, do do that.
> 
> You mean the opposite. If a woman bleeds long enough, she is out of
yemei nidah and into yemei zivah. That is fairly obvious. The 
> reverse, however,  isn't true, as once she has the requirement of 7
neqiim, she  needs them in 
> order to become tehorah again.

No, I do not mean the opposite.

Let my try and explain.  Let us say that a woman commences her period on
day 1 and bleeds for five days.  I agree with you that we do not know
whether this bleed is a ziva or a nida bleed, and hence she will need to
wait shiva nekiim as per usual.  BUT, let us say that she does that -
then by the time she goes to mikvah on the evening of day 13, she is
definitely neither nida or ziva.  Now, let us suppose that in fact it
was a nida bleed, then by the time she goes to mikvah, she is almost
through her yamei ziva, and so long as she does not bleed for the next
few days (in any form or fashion) then she is definitely into her yamei
nida and the *next* bleed she sees is definitely a nida bleed and does
not need shiva nekiim vadai.  Now let us suppose that that bleed on day
one and following is in fact a nida bleed and she does need shiva
nekiim.  Well she had them, and does that not mean that, assuming her
next bleed is weeks away, she is again definitely in her yamei nida by
her next bleed.  And were the bleed on days 1-5 to be any combination
you like of nida and ziva, do you not come to the same conclusion, so
long as she waits the first shiva nekiim and then there is enough time
after she finishes bleeding to make sure she is out of any yamei ziva
that are out there?  Why does this not work according to everyone bar
the Rambam?

Now I am not (and assume the Doctor quoted in Ha'aretz) is not assuming
that she will do this kind of calculation for every period BUT, if she
is trying to fall pregnant and the ovulation tests are showing she is
not doing so because she is ovulating during the shiva nekiim, why,
under the supervision of a Rav, cannot she do this kind of analysis
until she falls pregnant?

> 
> The safek deOraita is that women will not distinguish between  three
days of  zivah and one/two days, nor between one/two days of zivah and 
> nidut. If women  do not keep track of their menstrual periods (because
they  don't use an  agenda to record their periods), they could easily
start 
> wondering whether  new bleeding is of one kind or the other.
Especially when nutritional 
> scarcities may influence the quantity of menstrual flow.
> 

Agreed - but we are (I am assuming) not talking about the usual case,
but about a woman who has proven (and today we have the medical evidence
via a simple home test) that she is ovulating during the shiva nekiim
and who is desperate to fall pregnant. Why in such a case is it not
simply a case of a few months of close analysis and supervision to
ensure that no such confusion occurs and that the necessary records are
made (if she does not then fall pregnant within 6 months to a year there
is clearly other infertility problems and not just that of halachic
infertility)?  Why is it that the default response seems to be - go get
yourself to a doctor and get yourself drugged up on hormones?  Why is it
that RIS is saying that there is *still* a safek d'orisa even if all of
these precautions are being taken and therefore drugs are the better
bet? Why is everybody suggesting that it is fine to ignore a vadai issur
d'orisa in the case of shifchas zera in order to procreate but that this
we can't do?  That is what I don't understand.



> Kol tuv,
> 
> Arie Folger


Regards

Chana 

From: "Daniel Israel" <>
SBA wrote:
>: From: RallisW@aol.com
>: Does anyone know where the Lubavitch minhog of touching one's 
tzitzis  toboth the begining and end of an Aliyoh comes  from?

>: AFAIK, this is not an excludive Lubavitch minhag, but done by 
>all.

We touch the beginning and end with a tallis or the gartel (if no 
>tallis is being worn).

I'm confused.  The responses here seem to suggest that this is not 
a Lubavitch minhag, yet I, like the original poster, was under the 
impression it was.  In fact, the only people I know who do this are 
either Chabad themselves, or became frum at a Chabad shul.  So 
whose minhag is this, actually?
>>

The baal Mateh Efrayim was, AFAIK, no Lubavitcher...

SBA

R'nCL wrote:
> I agree this does not work with the Rambam, as you needed to have kept
> count since you first got your period at around 12 or so, and nobody has
> done that - but is not the Rambam a daas yachid?

The Rambam's source seems to be Midrash Tan'huma, Warsaw (there are two main 
texts of MT, the Warsaw edition is the one that was printed first IIRC). 
IIRC, there are other ways of reading that midrash, but it seems, at face 
value, to support the Rambam. OTOH, there have been attempts at reading the 
Rambam differently, because of the difficulty reconciling biology with the 
simple understanding of the Rambam.

> I don't really understand this - because even if you take the most
> machmir position regarding onset, if you get long enough then you must
> be out of the yamei ziva and into the yamei niddah, and most women -
> even with short cycles, do do that.

You mean the opposite. If a woman bleeds long enough, she is out of yemei 
nidah and into yemei zivah. That is fairly obvious. The reverse, however, 
isn't true, as once she has the requirement of 7 neqiim, she needs them in 
order to become tehorah again.

The safek deOraita is that women will not distinguish between three days of 
zivah and one/two days, nor between one/two days of zivah and nidut. If women 
do not keep track of their menstrual periods (because they don't use an 
agenda to record their periods), they could easily start wondering whether 
new bleeding is of one kind or the other. Especially when nutritional 
scarcities may influence the quantity of menstrual flow.

Kol tuv,

Arie Folger

Apology in advance: I am now in Israel but still somewhat in transit 
and without sefarim. I hope that what I am writing below is correct, 
but feel free to let me know if it isn't.

I wanted to clarify a point about the relevance of d'oraita colours as 
it contributes to our lack of distinction between niddah and zivah.

I should have written that the shivah neki'im for niddah are only 
sometimes a safek d'oraita and that colours is not the only reason for 
our current practice of not keeping a niddah/zivah calendar.

It has been pointed out, correctly, that if a woman bleeds after at 
least 18 consecutive clean days, she is definitely niddah, not zivah. 
In such cases, the shivah neki'im are indeed a pure d'rabbanan (which 
does not mean they can just be done away with, of course).

However, this is not always the case - especially for a woman with a 
short cycle, which is what we are talking about here. For example:

Onset of bleeding (which in fact is a colour that makes her niddah only 
d'rabbanan): Day 1

Colour changes, so that she becomes niddah d'oraita: Day 6

Hefsek Taharah: Day 7

Onset of bleeding: Day 21

The woman can err as follows: She assumes that she became niddah 
d'oraita on Day 1. Therefore, she thinks the bleeding on Day 21 is 
again niddah blood.

In reality, however, she became niddah mid'oraita only on Day 6. That 
means that her 11 y'mei zivah are days 13-23. If she bleeds on Days 21, 
22, 23, she is a zavah g'dolah mid'oraita and needs shivah neki'im. (It 
also means that she needs to go to mikveh after Day 12, not Day 7.)

IVF has been mentioned as a solution for halachic infertility - I think 
maybe there is some confusion, since the old-fashioned, much less 
expensive, much less dangerous method of artificial insemination would 
work fine if the only reason for infertility is halachic.

I think I may have seen discussion of having the woman go to mikveh 
after seven days (niddah d'oraita), undergo artificial insemination 
when she ovulates (at which point she is only niddah d'rabbanan), and 
then count 5+7 and go to mikveh. But I have not heard a definitive psak 
about this. Obviously this type of solution would involve individual 
adjudication by a posek, since many she'elot are raised. - Ilana

On Tue, December 12, 2006 12:20 pm, R Daniel Eidensohn wrote:
: My suggestion is that the Rambam views the prophet in the same way as we
: view a mashgiach - in relationship to to a rosh yeshiva or a magid in
: relationship to a rav....

WADR, this is not a new idea. Reform went through a stage of claiming they
weren't forming something new, but restoring "Prophetic Judaism". The idea is
that "Prophetic Judaism" was about moral imperatives, and all that got
occluded by the Pharisees and Rabbinites, who layered all this legal stuff on
top of it.

Clearly if one reads Nakh without knowing that many of our nevi'im were also
on the Sanhedrin (to use an anachronistic name), one gets the impression that
they were about mussar rather than din.

The CC or a Brisker would argue that halakhah is the best possible mussar
seifer anyway, and deny the dichotomy exists.

A mussarnik might argue that din is simply a minimum guideline for proper
behavior, and thus the navi is addressing the more fundamental and bigger
picture -- but again, deny the dichotomy exists.


Whether a navi has halachic authority qua navi...

We all quote the Tanur Achnai story to prove that "lo bashamayim hi" means
that there is no authority that comes from this kind of information. OTOH,
there is also the story of the bas qol saying "vehalakhah keBeis Hillel" and
we do use that lemaaseh. It's actually a machloqes as to which is the rule and
which is the exception. See
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2005/01/legislative-authority-of-bas-qol.shtml>,
which is a honed version of something originally posted here. The conclusion
that bas qol has no authority is only one of two opinions in Tosafos, and the
Ohr Sama'eich. R' Nissim Gaon and the first answer in Tosafos say that usually
we would rule like a bas qol, and give different explanations of the achnai
story.

I would suggest that the machloqes is about the nature of machloqes. Is is due
to ignorance, and therefore any means of reconstructing what Hashem actually
told Moshe would be valid -- even bas qol or nevu'ah? Or, is it because the
poseiq defines the law (for any reason: Hashem gave both to Moshe, Hashem's
truth can only be approximated in this universe, Hashem gave us a process for
us to create with, etc...)? In which case, information from shamayim would
have no say in determining halakhah.

If so, all the positions we've discussed about eilu va'eilu and plurality
would be similarly divided on this issue as well. See
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2005/03/eilu-vaeilu-part-i.shtml> for my summary
of two surveys of the topic. (RGS posted links to the surveys here, and I
followed up with my notes on them.)


Anshei Kenesses haGdolah's authority is bolstered with "umeihem kamah
nevi'im". However, this could be a statement of the quality of its members,
not whether they utilized their nevu'ah to reach pesaq. This is related to the
distinction RDE later makes between giving authority to that which the navi
repeats besheim Hashem (Rambam lefi Minchas Chinukh), and his other statements
(Chinukh).

OTOH, shifting from the power to pasqen to that of making new taqanos: There's
the whole issue of divrei soferim being a half-step above deRabbanan. It
implies that whether or not AKhG used nevu'ah as part of the pasqening
process, the fact that they used it as part of the taqanah process DOES add
authority.

:                        Someone who advises or suggest rather than having
: a position of leadership. Someone who is sensitive, wise and insightful
: - but doesn't have political or decision making power....

I'm not sure I agree. I think the navi existed as a check for the melekh's
authority. How many times are nevi'im sent to the melekh? This is also why he
was the one who performed meshichah. Yes, they serve primarily as mashgichim,
but that doesn't mean they were apolitical.

I would define the halachic state as having four centers of authority: melekh,
Sanhedrin, kehunah, and nevu'ah. Because of birthright, the melekh was
guaranteed never to be the kohein (in a *halachic* state). And even when the
melekh was the greater navi, there was still a different navi empowered to
keep him in line with Ratzon H'. E.g. David and Nasan. The only second power
the melekh could share was being the av beis din as well.


Yes, it's true that:
: [A] king or political leader is not necessary wise or sensitive but he makes
: the decisions and sees that they are implemented...

Which is why there was a navi to counterpoint the melekh, keeping his actions
wise and sensitive.

:                                                  While there are times
: when the prophet has a specific message or action that is required - but
: he is not a leader.  In contrast we today view our gedollim as being
: endowed with ruach hakodesh.

Some of us. Others don't even acknowledge a difference in kind between people
who are greater than us (gedolim, translated literally) quantitatively and
those they lead.

I am unhappy with your casting this into terms of mashgiach vs gadol for this
reason. There is no concept in contemporary derakhim of a mashgiach hador, but
it's about as native to Yahadus as "gadol hador". In any case, the poseiq has
a shadow of the Sanhedrin's authority, not the melekh's. If we can take the
gadol hador and make him a stand-in nasi, why not take a mashgiach and make
him a stand-in navi? Don't out political actions have to be informed by values
even in areas where there is no clear pesaq? May our body politic be a menuval
birshus haTorah?

: A specific example is that the Rambam does not allow the involvement of
: ruach hakodesh in the Sanhedrin while the Ramban does....

Because the Rambam is a constructionist -- the poseiq defines the law, not
discovers it. I do not know the Ramban's stance, but if my above line of
reasoning is correct, the Ramban believes that the job of poseiq is to do
one's best to discover amito shel Torah, and he does not believe in halachic
pluralism.

BTW, in the shiur from R' Eli Heidad from YHE
<http://vbm-torah.org/archive/rambam/06rambam.htm> he asks the question "Did
the Rambam think he acheived prophecy?" He lists indications originally given
by Heschel that the answer is "yes". Such as a letter from a talmid asking for
instruction as to how to reach nevu'ah himself. A comment on the introduction
to the Moreh cheleq I, where he speaks of nevu'ah in the first person, "But
sometimes truth flashes out to us so that we think that it is day, and then
matter and habit in their various forms conceal it so that we find ourselves
again in an obscure night." Etc... See the shiur, the question is a section
header.

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

Please rate the following options with sources if available:

1 daven maariv btzibbur before tzeits and then light after tzeits

2 daven maariv byichdut after tzeits and then light

3 light after tzeits and daven after lighting btzibbur

ktjoel rich

THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE 
ADDRESSEE.  IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL 
INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE.  Dissemination, 
distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is 
strictly prohibited.  If you received this message in error, please notify us 
immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message.  
Thank you.

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 from: "Micha Berger" <micha@aishdas.org>
Subject: To: "A High-Level Torah Discussion Group" avodah@lists.aishdas.org
> ...
Koach hadimyon as used by Aristotilians goes beyond the colloquial meaning of
the word "imagination". It's the entire ability to reproduce memories as they
were seen. Creating, recreating and modifying scenarios.... ...

> This point is by the way essential to nevu'ah, which is clothed in dimyon.
Yet, according to the Rambam (as explained .... see previous discussions), it
is still an awareness of a reality.

> Aristotle separated imagination (which he used to mean dimyon in general) and
desire as different kochos hanefesh, although he considers it a tool of mind
used only in support of real stream of consciousness thought....
Given this, I'm missing what's so ra about dimyon. Or are there two meanings
to the word -- one used by Artistotilian rishonim, and one used by everyone
else? <

Would it help if we would translate the "nevuah-type" of "dimyon" as "visualization [of reality]," rather than "imagination"?

Zvi Lampel
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20061214/a21ec579/attachment.htm 

On Thu, December 14, 2006 3:22 pm, R Zvi Lampel wrote:
: Would it help if we would translate the "nevuah-type" of "dimyon" as
: "visualization [of reality]," rather than "imagination"?

Except that dimyon includes our ability to produce mental (re)constructions of
sounds too. It was the original meaning of the word "imagination", and I do
not know of an equivalent in colloquial English. Let's just leave it "dimyon",
as a term of jargon.

That said, if dimyon is the vehicle for nevuah, how can it be identical to the
yeitzer hara? Or is that why trapping the YH for AZ -- complete with the fiery
lion leaving the qadosh haqadashim, a dimyon! -- coincided with the end of
nevu'ah?

Ever notice how we often end up teitching YH in ways that don't make it
inherently evil? Why?

One problem I have with the concept of YH as literally being a drive to do
evil is that it presumes an innate knowledge of good and evil. In which case,
why be softer on the tinoq shenishba? So I'm perfectly fine with such shitos;
as long as one can explain why then we misname it.

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

RAF writes:
> I am sorry, but I am confused. I don't understand what you  want.
Since we are 
> talking about a woman who, prior to becoming a vadai nidah, was
tehorah, 
> therefore, mideOraita, there is no doubt and she wouldn't  have needed
to 
> observe shiv'ah neqiyim. Why do you write that "she does need 
> shiva nekiim"? 

The assertion on this list was that when a woman started bleeding, there
was a real safek d'orisa whether she was a vadai nida or ziva.  I said
that I did not understand this.  Or at least, I understood that for the
first time we started examining the question closely, as at whatever
point we started measuring from *maybe* that was really a ziva bleed not
a nida one.  That is, the fact that she was tehorah before she stated
bleeding does not mean that that first bleed was not a ziva bleed (as
that first bleed might have taken place during the yamei ziva).  But if
we start being careful on day 1 and treat the first bleed as a safek, it
seemed reasonably easy, assuming you have 18 or so clear days to be sure
that you had reset and that the next bleed was a nida bleed, and that
you had eliminated the safek d'orisa.  RIS has been asserting that there
is indeed a real safek d'orisa going on here in all cases.  I could not
understand that - it seemed to me that it was not that difficult to get
oneself out of a real safek d'orisa situation.  RIS has now posted
explaining the situation where she could see there being a real safek
d'orisa still (if there is a short period).  However, that is assuming
there are not 18 clear days.  Given my personal situation - where in
fact there were always 18 clear days (sometimes only 18, sometimes more)
between the hefsek tahara and the onset of the next period, I hadn't
thought of that case - and I still would assume that the case that RIS
brought is a relatively unusual one even for a halachic infertility
case.  And certainly nobody asked me questions as to that effect before
suggesting I contact the medical system.

> The fact is that your example is confusing and one needs a 
> reasonable amount  of concentration to follow that you seem to be
arguing that 
> Rabbi Yehudah and  Rabbi Zeira's positions should only be relevant
when there is 
> a real safeq  deOraita.

No, I am trying to understand why RIS and others are saying that there
is a real safek d'orisa out there, even if you are careful and count
correctly.

What I am trying to establish is why is that people keep bandying safek
d'orisa around, when it seems to me that what we are talking about is a
d'rabbanan, not a safek d'orisa.  Not that this makes a difference in
the normal case.  But I would have thought that it might well make a
difference in a case where the d'rabbanan is in fact preventing the
performance of the mitzvah of pru u'rvu - because that is what we are
talking about here.

The most cogent explanation I have heard for why one cannot set aside
the shiva nekiim in order to enable pru u'rvu is the one that RZS has
advanced.  A woman is not obligated in pru u'rvu. A man is.  Therefore,
for a man to give a sperm donation (a violation of a vadai issur
d'orisa) may be permitted to enable *him* to perform the mitzvah - but
since she has no obligation, she cannot even violate a safek d'orisa.*

But a) a number of rishonim hold that women are obligated in the
d'rabban mitzvah of shevet, so if the shiva nekiim are d'rabbanan, you
end up with the same equation as with the man, except on a d'rabbanan
level.

B) unlike d'orisas, there is some scope for setting aside d'rabbanans in
cases where there is extreme human anguish (and anybody who denies that
this is what is being talked about here clearly hasn't read their
tanach, you just need to read what Rachel Imanu and Chana have to say on
the subject - and note for example that the gemora in Brochas seems to
regard it as legitimate for Chana to threaten to put herself into a
sotah situatioin in order to have children).  Failure to have children
is one of the very few reasons for which a woman is entitled to demand
that beis din enforce a get - and see the Rabbinic discussions there
(and similarly failure to have children is al pi din one of the reasons
beis din is in theory required to force a man to try elsewhere, even if,
al pi the Rema, these days we do not enforce this).  Prevention of the
mitzva of pru u'rvu for even one night was the reason that Yehoshua was
punished.  It seems to me inconceivable given all that is written about
infertility, that a rabbinic ban was intended to catch those situations
where such a ban was in fact preventing the conception of children
necessary to satisfy the d'orisa mitzvah.  Because in rov situations it
does not.  And I suspect if all women were married at 15, it would in
far fewer cases than it does today.  But there is today a significant
miut of cases (and we can now determine which they are by using the
modern technology of ovulation testing) where this is the effect of this
ban.

And yet, it seems that there are numerous children not being born
because this is not the view taken.  Or where the husband is being
required to violate an issur d'orisa of giving a sperm sample because
there is no willingness to allow what would seem, if one is careful, to
at most be a violation of a d'rabbanan.  Or where such births are
delayed because of the time taken to activate the medical system and the
hormones etc.  And where there are potential risks to the woman's health
(which a doctor will advise on - that I thought was the particular input
that the doctor in Ha'aretz was providing) which would not occur if one
could push off the d'rabbanan.

*[The one problem I have with RZS's view, ie that we hold that one
person cannot violate an issur to enable another's mitzva, is you then
get into the weird question as to on what basis may a woman ever allow
herself to get pregnant, given that we now have the means to prevent it.
After all, it is a vadai chazal that a woman about to and having just
given birth is a choleh sheyesh bo sakana (and there is no question
about nature changing on that - you should read some of the reports
produced by the Times for their Xmas appeal this year for a blood bank
for Nepal because 5000 women die in childbirth there for lack of access
to a blood bank).  Any woman who gets pregnant is vadai putting herself
into a position where she will be a choleh sheyesha bo sakana, and is
not unlikely to need to cause all sorts of people, eg her husband, to
violate shabbas on her behalf etc.  Why can she do it at all, given that
she has no mitzvah?]

> OTOH, there are other leniencies that may  be applicable in 
> difficult cases (shortening the waiting time until the hefseq 
> taharah),

This only helps if the bleeding has stopped - otherwise no hefseq tahara
can be made.

But incidently, why is this also not considered a similar situation.
After all, waiting this length of time is similarly based on a safek
d'orisa is it not?  

 more 
> so for Sefardim than for Ashkenazim (especially taking a 
> shower instead of 
> waiting 4/5 days). All of this still involves overriding dearly held 
> minhaggim and should thus be discussed with one's rav.
> 
> BTW, I find Rav Dr. Benyamin Lau's argument, that often we 
> don't need to go so  far, asking more she'elot will often suffice to
enable a 
> woman to start the  hefseq taharah earlier, because she may otherwise
be 
> excessively ma'hmir with certain shades of brown, very convincing.
> 

I find it almost impossible to believe that a woman who is prepared to
go to a doctor to get a drug to lengthen her ovulation pattern is not
going to try and see if her colours are mutar first.  I agree that we
can certainly eliminate some cases this way - we are surely talking
about those remaining.

> Kol tuv,
> --
> Arie Folger
> Check out my new website http://www.ariefolger.googlepages.com

Shabbat Shalom

Chana



------------------------------


Avodah mailing list
Avodah@lists.aishdas.org
http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org


End of Avodah Digest, Vol 5, Issue 9
************************************

Send Avodah mailing list submissions to
	avodah@lists.aishdas.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
	http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
	avodah-request@lists.aishdas.org

You can reach the person managing the list at
	avodah-owner@lists.aishdas.org

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Avodah digest..."