Avodah Mailing List

Volume 24: Number 86

Tue, 04 Dec 2007

• 1. Re: A shemitta miracle story (Dov Bloom)
• 2. Re: A shemitta miracle story (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: piyyutim (David E Cohen)
• 4. Re: A shemitta miracle story (Zev Sero)
• 5. Fables and Lies (Ilana Sober)
• 6. Re: Fables and Lies (Rich, Joel)
• 7. Re: piyyutim (Arie Folger)
• 8. The Kuzari, vindicated (Micha Berger)
• 9. Re: piyyutim (Arie Folger)
• 10. The Chanukah Musings of a Mathematician (Yitzchok Levine)
• 11. Re: The Chanukah Musings of a Mathematician (Micha Berger)
• 12. Re: The Chanukah Musings of a Mathematician (JRich@Sibson.com)
• 13. Re: The Chanukah Musings of a Mathematician (Micha Berger)
• 14. Re: Yekum Purkan (Richard Wolpoe)
• 15. Re: Yekum Purkan (Zev Sero)
• 16. Wednesday Evening begin Prayer for Rain (Ari Meir Brodsky)

The SM'A in Choshen Mishpat 67 states explicitly that there is no promised de'oraita bracha these days.

The Baal Gilyon HaShas (R Yosef Engel)  in his sefer Shmitta  states likewise.

R Avrum Elkana Kahana Shapira who was Rav Rashi in 5746 writes "Adayin lo zachinu le'bircat Hashem Sheyitkayem Banu Hakatuv 'VeTziviti et haBracha' VeAnu Roim Zot BeEineinu Hayom BeShilhei Taf Shin Mem Vav".

This seems to be the "psak halacha".  I never saw anyone pasken clearly that there was the guaranteed bracha de'oraita nowadays.  A "psak" like this would be contradicted by the facts.
Anyone in Eretz Yisrael who looks at agricultural economics knows that last year (5767) was not a great year at all! Certainly it did not give a threefold yield ( VeTziviti et haBracha beShana HaShishi VeAsat et HaTevuah LeShalosh HaShanim). 
(notwithstanding someone publishing a book of stories and maaiselach about brochot on erev shmitta)

On Mon, December 3, 2007 12:49 pm, R Dov Bloom wrote:
: The SM'A in Choshen Mishpat 67 states explicitly that there is no
: promised de'oraita bracha these days.
: The Baal Gilyon HaShas (R Yosef Engel)  in his sefer Shmitta  states
: likewise.
: R Avrum Elkana Kahana Shapira...
: This seems to be the "psak halacha".  I never saw anyone pasken
: clearly that there was the guaranteed bracha de'oraita nowadays....

See the CI (Deshevi'is 18, #4).

RARakeffet ties this into a more general machloqes about whether dinim
derabbanan are functional, or actually cause metaphysical changes.
IOW, is there something supernaturally dangerous/wrong about eating
owf bechalav, or does the gezeirah begin and end as a pragmatic way of
avoiding real basar bechalav. And does it matter whether it's a
gezeirah or another kind of din derabbanan? Maybe owf bechalav is
different in kind than the issur of using neiros Chanukah.

See my notes (embellished, as I can never resist gilding the lily) at
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2007/07/safeiq-derabbanan.shtml>.

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One who kills his inclination is as though he
micha@aishdas.org        brought an offering. But to bring an offering,
http://www.aishdas.org   you must know where to slaughter and what
Fax: (270) 514-1507      parts to offer.        - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv

For some reason, I have received Issue 85 but have not yet received Issue
84, so I apologize if this point was already made a few days ago.

R' Arie Folger wrote (probably in Issue 84; I'm copying it as quoted by
REMT):
> FYI, the reason we say UT has little to do with a certain
> Rav Amnon who may or may not have lived in Mainz and may or
> may not have had the slightest connection with the author of
> that piyut. The reason is that UT is peti'hah liqdushah on RH

IIRC, the original kerovos by R' Elazar haKalir for the first day of Rosh
Hashanah and for Yom Kippur each have their own silukim, which have ben
replaced in our machazorim by Unsaneh Tokef.

I'm not saying that it has to be by Rav Amnon, but it was definitely a
deliberate replacement, and is not just there as part of the kerovah that
we're saying anyway.  I would venture to say that it is much more
appreciated by most people (and thus much more commonly said) than Kalir's
silukim would be.

--D.C.

Dov Bloom wrote:
> Anyone in Eretz Yisrael who looks at agricultural economics knows that
> last year (5767) was not a great year at all! Certainly it did not give
> a threefold yield ( VeTziviti et haBracha beShana HaShishi VeAsat et
> HaTevuah LeShalosh HaShanim). 

And yet it did for the people of Mevo Horon, who put their trust in it.


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

I once heard "myth" defined as an account of the past that gives
meaning to the present. Again - no connotation of truth/falsehood.

Used in this sense, every nation has founding myths. Our central
founding myths are the stories of the Avot, and especially Yetziat
Mitzrayim. Regarding the Avot - we say maaseh avot siman l'banim: the
actions and experiences of the avot reverberate through the
generations. Regarding Yetziat Mitzrayim - we have numerous mitzvot
ranging from korban Pesach/leil haseder/sipur yetziat Mitzrayim to
pidyon haben, b'chor, tefillin, the mitzvah to remember yetziat
Mitzrayim daily.... Yetziat Mitzrayim gives us a basic foundation of
emunah in understanding G-d as Creator and Master of the Universe, and
ourselves as ovdei H'. These truths can be conveyed through narrative
infinitely more effectively than through books of philosophy.

I am not using the term myth to chas v'shalom imply that anything in
the Torah is fictional, but to convey WHY it is important for us to
retell and remember these stories. For example - the connection
between the Jewish people and Eretz Yisrael began with the words Lech
Lecha. And therefore our relationship with the Land is very different
from that of a people whose founding myth is that they are indigenous
and have lived there since time began.

Rashi asks this question at the very beginning of Chumash. Why do we
need all the stories from Parshat Bereishit to Parshat Bo? Because
these stories give meaning to the present - in this case, they explain
and justify the sovereignty of the Jewish people over the formerly
Canaanite Eretz Yisrael. The fact that they happened is not enough to
justify their inclusion in the Torah. A lot of other things that also
happened are left out of the Torah. The stories that are in the Torah
are there because, in addtion to being true, they shape our
understanding of who we are for all generations.

- Ilana

Rashi asks this question at the very beginning of Chumash. Why do we
need all the stories from Parshat Bereishit to Parshat Bo? Because these
stories give meaning to the present - in this case, they explain and
justify the sovereignty of the Jewish people over the formerly Canaanite
Eretz Yisrael. The fact that they happened is not enough to justify
their inclusion in the Torah. A lot of other things that also happened
are left out of the Torah. The stories that are in the Torah are there
because, in addtion to being true, they shape our understanding of who
we are for all generations.

- Ilana
_______________________________________________
Is that how you understood Rashi, that all these stories were necessary
to justify the sovereignty of the Jewish people over the formerly
Canaanite Eretz Yisrael?

KT
Joel Rich
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On Monday, 3. December 2007 20.04:33 David E Cohen wrote:
> IIRC, the original kerovos by R' Elazar haKalir for the first day of Rosh
> Hashanah and for Yom Kippur each have their own silukim, which have ben
> replaced in our machazorim by Unsaneh Tokef.

I disagree with the classification of UT as a siluq. In my opinion, it is 
that, which can come after the siluq, the peti'hah liqdushah. It replaces the 
verse neqadesh et Shimkha ba'olam...

Some poster suggested that we therefore stand erect, with feet together for 
UT, as we would during neqadesh/naqdishakh/na'aritzekha. However, I am not 
convinced that we would already need to adopt that posture during the first 
verse, which is, after all, only a summons. The qedushah begins with qadosh, 
qadosh, qadosh.

Note that I left out keter from the above list, as some posters might want to 
differentiate between the different forms of qedoshah opening verses (but I 
am not sure that that would be convincing).
-- 
Arie Folger
http://www.ariefolger.googlepages.com

My opinion on the dispute between the Rambam and Rihal is split:

I'm at home with the Rambam's universalism, the notion that being
Jewish "just" means having more tools at your disposal to reach the
same goal. Rihal not only defines Jews as different in composition, he
makes a distinction between geir and ezrach.

OTOH, the Rambam is overly cerebral for my liking. In his hashkafah,
life is a chain of intellectual comprehension from philosophy to Torah
to ruach haqodesh (perhaps, if one gets there in life) and nevuah, and
olam haba. All based on a unity brought through a philosophical
understanding of the Borei. In his world, it is not Jews who are
inherently superior, but people of greater intellectual capacity.

Along the way, the two end up with very different notions of the role
of philosophy. The Rambam, as stated before, believed that some kind
of neo-Platonic Aristotilianism was a necessary stepping stone on the
way to sheleimus. The Rihal, OTOH... Here's the Kuzari 1:13 (tr
Hirschfeld):

> The Rabbi: That which thou dost express is religion based on
> speculation and system, the research of thought, but open to many
> doubts. Now ask the philosophers, and thou wilt find that they do not
> agree on one action or one principle, since some doctrines can be
> established by arguments, which are only partially satisfactory, and
> still much less capable of being proved.

And here's a quote I received today from William James:
> There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and
> that is to contradict other philosophers.

(William James was a 19th cent American thinker who straddled the
fence between philosophy and the field that came to be known as
psychology. He was a pragmaticist, which means he defined truth in
terms of what was useful, given that we will never know for 100%
certain what's really out there.)

James is mesiach lefi tumo, that the Rambam was wrong to place such
confidence in philosophical search for universal truth.

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One who kills his inclination is as though he
micha@aishdas.org        brought an offering. But to bring an offering,
http://www.aishdas.org   you must know where to slaughter and what
Fax: (270) 514-1507      parts to offer.        - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv



SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One who kills his inclination is as though he
micha@aishdas.org        brought an offering. But to bring an offering,
http://www.aishdas.org   you must know where to slaughter and what
Fax: (270) 514-1507      parts to offer.        - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv

REMT wrote:
> ? ? ?"Uv'chein" introduces not only UT. It is the standard prelue to
> k'dusha whenever piyut is said in chazaras hashatz. ?It is usually followed
> by a very long piyut, which is omitted by many piyut-saying shuls.

Since I joined our yekkishe kehilloh, I finally realized that uvekhen is an 
introduction to a piyut, and often mentions the refrain (uvekhein, imru 
lE-lohim, uvekhein ma nora ma'assei E-loheinu, etc.). It now seems to me like 
it makes no sense to say an uvekhein without the piyyut. In fact, I have the 
distinct hunch that the uvekhein was meant to mention the refrain, which 
congregants, who were lacking complete ma'hzorim in the era before the 
invention of the printing press, would respond to the recitation by the 
shatz, who might have been the only one with a complete ma'hzor manuscript.

It is alsio the reason why I find uvekhein ma nora ma'assei E-loheinu (IIRC) 
more correct than uvekhein vayhi biYshurun Melekh,
-- 
Arie Folger
http://www.ariefolger.googlepages.com

Ask someone how many candles are lit in total on Chanukah (excluding 
the Shamash), and some people will immediately reply 36. Some may 
take a minute to actually add the number of candles lit each night.

Ask them how many candles would be lit if Chanukah were 15 days long, 
or 20 or 30, etc. and many people would have to pause to figure out 
the answers. Of course, those who know the formula that 
1+2+3+.....+n=n(n+1)/2 will be able to give you the answer very quickly.

Now why not use this little exercise to interest our Orthodox youth 
in finite sums at this time of year? Would this not be a nice way to 
tie Torah and mathematics together? One could take material from a 
source like http://www.maths.usyd.edu.au/u/UG/JM/MATH1011/r/7a_Finite_Sums.pdf

Just the musings of a mathematician who set up his menorah a few 
minutes ago so it would be ready for tomorrow evening. :-)

A Freilichen Chanukah to all!

Yitzchok Levine 

On Mon, December 3, 2007 5:43 pm, R Yitzchok Levine wrote:
: Ask them how many candles would be lit if Chanukah were 15 days long,
: or 20 or 30, etc. and many people would have to pause to figure out
: the answers. Of course, those who know the formula that
: 1+2+3+.....+n=n(n+1)/2 will be able to give you the answer very
: quickly.

... or maybe even how many cows would be a qorban mussaf on Sukkos if
there are 13 offered on the first day, 12 on the second...

RASoloveitchik suggested that Beis Shammai's shittah of lighting 8
neiros the first night, followed by 7, etc... was based on the
connection between Sukkos and Chanukah, and was pocheis veholeich
because the parim were. In seifer haMakabiim we see that the people
who had missed aliyas haregel on Sukkos because the BHMQ was tamei
came with 4 minim on that first Chanukah. Then there's that whole
chanukas habayis to sukkah connection. From here RAS gets to "ger
vetoshav anokhi imakhem" and the difference between Yehoshua's kibush
and the period from Ezra to the Chashmonaim stabilizing the 2nd one.
Beautiful stuff.

(I was zocheh to hear RAS present it live the Chanukah after Oslo. I
remember it that way because RAS used the vort to explain his
opposition to the accord.)

If you can't get ahold of RAS's "Logic of the Mind, Logic of the
Heart", you may have to settle for my notes for a derashah I gave at
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2006/11/chayei-sarah-kibbush-and-chizuq.shtml>
which is heavily based on this thought from RAS tied together with
RYBS and a R' Chaim.

But back to the point, the math problems are similar because, RAS
suggests, the yamim tovim are.

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One who kills his inclination is as though he
micha@aishdas.org        brought an offering. But to bring an offering,
http://www.aishdas.org   you must know where to slaughter and what
Fax: (270) 514-1507      parts to offer.        - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv

 Of course, those who know the formula that 1+2+3+.....+n=n(n+1)/2 will be able to give you the answer very quickly.

Now why not use this little exercise to interest our Orthodox youth in finite sums at this time of year? Would this not be a nice way to tie Torah and mathematics together? !

Yitzchok Levine 

_____________________________

iiuc there are 2 answers generally given to this type of question for those who reject any study outside of traditional torah.

The 1st is that all this knowledge can be gained from traditional torah study.

The 2nd is that the investment in time is not worth the return.

Ktjoel rich

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On Mon, December 3, 2007 6:46 pm, JRich@Sibson.com wrote:
: The 2nd is that the investment in time is not worth the return.

The Gra would answer that for the one yad of math so learned, the
talmid is now capable of 100 yadayim of Torah.

And now we can presume the usual back-and-forth about TuM has occured,
and perhaps something new can be added. We just gained a number of new
members (thanks RHM!), so I presume this means we will have new
viewpoints on some of the old chestnuts...

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

On Nov 29, 2007 1:48 PM, Zev Sero <zev@sero.name> wrote:

>
> PS: What I've long wondered, considering that minhagei Ashkenaz are
> supposed to come from EY and Sefard from Bavel, is why the Ashkenazi
> version of the bracha for the tzibbur is in Aramaic while the Sefardi
> one is in Hebrew.
> --
> Zev Sero


Gut gezugt!  but Also remember that the Yerushalmi is also in Aramaic!
There is Babylonian dialect of Aramaic and a Judean dilact Aramaic

The Yekum Purkan is clearly Babylonian. [no time to research details now]
AFAIK It is an exception to the above Klal. [klal is a generality more than
a rule] & FWIW In some Sephardic circles it is omitted due to the content of
the bakashos involved. and I concur. The fact that the references tothe
Reish Galutha are obsolete does not bother me so much. The bakashos
themselves [e.g. uvaryus gufa] seems to me as not shabbasdik
-- 
Kol Tuv / Best Regards,
RabbiRichWolpoe@Gmail.com
see: http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/
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Richard Wolpoe wrote:

>  FWIW In some Sephardic circles it is omitted

In some?  I've never seen it in a non-Ashkenazi siddur, or heard it in a
non-Ashkenazi minyan of any type.  The Sefardi version of this bracha is
entirely in Hebrew.

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

Dear Friends,

	This is a friendly reminder to Jews outside of Israel that our daily
prayers should include the request for rain, beginning with the Maariv
service this Wednesday evening, December 5, 2007, corresponding to the
evening of 26 Kislev, 5768, the second night of Chanukka.  The phrase "Veten
tal umatar livrakha" - "Give us dew and rain for a blessing" is inserted
into the 9th blessing of the weekday shemone esrei, from now until Pesach.
For an explanation of why we start when we do, follow this link:
www.lookstein.org/articles/veten_tal.htm

	In addition, I should point out that the current Jewish calendar
year, 5768, features many of the calendrically exciting events that I
included in my essay about 5765, written three years ago, called "How is
this year different from all other years?"  The essay is available here
http://individual.utoronto.ca/aribrodsky/ but please note that I haven't
updated it since 5765.  Also at the same link are my "Calendar
Configurations for Chanukka" as well as my "Mental Molad Method".

	This reminder is dedicated in memory of Zvi (Harry) Golish z"l, with
whom I enjoyed many calendrical conversations.

Happy Chanukka to all,
-Ari

-----------------------
Ari M. Brodsky
ari.brodsky@utoronto.ca




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