Avodah Mailing List

Volume 24: Number 7

Mon, 15 Oct 2007

• 1. Re: German siddur questions (Michael Kopinsky)
• 2. Re: THE I.R.S.O. AUDIT (Richard Wolpoe)
• 3. Re: parshas Noach question (Zev Sero)
• 4. Re: minhag to argue (Zev Sero)
• 5. Re: Mitsvat Sukkah is almost unique (T613K@aol.com)
• 6. Re: How Bitter Can A Month Be? Bittersweet. (Micha Berger)
• 7. Re: The Lecha in Lech lecha (Lipman)
• 8. Re: Mitsvat Sukkah is almost unique (Michael Kopinsky)
• 9. Re: How Bitter Can A Month Be? Bittersweet. (Zev Sero)
• 10. Re: How Bitter Can A Month Be? Bittersweet. (Richard Wolpoe)
• 11. Re: Mitsvat Sukkah is almost unique (Richard Wolpoe)

On 10/15/07, Elliott Shevin <eshevin@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> R. Richard Wolpoe writes:
> >
> > 3) (Google translation: From the evening of the 59th Day after Tekufas
> Tishrei,
> > > either on the 5th Or 6 December fall until Pesach is here, "Tal
> Umattar"
> > > turned on.)
> > > We all know that in Chu"l you start saying v'sein tal umattar on the
> 4th
> > > or 5th of December. Why does this siddur say the 5th or 6th?
> > >
>
> R. Michael Poppers replies:
> >
> > It means the EVE [i.e ma'ariv] before the 5th of 6th.
> >
>
> Just to reconcile the note with R. Poppers' comment: is it possible the
> note is found in Shacharis? Thus no problem--tal umattar would have been
> said starting the previous night, the 4th or 5th.
>

Good point!

It is indeed found in shacharis.  It's a small siddur, so while it has all
of davening (at least for weekdays - I don't think it has shabbos), it
doesn't repeat Shmoneh Esrei 3 times.

Thanks!

Michael
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On 10/14/07, Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Oct 11, 2007 at 07:18:20AM -0400, R Wolberg wrote:
>
>
> Except that it's difficult to remember every one of the month's
> transactions. I find it more useful to maintain a cheshbon nightly.
> It provides good excercise in learning how to watch myself, seeing
> how I actually respond and make decisions rather than how I like
> to think I do. Which in turn makes more "room" between stimulous and
> response besha'as ma'aseh to think about what I'm doing and make better
> decisions. (Not that I necessarily /use/ that opportunity.)
>
> OTOH, I find the idea of spending time on YKQ reviewing it to be
> compelling. Thanks.
>
> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha
>

Maybe this is a a parrellel to sarei alafim, sarie meei'os, sarei Hamishim,
sarei assoros in taht there is a hierarchy... IOW we can audit ourselves
nightly, weekly, monthly, and annually.   They all have their places and
levels...



-- 
Kol Tuv / Best Regards,
RabbiRichWolpoe@Gmail.com
Please Visit:
http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/
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I asked R Craig Winchell how long it takes from planting a vineyard
until the first harvest, and he answered with much more detail than
I'd expected:

> In the days of cheap grapes, it used to be considered 3 years to the
> first commercial crop.  That is to say, you'd plant a dormant bench
> graft in the winter, it would bud and grow up a line the first year,
> during which you would top it and train laterals out horizontally
> (assuming cordon training). The next year, you'd expand the size of
> the cordon by allowing any new laterals or primary buds to push,
> then taking the canes when dormant and choosing the strongest ones
> to increase the horizontal exposure, while allowing the leaf area
> to put its sugars primary into wood rather than fruit, in order to
> strengthen the vine as a whole.  Then, the next year, you'd harvest.
> However, when grapes are expensive, many have felt it's worthwhile
> even just to harvest half a ton or a ton per acre, since it's like
> getting free grapes that way, and the vine isn't that affected by
> cropping the new vines to such a level.
> 
> Of course, if one were keeping halachos of orlah, as one must even in
> chutz la'aretz, and most say even with fruit grown by nonJews in
> nonJewish vineyards, one could not harvest until the 4th year, which
> would have been used exclusively in Jerusalem, but in the absence of
> the Beis Hamikdash can be used anywhere. 


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev@sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                      	                          - Clarence Thomas

"Jonathan Baker" <jjbaker@panix.com> wrote:
 
> There was one vowel in leining that each year became an argument 
> between the rabbi and the baal kriah - a chataf-patach that was kinda
> hard to pronounce as a patach, and generally slipped into a schwa.

You are misremembering.  

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev@sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas

 
 
From: Elliott Shevin _eshevin@hotmail.com_ (mailto:eshevin@hotmail.com) 


Rn. Toby Katz writes: > Of course tevillah is a mitzva in the sense  that 
once you became nidah, if > you are a married woman and if you want to  be with 
your husband, you have to > go to the mikva. But you had no chiyuv to  become 
nidah or to be married....>  
 
RES: >>And sukkah is a mitvah if you're not too infirm to perform  it--but 
you didn't have a chiyv to be healthy (only to *strive* to be healthy).  
Providing a get is a mitzvah--but you didn't have a chiyuv to get into an  unhappy 
marriage.><
 
TK:  Whoever first said, "There are two mitzvos that are performed  with the 
> entire body" had in mind this definition of mitzva: an obligation  incumbent 
upon > everyone. (Or, incumbent upon every Jewish man, to be more  precise.)
 
RES: >>It doesn't make sense to me to rule out any mitzvah simply  because 
it's situational; an awful lot of them are. Is there a source for your  
assertion? <<


 
>>>>>
To me the difference is so intuitively obvious that I am having trouble  even 
putting it into words.  There is one kind of mitzva that you are  lechatchila 
obligated to do -- like sukka, matza, shofar and a whole bunch  more -- but 
if something goes wrong, then you are patur (if you get sick, for  example).  
Then there is a whole nother kind of mitzva that only kicks in  in the first 
place if something goes wrong, if something needs to be  corrected -- e.g., 
going to the mikva if you became nidah (which status -- nidus  -- would not even 
exist but for Chava's sin).  
 
In the first set of mitzvos, you seem to be saying something like, "There  is 
no chiyuv to make sure you are not exempt from these mitzvos."  But  
actually, there /is/ such a chiyuv.  That is, you are not allowed to do  something 
deliberately that will cause you to be exempt from these  mitzvos.  Like, you 
can't make yourself sick on purpose so that you won't  have to eat in the sukka.
 
"If you become nidah you have to go to the mikva."
 
"If you are healthy you have to eat in the sukka."
 
As I said, it seems to me intuitively obvious that these are two entirely  
different categories, but I need somebody with a sharper mind than mine to spell 
 out the difference.
 
You can't seriously be claiming that being in good  health is just a 
"situational" grounds for keeping the mitzva of  Sukkos the way "getting divorced" is 
a situational grounds for giving a get or  becoming nidah is a situational 
grounds for going to the mikva.
 


--Toby  Katz
=============



************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com
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On Sat, October 13, 2007 11:06 pm, Zev Sero wrote:
: Micha Berger wrote:
:> So, merach would be yareiach in Hebrew,

: Yerach.

Yerach is semichut, no? "Yerach ha'Eisanim" is "the month OF the greats".

Why would the Akkadian use the equivalent of a semichut? Therefore,
even though the vowels are "yerach", I think "merach" is the
equivalent of "yeariach" ("month", without the "of").

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

RabbiRichWolpoe wrote:
> It appears taht pashut Ivris uses this as a simple direct or indirect object.

It corresponds to what we used to call a dativus commodi (sive incommodi, depending on the context) in grammar school. But even in English, you can tell people who study too much Latin "get a life" or "get yourself a life" without much difference in meaning - it's more often a question of nuances or idiomatic usage.

LPhM
http://lipmans.blogspot.com

On 10/15/07, T613K@aol.com <T613K@aol.com> wrote:

>  To me the difference is so intuitively obvious that I am having trouble
> even putting it into words.
>

I've told many English teachers this line before, but they've never accepted
it as an excuse for a late essay.  This is my first time I got to see an
English teacher say this!



>  a whole nother kind of mitzva
>

Did you really say that?

Now to our regularly scheduled Avodah topic:

RnTK wrote originally:


> Of course tevillah is a mitzva in the sense that once you became nidah, if
> you are a married woman and if you want to be with your husband, you have
> to go to the mikva.  But you had no chiyuv to become nidah or to bemarried.  Or if you're a
> man living at the time of the Bais Hamikdash, it would be a mitzva to go
> the mikva /if/ you had become tamei.   But you had no chiyuv to become
> tamei!  So there is no "mitzva" to go the mikva in the sense of "universal
> obligation."
>
RnTK wrote now:

>  In the first set of mitzvos, you seem to be saying something like, "There
> is no chiyuv to make sure you are not exempt from these mitzvos."  But
> actually, there /is/ such a chiyuv.  That is, you are not allowed to do
> something deliberately that will cause you to be exempt from these mitzvos.
> Like, you can't make yourself sick on purpose so that you won't have to eat
> in the sukka.
>
> "If you become nidah you have to go to the mikva."
>
> "If you are healthy you have to eat in the sukka."
>
> As I said, it seems to me intuitively obvious that these are two entirely
> different categories, but I need somebody with a sharper mind than mine to
> spell out the difference.
>
> You can't seriously be claiming that being in good health is just a
> "situational" grounds for keeping the mitzva of Sukkos the way "getting
> divorced" is a situational grounds for giving a get or becoming nidah is a
> situational grounds for going to the mikva.
>

I agree with your distinction between mitzvos for which the chiyuv is only
generated by the circumstances (like tevillas nidah) and mitzvos where the
chiyuv exists l'chatchila, even if the circumstances sometimes create a
p'tur.  However, I don't know to what extent that is relevant. Birchas
hamazon is a mitzvah that is only generated by the circumstances, but it is
certainly a full mitzvah, and is counted in the various minyanei hamitzvos.

KT,
Michael
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Micha Berger wrote:
> On Sat, October 13, 2007 11:06 pm, Zev Sero wrote:
> : Micha Berger wrote:
> :> So, merach would be yareiach in Hebrew,
> 
> : Yerach.
> 
> Yerach is semichut, no? "Yerach ha'Eisanim" is "the month OF the greats".
>
> Why would the Akkadian use the equivalent of a semichut? Therefore,
> even though the vowels are "yerach", I think "merach" is the
> equivalent of "yeariach" ("month", without the "of").

Where is "yareach" ever used for "month"; AFAIK it always means the
actual moon, not the time it takes to cycle.  In Tanach a month is
"yerach yamim".   Here it would be "yerach sheman", month number eight,
not "hayareach hashemini", the "eighth moon".


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev@sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas

On 10/15/07, Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org> wrote:
>
> On Sat, October 13, 2007 11:06 pm, Zev Sero wrote:
> : Micha Berger wrote:
> :> So, merach would be yareiach in Hebrew,
>
> : Yerach.
>
> Yerach is semichut, no? "Yerach ha'Eisanim" is "the month OF the greats".
>
>
> SheTir'u baTov!
> -micha
>
>

I'm not referring to a genuine Hebrew term but to another version of the
Chalean/aramaic/Syriac etc. but a term closer to Heberew

after all  It's just a guess that m'rach Shvon might actually have been
y'rach-shmon
Noe of the aboe is Hewbrew but both would refer to the 8th month or the
month of 8...



KT
RRW
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On 10/15/07, T613K@aol.com <T613K@aol.com> wrote:
>
>   From: Elliott Shevin eshevin@hotmail.com
>
>
> You can't seriously be claiming that being in good health is just a
> "situational" grounds for keeping the mitzva of Sukkos the way "getting
> divorced" is a situational grounds for giving a get or becoming nidah is a
> situational grounds for going to the mikva.
>
>
> *--Toby Katz
> =============*
>
> R. Akiva says Mikveh [a pun] Yisrael Hashem - mah mikvah metaheir eschem
af HKBH metaher es Yisrael

IOW in Jewish Lit a Mikvah reprsents a GOOD thing. It is not simply about a
de-nida-ization per se, but rather a more comprehensive concept of becoming
Tahor.  And the ULTIMATE mikvah is HKBH Himself.  So why would the analogy
conjure up anything negative? Aderrabbah just as R. Akiva points out that
immerision in a mikvah roots out tum'ah- so , too, immersion in a Sukkah
does wonderful things for the neshama, too.

Now back to my hobby horse. The better parellel to Sukkah imho is not to
yishuv EY but to  entry to the Beis haMIkdash where one is immersed in
kedusha.  This  goes along with the term "Sukkas David", that each Sukkah is
reminiscent not so much of anenei hakavod but rather of the Sanctuary -
hence the name Tabernacles.

Kol Tuv / Best Regards,
RabbiRichWolpoe@Gmail.com
Please Visit:
http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/
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