Avodah Mailing List

Volume 25: Number 169

• 1. Re: Ta'am of eating matzah (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: Ta'am of eating matzah (Micha Berger)
• 3. Standing for Parshat Zachor (rebshr...@aol.com)
• 4. Re: Ta'am of eating matzah (Michael Makovi)
• 5. Are "we," today, experts on maleh and chaser? (Shimshon Wiesel)
• 6. Re: Standing for Parshat Zachor (Moshe Y. Gluck)
• 7. Rosh Hashanah 32b There's Hope For Everyone (Cantor Wolberg)
• 8. Re: 2 days yom tov (Richard Wolpoe)
• 9. Re: Passover and Circumcision in the Desert (Michael Kopinsky)

On Tue, May 6, 2008 7:14 am, R Michael Makovi wrote:
: Guilty as charged - paraphrase. I'll have to check my Sefer Ha-Aggadah
: again for where that Tanchuma is, but the gist is the same, whatever
: it says. G-d kept the calendar for a while, but handed the buck off to
: us.

Except that the calendar is the most clear case of halakhah being as
we decide it rather than as someone might objectively determine a
truth. Meqadeish Yisrael vehazmanim -- the qedushah of the zemanim is
DERIVED from our being maqdish them. Similarly, the diyuq halashon in
"hachodesh hazah LAKHEM" -- we decide and define (not discover) the
chodoshim.

(Although there is an inherent error in type theory, confusing the
domains of law and of fact. It's a sibling of the Naturalistic Fallacy
and of Hume's Is-Ought Problem. I checked wikipedia's entries on "type
theory", "Naturalistic Fallacy" and "Is Ought Problem" and decided I
could rely on their explanations for this tangent.)

So I'm not clear exactly what meaning the words "our calendar" have
without a beis din hagadol defining it.

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

--
Micha Berger             "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight,
mi...@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 Mon, 5 May 2008 23:43:15 +0300 "R Simon Montagu"
<simon.mont...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> As the CI writes, even if we found Ezra haSofeir's seifer Torah, we
>> would still be halachically bound to use the text the halachic process
>> mandates us to. Weave in the standard tanur shel achnai reference
here.

> I very much doubt the Rambam would agree with that, though. Tanur shel
> achnai is a pure halachic question; the facts are known, and the only
> question is what to do about them. But this is a question of fact. AIUI
> the Rambam would say known facts override any mistatements that have
> been mistakenly transmitted over the generations, and their halachic
> consequences.

First, it's not an issue of facts in the real world, it's an issue of
what to do given incomplete information about the facts. To return to
the core discussion:

R' Yosef makes a statement about fact -- we don't know cheseiros and
yeseiros anymore. That doesn't mean that any Torah is just as kosher
as one with any other set of spellings.

Now we're going to another topic: What if, hypothetically, the doubt
were resolved? I didn't take the Rambam with me when I went there, and
RSM accurately points out that I shouldn't assume he would come along.

Nefesh haRav pp 52-54 discusses RYBS's presentation of R' Chaim
Brisker's position, including our topic of R' Yosef and malei
vechaseir. To quote the relevant part of my summary at
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol05/v05n073.shtml#12> (since
cut-n-paste is easy:
> 1- R' Yosef (Kiddushin 30a) asks whether the vuv of "gachon" is the
>    last letter of the first half of the Torah, or the first letter
>    of the second half. (Presumably: or the middle of an odd number
>    of letters). He holds that the question is unanswerable, because
>    we aren't beki'im in chaseiros viyseiros. We don't have a seifer
>    Torah that you can count out the letters and check.

>   The Rama (O"Ch 143:4) holds that if a missing or extra semivowel
>   is found in a Torah scroll, we do not put it away to read from
>   another. After all, we aren't all that accurate on the topic
>   anyway. R' Chaim Brisker says that today we are accurate and malei
>   vichaseir, and therefore we can't hold like the Rama on this -- the
>   Torah must be replaced with a kosher one.

>   R' Moshe Soloveitchik then asks, but what about our gemara which
>   says the knowledge was lost?

>   RMS explains that there is a difference in kind between the
>   original knowledge as to which side of the middle the vuv is on
>   and the same knowledge if recreated through counting. The first,
>   being part of masorah, is Torah, the latter is a clever trick.

(Other examples follow: orez being identified as rice, techeiles,
Megillah 18a relying on Rebbe's matron for the definition of a word.)

The same data is usable to establish halakhah or not depending on
whether it was cleverly deduced or produced by mesorah. Our Torah is
the correct Torah, and thus the only beqius becheseiros veyeseiros
that is relevent is beqius in the mesorah as it now exists.

So, the question is whether the Rambam would hold like the opinion
later held by the Rama or that of RCB and the CI?

My instinct is that RCB echos the Rambam's weltenschaung.

And the Rambam has a more constructionist view of halakhah than most,
being explicit that most derashos were used by Sanhedrin to construct
new dinnim -- even though those dinnim are deOraisa because they are
deduced from the Oraisa. (With the exception of derashos mequbalos,
all or some of which date back to Moshe Rabbeinu. I'm not clear if he
means they are derashos leMoshe miSinai or that they are mequbalos
from batei din of long ago.)

But that is far from really knowing what the Rambam holds.

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

--
Micha Berger             "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight,
mi...@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

I believe the default position for the performance of all Mitzvot
D'orayta or D'rabbanim is to stand, unless there is a reason to sit.??
We count the Omer standing, do Hadlakat Nerot standing, put on
Tefillin (Ashkenazim) standing, etc.?? We bentch sitting because that
is how we ate and because sitting allows greater Kavanah for somewhat
long prayers.?? We stand for the Amidah, however, because Chazal
required that we view ourselves to be directly in G-d's presence at
that time.

Kol Tov,

Stuart Grant
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On Tue, May 6, 2008 at 10:20 PM, Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:
> On Tue, May 6, 2008 7:14 am, R Michael Makovi wrote:
>  : Guilty as charged - paraphrase. I'll have to check my Sefer Ha-Aggadah
>
> : again for where that Tanchuma is, but the gist is the same, whatever
>  : it says. G-d kept the calendar for a while, but handed the buck off to
>  : us.
>
>  Except that the calendar is the most clear case of halakhah being as
>  we decide it rather than as someone might objectively determine a
>  truth. Meqadeish Yisrael vehazmanim -- the qedushah of the zemanim is
>  DERIVED from our being maqdish them. Similarly, the diyuq halashon in
>  "hachodesh hazah LAKHEM" -- we decide and define (not discover) the
>  chodoshim.
>
> ...
>
>  So I'm not clear exactly what meaning the words "our calendar" have
>  without a beis din hagadol defining it.
>
>  SheTir'u baTov!
>  -micha

I suppose we could say the general method of going by the new moon,
and then reconciling it with the solar calendar according to a certain
method. The only question remaining is, is a given month 29 or 30 days
long, and which particular years are leap years (which doesn't matter,
AFAIK, as long as you have enough leap years in a given number of
years). But the general method would remain.

Of course, we'd still have the question of how G-d would decide
whether a certain month is 29 or 30 days long, and whether a given
year is leap or not - being omniscient, He can't exactly use His
imperfect intellect to judge the situation as best He can, or however
it is one wants to define "elu v'elu". On the other hand, perhaps He
could simply use a certain strict mathematical formula, as we do
today.

But what if we follow Rambam, that Chazal were using Greek astronomy?
What would Midrash Tanchuma mean, that G-d followed our calendar, if
Greek astronomy didn't exist yet?

Mikha'el Makovi

>It's R Meir's opinion on the fact, and its halachic consequences.
Does the Rambam agree with him?  According to the Rambam, if we find
a mistake in chaterot viyterot do we take out a new sefer?   And even
if he agrees it was true in R Meir's time, does he agree that it's
still true today?
Zev Sero

Of course the Rambam agrees with him. Everyone agrees with him, or agreed -
at least until the 20th century, when we find the first (ever?) suggestion
that we have suffiecient knowledge, due to the textual work of the masoretes
and the grammarians, so that we can consider ourselves experts regarding
maleh and chaser. This suggestion is in Shu"t Avnei Nezer Yore De'ah 356:5,
who suggest that due to the work of R. Meir Abulafia we are considered
beki'im, even though in the time of the Gemara they were not beki'im.

A modene pshat, no?

SW

(Truth is, he only cites the aforementioned Ramah, not "the masoretes and
grammarians" as I put it - but it would be hard to ignore them and focus
solely on Ramah in making the claim that he does.)
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R' Stuart Grant:
I believe the default position for the performance of all Mitzvot D'orayta
or D'rabbanim is to stand, unless there is a reason to sit.?? We count the
Omer standing, do Hadlakat Nerot standing, put on Tefillin (Ashkenazim)
standing, etc.?? We bentch sitting because that is how we ate and because
sitting allows greater Kavanah for somewhat long prayers.?? We stand for the
Amidah, however, because Chazal required that we view ourselves to be
directly in G-d's presence at that time.

----------



KT,
MYG

(b) We recite as one of the ten verses of Zichronos the verse,



          "HaShem remembered Noach" (Bereishis 8:1).
Why do we recite this verse?


                   The Gemara says
that we do not mention a Zikaron which is associated with an


                                                         individual
and not with the Tzibur.

The answer is that the Gemara itself allows the recitation of the
verse,


   "HaShem remembered
Sarah" (Bereishis 21:1), even though it is a Zikaron



  of an individual, because "many people (the
entire Jewish nation) came from her"


           through
this Zikaron. Similarly, since the entire world was repopulated
through Noach,

                                                          the Zikaron
of Noach counts as
a Zikaron of many people.

This explains why we introduce the verse, "HaShem remembered Noach,"
in the

                                                  Shemoneh Esreh with
a declaration that
Hash-m saved Noach "in order to make his children


                                         as numerous as the dust of
the earth and his
offspring like the sand of the sea." Noach's repopulation


                                 of the world is what justifies
mentioning the
verse even though it seems to be a Zikaron of an individual. (M.
Kornfeld)

I submit the following chiddush: Noach obviously wasn't Jewish, yet he
is remembered by HaShem,

                                                          as well as
mentioned in
our liturgy. The fact is that he is the ancestor of all the Jews.
Hence, my chiddush

                                          is that we should view a non
Jew as a potential ger or g'ores as well as his or her progeny.  So
that might be a good

                  reason to view the pasuk,
v'ahavta l'rayecha komocho, as "your neighbor" extending beyond a Jew.

Kol tuv.

ri
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On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 11:06 AM, Eli Turkel <elitur...@gmail.com> wrote:

> The criterai of Shas is "minhag avoseinu beyadeinu"
> If you use the borders of EY as a practical proxy for the original
> Talmudic
> norm then I woudl simply suggest revising that to a pragmatic use of the
> medina's borders.>>
>
> There are several ways of learning the gemara.
>
> 1. 1/2 days of yomtov depends on where the shelichim came literally.
> This seems to be the Rambam and the basis of the chumrot of the
> Brisker Rav and CI
>

FWIW Rambam hoklds a gziera/Takkanah becasue he holds that today thre is no
mah nafsahach for nolad on day  nor for a conditional eruv Tavshillin



>
> 2. Depend on what people in bayit sheni did in that neighborhood.
> This is basically the shitah of the Chacham Tzvi and so one keeps 1
> day where they
> kept 1 day in bayit sheni and keeps 2 days where they kept 2 days then
>

KI know the Chacham Zvi says this but I ahve been looking for the source.
Anybody know which tehsuva [i hve TWO editiosn of Hacham Zvi and I still
cannot find it!]


>
> 3. This is a new gezerah from chazal in the days of Abaye and Rava.
> The gezera distinguished between EY and chutz la-aretz and does not depend
> on what happened in that location in bayit sheni (ie not like #1 or #2) In
> fact
> some rishonim learn that the point was to stress the importance and
> difference of EY
> even in galut days.
> This seems to be the position of SA and many modern poskim.
> According to this viewpoint one has to define what is EY and what is
> not. There does
> not seem to be any halachic reason to identify with the modern borders of
> Israel
> any more than the borders of EY for terumot and maaserot or shemitta
> do not coincide
> with those of the modern state
>
>
> --
> Eli Turkel
>

re: #3 I do see your point.   It stil l makes sense to me to redraw the
borders for this aspect since I definitely hold of the minhag avos aspect
-although Rambam rejects this


--
Kol Tuv / Best Regards,
RabbiRichWol...@Gmail.com
see: http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/
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On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 8:31 PM, Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:

> On Sun, May 04, 2008 at 12:08:08AM -0400, Michael Kopinsky wrote:
> : The interesting thing here is that the two mitzvos aseh for which one
> can be
> : chayev kares are the two things neglected for the 40 years in the
> desert.
> : I'm not sure what the meaning behind this is.
>
> Doesn't it mean that piquach nefesh is docheh?


Ein hachi nami (l'chorah).  But the fact remains, we don't see anywhere that
klal Yisrael did not put on tefillin in the midbar, that they didn't bring
the korban tamid, or that they ate treif.  The only mitzvos that were davka
neglected were the two that are chiyuvei kares.

I once tried answering this by saying that the bris inherent in those two
mitzvos that makes them the only mitzvos asei subject to kares was somehow
relevant davka to E"Y, and thus Divine circumstances made the wind blow the
wrong direction for 40 years, creating the (safek) pikuach nefesh preventing
these mitzvos from taking place.  The problem is that the pasuk says that
the reason one is chayav kares for neglecting K"P is "Ki korban hashem lo
hikriv b'moado" (Bamidbar 9:13).  There is no mention of bris, which makes
it difficult to assume that the chiyuv kares is for violating a bris.

KT,
Michael
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