Avodah Mailing List

Volume 25: Number 83

Tue, 26 Feb 2008

• 1. Re: Girl Scout cookies (Michael Makovi)
• 2. Re: basis of AZ (Michael Makovi)
• 3. Re: Kabbalah's Legitimacy (kennethgmiller@juno.com)
• 4. Re: Does G-d Change His Mind? (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: Does God Change His Mind? (Micha Berger)
• 6. The Kiddushin "raid" in Lakewood (arnold.lustiger@exxonmobil.com)
• 7. Re: The Kiddushin "raid" in Lakewood (Zev Sero)
• 8. learning Torah before Matan Torah (Eli Turkel)
• 9. Re: Does God Change His Mind? (Michael Makovi)

>  Ahh, 1/60 ought to...? But they must be milk equipment, and if the
>  cookies are, the OU marks milk-equipment as mamash milchig.
>
> ...eggs...She called up the OU, ... they pulled the certification, but they'll still as kosher as
> ever.
>
>  Mikha'el Makovi

I realize I should clarify -

(1) My guess about the cookies is davka a guess - they may be mamash
milchig; I don't know. I'm only guessing that if no milk ingredients
are there except something <2%, they apparently aren't milchig
(because 1/60), but they'd still be milk-equipment since they do have
SOME milk, and so presumably the equipment is mamash milchig even if
the cookies themselves aren't.

(2) I don't remember the halachic term for milk/meat equipment. I mean
how you cannot eat it with the opposite type (milk-equipment cookies
with a steak, meat-equipment soup with a cup of milk, etc.), but as
soon as you clean out your mouth, you can eat the other type without
any wait (eat meat-equipment soup, then drink milk after cleaning your
mouth, no six hours).

(3) The story about the eggs is about one particular brand whose name
I don't remember. Regarding any specific eggs, call the OU.

Mikha'el Makovi

On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 4:39 AM, Cantor Wolberg <cantorwolberg@cox.net> wrote:
> M.M. wrote the following:
>
>  "You want to make them righteous, but you can't show yourself and boom
>  out "BE
>  GOOD PEOPLE", because then they'll be terrorized and have no free will."
>
>  If that's the case, then how do you explain that HaShem DID show
>  Himself and boomed out "Anochi HaShem Elokecha..." etc., which
>  terrorized the people but certainly
>  did not take away their free will?
>  ri

That's the other half of what Rabbi Kaplan says. The inferior
civilization either loses its identity TOTALLY ( = lose free will),
***OR*** they totally reject the superior culture wholesale, and
violently rebel and go into an isolationist period. We chose the
second option - chet ha-egel.

Rabbi Kaplan's point is that by revealing Himself to us, Hashem almost
destroyed us, but it's what He had to do - it was reveal Himself to
us, or to all humanity, with all the inherent risks.

In any case, I'd add that revealing Himself to only us makes a more
manageable group - imagine the entire world having to keep 613 and
such - it'd be chaos and insane bureaucratic overhead, if you know
what I mean. Choosing one people is much better for efficient
micromanagement.

Mikha'el Makovi

R' Richard Wolpoe wrote:
> And yet when it comes to ... using Shabbos Clocks for
> anything other than lights - the whole world rejects RMF
> himself!  How can that be? ...
> Or is Torah more democratic than that after all, and that
> ANYONE with a raya can trump anyone else. Rambam himself
> posits this in  his Hakdamah to Mishne Torah s his license
> for dismissing Ga'onic precdent.  Similar points are made in
> Choshen Mishpat 25, that rayos can trump existing p'sak or
> precedent!

Yes, it is possible for someone of lower stature can overturn someone of
higher stature, if his svara and/or raayos are strong enough. The Gra did
it, Rav Moshe did it, and many others did it.

But RRW's use of the word "ANYONE" makes it sound like individual balabatim
all over the world have taken it upon themselves to pretend that they're
smarter than Rav Moshe.

I hope that's not what he meant. One needs to be at a certain level before
taking on these giants, and I for one do not consider myself in that
category. I use Shabbos clocks for lots of things other than lights, but it
is NOT because I reject Rav Moshe's psak. While it is true that I do not
understand his distinction between lights and other devices, that is NOT
why I allow myself to use the timers for other things.

Rather, my reasoning is that Rav Moshe appears to be in the minority on
this point. Other poskim have no problem with using these timers for other
devices, and THAT'S what I'm relying on. Not my own logic, but the apparent
majority of poskim.

(Specifically: Rav Shimon Eider's Halachos Of Shabbos allows shabbos clocks
for cow-milking machines on page 111. On page 322 he forbids reheheating
food on an electric stove which is connected to a shabbos clock, but
totally for bishul reasons, not for anything to do with the timer. In both
places, he cites the Chazon Ish extensively. Also, the Shmiras Shabbos
K'Hilchasa 13:23 allows these timers without mentioning anything about a
limitation for lights only; his sources include the Chazon Ish, the Yabia
Omer, and others.)

Akiva Miller
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On Thu, February 14, 2008 7:58 pm, RZL <hlampel@koshernet.com> wrote:
: Could you please clarify this sentence you wrote?
: "The
: exploration of the Torah from the perspective of what it's like to
: live it rather than trying to identify what's "out there"
: is very modern."

I guess I mean that as opposed to the rishonim, who set out to explain
the path from Borei to maaseh bereishis to us, acharonim from the
mid-19th cent CE onward tend to instead explain the beri'ah in terms
of a curriculum

The Chinukh engages in finding "mishoreshei hamitzvah". RYBS engages
in "halachic homilectics". Not asking the cause of the mitzvah, but
what lesson can we take from it.

RSRH's taamei hamitzvos is somewhere in between, as he makes the
shoresh hamitzvah to teach a lesson (often, via symbols).

MmE differs from sifrei machashavah of the Ramchal or of rishonim in
that he doesn't explore questions like why the Borei created us, or
what is the nature of reality. Rather, REED centers on the question of
what our role is in that creation. For example, in one place he
defines teva as an illusion caused by HQBH's hesteir panim in behaving
in predictable ways. In another, he says it's a pattern we impose on
reality by not being on the madreiga of neis. And, the result of
seeing that world through that framework is olam haasiyah. OhA isn't
defined from HQBH downward, but from the our experience of Hashem
yisbarakh's actions.

Pachad Yitzchaq is a seifer machashavah organized by yamim tovim. What
a far cry from the Rambam's trilogy of terminology, theology, man's
role. Rather, RYH starts with the mitzvah and casts back from that.

An example that is inyana deyoma (dechodshayim?): Why is Purim
described (Yalqut Shim'oni Mishlei 9) as the one Yom Tov that will not
cease even le'asid lavo?

How do you recognize your friend in the dark? One way is to buy a
flashlight, and to be able to see him. The other is to learn how to
recognize his breathing, his voice, his mannerisms, and figure out who
he is through other senses. When light comes, the flashlight goes back
into the drawer. But the person who learned to get a deeper
appreciation of his friend will continue to benefit even in the
daylight.

Yetzi'as Mitzrayim was a lamp. In another era of miraculous
redemption, it won't tell us anything we couldn't know by the new
experience. The lessons of Purim, of seeing through the hesteir panim,
those remain.

Okay, not a great example. Just an excuse to share something
beautiful. However, note that RYH writes about the lessons and values
of galus. Not its causes, or the metaphysical differences between neis
nigleh and neis nistar.

Yes, the PY does discuss such things. But always from the perspective
of the nafqa mina to our avodas Hashem. From the yom tov to the
lesson.

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight,
micha@aishdas.org        and he wants to sleep well that night too."
http://www.aishdas.org     - Rav Yosef Yozel Horwitz, Alter of Novarodok
Fax: (270) 514-1507

RYGB wrote:
: I don't know why no one else responded to you, but I
: would find it difficult to reply to someone who states "*I*
: disagree" with the Rambam, RSRH et al.

RMS shared what I believe is roughly the same sentiment when he wrote:
: While I find it difficult to reply to one who 'disagrees' with the Ari
: ZT'L.

It's not a matter of which side is right, but of assuming that any of
us have the ability to assess a question that they found disputable.

Detour into the matter of emunas chakhamim.... Ignoring declarations
made in bans that I do not follow the reasoning of...

There is something I'll call the Sinai Culture. Because nisqatnu
hadoros, in general members of later eras, products of more
dislocations since Moshe Rabbeinu a"h, have less of it. It's not a
matter of book knowledge as much as having the perspective, priorities
and etire gestalt. It's very much a culture, not a library.

The nearest any of us get to recreating that culture is the talmud
chakham. This is the concept chareidim call "da'as Torah", but the
basic idea is that Torah study changes how one perceives the world.
And the notion stands whether or not one buys into the consequences
chareidim feel da'as Torah implies.

It is from Torah gefeel, not Torah knowledge, that a poseiq draws his
authority. A guy with an IQ of 180 and a Bar Ilan CD is still not
qualified to be the poseiq acharon.

This notion is befeirush in the gemara (20a), nisqatnu hadoros is a
statement about declining willingness for mesiras nefesh, not
knowledge. (And in fact, knowledge increased in the span from Rebbe
until the protagnonists in the gemara -- Rav Papa and his rebbe,
Abayei.)

See also
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2007/02/midgets-on-the-shoulders-of-gian
ts.shtml>

Thus, it takes a certain amount of caution when inserting oneself into
the question of the authenticity of Zoharic Qabbalah. Knowing data is
insufficient if one really doesn't have the same instinctive sense of
what Torah "feels like".


On Fri, February 15, 2008 4:01 am, Michael Makovi wrote:
: You'll also be hard-pressed to find a scholar who accepts that Daniel
: was not written in the Hashmonean era. I mean only that this defense
: cuts both ways. If you try to appeal to disputed authorship of an
: apocryphal(-like) mystical work, you've exposed yourself.

: In any case, I haven't yet found a scholar who can seriously
: distinguish between Daniel on the other hand, and the other
: apocryphal/apocalyptic works on the other, without simply resorting to
: mesorah....

Who cares what scholars think? It's like taking proof from Apocrypha.
In both cases one may have access to information, but people who know
the Sinai weltenschaung deemed it irrelevent.

This is a major blunder C inherited/adopted from the Historical
School. This confusion of academia, where the goal is to know
something well through staying apart from it, objective, as opposed to
talmud Torah where the goal is to internalize the study and bedavka
learn how to understand it from within.

:     We've got mesorah that Daniel is kosher and the other works
: are not, and otherwise, the two are difficult to distinguish...

Which simply /proves/ that we lack the basic feel to make a
determination Chazal did make. Rather than play down the distinction,
instead one must take caution at this proof of my lack of proper
perspective.

(WADR to people you tend to cite, R' Hertz, REB, and now Prof Urbach
do not engender that kind of emunas chakhamim in me. I am not playing
down their knowledge. I am speaking only of my ability to perceive the
kind of internalization that Abayei and R' Papa discuss that one can
perceive in RYBS, RMF, the SR, the LR, my rebbe... People who made
their life's mission not academic study of the Torah but its
internalization. R' Hertz did both, but his stature is in the academic
sphere. But besach hakol, your choice of sources often makes me feel
like you're talking cross-purposes with the rest of the chevrah.)

On Sun, February 17, 2008 5:36am, R Michael Makovi wrote:
: I recall an earlier thread on this topic, I forget where, about
: whether a person should choose a shita or just know what's out there.

I am not sure what the question is. I can't control my opinion that
well. If I hear two shitos, usually one appears to me to make more
sense, or to better fit other ideas that I already accepted, than the
other. I can't really help choosing a shitah; I do it before my
consciousness steps in to stop me.

: A rabbi of mine gave a mini-shiur on this, in which he said that on
: the one hand, Torah is something to be lived, not merely theoretically
: known. So it isn't enough to simply know the shitot out there; in the
: end of the day, you have to hold by *something*.

I would agree. Note also how your rebbe implicitly tied this into the
difference between academic study and talmud Torah.

But holding by something doesn't require saying one is right and one
is wrong. "Eilu va'eilu", after all. Rather, one better fits my
kishronos, neti'os and background than the other, so it's the path to
HQBH I am best off pursuing. I know, intellectually, that the other is
no less wrong. But as it's on another path, I only know that at a more
cerebral level.

This opens the door to a general discussion of eilu va'eilu, but this
post is going to be long enough without it.



Now, getting back to the original topic...

On Thu, February 14, 2008 5:38 pm, Michael Makovi wrote:
:>  However, one could ask in the reverse: if it were about
:>  actual mercy, why is it limited to birds and *not* include higher
:>  mammals?

: Shecht rather than axepole, don't kill the calf and mother on the same
: day, feed your animals before you feed yourself...I believe Rambam
: discusses this.

But you can slaughter a calf right in front of the mother. There is no
parallel to shiluach haqen. Thus, it would be hard to say that ShQ is
driven by rachamim rather than out to teach rachamim, as you would
have to explain why we could be cruel to the cow. OTOH, if it is a
lesson in rachamim, we have to explain why birds are used for the
lesson, not cows. That's a much easier answer, as we can use RSRH-like
symbology.

But more to the point, the notion that shiluach haqen isn't expressing
rachamim is R' Yosi bar Avin's and R' Yosi bar Zevida's (Berakhos
33b). One raises the issue of my poor cow, the other that the point is
avodas Hashem. (Quite probably not a machloqes.) Rava and Abayei were
so sure of the point, Rava joked about it.

...
: And Rambam rejects that this is the majority view. Or we can go with
: the Yerushalmi that it is davka a shaliach tzibur who cannot do this,
: because he'll mislead the tzibur, because he cannot explain to them
: (during tefillah) what he's doing. But during a shiur? B'vadai one can
: express the fact that He has mercy on the birds.

Majority view? There are only three people cited in the gemara, and
they all agree on this aspect of things.

...
: Rambam as is well known, was essentially reconciling the science of
: his day with Torah, much as many do today. So if Aristotle (who could
: not be wrong) had proved such-and-such about Hashem or the world, then
: surely the Torah concurs (for how could the Torah contradict that
: which has been proven?), and so the only thing left to do is show how
: everything in the Torah agrees with everything proven by Aristotle.

The Rambam did believe that Aristotle could be wrong, and in fact
rejected his theory on the eternity of matter (as you yourself write
in the next sentence).

Thus if the Rambam believed the Torah had a position that contradicted
Aristotle's conclusions, he would assume Aristotle was wrong. That's
not being questionable because of Greek Philosophy. It's using
Philosophy to fill in gaps the Torah doesn't spell out.

: Those things not proven by Aristotle (such as eternity of matter,
: according to Rambam) we need not be concerned with. But even there,
: Rambam offered a way to reconcile Torah with eternity of matter...

Not at all. The Rambam says that TSBK could be reconciled, if TSBP --
"the conclusions of our nevi'im and chakhamim" weren't otherwise. And
that the two can't really contradict. So if we have a reliable
mesorah, he would have to dig through Aristo to find the flaw.

It's pouring wine into a bottle, not rounding the corners of a square
peg.

:> But because the conclusions seem
:>  inescapable simply within looking at the Torah and using reason. A
:> G-d  who is at times angry is experiencing time.

: And again, I don't see the problem with this. He is experiencing time
: viz. a viz. His interaction with the world, not in Himself per se.

Hashem "only" acts in a manner that looks like anger. Thus it's the
consequence of the action which we're describing, and the consequence
is also within time. So, there are other times in which things other
than anger can be displayed. There is contrast.

However, if you place the anger within Hashem, then you placed the
problem of emotions and time there as well.

:>  AND, a G-d who is at times angry is two things when He is angry - a
:>  G-d, and His Anger. Divisibility.

: Why is His anger a separate thing? Is my happiness or my anger
: separate from me? No. I am me, and sometimes I have a state of anger
: or happiness. So where's the divisibility? He's one God, and He has
: attributes that are a part of Him.

A PART OF HIM. Exactly. Something that can disappear without the other
PARTS changing. Plurality. A nonessential attribute is a different
piece than the essence. If Hashem can exist with or without Divine
Wrath then you have to ask how the two came together to begin with,
and who created the Creator.

:>  You are subject to the concept of anger (to return to the same
:>  middah). How and when you express that anger is you, but the very
:>  concept of anger precedes you. The concept of anger cannot precede
:> the Creator of anger.

: Anger precedes me? The anger is an attribute of me; I am not an
: attribute of the anger.

Anger existed before you were born. The concept doesn't depend on you
to exist; you depend on the concept existing in order to be who you
are. It precedes you both logically and in time.

For God to get angry, someone had to invent the concept of anger, and
then add it to God, or invent God and add to Him the concept of anger.
God can no longer be the end of the chain of "Why?" unless He is so
Simple as to have no divisibility even to separate ideas.

To better address RMM's next point in light of my comments above:
:>  REB, was far less immersed in the Torah weltenschaung than the
:> people he was disputing. This is the whole nisqatnu hadoros. REB
:> might have  nice theories, but his threshold of proof is quite high.
:> And his invocation of a Torah theology over that of Chazal or the
:> rishonim smacks of R's call of a return to prophetic Judaism -- with
:> the huge distinction of the claim being mutar WRT aggadita.

: Again, I would simply say that he was operating on the same sources
: but had a different philosophical starting point. Medieval Jewish
: philosophy had a lot of questions never asked by Chazal and a lot of
: philosophical baggage never regarded by Chazal.

Yes, philosophy created new questions to answer, in addition to giving
new words with which to answer them. But rishonim knew better than we
can judge which seams between philosophy and Torah are smooth, and
which are more forced and artificial.

: Heck, the rishonim say that one can disagree with a Chazalic aggadata!

And thus the issue isn't "can", but "likelihood of being right". It
may be allowed, but you're very unlikely to hit the nail on the head.

...
:>  We must start with the assumption otherwise, or the entire process
:> -- including the development of halakhah -- is suspect. It's a
:> reducio ad absurdum: if you can believe that baalei mesorah regularly
:> erred in aggadic matters, wouldn't the same argument apply to the
:> transmission of halakhah?

: Absolutely yes. Bingo. Chazal are human. Whatever was not received
: from Sinai (but instead was extrapolated from Sinaitic data, or
: recovered/recalled/rederived from Sinatic data that was forgotten, can
: certainly be wrong. Chinuch and Ran both say that we are to follow
: Chazal even when they are wrong. The entire nature of machloket means
: that Chazal can be wrong...

Not according to most understandings of eilu va'eilu -- that topic I'm
trying to skirt again.

: Rambam says that the Torah promises material benefits as a reward, in
: the same way that one gives candy to a child. So in this way, this
: idea of material benefit strengthens observance. But is this the
: proper, "true", way? No. (Now, my analogy is not perfect. According to
: Rambam, material reward is 100% true, and simply a lower, non-lishma
: understanding. For a proper analogy, I need a *false* idea that will
: strengthen observance. But  I think my point is clear.)

Your parenthetic is wrong. The analogy is perfect -- they are multiple
models to fit the same truth to a human life. One might be a better
model, aimed at people capable of aiming higher. Or, they might be
equal and different models for people who simply have different
perspectives.

: Rabbi Slifkin says that many limit the kinds of hashkafic ideas they
: show their students, because they only want to express ideas that will
: directly strengthen mitzvot performance. Rabbi Slifkin says this
: approach is certainly valid, but it's not the only approach.

One side effect of RNS's time here is that citing him doesn't end up
carrying more weight than a post. You want to convince me, you would
need to discuss his sources. But since RNS was scared off Avodah-style
public fora by people who combed them for things to incriminate him
for, I think it's unfair to discuss his position here, anyway.

But I'm not saying that one makes things up or edits thoughts so as to
maximize avodas Hashem. Rather, the difference between a philosophy
and a Torah philosophy is that the latter advances AYH and (implicitly
redundantly I must add) is consistent with the Torah.

Beis Shammai aren't wrong. And if they were, their successors wouldn't
be very likely to assess a mistake made by people who hadn't lost all
the Torah lost during churban bayis. We would have less confidence in
the accuracy of the determination than in the original statement!


: Obviously he had certain philosophical bases and axioms and whatnot.
: But I mean, no foreign philosophy (AFAIK) was explicitly relied on by
: him. He said his purpose was to learn Judaism from itself (cf. Rav
: Hirsch) without any reliance on anything foreign....

And yet RSRH was Kantian, and REB a neo-Kantian Existentialist. You
can even read deconstruction in REB's hyperlegalistic "terms of the
beris" perspective on avodas Hashem. Their philosophies are very
easily perceivable as products of their respective zeitgeists.

:>  To ask a final question: If REB's argument is valid WRT Hashem's
:>  emotions, why isn't it valid WRT His features? How can one say
:> "charon  apo" is an idiom for anger, not a reference to the flairing
:> of the Divine Nostril, and yet insist one must stop there because the
:> anger couldn't possibly be anthropomorphic idiom?
:
: By features, you mean physical, bodily features, and by nostril, a
: physical nostril? The Torah itself says He doesn't have a body....

It does not. The corporeality of G-d is actually championed by an
(admittedly obscure) rishon. The Raavad is forced to not consider it
an ikkar since people he considered great espoused it.

: Obviously, it could very well be that His emotions are "as-if", and
: anger is an anthropomorphic idiom. The Torah doesn't say, so there's
: no opportunity for correct or incorrect exegesis at all, let alone one
: side making a gross clumsy inept error (like missing the glaring fact
: that the Torah says He has no body). Therefore, this is up for debate,
: REB versus everyone else.

But how can you bet on REB with odds like that?

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight,
micha@aishdas.org        and he wants to sleep well that night too."
http://www.aishdas.org     - Rav Yosef Yozel Horwitz, Alter of Novarodok
Fax: (270) 514-1507

About a month ago, a Lakewood bochur got married. Before the wedding, he
had given the ring to his sister for safekeeping, who then returmed it to
him to perform the actual kiddushin. A few days later, in the middle of the
week of sheva brachos, the sister discovered that she had mistakenly given
her brother her own wedding ring, not the one that  he had originally given
to her. This discovery was made during just prior to Shabbos Sheva Brachos.
The question is: do the sheva brachos go on as scheduled?

They are learning Kiddushin this zman in Lakewood, and the story, while
obviously painful and embarrassing to the family, offered an opportunity
for thousands of guys to discuss the halachic ramifications:

1) Does the sister have ne'emanus? If not, is it not a case of shavya
anafshei?
2) Kiddushin on Shabbos is an issur derabanan. Would this issur be
suspended in this case so a private reenactment of the Kiddushin would be
allowed totake place on Shabbos itself, thus avoiding sheva brachos
levatalah?
3)  Can there be a chalos of nisuin without eirusin, allowing the sheva
brachos to continue even without this reenactment? The famous Mordechai
comes to mind that chuppah is really the badekin, which places the nisuin
before the eirusin.

Lema'aseh, the psak was that the sheva brachos could continue, but that the
eirusin would have to be redone privately on Motzei Shabbos.

Arnie Lustiger

arnold.lustiger@exxonmobil.com wrote:
> About a month ago, a Lakewood bochur got married. Before the wedding, he
> had given the ring to his sister for safekeeping, who then returmed it to
> him to perform the actual kiddushin. A few days later, in the middle of the
> week of sheva brachos, the sister discovered that she had mistakenly given
> her brother her own wedding ring, not the one that  he had originally given
> to her.

Why not say that since the two rings were obviously similar enough that
they could be easily confused, and are probably of exactly the same
value, when he accepted his sister's ring as a return of his pikadon
he absolved her of any further duties as a shomeret, and effectively
swapped his ring for hers?  His ring became her property, the ring she
gave him became his property and is now his wife's, and if the sister
and wife each want their "own" rings that's entirely a matter between
them.  Any reason we couldn't say this?

In a case of mekach ta'ut, we say "pachut mishtut eino chozer"; this
is certainly less than a shtut.  True, there was no intention to
transact any sort of mekach at all.  But can we compare the cases?

What if, between the mistake and its discovery, the sister's house
had been burglarised and the ring in her possession had been stolen?
Could she claim that the ring in her sister-in-law's possession was
really hers and must be returned, while the stolen ring was not hers,
and as a shomeret chinam she is not responsible for geneva?  Or
would her brother be able to say "you got a ring and you gave a ring,
our deal is concluded, and the ring that was stolen was yours"?

Similarly, what if the returned ring had been stolen from the chatan
or kalah, or lost by them, even through their own negligence?  What
exactly is their responsibility for an item that they in good faith
believed to be theirs?


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

RDaniel Eidensohn quoted the Griz:
>>
*Griz Halevi **(Bereishis 16:5):
The world asks a question ? how could Avraham keep Shabbos before the
mitzva was given at Sinai
since he had the status of a non?Jew and Sanhedrin(58b) states that a
non?Jew who observes Shabbos is liable to the death penalty?
>>

I have already been very disturbed by these questions and answers like
they had a safek and so
did some action that is forbidden to a Jew but allowed to a goy.

This whole attitude is so a-historical as to be disturbing (I would
use a stronger word but then risk
being rejected).

I vaguely remember another Griz having another question connected with
the Gemara identifying Ezra
with Malachi and if Ezra was a Cohen Gadol. Also was some question I
found not very powerful

-- 
Eli Turkel

>  Michael Makovi wrote:
>  :>  However, one could ask in the reverse: if it were about
>  :>  actual mercy, why is it limited to birds and *not* include higher
>  :>  mammals?

>  : Shecht rather than axepole, don't kill the calf and mother on the same
>  : day, feed your animals before you feed yourself...I believe Rambam
>  : discusses this.

>  But you can slaughter a calf right in front of the mother. There is no
>  parallel to shiluach haqen. Thus, it would be hard to say that ShQ is
>  driven by rachamim rather than out to teach rachamim, as you would
>  have to explain why we could be cruel to the cow. OTOH, if it is a
>  lesson in rachamim, we have to explain why birds are used for the
>  lesson, not cows. That's a much easier answer, as we can use RSRH-like
>  symbology.

Good point. Honest question: does anyone talk about whether it is
"bad" or patur or what have you, to slaughter the calf in front of the
mother? For example, if you shecht the mother and find a fully-grown
calf in her womb afterwards, the calf is halachically dead, and you
can kill it however you want. If that calf grows up and gives birth,
then its offspring too are exempt from shechita. One could conceivably
raise an entire farm of shecht-chiyuv-less cattle. But Rabbinically,
sorry, you can't. I'm honestly asking this question of whether
anything parallel is found with slaughtering a calf in front of the
mother.

>  But more to the point, the notion that shiluach haqen isn't expressing
>  rachamim is R' Yosi bar Avin's and R' Yosi bar Zevida's (Berakhos
>  33b). One raises the issue of my poor cow, the other that the point is
>  avodas Hashem. (Quite probably not a machloqes.) Rava and Abayei were
>  so sure of the point, Rava joked about it.

>  : And Rambam rejects that this is the majority view. Or we can go with
>  : the Yerushalmi that it is davka a shaliach tzibur who cannot do this,
>  : because he'll mislead the tzibur, because he cannot explain to them
>  : (during tefillah) what he's doing. But during a shiur? B'vadai one can
>  : express the fact that He has mercy on the birds.

>  Majority view? There are only three people cited in the gemara, and
>  they all agree on this aspect of things.

I didn't say it; Rambam (AFAIK = I haven't seen it inside) said it was
a minority view that it is not rachamim. AFAIK, Rambam says that
adarabba, the majority hold mitzvot have humanly-understandable
ta'amim like rachamim etc.

Anyway, despite the Bavli, the Yerushalmi, AFAIK, holds the issue
isn't rachamim versus not rachamim, but rather shliach tzibur versus
baal habayit.

>  : Rambam as is well known, was essentially reconciling the science of
>  : his day with Torah, much as many do today. So if Aristotle (who could
>  : not be wrong) had proved such-and-such about Hashem or the world, then
>  : surely the Torah concurs (for how could the Torah contradict that
>  : which has been proven?), and so the only thing left to do is show how
>  : everything in the Torah agrees with everything proven by Aristotle.
>
>  The Rambam did believe that Aristotle could be wrong, and in fact
>  rejected his theory on the eternity of matter (as you yourself write
>  in the next sentence).
>
>  Thus if the Rambam believed the Torah had a position that contradicted
>  Aristotle's conclusions, he would assume Aristotle was wrong. That's
>  not being questionable because of Greek Philosophy. It's using
>  Philosophy to fill in gaps the Torah doesn't spell out.
>
>  : Those things not proven by Aristotle (such as eternity of matter,
>  : according to Rambam) we need not be concerned with. But even there,
>  : Rambam offered a way to reconcile Torah with eternity of matter...
>
>  Not at all. The Rambam says that TSBK could be reconciled, if TSBP --
>  "the conclusions of our nevi'im and chakhamim" weren't otherwise. And
>  that the two can't really contradict. So if we have a reliable
>  mesorah, he would have to dig through Aristo to find the flaw.
>
>  It's pouring wine into a bottle, not rounding the corners of a square
>  peg.

I haven't seen Rambam inside, but the understanding I was given (by
Rabbi Epstein Faith of Judaism) that Rambam basically says the
following:

Aristotle says two things: eternity of matter and G-d didn't create
the world. Rabbi Epstein distinguishes these two, because he says,
conceivably one could say that matter was eternal but G-d still shaped
it; I recall Ralbag says something similar to this. So the two issues
are related, but can be distinguished:
1) Is matter eternal or not
2) Did G-d involve Himself in creation, whether creating or simply
shaping that which was eternal. Or was G-d totally uninvolved in any
way ( = Aristotle).

Rambam says the second is absolutely totally 100% unkosher, cannot
reconcile, don't even try. There is no way, whatsoever, to say G-d
wasn't involved in creation. We can argue on the mode of creation, but
G-d was unquestionably involved in it.

Regarding the first, TSBP and the pshat of TSBK says ex-nihilo, and
since Aristotle hasn't proved eternity of matter, why should we bend
anything to reconcile with him? BUT, hypothetically speaking, were
Aristotle to prove beyond a doubt eternity of matter, we'd simply
allegorize TSBK. I don't know what Rambam would do about TSBP, but I'd
wager a guess that he'd deal with it the same way he dealt with many
scientific issues in Gemara: Chazal received their science from study
not Sinai, and so there's no chiyuv to follow them here, whether on
medicine or on creation ex-nihilo.

In other words, Rambam is content to disagree with Aristotle on things
that are totally anti-Torah (G-d didn't create world) and things not
proven (eternity of matter), but on EVERYTHING else, Rambam assumes
agreement with Torah and Aristotle, and he will interpret one to agree
with the other in whatever way is most fitting. And hypothetically, he
offered a way to reconcile even that not proven (eternity of matter),
similar (IMO) to Rav Hirsch's chumash interpreting creation in a way
incompatible with evolution, but in his Collected Writings, he says
that hypothetically, were evolution proven (it was not in his
opinion), we'd simply say...etc.


> R' Micha
>  :>  AND, a G-d who is at times angry is two things when He is angry - a
>  :>  G-d, and His Anger. Divisibility.
>
> : Mikha'el Makovi
>  : Why is His anger a separate thing? Is my happiness or my anger
>  : separate from me? No. I am me, and sometimes I have a state of anger
>  : or happiness. So where's the divisibility? He's one God, and He has
>  : attributes that are a part of Him.
>
> R' Micha
>  A PART OF HIM. Exactly. Something that can disappear without the other
>  PARTS changing. Plurality. A nonessential attribute is a different
>  piece than the essence. If Hashem can exist with or without Divine
>  Wrath then you have to ask how the two came together to begin with,
>  and who created the Creator.

You seem to consider anger almost a tangible substance. I might wonder
if this is parallel to the idea of form and matter, or the idea that
knowledge and information have some concrete existence, etc. I don't
hold like this. So your objection makes no sense to me - anger is not
something independent from G-d that He and it come together; anger is
simply something G-d would be at some point.

>  :>  You are subject to the concept of anger (to return to the same
>  :>  middah). How and when you express that anger is you, but the very
>  :>  concept of anger precedes you. The concept of anger cannot precede
>  :> the Creator of anger.
>
>  : Anger precedes me? The anger is an attribute of me; I am not an
>  : attribute of the anger.
>
>  Anger existed before you were born. The concept doesn't depend on you
>  to exist; you depend on the concept existing in order to be who you
>  are. It precedes you both logically and in time.
>
>  For God to get angry, someone had to invent the concept of anger, and
>  then add it to God, or invent God and add to Him the concept of anger.
>  God can no longer be the end of the chain of "Why?" unless He is so
>  Simple as to have no divisibility even to separate ideas.
>

Again, you seem to be giving anger its own existence. Anger as a
concept existed before me, of course. But what difference does that
make? If I am angry, it isn't because the theoretical concept of anger
arrived at me; I don't follow this whole concept of an idea/knowledge
having its own spiritual existence.

>  To better address RMM's next point in light of my comments above:
>  :>  REB, was far less immersed in the Torah weltenschaung than the
>  :> people he was disputing. This is the whole nisqatnu hadoros. REB
>  :> might have  nice theories, but his threshold of proof is quite high.
>  :> And his invocation of a Torah theology over that of Chazal or the
>  :> rishonim smacks of R's call of a return to prophetic Judaism -- with
>  :> the huge distinction of the claim being mutar WRT aggadita.
>
>  : Again, I would simply say that he was operating on the same sources
>  : but had a different philosophical starting point. Medieval Jewish
>  : philosophy had a lot of questions never asked by Chazal and a lot of
>  : philosophical baggage never regarded by Chazal.
>
>  Yes, philosophy created new questions to answer, in addition to giving
>  new words with which to answer them. But rishonim knew better than we
>  can judge which seams between philosophy and Torah are smooth, and
>  which are more forced and artificial.

Okay, so rishonim get more influential votes. But it doesn't mean that
with enough sevara, we can't overrule. It just takes more to overrule
a rishon than an acharon. Yofi.

>  : Heck, the rishonim say that one can disagree with a Chazalic aggadata!
>
>  And thus the issue isn't "can", but "likelihood of being right". It
>  may be allowed, but you're very unlikely to hit the nail on the head.

Agreed.

>  :>  We must start with the assumption otherwise, or the entire process
>  :> -- including the development of halakhah -- is suspect. It's a
>  :> reducio ad absurdum: if you can believe that baalei mesorah regularly
>  :> erred in aggadic matters, wouldn't the same argument apply to the
>  :> transmission of halakhah?
>
>  : Absolutely yes. Bingo. Chazal are human. Whatever was not received
>  : from Sinai (but instead was extrapolated from Sinaitic data, or
>  : recovered/recalled/rederived from Sinatic data that was forgotten, can
>  : certainly be wrong. Chinuch and Ran both say that we are to follow
>  : Chazal even when they are wrong. The entire nature of machloket means
>  : that Chazal can be wrong...
>
>  Not according to most understandings of eilu va'eilu -- that topic I'm
>  trying to skirt again.

Agreed - I know I'm on the edge. But what can I do? I hold according
to what's apparent to me.

>  : Rambam says that the Torah promises material benefits as a reward, in
>  : the same way that one gives candy to a child. So in this way, this
>  : idea of material benefit strengthens observance. But is this the
>  : proper, "true", way? No. (Now, my analogy is not perfect. According to
>  : Rambam, material reward is 100% true, and simply a lower, non-lishma
>  : understanding. For a proper analogy, I need a *false* idea that will
>  : strengthen observance. But  I think my point is clear.)
>
>  Your parenthetic is wrong. The analogy is perfect -- they are multiple
>  models to fit the same truth to a human life. One might be a better
>  model, aimed at people capable of aiming higher. Or, they might be
>  equal and different models for people who simply have different
>  perspectives.

No no. I was trying to show that an erroneous idea can strengthen
Torah observance. That is why my analogy was not perfect - I was not
trying to show elu v'elu with better and worse / higher and lower /
superior and inferior hashkafot that are all true and all lead to
observance. I was speaking of an objectively 100% incorrect/wrong idea
that STILL nevertheless strengthened observance despite being wrong.

How about this: if Levi honestly believes that if he speaks lashon
hara, he will die. Instantly. Don't you agree Levi will be the best
hilchot lashon hara observer ever? I wager he'll be better than the
Chofetz Chaim! But the fact remains that his idea that he will die
instantly, is wrong. 100% wrong. But it still strengthened his
observance, didn't it?

>  : Obviously he had certain philosophical bases and axioms and whatnot.
>  : But I mean, no foreign philosophy (AFAIK) was explicitly relied on by
>  : him. He said his purpose was to learn Judaism from itself (cf. Rav
>  : Hirsch) without any reliance on anything foreign....
>
>  And yet RSRH was Kantian, and REB a neo-Kantian Existentialist. You
>  can even read deconstruction in REB's hyperlegalistic "terms of the
>  beris" perspective on avodas Hashem. Their philosophies are very
>  easily perceivable as products of their respective zeitgeists.

Kant I am not learned in. But I know that of Rav Hirsch, Rabbi Elias
in his perush takes great pains to show that of many/all of Rav
Hirsch's supposed Kantianisms, a Chazalic parallel serves just as
well. He actually holds that anyone who holds Rav Hirsch was Kantian,
is simply ignorant in Torah, because the Torah sources are so obvious.
Now, I don't know Kant, but Rabbi Elias's examples seemed convincing
enough that I'm convinced that at the very least, Rav Hirsch wasn't as
Kantian as some make him out to be.

Now, b'vadai, Rav Hirsch knew Kant and even praised him - see Dayan
Grunfeld to Horeb.

Rav Berkovits I cannot say anything on, because I don't know Kant and
no one that I've seen has analyzed Rav Berkovits in light of Kant.

>  :>  To ask a final question: If REB's argument is valid WRT Hashem's
>  :>  emotions, why isn't it valid WRT His features? How can one say
>  :> "charon  apo" is an idiom for anger, not a reference to the flairing
>  :> of the Divine Nostril, and yet insist one must stop there because the
>  :> anger couldn't possibly be anthropomorphic idiom?
>  :
>  : By features, you mean physical, bodily features, and by nostril, a
>  : physical nostril? The Torah itself says He doesn't have a body....
>
>  It does not. The corporeality of G-d is actually championed by an
>  (admittedly obscure) rishon. The Raavad is forced to not consider it
>  an ikkar since people he considered great espoused it.

From what I've seen, this rishon didn't hold that G-d actually is
corporeal, but rather that He can at times inhabit a human body. I'm
not sure whether this rishon holds that while G-d inhabits a human, He
still has an incorporeal parallel existence, or whether His
incorporeality totally ceases so long as He inhabits the body.

Now, personally, I'd say that obviously G-d can possess a human body!
If He can make boulders roll and wind blow, why not make a human body
move his lips tongue and lung move in a certain way to speak? But He
Himself is not physical in this body any more than He is physical in
the wind and rocks moving. He is moving a human body like a puppet,
but He Himself is still incorporeal. That's my personal opinion. But I
digress...

The fact that this rishon, whatever he holds, is so totally minority,
makes me content to say that 99.9999% would hold that the chumash
clearly precludes G-d's corporeality. But I know of no one who claims
the chumash says that G-d has no attributes; this they base on
philosophy and logic, not explicit textual proofs.

>  : Obviously, it could very well be that His emotions are "as-if", and
>  : anger is an anthropomorphic idiom. The Torah doesn't say, so there's
>  : no opportunity for correct or incorrect exegesis at all, let alone one
>  : side making a gross clumsy inept error (like missing the glaring fact
>  : that the Torah says He has no body). Therefore, this is up for debate,
>  : REB versus everyone else.
>
>  But how can you bet on REB with odds like that?

Because his logic convinces me more than everyone else's.

Mikha'el Makovi


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