Avodah Mailing List

Volume 23: Number 226

Thu, 11 Oct 2007

• 1. Re: Mitsvat Sukkah is almost unique (Arie Folger)
• 2. Re: Mitsvat Sukkah is almost unique (Michael Poppers)
• 3. Re: Mitsvat Sukkah is almost unique (Joseph C. Kaplan)
• 4. Re: Mitsvat Sukkah is almost unique (Arie Folger)
• 5. Re: Shir HaMaalos Mimaamakim (saul mashbaum)
• 6. Parshas Zachor and Women (was: mechitza) (kennethgmiller@juno.com)
• 7. Re: How much Conformity to local Nusach/Mihag is required for Shatz and for the Private Worshiper? (Arie Folger)
• 8. Re: lifnei iver/kanaus (Celejar)
• 9. Re: Shmini Atzeret - why Sukkah YES and Lulav NO? (kennethgmiller@juno.com)
• 10. RE Shabbos Rosh Chodesh Nusach (menachemp@juno.com)
• 11. Re: How much Conformity to local Nusach/Mihag is required for Shatz and for the Private Worshiper? (Michael Poppers)
• 12. Re: rationalism and mysticism (Richard Wolpoe)
• 13. Re: Mitsvat Sukkah is almost unique (Michael Kopinsky)

RJK wrote:
> REMT Writes: "I have seen it written in the name of the Vilner Gaon ?
> that the only two mitzvos encompassing the entire body are sukkah and ?
> yishuv Eretz Yisrael, with which he associated the pasuk "Vayhi ?
> v'shaleim --sukko um'onaso b'Tziyon." ?When I heard R. Riskin quote ?
> that in a public lecture many years ago, one woman in the audience ?
> called out: ?"what about mikvah?" ?R. Riskin then added that to his ?
> list.

The mitzvah isn't to be in the mikveh, but to abstain from certain activities 
while tamei, and perhaps also to be as tahor as can be. The mikveh is the 
facilitator, but not the mitzvah itself. KNLAD.

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

In Avodah Digest V23#222, REMT responded to RAFrimer:
> I have seen it written in the name of the Vilner Gaon that the only two
mitzvos encompassing the entire body are sukkah and yishuv Eretz Yisrael,
with which he associated the pasuk "Vayhi v'shaleim --sukko um'onaso
b'Tziyon." <
and, in the next digest, RJK responded to REMT:
> When I heard R. Riskin quote
that in a public lecture many years ago, one woman in the audience
called out:  "what about mikvah?"  R. Riskin then added that to his
list. <
Perhaps (this as per my understanding of thoughts from a chaveir in REMT's
[and my] community) the mitzvos of [atifas] talis and miqvah are not in the
same category l'fi haGRA because they are not chiyuviyos and/or have some
prerequisite condition (e.g. tum'ah) attached.

All the best from
--Michael Poppers via RIM pager
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RAF writes concerning whether mikveh should be included in the mitzvot 
encompassing the entire body: "The mitzvah isn't to be in the mikveh, but to 
abstain from certain activities while tamei, and perhaps also to be as tahor 
as can be. The mikveh is the
facilitator, but not the mitzvah itself. KNLAD."

But the woman makes a bracha "asher kidshanu bemitzvotav v'tzivanu al 
hatevilah" implying that it is the tevilah -- that is, the immersion in the 
mikveh -- that is the mitzvah.

Joseph Kaplan 

On Thursday, 11. October 2007 15.53:50 Joseph C. Kaplan wrote:
> RAF writes concerning whether mikveh should be included in the mitzvot
> encompassing the entire body: "The mitzvah isn't to be in the mikveh, but
> to abstain from certain activities while tamei, and perhaps also to be as
> tahor as can be. The mikveh is the
> facilitator, but not the mitzvah itself. KNLAD."
>
> But the woman makes a bracha "asher kidshanu bemitzvotav v'tzivanu al
> hatevilah" implying that it is the tevilah -- that is, the immersion in the
> mikveh -- that is the mitzvah.
>
> Joseph Kaplan

I accept.

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

RDKay:
>>
... in his siddur Olas Rayah (R'iya?), RAYK states in the name of his father that one should recite "Mizmor Shir Chanukas l'David" before drinking tea in the morning before shacharis.  Assuming that RSZA and Rav Kook's father had the same source for this, I wonder what it is.  After all, the recital of this chapter of Tehillim before p'sukei d'zimra is of late origin.
 
>>

I have read that this is because "Mizmor Shir Chanukas Habayit l'David" contains the phrase "Ma betza b'dami...etc." Since the issur to eat before davening is based on "lo tochal al hadam" "li tochal lifnei shehitpallaltem al damchem", saying this perek of T'hillim is appropriate before eating.
Saul Mashbaum

 
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I asked:
> Can someone please help me understand how halacha can change
> so radically? I can understand how, over time, View A might
> shift from being held by only 5% of Am Yisrael to 95%, while
> View B becomes less popular, shifting from 95% popularity to
> 5%. This can happen when a person who was a mere talmid of a
> View A community when he was young, became a major teacher
> later on.

R' Joel Rich asked:
> Please say more on this - how did it go from 95 to 5? Was it
> that poskim were eventually won over by something that earlier
> poskim missed? That there were practical reasons?

I thought my first explained at least one way. I'll repeat it now, more fully:

Suppose there is a certain issue on which 5% of the rabbonim, poskim, gedolim, whatever, hold a certain way. I'll call it View A. The other 95% hold by View B. Each rav, posek, whatever, holds the same way as his teacher taught him, and so this 5/95 split has been going on for generations. But then, one rav, or several, from the smaller group becomes very popular, perhaps becoming not merely a teacher or rosh yeshiva, but a *major* Rosh Yeshiva. His views affect the next generation tremendously, and his talmidim carry his opinions far and wide. Inexorably, the balance shifts, and what had been a minority opinion becomes the majority opinion, and vice versa.

I have no citation, but I've been told that this is similar to what happened to Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel. In the beginning, Beis Shammai were the unquestioned leaders in learning, but as time went on, they had a popularity problem, and more and more students flocked to Hillel's school. And so it has stayed since.

The balance can shift in other ways too, as RRW suggests ("something that earlier poskim missed"). This can easily happen with technology, where someone might notice a different way of looking at similar items.

Sometimes the balance can shift on practical grounds. Situations change. What was a desirable but impractical chumra or hiddur for one generation, becomes easily obtainable in another generation, and standard halacha after that. And vice versa: A shita can be relied on only b'shaas hadchak gadol in one generation, but then things got tough and people had legitimate reasons to rely on it; meanwhile, so many people came up with additional "limud zechus"im, that when the emergency passed, it continued as standard halacha.

In any case, none of the above seems to have happened for Parshas Zachor. Rather, it seems that a view which was not held by even a minority - not even by 5%, not even a daas yachid, but was rather entirely new - sprang on the scene and seems to have become the majority.

I asked:
> How did people of the Binyan Tziyon's time view this? I don't
> doubt the forceful and compelling nature of his halachic
> reasoning, but surely there must have been some people who
> said, "That can't be right, because if it is right, then our
> mothers and grandmothers, for millenia, were mevatel a Mitzvas
> Aseh D'Oraisa."

to which R' Zev Sero answered:
> That is exactly what most people did say, and why it took so
> long for this chiddush to become popular practise.  It took
> several generations for the idea to take root, and it didn't
> really become a ubiquitous practise until 20 or 30 years ago.

From previous posters, it seems that prior to the Binyan Tziyon, there were ZERO poskim who held that women were mechuyavos in Parshas Zachor. That's what bothers me. The balance didn't shift from 95%/5% to 5%/95%. Rather a new mitzva arose out of thin air.

Well, not exactly out of thin air. He had reasons and evidence to support his idea. But what does this psak do to the whole concept of Torah Sheb'al Peh?

We're not talking about a new piece of technology, like tefillin whose quality is so high that (according to some poskim) one should specifically *avoid* checking them without good reason. And we're not talking about a new social circumstance, like men who have gotten accustomed to the sight of married women's hair, and have new leniencies from that.

Rather, we're talking about a specific d'Oraisa of the Taryag Mitzvos, which is now being applied to an entire class of people who had previously been considered exempt from it.

Let's compare this to "Moavi, v'lo Moaviyah". In that case, many people had accused Boaz of inventing a new and illegitimate drash to justify his actions. In actual fact, he did no such thing, but merely relied on a limud which had been in existence all along, except that it was not well-known, having been largely forgotten among everyone but the highest echelons of the mesorah.

Is that what happened with Parshas Zachor? I don't hear any such claims. I don't hear any claims that such a shita was pre-existing. What I hear is that someone (some posters pinned it on Binyan Tziyon, but last night I saw it in the name of the Minchas Chinuch) went through the following steps:

1) Saw that Mechiyas Amalek is on both men and women
2) Felt that Zechiras Amalek and Mechiyas Amalek are on the same classes of people
3) Concluded that women are obligated in Parshas Zachor
4) Informed many people that although the women did not hear Parshas Zachor in previous years, they had better be sure to do so in the future.

My problem with the above is in step 3. Instead of concluding that women *are* obligated in Parshas Zachor, he should have concluded that women *ought* to be obligated, and then step 4 would have been to ask, "But we know that women are *not* obligated, so where's my mistake?"

Akiva Miller

On Thursday, 11. October 2007 12.52:23 avodah-request@lists.aishdas.org wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 09, 2007 at 04:15:18PM +0200, Arie Folger wrote:
> : ROY believes that the whole world should use nussa'h 'edot
>
> hamizra'h...
>
> The whole world, or "just" EY and the Americas?
>
> The way ROY understands minhag hamaqom, the BY and his generation fully
> established it in EY as being that of Edot haMizrach. I would think --
> as modified by Qabbalas haAri, but I don't see ROY say that.

You conflate two issues. Based on the Ari's like for nussa'h 'edot hamira'h, 
he thinks we should all use it. At least, according to the story I vaguely 
recall.

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

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 07:00:15 -0400
Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 01, 2007 at 01:10:22AM -0400, Richard Wolpoe wrote:
> : The Talmud/SA tells us that we may not hit a child past a certain age [15
> : iirc] because he might hit you back and you would thereby trangress lifnei
> : iver...on an issur of misas beis din no less.
> 
> Might, not probably.
> 
> Think of the gezeirah against blowing shofar on Shabbos. Takanos do not
> require a very high threshold of probability.

I see no indication in the Gemara (MK 17a) or SA that this is a takanah
or gezeira; the gemara's language is that "he has violated lifnei
i'ver". 
> :        Anyone learning "Elu hein Halokin will notice that the way malkus is
> : practiced it is more about shaming, embarrassing, and stimgatizing, then
> : about inflicting physical pain.
> 
> Then why did you need a doctor to check if he could survive the next
> three?

I concur that the gemara clearly indicates that extreme physical pain
was at the very least a realistic possibility.

> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha
> 
> -- 
> Micha Berger             "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes
> micha@aishdas.org        exactly the right measure of himself,  and
> http://www.aishdas.org   holds a just balance between what he can
> Fax: (270) 514-1507      acquire and what he can use." - Peter Latham
> _______________________________________________
> Avodah mailing list
> Avodah@lists.aishdas.org
> http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org


Celejar
--
mailmin.sourceforge.net - remote access via secure (OpenPGP) email
ssuds.sourceforge.net - A Simple Sudoku Solver and Generator

Over a week ago, I wrote:
> Shmini Atzeres in chu"l is safek Chol Hamoed. ... Safek
> Brachos L'Kula too, so even for a seudas keva, no one says
> Leshev on Shmini. Lulav, on the other hand, is already
> D'Rabanan on Chol Hamoed. Safek D'Rabanan L'Kula on Shmini.

Offlist, an esteemed listmember corrected me:
> The bracha on sukkah is not made on Shmini Atzeres _not_
> because of safek bracha l'kula.  Why is it any more safek
> bracha than the brachos on matza and maror at the second seder?

Yes, indeed, I misspoke. There's no safek here at all. Here's a revised version:

On Second Day Of Hoshana Raba, we do things which met both of two criteria on the previous day: It is a D'Oraisa (and not d'Rabanan or minhag), and it is a Real Chiyuv (and not optional, by which I include even chiyuvim which are not m'akev).

I think that these criteria are enough to allow for all the exceptions that I can think of:

- Kvias Seudah still has to be in the sukkah
- Even Kvias Seuda on mezonos (which would have required Leshev on Sukkos) has to be in the sukkah
- Some posts cited poskim who say even sleeping has to be in the sukkah (my guess is that those poskim insist on sleeping in the sukkah on Sukkos too)
- No snacks are eaten in the sukkah
- No bracha of Leshev Basukkah under any circumstances
- No lulav under any circumstances
- No Ushpizin or Hoshanos either
- Musaf is only Bayom Hashmini, and does not include Uvayom Hashvii

Why so very many exceptions? As the other listmember wrote to me, without these exceptions
> ... it would be a denigration of Shmini, indicating that
> it is not yet Yom Hashmini, but rather a continuation of day 7.

Yet we *DO* eat in the sukka on this day. Why is that not a denigration of Shmini?

Many people answer this with the answer that R"nTK gave in her husband's name:
> But sitting in the sukka is OK because people might go
> outside to eat in a in a shady booth even if it wasn't
> any kind of holiday.

I fully admit that MANY MANY people who know a LOT more Torah than I do give that very same answer. But I do not understand how they resolve that idea with the often-quoted midrash (or gemara?) that Sukkos is in the autumn davka because this is NOT the time of year when people go outdoors.

Which is why my view is to admit that eating in the Sukkah on The Second Day Of Hoshana Rabba DOES denigrate Shmini Atzeres. And that's why the gemara had such a debate about what to do. There *IS* a conflict here, and - WADR - it would be cognitive dissonance to pretend there isn't. So they debated what to do.

They could have said to skip the sukkah entirely. Or they could have said to even say Leshev. But they compromised, and concluded that Yesuvi Yasvinan, Bruchi Lo MeVarchinan (we do sit, but we don't bless). They chose to respect the kavod of Shmini, yet still enforce the Safek Shvii, and get by with the absolute minimum that we can get away with - only Real Chiyuvim D'Oraisa, of which Kvias Seuda in the Sukka is the only one.

Akiva Miller

Nusach Ari (Chabad) does indeed include this clause (Kadsheinu Bemitzvosecha...) in Shabbos Rosh Codesh Musaf.
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In Avodah Digest V23#224, RMB replied to RAFolger:
> The way ROY understands minhag hamaqom, the BY and his generation fully
established it in EY as being that of Edot haMizrach. I would think -- as
modified by Qabbalas haAri, but I don't see ROY say that. <
Does that position help or hurt alleged sanction by ROY for an aveil to say
"v"yatzmach..." when in a maqom which has never had "v"yatzmach..." as part
of its nusach?  I would prefer to think it limits p'saq BY to "eretz
Yisrael and neighboring countries" and doesn't include New World lands
(where s'faradim may have been the first Jews to populate certain areas but
where many other communities were later founded by Ashk'nazic Jews) or even
post-BY movements.

A guten Shabbes and all the best from
--Michael Poppers via RIM pager
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On 10/11/07, Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org> wrote:
>
>
>
> Gnosis is experiencing G-d. Knowing G-d the way one knows one's best
> friend.
>
> The Rambam writes about knowing as much about G-d as possible. Knowing
> G-d the way one knows Geometry -- with solid proofs. But as ideas,
> not a first-hand experience of the Divine.
>
> Frankly, the way I read the Rambam it looks like he blurs the distinction
> when he places the Chokham on the same scale as the Navi.
>
> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha
>
> --
> Micha Berger
>

I agree, BUT somewhere or other the Rambam waxes a bit poetical about how
great it is to Experience JUST GOD. AIUI, his path is  intellectual, but his
goal is  kind of a very close relationship, like a Rebbe/Talmid symbiosis of
sorts.

v'ho'dom yada goes beyond intellectual knowing into a kind of relationship,
too!  But let's substitute ECSTATIC for CARNAL.  Then just as Adam had an
Ecstasy whilst knowing Hava, so, too, a Navi would have an ecstatic
experience KNOWING Hashem. Hence a form of Gnosis, granted  with a
Maimonidean intellectual approach, but not necessarily devoid of the emotion
of Ecstasy!

Lemashal, a Chess player might have a "high" seeing a brilliant move by a
grandmaster.

-- 
Kol Tuv / Best Regards,
RabbiRichWolpoe@Gmail.com
Please Visit:
http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/
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On 10/9/07, Joseph Kaplan <jkaplan@tenzerlunin.com> wrote:
>
> REMT Writes: "I have seen it written in the name of the Vilner Gaon
> that the only two mitzvos encompassing the entire body are sukkah and
> yishuv Eretz Yisrael, with which he associated the pasuk "Vayhi
> v'shaleim --sukko um'onaso b'Tziyon."


When I heard R. Riskin quote
> that in a public lecture many years ago, one woman in the audience
> called out:  "what about mikvah?"  R. Riskin then added that to his
> list.


a) The mitzvah of tevillah in cases where it does exist d'oraisa is
"v'rachatz es b'saro bamayim v'taheir".  Is b'saro the same as kul gufo?

I actually can't figure out what b'saro means.  There are some places where
it clearly means meat - v'achal b'saro b'makom kadosh (source?)
skin - umichn'sei vad yih'yu al b'saro
In Tazria, it is clearly not skin - the pasuk uses (repeatedly) the term 'or
b'saro
What about yimol b'sar orlaso?  Are orlah and b'sar orlaso different things?

b)  Is the mitzvah of sukkah even kol gufo?  All you really need is rosho
v'rubo.  I assume that when the GR"A said it is different from other
mitzvos, he was focusing on the verb (teishvu, same as Yishuv E"Y) rather
than which body parts are necessary.  But how is teishvu (a state of being,
really*) different from v'halachta bidrachav?  Or v'chai bahem?  I guess
those aren't mitzvos sheyeish bahem maaseh.  Maybe Sukkah and YEY are the
only 2 mitzvos sheyeish bahem maaseh that involve a state of being.

*(which fits well with the GR"A's connection to the pasuk Vay'hi shalem)


> RAF writes concerning whether mikveh should be included in the mitzvot
> encompassing the entire body: "The mitzvah isn't to be in the mikveh, but
> to
>
> abstain from certain activities while tamei, and perhaps also to be as
> tahor
> as can be. The mikveh is the
> facilitator, but not the mitzvah itself. KNLAD."
>
> But the woman makes a bracha "asher kidshanu bemitzvotav v'tzivanu al
> hatevilah" implying that it is the tevilah -- that is, the immersion in
> the
> mikveh -- that is the mitzvah.
>

Is the nusach of the bracha always indicative of the maaseh mitzvah?  Take
al mitzvas tzitzis or l'his'atef b'tzitzis - is the nusach habracha a ra'aya
that the mitzvah is to wear a tallis / tallis katan?  The mitzvah is that
every tallis ( = 4 corned garment) that we wear should have tzitzis ( =
strings) attached.  The nusach habracha corresponds to the most visible
kiyyum hamitzvah, namely putting on the tallis, or dipping in the mikvah.
That doesn't mean it is the ikkar mitzvah.

That being said, I think there some cases where the tevillah may be the
ikkar mitzvah, or at least an integral part of the mitzvah, as opposed to a
machshir or a mattir.  Where the Torah says "v'rachatz es b'saro bamayim",
that may be saying that the t'vilah is the (or a) maaseh mitzvah.
Alternatively, it could just be a mattir - "v'achar kach yavo el
hamachaneh".  In the case of niddah, the passuk does not explicitly say she
has to dip.  (Vayikra 23:28 - "V'safrah lah shivas yamim, v'achar tithar.")
This is unlike zav, where it does explicitly say (15:13) he has to dip
("v'safar lo...v'chibes...").  Without seeing the gemaras*, I would not
likely be mechalek between niddah and the other cases, since it does have
the verb "v'achar tithar."  So either all the cases are a maaseh mitzvah, or
they're all a mattir (albeit for different things).  But I don't think the
nusach habracha is a ra'aya one way or the other.

KT,
Michael
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