Avodah Mailing List

Volume 25: Number 103

Thu, 20 Mar 2008

• 1. Grain weights (Jonathan Baker)
• 2. Re: R' Angel & Geirus Redux (Michael Makovi)
• 3. Re: Half-Shekel found from the time of Bayis Sheni (Zev Sero)
• 4. Re: time of Purim Seudah (David Riceman)
• 5. Purim Seudah (Harry Weiss)
• 6. Re: R' Angel & Geirus Redux (Micha Berger)
• 7. Re: Halakhos that depend on LH? (Micha Berger)
• 8. Re: R' Angel & Geirus Redux (Daniel Eidensohn)
• 9. Tinok shenishba Rav Henkin (Daniel Eidensohn)
• 10. Re: time of Purim Seudah (Michael Makovi)
• 11. Re: R' Angel & Geirus Redux (Daniel Eidensohn)

From: Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org>
> Subject: [Avodah] Half-Shekel found from the time of Bayis Sheni
 
> On Wed, Mar 19, '08 at 5:27pm EDT, R Gershon Dubin wrote to Areivim:
> : http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125612
 
> The Rambam writes (Sheqalim 3:2) that a sheqel is 320 grains of barley.
> R' Chaim Brown <http://tinyurl.com/yswno3> writes:
> > Peter Bernstein writes in "The Power of Gold: The History of an
> > Obsession" (p. 24), "Today the carat has been replaced by the grain ...

> So, given that a grain is a remarkably constant unit of measure, I figured

Except that the grain is not so constant over long periods of history:
there is variation depending on water supply, and growth over the long
term based on genetic improvements.

See, e.g., http://tinyurl.com/23enhk for a study on how to standardize
weights of wheat and barley grains for archaeobotanical comparisons,
noting the growth of grain sizes over time.

Or
http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/mcm048v1?ijkey
=WOoxibKXbGWFx07&;keytype=ref
which is admittedly about a much earlier period, but does note
growth in grain sizes over time, under various kinds of selection pressure.
(this won't mean much for our readers who believe the world didn't exist
then, or that evolution doesn't happen).

> the Rambam's grains would be similar to the British unit "grain", also
> based on barley -- 64.79891 mg. This would make a sheqel (320 barleys)
> equal 20.74 gm. Too large for this coin, I think. It would mean that
> more than a third of the coin is missing.
 
> I'm not sure why the article makes the assumption that this particular
> coin may have been involved in the mitzvah of machatzis hasheqel. But
> if the probability is real, wouldn't it have to be treated as heqdeish?

Do all machtzis hashekel (all the hundreds of thousands of them, if not 
millions each year) remain hekdesh?  It was used to buy flour and animals
for sacrifices - doesn't its use then redeem the hekdesh?  Or did many
tons of silver go out of circulation each year in Adar?

From: Zev Sero <zev@sero.name>
 
> AIUI, many shkalim have been found over the past 200 years or so, and
> they tend to be in the 13-14 gram range.
 
> > The Rambam writes (Sheqalim 3:2) that a sheqel is 320 grains of barley.
 
> The shekel of Moshe's time was 320.  The Shekel Tzori of Chazal was 384.
 
> > So, given that a grain is a remarkably constant unit of measure, I figured
> > the Rambam's grains would be similar to the British unit "grain", also
> > based on barley -- 64.79891 mg.
 
> The Rambam's grains are 1/64 of a dirham, and his dirham was definitely
> no bigger than the Ottoman dirham of 3.2 g (and there is some reason to

Wiki on "Islamic gold dinar" notes that the weight of the dirham & dinar
are set by shari'a, so it is claimed to be pretty consistent since the time
of Muhammad.  But then, they are set relative to the weight of a barley
grain (citing Ibn Khaldun, 14th c. CE), so again it becomes dependent on
grain weight, which may have changed.

> believe it was a bit smaller), which makes a grain no more than 50 mg.

as noted above, grain sizes have grown over time, particularly in the
modern period with conscious genetic breeding.  So the "remarkably
consistent" could be over a limited period of time, while modern barley
grains might be 64.8 mg and the Rambam's 50 mg.
 
--
        name: jon baker              web: http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker
     address: jjbaker@panix.com     blog: http://thanbook.blogspot.com

> R' Michael Makovi asked:
>  > Reb Moshe honestly expects these people to realize that
>  > Torah is true just because there are are rational and
>  > intelligent benei Torah? And there aren't rational and
>  > intelligent gentiles? ... If I have been raised in a
>  > non-Torah environment, why should I have any greater
>  > predisposition to Torah than the Christian Bible or the
>  > Koran or Kant or the Bhagavad Gita? Of course they see
>  > rational and intelligent benei Torah! But they have no
>  > reason to think more highly of them and their religion
>  > than they do of all the rational and intelligent
>  > non-benei Torah!
>
>  Thank you for posting this. It is a question which has bothered me for a long time. I hope
> someone will suggest an answer to it.

Well, as I said, I've seen numerous statements that a nonreligious Jew
today is a tinok she'nishba/shogeg, and bears no guilt for what he
does, b'klal. I am having trouble remembering exactly where I have
seen this (too many places; it's like asking where I read that pork is
treif), but I know Einayim Lirot (English translation from Urim: Eyes
to See) has a chapter on this.

I remembered another proof R' Schwarz there brings: Ramban in his
perush to the Chumash says that it could happen someday that people
erroneously think that the Torah was valid once but no longer valid
anymore, and so they are shogeg in "if you violate all these
commandments".

Rav Kook too I think implicitly held like this. His philosophy was
that today, we are seeing people that are bad on the outside but good
on the inside. They have tremendous neshamot yearning to improve the
world (look at all the Jews in left-wing causes), and the Torah had
been made into something so small and parochial (4 cubits of halacha,
all about your own individual self, but nothing anymore about fixing
the whole world, etc.), and so they left Judaism (which to them
appeared to be void of tikkun olam) in favor of left-wing causes, with
their hearts full of the yearning to save and repair the world.
Obviously, they were misguided. But Rav Kook said, their souls and
intentions are fantastically huge, larger than any previous generation
we've seen, and so he had faith that all their sins were innocent
ones.

IMO, Rav Hirsch's 19 Letters seems to suppose a very similar
accounting, because the whole premise of his book is that many of the
young idealists turning to Reform, did so only because the modern
world seemed so progressive and enlightened, and yet Orthodox Judaism
appeared so backward and old and decrepit and had nothing to offer to
change the world. Judaism had become 4 cubits of halacha and had lost
study of Tanach and Aggadah and Hashkafa and was only halacha, without
ta'amim; stam just do it and don't ask questions. But these young
idealists wanted something with purpose, something to change the
world, something to live for. This is virtually the same thing Rav
Kook said.

Rav Kook said to Rabbi Hayim David haLevy (late chief rabbi of Tel
Aviv) that today's youth need not only halacha, but also hashkafa, so
Rabbi haLevy wrote his Mekor Hayim, which is a Kitzur Shulchan Aruch
that includes hashkafic introductions to all the halachot; it is the
standard halachic textbook for Israeli DL schools, much as Rav
Hirsch's Horeb was used as a KSA for German youth.

The parallel is quite astounding, IMO. Also, compare Torah im Derech
Eretz to Rav Kook's view of learning chol, "sanctify the chol by
infusing it with kodesh". Rav Kook and Rav Hirsch say the same thing
on learning chol, but in different language.

Mikha'el Makovi

kennethgmiller@juno.com wrote:
> Regarding the article that R' Gershon Dubin posted to Areivim:
>> http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125612
> 
> R' Micha Berger asked two questions:
> 
>> I'm not sure why the article makes the assumption
>> that this particular coin may have been involved
>> in the mitzvah of machatzis hasheqel.
> 
> Because the article says that the coin "is of the denomination used
> during the turbulent Second Temple period to pay the Biblical
> half-shekel head-tax."

So?  It was also used for shopping and business and whatever else
people used money for.


> My first answer to this was [...] After all, when the Bedek
> Habayis would spend the accumulated half-shekels on whatever,
> wouldn't it lose the kedusha?

Indeed.  Rambam Shkalim 3:17 says "money found on Har Habayit
is chulin, because the bursar never removes money from terumat
halishka before cancelling it against the animals that he buys
with it."  How much more so money found in the streets of Y'm.


>> The ancient silver coin was discovered in ... the main
>> Second Temple-era drainage channel of Jerusalem. ...
>> "Just like today when coins sometimes fall from our
>> pockets and roll into drainage openings at the side of
>> the street, that?s how it was some two thousand years
>> ago ? a man was on his way to the Temple and the shekel
>> which he intended to use for paying the half shekel
>> head-tax found its way into the drainage channel,"
>> theorized archaeologist Eli Shukron of the Israel
>> Antiquities Authority. 
> 
> According to this theory, the coin never became hekdesh to begin with.

Why not?  If a person designates it as his half-shekel, doesn't it
remain hekdesh?

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

kennethgmiller@juno.com wrote:
> Elly Miller, wrote back:
>   
>> We are planning on starting our seudah at 4:00pm. At 5:50pm
>> (a few minutes before plag) we will stop eating, bentsch,
>> and still have the option of drinking.
Is it still appropriate to drink after bentsching? Not if you think 
drinking is a part of the mitzvah of seudah.

>
> Let me back up and explain myself. For the sake of simplicity, let's
> take a person who has no minyan in town, so leaving the seudah to go
> to shul doesn't complicate things. He has two procedures that he is
> considering: His first idea is to daven mincha, have a Purim Seudah
> late Erev Shabbos afternoon, say Birkas Hamazon, say Kabbalas Shabbos,
> have Kiddush, Hamotzi, Seudas Shabbos, bench, and daven Maariv. The
> second idea is to daven mincha, begin a meal late Erev Shabbos
> afternoon, pause dirung hte meal to say Kabbalas Shabbos, make
> Kiddush, (I forgot how Lechem Mishneh is handled,] and then continue
> his meal, bench, and daven Maariv.
>
> I think most people will agree that the first idea is very b'dieved,
> while the second one (despite the practical problems such as were
> mentioned in Rav Teitz's post) is fully sanctioned, at least for
> Sefaradim.
>
> Why such a disparity? Does Oneg Shabbos really suffer more in the first than in the second?
>   
I think the problem here is not Oneg Shabbos but bensching in the middle 
of a meal.  Is it really appropriate to benstch when you intend to 
continue eating in a few minutes?

David Riceman

> From: "kennethgmiller@juno.com" <kennethgmiller@juno.com>
> For example: Why is it important to have an appetite for the Shabbos
> meal? Why isn't it sufficient that he has eaten it and enjoyed it to
> some extent? Now that may sound like a silly question. After all, the
> goal is Oneg Shabbos, and Chazal want us to use food as a means of
> acheiving that Oneg, and that can't happen without an appetite.
>
> But if so, why does everyone accept, unquestioningly, that the Pores
> Mappah procedure is acceptable? From the perspective of Oneg Shabbos,
> why do we care about benching in the middle?
>
> Let me back up and explain myself. For the sake of simplicity, let's
> take a person who has no minyan in town, so leaving the seudah to go
> to shul doesn't complicate things. He has two procedures that he is
> considering: His first idea is to daven mincha, have a Purim Seudah
> late Erev Shabbos afternoon, say Birkas Hamazon, say Kabbalas Shabbos,
> have Kiddush, Hamotzi, Seudas Shabbos, bench, and daven Maariv. The
> second idea is to daven mincha, begin a meal late Erev Shabbos
> afternoon, pause dirung hte meal to say Kabbalas Shabbos, make
> Kiddush, (I forgot how Lechem Mishneh is handled,] and then continue
> his meal, bench, and daven Maariv.
>
> I think most people will agree that the first idea is very b'dieved,
> while the second one (despite the practical problems such as were
> mentioned in Rav Teitz's post) is fully sanctioned, at least for
> Sefaradim.
>
> Why such a disparity? Does Oneg Shabbos really suffer more in the first than in the second?
>
> Many thanks to those who took the time to read such a long post!
>
> Akiva Miller

Another solution that is common where many people are unable to have a 
real Seudah early is to have a communal Seudah.

There can be an adequate break for Kabbalat Shabbat and Maariv (and 
candle lighting in a small enough time frame that does not break up the 
meal since there is no walking back and forth involved.  (and no one will 
risk a DUI)

As I tried to say earlier, I think you both veered from the original
topic without ever resolving it. C and O have drastically wrong
notions of what ol mitzvos means. There is no extrapolation from
allowing geirus of someone who may not know much of what he needs to
do, but knows what "needs to do" means to someone who can't be
meqabeil ol mitzvos because he has a wrong understanding of ol
mitzvos.

That's the problem with R' Uziel's proposal, and why RMAngel is wrong
in thinking it's simple chumraization that has gotten it ignored.

Given the inability leqabeil ol mitzvos, the question of whether
"nebich an apiqoreis" C/R Jew has the din of an apiqoreis really had
nothing to do with the original question.

Second, to accept a geir, the question isn't whether he is a
kofeir/min/apiqoreis but whether his beliefs are appropriate. A well
meaning believer in kefirah/meenus/apiqursus isn't a geirus candidate.
So, even beyond ol mitzvos, a nachri who was mislead by reason or
well-meaning TsN Jews isn't a geirus candicate anyway.

As for this tangent, now that we're here... I am loathe to argue with
RDE, the Yad Moshe, as to RMF's shitah. However, I /thought/ that from
his pesaq on minyan, RMFeinstein was clear that the hamon am are TsN.
(Whereas the SR was machmir, and would not count them toward a
minyan.) RMF held the rabbis accountable, though. But I'm not sure
RMF's view of C and R rabbis is still true a generation later. It's
one more generation of drift apart, and in addition there are no
longer that many O raised and ordained rabbis throughout their ranks.
But r"l RMF isn't here to ask -- I can only guess his opinion given
the changing realia. Or in this case, only note that it's impossible
for me to guess.

As for the viability of the idea as a whole. As is well known (as
least to the Avodah chevrah), the CI is famously meiqil. He holds that
on some level, once non-O Judaisms became so ubiquitous, none of us
are being fully rebellious. Even among those raised O as well, to some
extent we are all TsN. When someone living in the ghetto left shemiras
hamitzvos, he left everything he was raised with, the only notion of
Jewish identity and culture extant. Ba'avoseinu harabim, that's no
longer true. At least, to some extent (as I wrote above "on some
level") -- the CI applies this qulah to maalim umoridim, not
necessarily across the board.


On Tue, 18 Mar '08 7:53pm IST, RMM explains his difficulty accepting
the Abarbanel's position:
: The Abarbanel could be challenged that receiving Olam haBa is not some
: mechanistic thing that a cold machine does based on hard-wired
: criteria. Rather, G-d evaluates each person one-by-one I assume. So
: what would stop G-d from saying, "You didn't believe any of the 13,
: but since you were 100% shogeg tinok she'nishba, I'll let you in".

I think that since HQBH is lemaalah min hazeman, the difference
between a predefined rule and one-by-one assessment is meaningless, a
limitation of human thought. After all, judgment, din, implies rules.
(For that matter rachamim is itself a rule, but that's even less
intuitive.) Besides you just spelled out a more complicated rule that
can equally be followed mechanistically. You just replaced yedi'ah
with your assumed definition of tov. Which includes the honestly
mistaken non-believer.

It's not just the Abarbanel. The Rambam also makes OhB dependent on
yedi'as haBorei, and all of mitzvos are about creating opportunities
to reach that yedi'ah. Recall, his 13 middos are given in peirush to
"kol Yisrael yeish lahem cheileq le'olam haba" and thus (as he writes
in a similar list in the Yad) delimit who doesn't have a cheileq.

The Rambam's sevara in the Moreh: The tzurah of HQBH is no less
eternal than He is. And it is through yedi'ah one gains some of that
tzurah (more accurately, yedi'ah IS holding a tzurah in your mind) and
thus nitzchiyus. Without yedi'as haBorei, there is no eternal tzurah
-- and thus, kareis.

By the time the Ramchal comes on seen, moral tov (sheleimus in middos)
took over discussion rather than an intellectual yedi'as haBorei.

Someone who internalized Tzuras haBorei is morally good, vehalakhta
bidrakhav. Is that knowledge of how to act the yedi'ah in question, or
does intellectual knowledge of G-d the only route to getting to that
emotional / middos resonance. Isn't someone who by luck following the
derekh Hashem also harboring elements of the tzuras haBorei?

I feel this dispute has to do with Aristotelian psychology. Aristo
thought that thought shapes emotion. We today tend to believe the
other way around -- that emotion colors which thoughts we accept. This
shift is seen in the language; the shift from the talk of "dei'os",
using a word based on "da'as", to speaking of "middos". To many
rishonim, other than the Raavad, dei'os come from da'as. The
possibility that someone could successfully act in accord with
Hashem's middos without knowing Him didn't cross their minds. And
therefore they never discuss knowledge apart from goodness -- they
come together.

It's not that these rishonim deny the other position, they ignored it.
Or, in terms of my post of a few weeks back about the relationship
between philosophy and hashkafah, it's not a question people of their
era would have asked.

In any case, acharonim from at least the Ramchal onward have a pretty
*mechanistic* system between acting like HQBH and getting into olam
haba, which is a very different kind of "yedi'as haBorei". That, after
all, is Din.

RMM continues:
: To a tinok she'nishba, we don't penalize him at all (obviously,
: he can't be an eid, etc., but still, we don't villify him or punish
: him by the beit din), and yet the beit din shel maala will be
: *stricter* than shel mata? Since when is the shel maala stricter -
: isn't it always that our courts have to go by what we see (he stole,
: period) but shel maala will judge the conditions (he was poor, he was
: hungry, he didn't know better...)? So why is here the opposite?

One possible explanation: Because BD can't judge thought, but BD shel
maalah can.




Now that I'm far down in this post, I can touch the REB dispute,
burying my remarks from all but the very interested. I find this
discussion distasteful, but one has to have red lines defining eilu
va'eilu from something else. So, despite my own desire not to start
labeling people and narrowing my circle of "us", I feel compelled
(RRW, take note at that phrase!) to give my 7 agarot. (3.39 NIS/USD --
who woulda thunk it!)

On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 8:05pm IST, RMM wrote:
: What Rav Berkovits says has to be understood along with what he says
: about Chazal in Not in Heaven: he says that Chazal could never
: abrogate a deoraita in theory, but they could okimta it so as to
: effectively get rid of it (the rebellious son) or to modify its
: operation (for example, with mamzerim, you can just simply not
: investigate the evidence, for an aguna you can rely on one witness,
: etc.).
...
: But he is of course committed to the halachic system (unlike
: Conservative, who use disengenous pseudo-halachic solutions), and he
: did not (or at least, he did not knowingly) import foreign values into
: Judaism (unlike Conservative); he relied on Tanachic values, as did
: Chazal. ... On Azure.co.il, there's an article by David Hazony,
: with a title something about revival of Jewish moral thought, on this
: entire subject.

To which RDE replied on 9:54pm IST that evening:
: He basically says that whatever we think Chazal did - we can do also.
: However even if we have the arrogance to think we fully understand
: what Chazal did and even if we chas v'shalom viewed ourselves as their
: equals - but much of what they did was obviously before the closing of
: the Talmud. How can you assert that that freedom of action still
: exists after the closing of the Talmud?

And RMM responded on the next day (Tue) at 2:25 IST:
: B'vadai, one can argue with Rav Berkovits on whether we can do away
: with the law of kabbalat mitzvot in favor of the law of preservation
: of the unity of Am Yisrael, as an eit la'asot lashem; b'vadai one can
: argue with this. But the questions he raises (viz. that to be machmir
: on kabbalat mitzvot is to be meikil on lo titgodedu, etc.), and the
: approach that leads us to his conclusion (approach R/C with candor,
: etc., and firmly state our approach but still give them the respect of
: having their opinion listened to, don't declare them apikorsim
: b'meizid, recognize their lishma intentions even if they are dead
: wrong), is much less open to criticism IMHO...

Here's the problem as I see it.

Saying that chazal okmita something so that they effectively get rid
of it is beyond the O-C divide. Doubly so in a case like the ben
soreir umoreh, where the quote in question says they were stating the
practice as it existed midorei doros. You're taking their statement of
preserving a complex pesaq and using it to prove change.

One might okimta away something in the face of a greater chiyuv (which
you're arguing in our case) but not to simply erase an undesirable din
from the books.

I am saying something stronger than RDE's "He basically says that
whatever we think Chazal did - we can do also. However even if we ...
think we fully understand what Chazal did...." I'm pointing to
contradicting their own presentation of their actions to purport a
different understanding of what they did -- and thereby justifying
what we do.

The solution for Batei Hillel veShammai was to keep sifrei yuchsin,
not for either side to drop their pesaq.

Lo sisgodedu didn't rule out the concept of a machloqes lesheim Shamayim.

REB even realized his argument was specious, which is why he had to
mention the metahalachic concept of "eis la'asos" -- this must be done
despite it violating the normal rules. I fail to see how this is an
eis la'asos, as no one's relationship to Hashem is saved through it,
"just" unity would.

But bekhol zos, stepping back from the arguments of this particular
example to speak of REB's mehalekh as a whole...

RMM referred to R David Hazony's article in Azure (no 11, Summer 2001)
article "Eliezer Berkovits and the Revival of Jewish Moral Thought"
<http://www.azure.org.il/magazine/popUp_print.asp?ID=215&;member_Id=>.

AishDas is founded on the notion of a synthesis. Aish is supposed to
represent passion, Das, rite. Das without aish is "frumkeit", a
shallow culture of mitzvos anashim meilumada. Aish without das is
something other than Yahadus, it's unanchored, capable of being pulled
in any direction the people riding it think is "moral".

(And then, beyond that, that this requires work on developing
hislahavus for those values within oneself beyond the current norm.)

A revival of Jewish Moral Thought to create a passionate observance of
halakhah is one thing, or to at most select between otherwise equally
valid halachic options. A revival that supplants parts of halachic
process is something else entirely.

IOW, what I see as dangerous in REB's thought is (to quote RDH's
quotation of an essay by REB on the very conversion issue before us):
> In Crisis and Faith, Berkovits reviews this history with no small
> measure of discomfort. In his view, this gradual transformation of
> the oral tradition into a written one was a "calamity," representing
> a "violation of the essence of halacha." While he admits that owing
> to the Jews' historical predicament, there may not have been any
> alternative (as some of the codifiers maintained in their own
> defense), Berkovits nonetheless views the codification of the oral
> law as a blow to the traditional goals of Jewish law itself. ...
> [A]s violating the purpose of an oral tradition by reducing what is
> supposed to be a system of values, the application of which
> necessarily eludes precise and permanent delineation, to a set of
> rules.

I agree with the sentiment that it was a reduction, but in response to
a loss of the culture that internalized the system of values. Nisqatnu
hadoros means that we will have to increasingly rely on formal law.

And thus, it's not calamitous. It's the preplanned way of dealing with
our increasing distance from maamud Har Sinai.

Moshe gave us formal law in addition to values. "Miymino AishDas
lamo." We lost many of those values when Moshe died, and Asniel had to
reestablish those scenarios on more formal grounds. Similarly, all of
the cases of "shakhechum vechazar veyasdum", where AKhG had to use
formal rules to reconstruct the values lost during Bavel. Similarly
churban bayis leading to the mishnah, and when we spread out beyond
Bavel and EY, for the gemara. Loss of culture was ALWAYS, since
Yehoshua's day, supplanted with use of formal rule.

This is not catastophe. It's why Hashem gave us an AishDas, a halachic
process unified with those values.

To continue:
> Berkovits does not argue for the abolition of the Shulhan Aruch. He
> accepts the premise that the halacha is a binding system of law, and
> that, as with any legal system, one must for the sake of the integrity
> and stability of the law be willing to preserve time-worn precedents.

More than that... It's part of the system of values, the root of the
codified law itself.

> In this regard, Berkovits is no revolutionary. But by reviving the
> debate over the effect of the legal codes, he is nonetheless raising
> the banner for a reconsideration of the way halacha is understood. If
> the codification of the halacha was a necessary response to the
> trials of destruction and exile, then the lawbooks which have come
> to be identified so fully with Orthodoxy are in some important sense
> alien to the law.

REB makes law with all the rigor of law a necessary evil. Halakhah is
no longer the product of a process given by G-d, it's a man-made
approximation of Divine Values. He thereby opens the door to C-style
malleability.

Which is why we find eis la'asos being treated as a value, not a
rigorous halachic category with well defined limits. Eis la'asos,
rather than being only where a person will lose all contact with
G-dliness, becomes a codeword for "Jewish values" trumping halakhah.
Unanchored. C.

BTW, the similarity to early R's talk about a return to "Prophetic
Judaism" is haunting. The difference between them is more that REB is
described as realizing the pragmatic need, in "necessary response to
the trials of destruction and exile". But the ideal would be the same.

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

On Tue, March 18, 2008 2:15 am, Simon Montagu wrote:
: On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 3:23 PM, Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org>
: wrote:
:> I was asked in private email:
:>:                                      There are many _halachos_, some
:>: even d'Oraisa, that are _contigent_, apparently, on people speaking
:>: lashon hara. The phrase "mezoros b'lavanah" in Sotah, or "kol d'lo
:>: posak". I haven't gotten an answer yet.

: Not surprising, since the writer (at least as quoted here) hasn't
: asked a question yet ;-) What is the question?

Feel assured you aren't missing anything from the email. I just
deleted his request that I forward his question here for discussion.
And his header and signature.

Here is what I thought he was asking... How do we codify halakhos that
presume people will continue to be avaryanim? Particularly given the
severity of LH?

To add to the question... Do you think these dinim will necessarily
change le'asid lavo, when LH would be rare?

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

R' Michael Makovi wrote:
>> R' Michael Makovi asked:
>>  > Reb Moshe honestly expects these people to realize that
>>  > Torah is true just because there are are rational and
>>  > intelligent benei Torah? And there aren't rational and
>>  > intelligent gentiles? ... If I have been raised in a
>>  > non-Torah environment, why should I have any greater
>>  > predisposition to Torah than the Christian Bible or the
>>  > Koran or Kant or the Bhagavad Gita? Of course they see
>>  > rational and intelligent benei Torah! But they have no
>>  > reason to think more highly of them and their religion
>>  > than they do of all the rational and intelligent
>>  > non-benei Torah!
>>
>>  Thank you for posting this. It is a question which has bothered me for a long time. I hope
>> someone will suggest an answer to it.
>>     
>
> Well, as I said, I've seen numerous statements that a nonreligious Jew
> today is a tinok she'nishba/shogeg, and bears no guilt for what he
> does, b'klal. I am having trouble remembering exactly where I have
> seen this (too many places; it's like asking where I read that pork is
> treif), but I know Einayim Lirot (English translation from Urim: Eyes
> to See) has a chapter on this.
>
>   
It would be helpful if you gave "specific citations" instead of vague 
recollections.

1) Could you please give a citation that a tinok shenishba "bears no 
guilt". You might want to see a teshuva written by Rav Henkin on the subject

the following is an excerpt written by R'  Gil Student.

http://www.yasharbooks.com/2004/11/tinok-she-nishbah.html

"In the forthcoming volume 4 of /Bnei Banim/ 
<http://www.yasharbooks.com/2004/11/Bnei%20Banim.html>, R. Yehuda Henkin 
adds his voice to this discussion with an essay on this subject (essay 
no. 7 in PDF format 
<http://www.yasharbooks.com/2004/11/bnei%20banim%20excerpt2.pdf>). R. 
Henkin points out that the application of the status of /tinok 
she-nishbah/ to secular Jews began in 19th century Germany with the 
great leaders R. Ya'akov Ettlinger and, somewhat later, R. David Tzvi 
Hoffmann. This has been the approach accepted by mainstream halakhists, 
including the author's illustrious grandfather R. Yosef Eliyahu Henkin. 
However, R. Henkin objects to extending this concept beyond its current 
application or to using this status as a justification for 
non-observance. Most importantly, one should never think of himself as a 
/tinok she-nishbah/ because this only becomes an excuse for sinning."


 2) Furthermore I haven't seen any source that the rabbis of Reform and 
Conservative are considered tinok shenishba.  Do you have any such source?

Daniel Eidensohn

The link I provided on my last post doesn't work - but the following does

http://www.yasharbooks.com/bnei%20banim%20excerpt2.pdf

>  I think the problem here is not Oneg Shabbos but bensching in the middle
>  of a meal.  Is it really appropriate to benstch when you intend to
>  continue eating in a few minutes?
>
>  David Riceman

How about everyone walks outdoors together, so you've all ended the
meal, even if you didn't bentsch? Moreover, what if you have a small
token desert at the end of the first meal, like everyone has a cookie,
bentsch, and everyone walk outside together? That way, you've
definitely finished the meal.

Mikha'el Makovi

R' Micha Berger wrote:
> As for this tangent, now that we're here... I am loathe to argue with
> RDE, the Yad Moshe, as to RMF's shitah. However, I /thought/ that from
>
>   
The issue of minyan is totally different since we learn minyan from 
kofrim. See IM O.C. I #23 page 66. Has nothing to do with tinok shenishba.


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