Avodah Mailing List

Volume 24: Number 107

Thu, 27 Dec 2007

• 1. RSRH on Embalming and Transmigration (Prof. Levine)
• 2. Re: Apikores? (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: : A few Notes on Parshas Vaychi (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: Apikores? (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: 613 or 620? (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: RSRH on Embalming and Transmigration (Zev Sero)
• 7. Re: Apikores? (Zev Sero)
• 8. Re: [Areivim] upcoming C 'psaks' (Elazar M. Teitz)
• 9. Re: [Areivim] upcoming C 'psaks' (Zev Sero)
• 10. Re: Interesting Netziv (Micha Berger)
• 11. Neglected Amens (Akiva Blum)
• 12. dvar tora (Saul.Z.Newman@kp.org)
• 13. Re: dvar tora (Zev Sero)
• 14. Ashkenazim and Sephardim (Michael Makovi)

On page 891 of the new translation of the Hirsch Chumash on 50:2 RSRH writes:

Here we have an interesting contrast between the 
Egyptian view - as expressed in embalmment ? and 
the Jewish view. Such contrasts, whenever they 
occur, should be analyzed, and should be stressed 
especially in our confrontation with those who 
deny the Divine source of the Torah, who regard 
"the work of Moses" as merely the product of "his 
genius," which "drew upon the wisdom of the priests of Egypt."

How striking is the contrast that is revealed 
here! The Egyptian would embalm the body, so that 
its individuality should endure. However, the 
soul, he thought, did not remain in its personal 
individuality, but wandered from body to body ? 
even to animal bodies ? in manifold 
metamorphoses. The Jew believes that the soul 
endures forever, whereas the body wanders. Once 
the soul has been gathered unto the souls of its 
people, the body has nothing more to do with the 
individual. Rather, it is a mitzvah to bring the 
body as soon as possible into close contact with 
the decomposing earth (see Sanhedrin 46b). The 
body returns to dust, and goes through all the 
transformations of earthly matter. The Egyptian 
believed in the transmigration of the soul, and 
tried to protect the body from any possibility of 
change. The Jew believes in the soul's eternal 
personal existence, and surrenders the body to earthly change.

May one infer from here that RSRH did not subscribe to the concept of gilgul?

Yitzchok Levine 

On Mon, December 24, 2007 10:26 am, David Riceman wrote:
:> IOW, the justice isn't in the fact that the soul doesn't consider it
:> unjust, but that from an objective position, we would know the
:> balance rests otherwise.

: Two problems....


: God
: is not only a player in the game, He invented the game and set up the
: rules.  So the proper analogy would be that the parents deliberately
: blinded their child, and then took him in for surgery. Retrospectively
: the surgery is the lesser of two evils, but it's not just of them to
: blind him and then impose more pain to restore his vision.

Except that it's not so much that the child was blinded, but that the
child never had sight -- and has no innate right to such "sight".
There is a difference between being harmed and never having had a
benefit. The child has a right to sight, and it's unjust to deprive
him of it, and even unjust to refrain from getting all available help
to help one's blind child. But that presumes a child has a right to
sight and is therefore being deprived of the fair thing.

If sight is considered a priviledge, the whole line of reasoning
doesn't get started. Then the question of justice becomes
understanding how sight was earned for those who get it.

To stop torturing the metaphor...

HQBH made man incomplete so that people can have the opportunity to
make ourselves. This is a greater good than being given everything
(the nimshal for sight), and thus being born without it isn't a lack
of justice.

: If I recall correctly (and I may be wrong on this since I looked for a
: little while a couple of weeks ago and couldn't find the citation I
: remembered) Rabbi Dessler's claim is that everything that happens to a
: person during his entire existence, both in this world and in the
: world to come, are perfectly just.  So "eventual reward offsetting the
: pain" just doesn't fit his opinion.

The difference is that I'm reading it as "everything", and you are
reading it as "each thing". IOW, I saw REED as saying the complete
picture is a just one, every positive balanced with a negative to
exactly match the person's bechiros in positives and negatives. You
understood him to mean that each event in itself is just.

As neither of us could find the source text, this kind of diyuq
halashon would have to wait.

That said, as for my own beliefs (as opposed to how I understood
REED), FWIW... I believe in a very broad definition of sechar mitzvos
behai alma leiqa. We're in the prozdor, and the merciful thing for
HQBH to do is help us prepare for the banquet. Only people incapable
of getting to the banquet are aided by getting more short-term hanaah
for its own sake. Thus, what you get be'olam hazeh is what best points
you to your maximum potential based on where you place yourself. This
is a position of universal HP, at least WRT people.

And it isn't quite the same as sechar va'onesh in olam hazah - leiqa!
It not only implies more "growth experiences", HQBH saying "I'm doing
this for your own good", for those who make more mistakes, but it also
means that they are more likely for those capable of taking their
lesson (who tend to be the holier among us).

And without knowing every possible outcome given differences in our
life stories, we really can never know how this event or that was a
tool we did/could have used.

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

On Sun, December 23, 2007 9:28 pm, RSBA wrote:
: Meanwhile, looking up the Midrash I noticed (at the end of Parsha 97)
: it says on "Becharbi ubekashti" - "bemitzvos ubemaasim tovim" !!

The Targum renders it "betzelosi uva'us-hi". This is also in Bava
Basra 123, "'Charbi' -- zu tefillah, 'qashti' - zu baqashah."

RYBS then explains "tzelosana" to refer to our immediate requests --
swordlike. Parnasah, health, etc... Whereas the arrows of "ba'us-hon"
are for things like mashiach, the restoration of din, etc...

Personally, I don't follow. We have the list of techinos in the gemara
that are "basar tzelosana amar hachi". Shemone Esrei, the archetype
tefillah, even in its immediate requests are belashon rabim. As RYBS
himself notes, lehit-pallel is in the reflective; teaching ourselves
to turn to Hashem. The requests made in E-lokai Netzor are all
personal requests, things that touch my life now, written belashon
yachid. If the mashal vs nimshal were all about distance, I would have
thought the words would have mapped the other way -- tefillah is the
long-term requests, baqashos are my immediate needs.

Lulei demitztafina hayisi omer that the primary issue isn't immediacy,
but need for expertise. A sword in the hand of an expert is
formidable, but even a klutz with a sword is dangerous. Arrows in the
hand of the unexperienced are pretty much useless. Thus tefillah, like
those precomposed by Anshei Keneses haGdolah, is more like a sword --
of utility to anyone. The art of techinah, of personally composed
baqashos -- that requires greater skill to be of any value.

The Maharsha's comment in BB: Becharbi is keneged Esav's "al charbekha
yichyeh", while beqashti is Yishma'el's "vayhi roveh qashas". Becharbi
ubeqashti -- because prayer can protect us from both kinds of threat.

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

On Sun, December 23, 2007 10:31 pm, R Elazar M. Teitz wrote:
:      First, there is no mention whatever of corporal punishment, and
: indeed the ability to administer corporal punishment is not
: curtailed by the absence of the Beis Din Hagadol from the Lishkas
: Hagazis.  It is capital punishment -- dinei n'fashos -- and
: capital punishment alone whose administration requires the
: presence in Lishkas Hagazis....

The Smag (Lav 213) says malkos does as well.

But first let me explain my meandering mind's take.

As I wrote in my earlier post, I understood "dinei nefashos" to mean
corporal punishment in addition to misas beis din. The mishnah on
Sanhedrin 34a divides the world of eidus into memonos and nefashos,
forcing us to place malqos into the dinei nefashos bucket.

On Sanhedrin 10a, Abayei says "malqos bimqom misah omedes" (from a
g"sh rasha-rasha) and then Rava uses this to derive that they require
a BD shel 23, eidim vehasra'ah. Even the Rambam (Sanhedrin 16:1), who
allows a DB shel 3 to perform malkos, makes a point of affirming
Abayei's equation.

LAD, the machloqes between the tana qama (BD of 3) and Rava (BD of 23)
is reiterated. The Rambam (Hil Sanhedrin 16:1) holds like Abayei (that
malqos is a derivative of misas BD) but also against Rava (we only
need a BD of 3 semuchin). On this issue, the aforementioned Smag
disagrees, and requires 23 semuchin as well as the Sanhedrin must be
in lishkas hagazis.

But it is even possible the Rambam would require the Sanhedrin in the
lishkah as well, depending whether the Rambam does would depend on
whether it's part of "bimqom misah" or part of the exception of only
requiring 3 dayanim. It would also depend on his usage of dinei
nefashos, is it like the mishnah in Sanhedrin?

Thanks for showing me that I was jumping through hoops to prove
something Rashi says befeirush -- "lo hayu maspiqim". 2nd guessing
Rashi is a nice enough thing that I don't feel entirely silly for
taking the time to find the gemara and then missing the Rashi on it.

In any case, even if including malkos is an overreach, my original
point would stand... The Sanhedrin chose galus over having an
Inquisition imposing will on non-compliant masses, even when the
accused were accused of murder. At least, not if the Inquisition would
include death or intentional risk to life.

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

On Sun, December 23, 2007 6:48 pm, Richard Wolberg wrote:
: The following from Chabura-Net's Home Page, is very instructive and
: worth studying:
...
: Rambam states that the first type of commandment that cannot be
: included in his list is any commandment of Rabbinic origin (mitzva
: d?rabbanan). While this would seem to be an obvious criteria when
: trying to list only those commandments that are found in the Torah,
: Rambam is responding to the list of the Behag, who listed, among other
: things, the commandment to light candles on Chanukah and to read the
: Megilla on Purim, two commandments that were clearly made by the
: Rabbis at the appropriate times in history.

I recently referred the chevrah to a blog entry of mine on the topic
of safeiq derabbanan lehaqeil. Since safeiq de'oraisa lehachmir is
itself a derabbanan, it could be that they simply excluded lo sasur
from the taqanah.

This would also connect the question of whether the 613, keneged
eivarim + gidim, includes the 7 derabbanan or not to the question of
whether dinim derabbanan, taqanos and gezeiros cause a metaphysical
chalos.

Rather than repeat the summary of the blog entry here, I invite those
who didn't (or want a refresher) to see
<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

Prof. Levine wrote:

> May one infer from here that RSRH did not subscribe to the concept of gilgul?

Perhaps.  It wouldn't particularly surprise me.  But he seems to be
talking about some Egyptian doctrine whereby a soul loses all trace
of its original identity when it moves to another body.  I don't know
whether that's an accurate representation of what the Egyptians
believed, but if so it's certainly not what we mean by gilgulim.

It's also possible that RSRH was simply going with the flow of his
rhetoric and "lo dak".  As we saw in the last such quote you posted,
on chayei sarah, where in his attack on German burial customs he
made a claim about Jewish ones which he could not have meant literally
because it was contradicted by the existence of the very mearah on
which he was commenting.


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

Micha Berger wrote:

> Except that it's not so much that the child was blinded, but that the
> child never had sight -- and has no innate right to such "sight".
> There is a difference between being harmed and never having had a
> benefit. The child has a right to sight, and it's unjust to deprive
> him of it, and even unjust to refrain from getting all available help
> to help one's blind child. But that presumes a child has a right to
> sight and is therefore being deprived of the fair thing.
> 
> If sight is considered a priviledge, the whole line of reasoning
> doesn't get started. Then the question of justice becomes
> understanding how sight was earned for those who get it.

Malbim on "mi som peh lo'odom" presents this position as Moshe Rabbenu's
hava-amina, which Hashem tells him is mistaken.

Not that you have to agree with the Malbim, of course.

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

     RMicha Berger remarked, "I would hate to be the mesadeir get for an adopted person's divorce." 

     Having been faced with the situation, the practice adopted was:

       (a) If both natural parents are non-Jews, write "ben Avraham Avinu" if the person is a shomer mitzvos, "hager" if not. (This is the practice for all geirim, so as not to mention Avraham Avinu's name on a ba'al aveira.)

       (b) If both natural parents are Jews, write the birth-father's name.   

     The remaining cases are what would have been done had I had such cases.

       (c) If only the mother is Jewish, write "ben <her name>."  This, too, applies not only to adoption, but to a child of intermarriage with a Jewish mother.

       (d) If the natural parents' identity is unknown and either it is known that they were Jewish or there was a giyur misafeik of the adoptee, write the person's name only, not ben anyone.  Again, this is what is done in a non-adoption setting where the father is Jewish and the mother converted prior to the person's conception, but there is a question of the validity of the geirus, so that it is not known whether the child is a ger or goy (depending on whether _he_ had a giyur misafek) or is a natural-born Jew.

     The situation I would hate to be faced with is a child carried by a surrogate mother.

EMT

        
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Elazar M. Teitz wrote:
> RMicha Berger remarked

>> "I would hate to be the mesadeir get for an adopted person's divorce." 

> Having been faced with the situation, the practice adopted was:
> (a) If both natural parents are non-Jews, write "ben Avraham Avinu"[...] 
> (b) If both natural parents are Jews, write the birth-father's name.   

But if he is regularly called to the Torah as ben the adoptive father,
shouldn't that count as an alias?  "Reuven ben Shimon, hamechuneh ben Levi"
or something like that?


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

On Mon, December 24, 2007 10:44 am, R Moshe Y. Gluck wrote:
: See Birchas HaNetziv ... where he says that at Churban Bayis Sheini
: there were three groups, the Essenes, the Philosophers, and the Anshei
: Knesses Hagedolah.... The Essenes, he says were ascetic, separated
: from people and were a Merkavah L'shchinah. They were unsuccessful at
: ensuring the survival of Klal Yisroel. The Philosphers ended up
: producing the Tzedukim. Only the Perushim, who were Osek B'pilpula
: D'oraisa and were Marbeh Talmidim succeeded in ensuring Klal Yisroel's
: survival.

I would agree with RMYG's assumption that the Netziv wasn't really
talking history, but for a different reason.

I find this identification of the Tzeduqim to scream "darsheini". The
last thing a philosopher would want to do is reduce the role of
intellectual pursuit and tell people all they have to do is read the
text. Revelation and philosophy were at the time competitive concepts.
Rather, the Tzeduqim are clearly related to the success of the
Chashmonai rebellion. Once the Chashmonaim held two of the seats of
power -- the kehunah and the melukhah -- of course they and their
loyalists would embrace a philosophy that reduces the role of the
rabbinate, the soul remaining seat of power (barring nevu'ah). The
Tzeduqim were not only literalist, but by doing so, they also were far
more about temple cult than the Torah actually is.

It therefore looks more like the Netziv was trying to map Josephus's
description of the three leading movements to make a contemporary
message.

That said, I don't know what that message was intended to be. I don't
think RMYG's suggestion fits the Netziv's world.

: The reason why I bring this up - and it might be obvious to everyone
: here but me - is that it seems from this that the Volozhin school of
: thought, as explicated by the Netziv, which was predisposed against
: Chassidus (which could be seen as a parallel to the Essenes) and
: against secular study (analogous to the Philosophers), saw itself as
: keeping alive the tradition....

While the Gra was hostile to Chassidus, R' Chaim Volozhiner welcomed
Chassidim to the yeshiva. Arguably, because he felt that Litvisher
Torah would cure what ailed them, but that's speculation. Two
generations later, R' Yisrael Salanter's encounter with the Rebbe
Rasha"b (described by RAEK in
<http://www.aishdas.org/raek/2derachim.pdf>) did have a "our way is
better" competitive edge (at least in how it's remembered). But not
"your way is altogether wrong". Then you had the Chiddushei haRim and
Sefas Emes as examples of Chassidim who could out-Litta the Litvaks.
By the Netziv's day, this kind of opposition was not inherent in
Volozhin. True Gra-style hisnagdus didn't really last among the
rabbinate very long.

Also, the Chassidim weren't seen as ascetics. The Mussarists fell prey
to that accusation. The accusations against the Chassidim were much
the reverse. You don't accuse people who believe in ecstatic joyous
worship of being ascetic; it doesn't stick.

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

While we're back on the subject, here's another. After a bris milah, the 'brochos' names the child and reads a list of brochos, concluding with l'torah ul'chuph ul'maasim tovim venomar amen, which people feel they need to say along with him, instead of answering amen to the conclusion and all the other brochos.

Akiva

http://www.yctorah.org/content/view/345/10/  r avi weiss=    myaldot 
-jewish or not?  are rashi and sforno looking thru the lens of the goyim 
of THEIR day, as to whether to expect the noble gentile?

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Saul.Z.Newman@kp.org wrote:
> http://www.yctorah.org/content/view/345/10/  r avi weiss=    myaldot 
> -jewish or not?  are rashi and sforno looking thru the lens of the goyim 
> of THEIR day, as to whether to expect the noble gentile?

I don't think so.  I think Rashi was more likely influenced by the
conclusion, "vaya'as lahen batim", which he understands as the midwives'
reward for disobeying the order - "batei kehuna uvatei malchut".

Malbim, OTOH, understands that *Par'oh* made houses for the midwives,
not as a reward but in order to frustrate their defiance.  By having
official midwife stations from which all midwives must be dispatched
Par'oh would know when they were dispatched, and could make sure that
they obeyed his orders.  


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

>From: "Michael Elzufon" <Michael@arnon.co.il>
>Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:18:41 +0200

>What is the source for the claim that Ashkenazi practice came from Eretz
>Israel and Sephardi practice came from Bavel? My impression has always
>been the opposite.

I read somewhere (I forget where) that the Sepharadim got their practice
from the Geonim - just look at the Rif and the Rambam. Whereas the
Ashkenazim got their practice from Israel through Italy. Where did you see
this claim? Because I forgot where I saw it (but it's a nice thing to say to
Sepharadim in Israel when they claim to be minhag Eretz Yisrael :)

Of course, if this were the case, the Ashkenazim would follow the Talmud
Yerushalmi, I would think. So there must be more to it. But I don't know any
more.

I just took a look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazim#Background_in_the_Roman_Empire. Very
interesting. B'kitzur, it says that the Jews of Israel and the Mediterranean
lasted a few centuries, and it is possible the Germanic invasion of Western
Europe in the 5th century opened that area up to Jews. So this confirms what
I say above. But the question that remains is, why don't Ashkenazim follow
the Yerushalmi?

A possible answer: The next section of the article states, "The vast
majority of Jews in the world now lived in Islamic lands", and the very top
of the article says that Ashkenazi Jews in the 11th century were only 3% of
world Jewry. If so, it is possible that the overwhelming majority Sephardi
culture simply wiped out much of the Ashkenazi practices. Especially any
Sepharadi merchants or rabbis who went to Europe, likely would have
impressed the riches of Gaonic-Sephardi learning. This could have occurred
at a very early date, maybe even in the 5th through 7th or 8th centuries
(I'm using numbers loosely), leaving plenty of time for divergence between
Ashkenazim and Sephardim by the time of Rambam and Rashi/Tosafot. This would
especially explain how Ashkenazim had their own minhagim and derech limud of
Gemara but weren't so different as to follow the Yerushalmi or follow the
Bavli but not the Gaonim, for example. But I'm just conjecturing.
Mikha'el Makovi
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