Avodah Mailing List

Volume 25: Number 54

Mon, 04 Feb 2008

• 1. Re: pitum haketores (Yaakov Ellis)
• 2. Re: Responsibilities to our host country - maharatz chiyut (JRich@Sibson.com)
• 3. Shekalim (Galsaba@aol.com)
• 4. Re: Shekalim (Zev Sero)
• 5. Re: Shekalim (Rich, Joel)
• 6. Re: Changing God's Mind (kennethgmiller@juno.com)
• 7. Kol Yisrael Areivim... (Richard Wolberg)
• 8. Re: Kol Yisrael Areivim (Elazar M. Teitz)
• 9. Re: pitum haketores (Moshe Y. Gluck)
• 10. Re: Kol Yisrael Areivim (Daniel Israel)
• 11. Mussar the Label (Jonathan Baker)
• 12. Kol Yisrael Areivim... (Jonathan Baker)
• 13. Repetition in Davening (Jonathan Baker)
• 14. Post super bowl question (Rich, Joel)

On Feb 2, 2008 9:02 PM, Gilad Field <gilad73@gmail.com> wrote:

> Anyone know of the source for some minhag I have seen where people have
> the pitum haketores written on a klaf in ksav ashuris? I have even seen it
> posted on a shul (where you would normally see modim d'rabanan or the
> like).  Is there any mekor for this in shas or the rishonim?
>

I don't know anything about the origin/source, though based on what I have
observed, I think that it may originate in the Edot haMizrach community
(EhM). The yishuv where I live is predominantly Sefardi/EhM. The normal
seder for davening Mincha is for someone to read out loud the complete Pitum
haKetoret (takes at least 5 minutes). I have seen a number of people who
have this written in (with varying degrees of fanciness) on klaf - they read
from the klaf before Mincha. My guess is that since they maintain the minhag
of reading the Pitum haKetoret, the minhag came about (maybe retroactively)
for people to give make "hidur" for this by reading it from a klaf (instead
of from the siddur).

Yaakov Ellis
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Typical haskala talk.  Just another reason why many "don't hold of" him.

-- Zev Sero               

--------------------yes, very similar to R'YBS and ger vtoshav anochi imachem.  There have  been a lot of shabbat table conversations in our town about the possible correlation  of insularity and  lack of respect for dina dmalchuta (hameivin yavin)

ktjoel rich

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For next week Parashat Shekalim, how much I need to give?
I heard that in some shules they use a silver coin, some give about $5?
Is there a "fixed rate" for waht I need to give for Machatzit Hashekel?
 
 
 
galsaba




**************Biggest Grammy Award surprises of all time on AOL Music.     
(http://music.aol.com/grammys/pictures/never-won-a-grammy?NCID=aolcmp003000000025
48)
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Galsaba@aol.com wrote:
> For next week Parashat Shekalim, how much I need to give?
> I heard that in some shules they use a silver coin, some give about $5?
> Is there a "fixed rate" for waht I need to give for Machatzit Hashekel?

There's a minhag to give a half-shekel for Parshat Shekalim?  In which
communities does this minhag exist?  Or are you anticipating Taanit Esther?

For Taanit Esther, AFAIK everyone agrees that one gives (some multiple
of) a half of the local unit of currency, especially if there is a coin
with the name "half".  In Australia, where there is no coin with the
name "half", AFAIK most people give 50c coins, but some buy foreign
coins with such a name (such as a USA half-dollar) from tzedaka and then
give them back.

At any rate, I've never heard of a requirement that this symbolic
donation have a specific value in real terms.

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

 

 
For next week Parashat Shekalim, how much I need to give?
I heard that in some shules they use a silver coin, some give about $5?
Is there a "fixed rate" for waht I need to give for Machatzit Hashekel?
 
 
 
galsaba


 -------------------------
<http://music.aol.com/grammys/pictures/never-won-a-grammy?NCID=aolcmp003
00000002548>  
Actually IIRC some shuls have a minhag to specifically say(on the plate)
this isn't really machzit hashekel because if it were (except for a
diyuk in the yerushalmi)  the kedusha on the money would not be
reversible if the giver thought he was giving real machtzit hashekel


KT
Joel Rich 
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R' Richard Wolpoe wrote:
> Perhaps God's deicsions are by defintion conditional
> I will sdestroy sodom UNLESS I finx x number of
> righteous people etc. ... ...
> So Perhaps in a way God is talking in shorthand.  As
> He becons Avraham re: Sodom or Moshe re: the Israelites
> at the masecha, an implicit condtion always exists

Of course! Isn't this what "baasher hu sham" teaches us? All His decisions are implicitly conditional on the current conditions. Change the status quo, and a whole new decision is called for.

Akiva Miller
_____________________________________________________________
Click to find local singles for dating, romance and fun
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2121/fc/Ioyw6i3ngyCorEDmuDune73QTm62hCnsvuHHUM0qmVrgnK0OiWuDuq/

Whether it's "zeh lazeh," "zeh bazeh", "zeh mizeh", or "zeh  
ayzeh" (sounds like a new niggun), the bottom line is we're still  
responsible. Too much theory can cloud practice.
The old moshol commonly given is the hole in the boat. If we're on the  
boat together and you drill a hole on your side, we'll drown together.  
Since responsibility goes just so
far, I may be unable to prevent someone from drilling the hole. So I  
submit the "responsibility" extends to providing a life jacket for  
each other and the dikduk of the saying
won't increase or decrease our responsibility.

ri

<On Areivim, someone wrote "Come on ...., haven't you ever heard
expressions like ... 'kol yisrael areivim zeh lazeh'?"

To which someone else replied:
: I can't speak for ..., but I've never heard the latter expression
: except as a misquotation. It's "bazeh," not "lazeh."

Actually, it's a girsaos issue.

The Vilna Shas, Shavuos 39a, has "lazeh". Teimanim ad loc have "bazeh", and Mechon Mamre corrected accordingly. The same quote in Ein Yaaqov is "bazeh">

     I have two editions of the Vilna Shas: Vilna, 1887 (Rom) and New York, 1948 (Shulsinger).  Both have "bazeh" in Shavuos, as does the Chorev Shas.  There is no mention in Dikdukei Sof'rim of an alternate girsa.  Also, in Sanhedrin 27b it is "bazeh" in all the above.

<However, Rashi in Vayiqra 26:37 has "lazeh".>  
 
     The Toras Kohanim (which is that Rashi's source) in the Malbim Chumash has "bazeh," 

EMT (the "someone else" cited above)
_____________________________________________________________
Click here and relax in style with your own massage chair.
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R' Gilad Field:
Anyone know of the source for some minhag I have seen where people have the
pitum haketores written on a klaf in ksav ashuris? I have even seen it
posted on a shul (where you would normally see modim d'rabanan or the
like).? Is there any mekor for this in shas or the rishonim?



Siddur Ksav Ashuris (Yerushalaim 5726) brings: MeiHarav Hagaon HaKadosh
Mofeis Hador Hamefursom KKSh"T Maran Tzvi Hirsh ABDK"K Liska M'seifer Darkei
Hayashar V'hatov daf 41: Matzasi Ksav Yad AA"Z ZTz"L V'zeh L'shono:
Lehatzlochah Yomar B'chol Yom Pitum Haketores M'ksav Ashuris Davka Milah
B'milah, V'kodem Minchah, U'v'motzai Shabbos.

The Liska Rebbe was an ancestor of mine (he is discussed here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liska in a needs-to-be-edited Wikipedia
article), but I don't - unfortunately - have Darkei Hayashar V'hatov, so it
isn't clear to me if the quote is from the Liska Rebbe, or from his
grandfather. (The Liska Rebbe is better known for his Sefer Ach Pri Tevuah
Al HaTorah.) Either way, there you have it. IIRC, I once heard another Mekor
from a Sofer, but I don't remember what it was.

KT,
MYG

Elazar M. Teitz wrote:
> RMB wrote:
>> The Vilna Shas, Shavuos 39a, has "lazeh". Teimanim ad loc have
>> "bazeh", and Mechon Mamre corrected accordingly. The same quote in
>> Ein Yaaqov is "bazeh"
> 
> I have two editions of the Vilna Shas: Vilna, 1887 (Rom) and New
> York, 1948 (Shulsinger).  Both have "bazeh" in Shavuos, as does the
> Chorev Shas.  There is no mention in Dikdukei Sof'rim of an alternate
> girsa.  Also, in Sanhedrin 27b it is "bazeh" in all the above.

I have the new Friedman edition (what one of my Rebbaim called "big 
red," but my wife just bought me the black chason version, a belated 
wedding present) which has a very nice set of additional Haghos on the 
daf.  Assuming we are talking about the last words on the daf, it has 
"bazeh," and mentions no variants.

Beyond that, I'm out of my league.

-- 
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1@cornell.edu

RnTK:

> When I was a high school student in Bais Yakov, we used to have what were  
> called "mussar" classes.  These consisted of a rebetzen yelling at us...
> ...ashamed of yourselves."  It took me two decades to overcome the  emotional 
> association of the word "mussar" with "boring and  sanctimonious."
  
> That's why it amazes me that there could be something like a Mussar  
> Institute or a mussar Shabbaton.  The appeal of an aish seminar or a Chabad  Shabbaton 
> I totally get, the appeal of a mussar Shabbaton, I don't get --  about as 
> appealing as a diet and exercise spa.

Ah, the appeal of neo-Chasidism, for Americans who are jaded with the 
excitement of Western life, yet uninspired by the kalte Litvaks.

I've argued before that AishDas, whatever its methodology, needs to get
away from the "mussar" self-description.  It's like a lead weight restraining
any attempt to get off the ground.  

For the non-Orthodox, such as those who flock to Alan Morinis' Traveling
Mussar Show, maybe it can be painted as some kind of "inner spiritual
life of the 19th-century masters", but for those who have experienced the
dumbness of most postwar American Mussar, it's a huge turnoff.  My friend's
son, who is brilliant (not only knows Shev Shmatsa, but also its interpre-
tation in terms of pre-Bayesian attempts to quantify probability, as well as
its sources in the Rashba and other rishonim), wants to get away from the
yeshiva (one of the big ones) for college, largely because of the mussar
aspect (restrictions on life outside of school, much yelling and heavy-handed 
enforcement for perceived faults/violations). 

So I'd say that mussar probably hasn't changed much in the popular Orthodox
imagination since you were in high school.

AishDas follows a methodology loosely based on the late R' Shlomo Wolbe's
ideas about mussar, which are quite different from the old 19th-century
heavy-handed model.  Just as the methods are different (no yelling at 
oneself for 20 minutes a day, or publicly humiliating oneself to break
one's spirit), so too the label should be different.  The Daat-Rachamim-
Tiferet slogan, while not terribly euphonious, does seem to indicate a 
different idea, one of Maimonidean moderation (daat mediates between chochma
and bina, rachamim mediates between chesed and din, tiferet mediates between
the seven lower sefirot and thus the emotions, in the Chasidic psychological
model), rather than extreme self-abasement.

And neither case (self-abasement or self-improvement) really has anything
to do with self-righteous self-appointed religious figures yelling at you 
for being bad wrong and stupid.

All of which is why we need to get away from the mussar label, to something
more inspiring than deadening.

--
        name: jon baker              web: http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker
     address: jjbaker@panix.com     blog: http://thanbook.blogspot.com

From: Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org>
 
> On Areivim, someone wrote "Come on ...., haven't you ever heard
> expressions like ... 'kol yisrael areivim zeh lazeh'?"

that was me.
 
> To which someone else replied:
> : I can't speak for ..., but I've never heard the latter expression
> : except as a misquotation. It's "bazeh," not "lazeh."

I've also heard it as "...areivim zu bazu", but that may have been for
poetic license in a song made up for YU Sophomore Seminar, to rhyme with
"Jew."
 
> Actually, it's a girsaos issue.
 
> The Vilna Shas, Shavuos 39a, has "lazeh". Teimanim ad loc have "bazeh",
> and Mechon Mamre corrected accordingly. The same quote in Ein Yaaqov is
> "bazeh" However, Rashi in Vayiqra 26:37 has "lazeh". So, it might be
> that both girsaos are equally "right".

Huh.  Your selection of girsaos seems to indicate an Ashkenazi/Sefardi split
in girsa.  Vilna Shas, and almost everything else since the first Venice
edition of 1520-23, is based on an Ashkenazi Talmud text, presumably what
Rashi was also using.  The Ein Yaakov, as well as the Rif,  is based on a
Sefardi Talmud text, of which there has only been one full printing that I
know of, the Constantinople edition of 5344 (1584).
 
> There is "omerim zeh lazeh" at the top of 39b. That might explain where
> an error in girsa may have originated, OR it may indicate that "lazeh"
> was used since the gemara is more likely to use parallel language.

OR, as above, both might be ancient girsaos, without one necessarily being
erroneous.

--
        name: jon baker              web: http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker
     address: jjbaker@panix.com     blog: http://thanbook.blogspot.com

(thread moving over from Areivim - probably more general interest)

From: Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org>
> On Sun, Feb 03, 2008 at 12:13:16AM -0500, Jonathan Baker wrote:

> : someone taking the Goldfarb tune for the last line of Aleinu as
> : evidence for the Trinity - ushmo ushmo ushmo echad.
 
> Ever since RJJB first pointed the oddity of ushemo x 3 to me (probably
> on scjm over a decade ago) I felt uncomfortable using the tune.
 
> So what do you do?

[RMi listed various solutions he has used]
 
As I may have noted at the time, I use a couple of solutions.  First off,
since it is a verse, albeit Navi not Torah, the repetition makes me a bit
uncomfortable too, but more because of changing the verse than trinitarian
implications.  After all, Goldfarb was an Orthodox rabbi as well as the 
major Chazzonus teacher in JTSA for half a century.  He presumably knew
the halacha as well as the chazzanic mesorah, so there can't be anything
"really" wrong with it.

One is to use the camp tune for (v)Al Ken, even if not for the whole para-
graph, at least picking up at Kakatuv Betorate-echa.

The other is to drag out the words that would otherwise be repeated: 
vene'emar, vehayah Adoshem, lemelech al col haaretz, bayom hahu-u-u-u-u,
yihyeh H echad, ushmoo,oooo,ooo echad.

Evidence against this: IIRC, Cantor Goffin has no problem repeating.
But sometimes you find yourself in a shul where the rabbi really does
mind, and makes a fuss about it, so it's best to know possible solutions.

As for what I do nowadays, in a shul where the rabbi doesn't make such
a point about it?  Waffle.  No standards.  Sometimes one thing, sometimes
the other, depending on my mood.  Just to show there are alternatives.
If our gabbai, a list-chaver, has a problem with this, I'm sure he'll
let me know.

--
        name: jon baker              web: http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker
     address: jjbaker@panix.com     blog: http://thanbook.blogspot.com

Has anyone heard of any hashkafic/philosophical insights/lessons as to
why HKB"H created the world in a manner that (iiuc) human beings
require/appreciate forms of relaxation/entertainment?
 
KT
Joel Rich
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