Avodah Mailing List

Volume 25: Number 47

Mon, 28 Jan 2008

• 1. planting during shmitta permitted (Arie Folger)
• 2. Re: God's Answer was "NO" (Michael Makovi)
• 3. Re: Why "This Time?" (Michael Makovi)
• 4. Re: Binfol oyivkha al tismach? (Michael Makovi)
• 5. Ramp On! (cantorwolberg@cox.net)
• 6. Re: Why "This time"? (Doron Beckerman)
• 7. Re: Why "This Time?" (T613K@aol.com)
• 8. Re: Religious participation in govt. today (kennethgmiller@juno.com)
• 9. Re: Assisted Suicide (Yitzhak Grossman)
• 10. Re: tora state (Micha Berger)
• 11. Re: What would a Torah government look like (Micha Berger)
• 12. Re: Cave or desert island (Micha Berger)
• 13. Re: Diberah Torah (Micha Berger)

Dear Ovedim,

Yesterday, as most of you were perhaps on the commute home, I was hardly 
keeping my eyes open, and posted how I believe that Rav Avraham (?) Yossef's 
ruling that frost damaged plants can be replaced by a nochri is really based 
on his reliance of BY's opinion that shemittah bizman hazeh derabbanan.

The above is, of course, close to nonsense, as R. Josh Backon kindly pointed 
out in a private email:
> ALL poskim rule that shmitta today is a d'rabbanan [it's mefurash in the 
gemara!!]

[we may argue about all, but clearly, most - by far - think so, indeed]

Sadly, despite knowing this and having given a shiur on the topic and even 
written about it, I still wrote a mistake. What I wanted to explain is how 
really Sefardim have no big problem with the hetter mekhirah to begin with, 
as they believe that a nochri's land in EY isn't subject to shemittah.

Thus, the question is only whether the hetter mekhirah is sufficiently well 
executed to be equivalent to land that was before and remains after shemittah 
in the nochri's ownership. Hence, he would be more willing to rely on the HM 
than some others.

All the above is, however, only tangetially related to the article quoted 
regarding the permissibility of using a non Jewish worker for planting, but 
not a Jew. In my sleepy post, I correctly stated that this is a kind of 
Shabbos goy hetter. Many hold this nowadays to be permissible on shemittah - 
that was in the original hetter for the shemittah sale, in tav-resh-mem-tet, 
IIRC, even while they are strict about Jews doing what would be a deOraita on 
his own land.
-- 
Arie Folger
http://www.ariefolger.googlepages.com

> The problem I have is not with the Hashkafoc aspect of what you said. The
> problem I have with it is as a rejoinder to one who says God didn't answer
> their paryers.

So don't use it as such. Most of these theological answers help the
spectator, not the subject, or they help the person before the crisis
comes, i.e. they are pre-crisis innoculation/vaccination. But as
on-the-spot cures, they don't help. Most "answers" for the Holocaust
help the descendants far more than the survivors themselves.

Mikha'el Makovi

> "And the man said: 'This time it is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh;
> this shall be called Woman, because she was taken from man.' " (2:23)
>
> QUESTION: The words "zot hapa'am" ? "this time" ? seem superfluous? Why is
> it used?
>
> ANSWER: According to the Gemara (Niddah 31a), there are three partners in
> the formation of man: Through Hashem, he receives a soul, through the father
> the bones, nails, and brain, and through the mother, skin and flesh. Adam
> emphasized that this time, and only this time, the bone and the flesh both
> came all from the same Source.
>
> ri

But did Adam subscribe to the Gemara's view of the science of
embryology? I.e., did Adam hold that the father contributes bone and
the mother flesh?

I think Adam said "this time" because the previous time, Adam examined
woodland creatures and found them unsatisfactory. But "this time", the
"creature" (viz. Chava) was just right.

Mikha'el Makovi

> : Well, we see that we definitely sang Shirat haYam. So apparently, we
> : are allowed to sin over mamash enemies.
>
> And yet Pesiqta deR' Kahane tells us to take our lead from the
> mal'akhim, and this is why we do not say full hallel on the
> anniversary of the day. Also a hava amina in the gemara, which is not
> rejected on grounds of the rejoicing being appropriate.

This is precisely why I said what R' Telushkin says on immediate
survivors versus descendants. We most certainly did sing the entire
shirat hayam, and there are no midrashim (to my knowledge) faulting us
for this. Rather, davka the malakhim are faulted. And we today spill
wine at the seder (although it was said this has nothing to do with
sadness) and say half-Hallel.

One factor is that (as R' Micha posted above) we rejoice over the
death of the sin not the sinner, and take joy in the salvation even as
one mourns the fact that the sinner had to pay for this salvation; the
death of a rasha still required the death of one of Hashem's
creatures. Take joy in what's good and mourn what's bad.

But I wonder if, as per R' Telushkin, there may be in fact a
difference between the immediate survivor and the descendants. It
would make sense if the immediate survivor isn't expected to be as
considerate and contemplative and retrospective as the descendant. The
same way that a mourner is expected to fully accept and absorb the
loss only after a period of time, perhaps only after a period of time
can one consider the fact that Hitler for example was a human after
all. Of course, all the same, this would mean that just as a mourner
is praiseworthy if he accepts the loss before he is required to have
done so, so too the immediate survivor of the death of a rasha is
praiseworthy if he already considers that the rasha was a human after
all. And to be honest, while I'll acknowledge in speech that Hitler
was a human, when the time to mourn the Shoah or celebrate his
downfall comes, I'll all but forget this fact.

If so, this would explain why we could sing shirat hayam and yet we
say only half-hallel.

Mikha'el Makovi

R' Micha wrote: Except that visibly handicapped people couldn't do the avodah, and thus the ramp can't be for accessibility. 

I should have indicated this was just d'rash. In being politically correct I failed to be clear in my intent.
ri

RRW said:

>> "And the man said: 'This time it is bone of my bones, and flesh of my
flesh; this shall be called Woman, because she was taken from man.'
" (2:23)

QUESTION: The words "zot hapa'am" ? "this time" ? seem superfluous?
Why is it used?
ANSWER: According to the Gemara (Niddah 31a), there are three partners
in the formation of man: Through Hashem, he receives a soul, through
the father the bones, nails, and brain, and through the mother, skin
and flesh. Adam emphasized that this time, and only this time, the
bone and the flesh both came all from the same Source. <<

The Rashbam on that Passuk, along somewhat similar lines, is one of my
favorites - this time the woman came from the man, from here on in the man
comes out of the woman...
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From: Richard Wolberg _cantorwolberg@cox.net_ (mailto:cantorwolberg@cox.net) 

>>"And  the man said: 'This time it is bone of my bones, and flesh of my   
flesh; this shall be called Woman, because she was taken from man.'   
" (2:23)

QUESTION: The words "zot hapa'am" ? "this time" ? seem  superfluous?  
Why is it used?

ANSWER: According to the Gemara  (Niddah 31a), there are three partners  
in the formation of man:  Through Hashem, he receives a soul, through  
the father the bones,  nails, and brain, and through the mother, skin  
and flesh. Adam  emphasized that this time, and only this time, the  
bone and the flesh  both came all from the same  Source.<<

>>>>>
Nice vort, but the more obvious explanation goes with the flow of the  
pesukim:  Adam checked out all the animals and couldn't find one of his own  
species, until he met Chava.  "This time she is of my own species, I  finally have 
found a suitable mate."





--Toby Katz
=============
Romney -- good values,  good family, good hair
Best hope against  Hillary



**************Start the year off right.  Easy ways to stay in shape.     
http://body.aol.com/fitness/winter-exercise?NCID=aolcmp00300000002489
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R' Doron Beckerman wrote:

> I just skimmed a very interesting piece of Torah, all sourced,
> from a Charedi RY (written in the 80s I think) advocating a
> total separation of religion and state, and just focusing on
> Kiruv Levavos like in America. Not because Kefiyah Datit is
> wrong, but because it is counter-productive.

I'm not surprised; I've felt this way for decades. But I'm curious: Who was the author of the article, and why did you quote such lengthy portions of his ideas without telling us his name?

Akiva Miller
_____________________________________________________________
Click here for free information on top network marketing programs.
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On Sun, 27 Jan 2008 13:36:25 EST
T613K@aol.com wrote:

>  
>  
> From: Micha Berger _micha@aishdas.org_ (mailto:micha@aishdas.org) 
> 
> >>And there's  the berakhah, we thank/acknowledge HQBH as "Borei nefashos
> rabbos  VECHESRONAM"<<
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> >>>>>
> I'm not sure if you mean this seriously or as a cute drash but the pshat  
> surely is not "Hashem creates people and all their defects and lacks."   Rather 
> it means, "He creates people and also creates everything that they lack,  i.e., 
> everything that they need."  He gave us needs and He also supplies us  with 
> the means to fulfill those needs.  Whenever a person feels he is  lacking 

That is indeed one of the interpretations given by the Rishonim,
but another one does indeed understand "v'hesronan" as "defects"
or "lacks". It connects the word to the following clause, however, and
not to the preceding one [0].

[0] See Tur OH 207

> --Toby Katz

Yitzhak
--
Bein Din Ledin - bdl.freehostia.com
An advanced discussion of Hoshen Mishpat

On Thu, January 24, 2008 5:53 pm, Saul.Z.Newman@kp.org wrote:
: from a RW rabbi on the OU website, has his own idea of a 'tora state'
: I believe that the time has come to establish a political party
: whose platform is unashamedly for a Torah state.
=======
: The leadership will be composed of rabbis who regard the medina not as
: a mere political entity but as the forerunner of the final geula.

This criterion is so restrictive as to make it hard for me to consider
the result a Torah state. You're not only excluding ROY, but even the
OU's mentor, RYBS would be excluded, as would Mizrachi's founder, R'
Reines.

In a state run by halakhah, you would need the consensus of all posqim
from among shomerei Torah umitzvos. One can not run a halachic gov't
by ignoring shiv'im panim laTorah.

This in turn might necessitate some mechanism for nimnu vegamru --
some way of determining majority or consensus.

Probably consensus -- the CI was very against relying on majority
outside of the Sanhedrin. This was part of his objection to voicing an
opinion to the Mirer crowd in Shanghai about when to observe Yom
Kippur. They needed to as a rav, not get a majority of EY's poseqim.

In turn, I may well have painted the impossibility of a halachic gov't
of any large number of people before mashiach comes. We would have to
think of a town, not a city or country. A small area, where the range
of derakhim is limited to those compatible with the sociological
groups of that shechunah, may still be more doable.

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 Fri, January 25, 2008 4:40 am, R Eli Turkel wrote:
: A simple example  one makes an electronic reservation by computer for
: a hotel room or plane flight and holds it with a credit card. When one
: arrives they refuse to honor their commitment.
: Upon screaming they answer that according to halacha a promise to do
: some action is not enforcable and no kinyan was done. Even if one paid
: in advance money is not a kinyan.
...
: At best chazal declared some actions like a handshake a kinyan
: in some circumstances but a computer transaction has none of that.
...

Chazal declared a handshake to be a qinyan because it was the normal
way of doing business. By the same logic, a contemporary gov't could
declare other modes of doing business as binding -- as long as society
expects them to be. In fact, they don't refer to it as a handshake,
but by the more general term, simtuta.

The Morechai (Shabbos 471) says a simtuta can apply even to a davar
shela ba le'olam.

I think the whole point of simtuta is that qinyan is any transaction
people view as binding. You just need "devarim", which thoughts and
words are not -- without some action that reflects them.

...
: BTW in the article of HS there is a fundamental disagreement between
: Haym Soloveitchik and his critic R. Buchwold. HS believes that it the
: job of a posek or RY to be inventive to solve contemporary choshem
: mihspat problems and not just issur veheter. The basic thrust of the
: article is the inventiveness of Raavad to do exactly that. R. Buchwold
: looks at it as almost a reform jew changing halacha due to changed
: circumstances....

I would say that in the case of CM, there is no line between the R
notion of changing the law to fit the zeitgeist and the O practice of
noting relevent parts of the reality and pasqening accordingly -- even
when a seemingly trivial difference causes a change in pesaq.

Here, the social norm /is/ the reality.

I guess I'm saying that I intuitively think along the same lines as
"Dr Grach" (haGaon R' Haym, as some students nicknamed him / or maybe
it was RARakeffet who tried to create the label).


As for the topic of enforcing mitzvos bein adam laMaqom or mitzvos
shim'iyos... I think the advisability and permissability is sorely
curtailed by tov sheyihyu shogegin. Pushing a majority to the point of
rebellion would not be halachically proper. The laws of tokhachah are
complex, and it is not even mutar (never mind a chiyuv) to simply yell
at every avaryan.

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 Fri, January 25, 2008 6:41 am, R Michael Makovi wrote:
: Very true. If you live in Sodom, leave ASAP. But this is not
: l'hatchila. The ideal is that you live in a society and participate in
: it. Rambam elsewhere says that a man who cuts himself off from the
: community, even if he still does mitzvot, has no Olam haBa.

This is a change in topic.

This thread started as a spawn off a discussion about the value of the
mitzvos specific to Jews to the individual.

I suggested that a Jew stranded on an island, who couldn't participate
in Kelal Yisrael, still gained by doing those mitzvos. The island
wasn't instead of Sodom, but instead of having the opportunity to
contribute to the Jewish nation as a whole.

The fact that he has fewer challenges, and thus fewer sins, living
alone on an island, wasn't really that relevant to the original
discussion. Asking whether the equation changes depending upon whether
he started out in Sodom or R' Aqiva's Benei Beraq is even further from
the original quesiton.

I'm not saying we can't discuss the new topic. I just don't want to
lose the old one.

40 min later, at 7:23 am, he wrote:
: Of course. This is my point. There is more to being a tzadik than
: simply not sinning. Being a tzadik means:
: 1) Not sinning WHEN you have the opportunity. In seclusion, you have
: no opportunity, and no influence from your yetzer hara.
: 2) Doing chesed. In seclusion, you have only bein adam l'makom.

: This is why the Torah wants us to live in society. Because the Torah
: does not want to create the ideal sinless individual, but rather the
: sinless and mitzvah-full society....

A mitzvah-full person, as a goal in himself, would also need a
society. So that nequdah isn't proven one way or the other.

Also, what justification do you give for the island dweller to do
mitzvos bein adam laMaqom?

To which RMM suggests:
: The Sifra says this on the Tochacha (I think) - when you go into
: galut, keep doing mitzvot, AS A REMINDER. Our doing mitzvot in chutz
: la'aretz is only a reminder so that we remember how to keep them in
: haAretz. It is davka in haAretz where we will be a mamlechet kohanim
: v'goy kodash, and thus an ohr lagoyim.

And the Radaq, and the Ramban. However, this simply can't be peshat,
as then Hillel and Shammai had no justification for staying in Bavel
while their rebbe was alive. In Bavel, you would argue, they have no
real mitzvah of talmud Torah. It would be assur to die al qiddush
Hashem in chu"l, since suicide is 7 mitzvos, and qiddush Hashem is
not.

And what about the person lost in the Negev a little north of Qadeish
Barnei'a? He lives in EY, thus he would be chayav to wear tefillin no
less than someone living in the Rova in Y-m. But does nothing toward
advancing the rest of Kelal Yisrael, or even a minyan of us. How is he
helping the nation fulfill a covenant?

And what about the Rav Saadia, Ramchal or Nefesh haChaim, who speak of
mitzvos in terms of sheleimus ha'adam? The Rambam writing about an
individual's yedi'as haBorei? Or Chassidishe sefarim who speak of the
individual achieving deveiqus? Aren't the overwhelming majority of
hashkafic sources written from the assumption that mitzvos exist for
the purpose of ennobling the self? RMM cites RSRH quite often -- the
whole notion of TIDE is that both are necessary to ennoble *the self*!

R' Berkovitz's position is an outlier, and one that doesn't fit the
general thrust of too many baalei mesorah for me to take it seriously
as a personal philosophy. (As ideas to play with -- yes; he's
brilliant and makes good arguments.)

I stick to the theory that both berisim exist -- between HQBH and BY
and between HQBH and each ben Yisrael. Thus, on a national level, it
only serves as practice. But on a personal level, there is still a
tachlis to being more than a ben Noach.

...
: Any individual can be a tzadik. For example, I've never robbed in my
: life. But does anyone look at me and say, "Wow! Mikha'el Makovi's
: never robbed!". But what if the entire country of Israel didn't have a
: single robber? Imagine what the world would say! Individually, a
: tzadik can fade into the background. But as a collective, the whole is
: more than the sum of its individuals.

A tzadiq, REED tells us, is someone whose nequdas habechirah is moving
in the right direction.

Since I'm not denying the role of a goy qadosh in addition to we as
individuals being kohanim, I do not object to the conclusion. However,
REED's goal is non-trivial, and is about as challenging regardless of
how Hashem made the individual, or what situations he was placed in.

Similarly, citing Aleinu is irrelevent, because proving a national
beris doesn't disprove a personal one.

It is true that each Jew is part of Kelal Yisrael. The Rambam is very
careful in seifer hamitzvos to describe mitzvos BALC as being between
parts of a whole. But it is also true the Kelal Yisrael is the sum of
individual Jews.

...
: AL KEN n'kaveh...AL KEN. The reason He chose us, the ENTIRE reason,
: the entire reason for the entire first paragraph of Aleinu, is for us
: to bring the whole world to worship Him....

Where is "entire reason"?

In fact, it's not reason, "al kein" spells purpose. Why assume there
is only one purpose?

...
: I'd agree with this, as above. A Jew in galut logically ought to
: become a Noachide.

You just disproved your case. Ravina and Rav Ashi concluded otherwise.

: So why create a nation? This brings us right back to our starting
: point. If one understands Ramchal this way, we have an enormous
: kashya.

Just as your proving a national beris doesn't disprove a personal one,
my asserting a personal beris doesn't mean I'm excluding the national
notion.

...
: Likewise, we don't serve for Olam Haba. See Rav Hirsch towards the end
: of Bereshit perek tet. There, Rav Hirsch says that Judaism exists for
: this world, and that is why the Torah doesn't speak of olam haba -
: because it's really not very important. In fact, I'd say that Olam
: haBa is almost meaningless, because after all, we're just going to be
: resurrected and live on the physical world again....

Tangent: Machloqes:
Rambam, Ikkarim -- eternity is spent in Olam haBa, after techiyas
hameisim and a second death

Ramban -- eternity is spent on some perfected physical plane after
techiyas hameisim -- but that plane is Olam haBa (not the post-death
non-physical existence)

R' Kook -- a fusion of the two: The wall between this world and the
non-physical one a person enters after death is an illusion. At some
point, the world will reach a level where the illusion is broken, and
people will thus be both in a post-death reality and in a refined
version of our physical world.

End-tangent.

The Ramchal says we do serve Hashem so that we can give Him the
opportunity to share his Ultimate Tov with us in olam haba. The
ultimar Tov must include tzelem E-lokim, and thus must have an element
of being self-made. You can't just dismiss this part of the Rambam's
thought as being an Aristotilianism, as that doesn't describe the
Ramchal.

Second, for sechar va'onesh to have any meaning, I would think it's
correlated to the meaningfulness of the action. And thus, even just
diagnostically -- the individual must be doing something qua
individual if the reward is qua individual.

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 Fri, January 25, 2008 12:23 pm, hlampel@koshernet.com wrote:
: But the Rambam, for instance, said that this is the meaning of what
Chazal said. For example, Moreh Nevuchim (1:26):

: CHAPTER XXVI
: You, no doubt, know their saying, which encompasses
: all the various kinds of interpretation connected to
: this area. namely what they said: "The Torah speaks
: according to the language of man."? This implies that
: expressions that can easily be comprehended and
: understood by all at first thought, are necessarily
: associated to the Alm-ghty, yis-aleh...

I think we would both agree the Rambam is talking about idiom, not
metaphor. Yes, that does imply an underlying concept lying beneath R'
Yishma'el's objection to R' Aqiva's "doreish tagin". But still it
doesn't make it broad enough to include many of the things the phrase
has been used to justify both here and in print in the last few
decades. The idea is still to look at the meaning of a phrase, not the
mechanics of the words used. And nothing about going beyond that
meaning to hidden meanings. (If anything, it might imply the reverse!)

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



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