Avodah Mailing List

Volume 23: Number 65

Tue, 27 Mar 2007

• 1. Re: Amod Hashachar (Arie Folger)
• 2. Electricity on Shabbos (Dov Kay)
• 3. Re: Electricity on Shabbos (Rich, Joel)
• 4. Re: candles (Arie Folger)
• 5. Re: candles (Ilana Sober)
• 6. Re: Amen (MPoppers@kayescholer.com)
• 7. Re: AishDas and Mussar (Shoshana L. Boublil)
• 8. Re: Minhag Avos and Minhag haMaqom (David E Cohen)
• 9. Re: candles (Arie Folger)
• 10. what to learn (Eli Turkel)
• 11. Re: AishDas and Mussar (Micha Berger)
• 12. Re: Halachic who is right from "The Lost Scotch" (Micha Berger)
• 13. Re: Amen (Micha Berger)
• 14. preserving minhag (Eli Turkel)
• 15. Re: AishDas and Mussar (Michael Kopinsky)
• 16. Re: candles (Ilana Sober)

RSBA wrote:
> For centuries, rebbes and their talmidim have been teitching (Brochos 1:1):
> 'Ad sheyaaleh amod hashachar'  referring to the 'morgen shtern' = the
> morning star. (Anyone who went to a Yiddish cheder, and was taught
> differently, please comment.)
<SNIP>
> Any melamdim and magidei shiur here who can comment?

Would it perhaps have been the Yiddish translation/corruption of the German 
Morgenr?the (the redness of the morning IIUC)?

KT,

Arie Folger
-- 
If an important person, out of humility, does not want to rely on [the Law, as 
applicable to his case], let him behave as an ascetic. However, permission 
was not granted to record this in a book, to rule this way for the future 
generations, and to be stringent of one's own accord, unless he shall bring 
clear proofs from the Talmud [to support his argument].
	paraphrase of Rabbi Asher ben Ye'hiel, as quoted by Rabbi Yoel
	Sirkis, Ba'h, Yoreh De'ah 187:9, s.v. Umah shekatav.

<<I don't recall the CI saying that. In fact, that sevara has been rejected 
l'halacha at least by tevilas keilim. One acharon suggested that a toaster 
would be patur from tevilas keilim because it is mechubar l'karka (plugged 
in) and everyone else disagreed.>>

I have heard that a Dayan in London does in fact pasken that toasters do not 
need to be immersed based on this sevara, so I would have to disagree with 
your "everyone else disagreed".  Perhaps they disagreed at the time and this 
Dayan thought it was a good sevara after all.  By the way, who is the 
acharon?

Kol tuv
Dov Kay

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<<I don't recall the CI saying that. In fact, that sevara has been
rejected l'halacha at least by tevilas keilim. One acharon suggested
that a toaster would be patur from tevilas keilim because it is mechubar
l'karka (plugged
in) and everyone else disagreed.>>

I have heard that a Dayan in London does in fact pasken that toasters do
not need to be immersed based on this sevara, so I would have to
disagree with your "everyone else disagreed".  Perhaps they disagreed at
the time and this Dayan thought it was a good sevara after all.  By the
way, who is the acharon?

Kol tuv
Dov Kay

------------------------------------------------------------------
I've heard this as a snif lhakeil for electric appliances that would be
ruined by tvila (the common wisdom was they will dry out but from
personal experience I can tell you that some modern electronic controls
get ruined)

KT
Joel Rich
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R'n IS wrote:
> (and is fleishig or treif, depending)

Tallow is always "treif" (actually, cheilev)

-- 
Arie Folger
http://www.ariefolger.googlepages.com

RAF: Tallow is always "treif" (actually, cheilev)
 
Than what is "shuman"?
- Ilana

RnCL responded to me:
> So why was the piece entitled "the silent Amen"? <
As RYL noted (Avodah Digest V23#51) when he reposted the piece to Avodah, 
it's actually entitled "A Quiet Amen."  The URL he noted no longer lists 
the piece, so please see 
http://www.geocities.com/m_yericho/ravkook/PSALM34.htm (or 
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/7000) and look for 
the mid-article section entitled in that manner (although the entire 
article isn't that long and is worth reading ;-)).  Thanks!

Gut Voch and all the best from
Michael Poppers * Elizabeth, NJ, USA
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 Message: 6
> Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 23:44:55 -0400
> From: Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer <ygbechhofer@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Avodah] AishDas and Mussar

>> Is this fair to your Yekkish and Sepharadi talmidim? I mean, getting them 
>> to
>> think in these terms is great, but there are more than three families of
>> derakhim.
>>
> Not anymore... Although we do discuss these extinct derachim and their
> utility as supplements to the major derachim. Where have you recently
> met active Yeskkishe and Sephardic communities of Avodah that are
> distinct from the "Forks" divisions?

(I'm sorry I missed the 'forks' post...).

Active Sephardic communities?  All over Israel.

They have their own Yeshivot and their own derech which is NOT the Litvische 
derech.

Actually there has been a renaissance over the past 2 decades, and more and 
more Sephardi and Yeminite Derech Talmudei Torah and Yeshivot have been 
opening.  The Yeminite guys aredistinct by their special clothing.  The 
Sephardim know who they are, and the communities know the differences 
between the Sephardi Derech and the "Litvische/Chassidische" so-called 
Sephardi yeshivot.

There is a distinct difference between Sephardi Psika and Ashkenazi psika in 
general, but mostly in attitude towards various issues.

Shoshana  L. Boublil

R' Micha's basic thesis very much echoes my own thoughts.  Let's summarize
"the rule" as follows: The gradual convergence on a uniform minhag hamakom
over the course of a few generations is inevitable, legitimate, and even
desirable, but it must be a natural process, which should not be implemented
deliberately, and certainly cannot be done overnight by proclamation.

However, this sometimes leaves me conflicted.  According to this approach,
as long as the uniform minhag hamakom has not yet naturally evolved, one
should keep minhag avos.  However, if everybody were to abide by this rule,
then the eventual convergence, which I consider desirable, would never
happen.  The convergence will only happen thanks to those who are willing to
make a deliberate, clean break with minhag avos even before the majority
practice has reached the level of acceptance that would classify it as a
minhag hamakom, something that I do not deem it appropriate to do myself.
This is hard to justify according to the categorical imperative of Kant (and
of Hillel, for that matter).

I particularly feel this conflict in borderline cases.  Where there is
clearly a minhag hamakom (EVERYBODY in Erets Yisra'el says "sim shalom" at
Shabbos minchah, to use one relatively trivial example), I have adopted it
over minhag avos without hesitation.  Where a majority of my community acts
one way (davening "nusach Sefarad," for example), but there's still a quite
sizable majority that acts differently (nuach Ashkenaz), it wouldn't occur
to me to drop minhag Avos (nusach Ashkenaz) just because 51% of the
community does something else.  A simple majority does not make a minhag
hamakom.  But it's hard to know exactly where the threshold is.  What if 65%
of the community does something else?  75%?  85%?  In cases where it's hard
to judge whether the convergence on a uniform minhag hamakom could be said
to have happened yet, one can end up feeling that whichever choice he makes,
he is betraying one end of "the rule."

R' Micha, any thoughts?

--D.C.

On Monday, 26. March 2007 20:31:56 Ilana Sober wrote:
> RAF: Tallow is always "treif" (actually, cheilev)
>
> Than what is "shuman"?
> - Ilana

Shuman is the permissible fat. However, quantity wise, shuman is almost 
negligible; the bulk is in the cheilev.

-- 
Arie Folger
http://www.ariefolger.googlepages.com

comes to bekiyus.)>>

On the local religious radio station in Israel they quoted an article by a
"Mafdalnik" advocating a much broader list of materials for high
schoolers to learn. The claim was the most kids get bored with gemara
and so that
should be a small part of the currciulum (at least in most schools).
Furthermore too many yeshivot learn a few blatt a year instead of giving
the talmidim a broad view of shas. Instead he advocated a collection
of Tanach, ein yaakov, mussar, etc.

The radio station promised a strong reaction from Yated Neeman!!

-- 
Eli Turkel

On Mon, March 26, 2007 1:28 pm, Rt Shoshana L. Boublil wrote:
: (I'm sorry I missed the 'forks' post...).

"Forks" refers to an article by RYGB (I believe in the Jewish Observer) that
has been discussed here so many times so as to get its own nickname. See
<http://www.aishdas.org/rygb/forks.htm>.

The basic fork, as a one-liner:
Litta defines man's tafqid as sheleimus ha'adam
Chassidus, as deveiqus baH'.

The essay gives it much more depth.

The idea happens to also recur on my blog at
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/category/forks>. I happened to arrive at the same
conclusion based on a half-remembered comment by Rabbi Riskin made during my
HS days, and gave it a much shallower parashah-sheet level treatment based on
"his-haleikh lefanai" vs "veheyei samim" -- which is goal, and which is means?

Most people believe bodeveiqus or temimus, whichever comes to mind first at
that particular moment. They can therefore flip-flop, and uncritically agree
with a speaker or paper that advocates either. This happens without having
thought it through or turned it into a priority system WRT cases where they
conflict halakhah lema'aseh.

...
: Active Sephardic communities?  All over Israel.

: They have their own Yeshivot and their own derech which is NOT the Litvische
: derech.

Derekh halimud or machashavah? I assume you mean both. But I would love to see
a developed presentation of the essance of avodas Hashem, what is man's
tafqid, from any of the Sepharadi points of view.

As for RYBS's question about other derakhim alive and well today, I think the
Ramchal's synthesis is still going. I defined it (here and subsequently on the
blog) as the notion that olam hazeh is for sheleimus, but sheleimus is defined
in terms of deveiqus. It gives a definition of sheleimus that isn't
necessarily dominated by RYS's increased emphasis on bein adam lachaveiro
(BALC). (Although of course no one claims BALC is unimportant.) Note how
Mesilas Yesharim follows RPBY's path of tiqun hamiddos, but the middos are
increasingly BALM, and are a path to qedushah and ru'ach haqodesh. In
contrast, many of the middos listed in Cheshbon haNefesh don't naturally fit
that particular sulam. Novordok was similarly a sheleimus to be a nidvaq. But
I think it is also (in a less extreme form) the ground state (undeveloped
position held by default) of many O Jews today.



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, March 23, 2007 7:27 am, R Chana Luntz wrote:
: does  oneis occur when the act is an "act of man" as well as when it is
: an "act of G-d"?  I was mesupik about that, others argued the case more
: strongly....

I would also ask how much due diligence against such acts of man is the ba'al
required in. For example [RnCL replying to RMMS]:
:> The clincher? The author chose this scenario based on a real
:> story: A chosson had hired a popular Jewish singer to sing at
:> his chasunah. At the chasunah, his father-in-law informed him
:> that either the singer goes, or he (the f-i-l-) goes.

: Who poskened that the chosson does not have to pay?  (The issue is not
: whether the chosson might not choose to ask him to sing, but whether the
: the lack of appreciation of the f-i-l and therefore the chosson choosing
: not to have him sing pater's paying)....

In this case, it might matter that the singer is one who people have objected
to in the past, and therefore this is a reasonable cheshash to have been
checked in advance.

I guess that's really my problem with laying the loss on the singer in our
original case rather than the kallah. The kallah's was not a simple error, as
the chasan's side normally takes care of the music, and paying for a singer --
even if part of the band -- was a likely enough option to make me feel her
negligence isn't simple "oneis".

:> I don't think one can apply Ishto k'gufo here. We're dealing
:> with knowledge here, and regardless of what halachic
:> realities is created by this concept it does not create
:> knowledge of what the other spouse thinks.
:
: Not actual knowledge, but deemed knowledge vis a vis the worker.

BTW, even with literal gufo, not just "kegufo" it is possible to create an
error because one part of the person knows something another does not. If you
were to ask me where on this keyboard I am typing on is the letter "Y" I
couldn't answer you. But my fingers found it. (And the guess that came to mind
as I thought about it while typing happened to have been wrong!)

Ishto kegufo might work even WRT knowledge, if one compares it to knowing
something that one is unable to retrieve given the clues or context of the
situation. Shogeig rather than oneis might be a better parallel.

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 Thu, March 22, 2007 7:14 pm, Rn Chana Luntz wrote:
: [I]t is also the halacha that one should not answer an amen which is
: "chatufa" (missing the aleph) or "katufa" (missing the nun) - see s'if
: 10 there [OCh 124]. These latter halachas would seem to emphasise that it is
: important the the amen is articulated clearly, and therefore is by no
: means silent.

It would also imply that there is a problem to not pronouncing one's alef.

And (noting this is the SA) even Sepharadim usually skip them.

The alef sound exists in English (with thanks to RSBelsky for pointing it
out). Try pronouncing the word "button", not with the real /t/, but as it
usually comes out -- /bu'on/. That consonant in the middle of the word is a
fair approximation of an alef.

Another case is the consonant used by Long Islanders (NY) then they start the
second word. It comes out almost "Lawn Guyland" because the G slides right
into an ayin opening the word "Island".

I have a feeling, though, that for Ashkenazim "chatufah" is really defined by
missing the qamatz.

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

But I do not think the status quo is a good thing, or how minhag should work.
While I might lament the death of a derekh hachaim that served my family so
well for generations, not every minhag that I was raised with can and should
emerge victorious. IMHO, it is better to see a singular minhag EY than a
survival of minhag Litta or Aram Tzova. (And better to see a geulah than see a
minhag America ever develop.)>>

R. Ovadiah Yosef tried to get all of EY to follow sefardi minhag (or more exact
the psak of R. Yosef Karo). R. Aruso of Kiryat Ono wrote a PhD thesis advocating
a single minhag for EY based on Rambam (he is Yemenite). In real life
whenever mingaim combine it is usually the ashkenzim that win out.

Numerous other poskim bring the analogy of a symphony. The best music is when
each instrument plays its instrument well not when they are all
identical. Hence,
the optimum is each community keeping its own minhag but in togetherness to
form a symphony.

As RMF paskens for NY today there is no longer minhag hamakom and each community
keeps its own minhagim. There are a few EY customs that overrode old
ashkenazi customs but those are the exceptions rather than the rule.

In spite of all this argument the litvak world does tend to insist on
uniformity.
While in Voloshin each bachur was encouraged to keep his family minhagim
in yeshivot there is a force of uniformity within the yeshiva at the expense of
family customs expecially in tefillah.
One lost custom that I mourn is the coloful clothing among sefardim. Today
sefardi rabbis wear the black of ashkenazi rabbis. Only the rishon letzion
wears a colorful uniform.

-- 
Eli Turkel

On 3/26/07, Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org> wrote:
>
> On Mon, March 26, 2007 1:28 pm, Rt Shoshana L. Boublil wrote:
> ...
> : Active Sephardic communities?  All over Israel.
>
> : They have their own Yeshivot and their own derech which is NOT the
> Litvische
> : derech.
>
> Derekh halimud or machashavah? I assume you mean both. But I would love to
> see
> a developed presentation of the essance of avodas Hashem, what is man's
> tafqid, from any of the Sepharadi points of view.


Even if they don't have a nuanced view on tafkid, that is just as much a
view as the Briskers', whose hashkafa is essentially that hashkafa questions
aren't that relevant (as discussed here).
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RAF: Shuman is the permissible fat. However, quantity wise, shuman is almost
negligible; the bulk is in the cheilev.

It's a metzius question - in the time of the Rosh it seems they did make
candles davka from shuman, presumably so they would be kosher.

Rosh 11, 1st perek of Pesachim:
v'nahagu b'Ashkenaz she'ein bodkin ele b'ner shel sha'avah
aval lo b'ner shel cheilev shehu yarei shema yatif al hakeilim
***v'gam lo b'ner shel shuman shehu yarei shema yatif al klei hachalav
v'gam lo b'ner shel shemen shehu mityarei shema yatif al habegadim vytanfem
v'gam ein yachol l'hachniso l'chorin v'lisdakin.

I don't know if the Rosh here is based on a previous source, nor do I know
if shuman candles were a common kosher product in his time or perhaps just a
hava amina.

- Ilana



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