Avodah Mailing List

Volume 25: Number 186

Mon, 19 May 2008

• 1. Re: Dancing on Shabbos (Richard Wolpoe)
• 2. Haarama (Rich, Joel)
• 3. Re: Haarama (Michael Makovi)
• 4. Re: Ta'am of eating matzah (T613K@aol.com)
• 5. Re: Ta'am of eating matzah (Michael Makovi)
• 6. Re: Rosh Hashanah 32b There's Hope For Everyone (Richard Wolpoe)
• 7. Re: Ta'am of eating matzah (Richard Wolpoe)

On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 6:13 AM, Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org> wrote:

> On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 12:44:42AM -0400, Richard Wolpoe wrote:
> : >  Please see the article "Clapping and Dancing on Shabbos" at
> : > http://www.cckollel.org/html/parsha/vayikra/shemini5763.html
> : > The author, Rabbi Weinrib, learns full time in the [Chicago Community]
> : > Kollel.
>
> : BUT
> : I heard a Rabbi who is a Phd explain this w/o all of the frumkeit
> : implications
> : In places like Spain dances used to fabricate home-made castinets whilst
> : dancing, it was  the WAY they danced to make a rhythmic sound with a
> : home-made instrument - while in France no one danced with castinest So
> : Tsaofos indeed saw this G'zeira as irrelevant.
>
> As RAWeinrib writes, the notion that dancing here only includes dancing
> to produce a rhythm (with or without castinets) can be traces back to
> the Y-mi. Tosafos not holding like the gemara, and sure enough it fits
> the Y-mi.... Now where did I hear that one before?
>
>
>
> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha
>

ein hachinami, maybe I need to re-think this one.

Let me explain my position
Your argumetns had been  frum people do it was to me simply a
rationalization not  valid in the face of Rema saying mutav shheyihyu
shoggegeim.  But if in this case, Tosafos is relying on alterante source
such as Yerushlami instead of on the inapplicabiliyt of tis g'zeria, that
changes everything.

Leme say this, RMF in IM OrachChayim pt. 2 #100 is astounded by Tsoafos. And
he goes on the ttack etc.  RMF even cannot understand HOW it can be that
frum people ignroe this Gmara. But that is OBVIOUS.  They are following
Tosafos!  This is an example where I see RMF as a Talmudic Fundamentalist
over being a Traditionalist.

My issue with relying on Tsoafos here is that AFAIK it was not RATIFIED in
Asheknaz by Rema, et. al. [with exceptiosn suc has Simchs Torah as ber Rav
Hai Ga'on]

And I confess there was a straw man aspect. I  was most cetainly attacking
the idea that O's can over-turn Halachah jsut becauase they do it but if C's
do something similar it must be wrong. That is favoring a society or a
culture over an objective position [like my rabbi is better than your rabbi
ad hominem thinking]

However, if Tsoafos indeed has a Yerushalmi that supports his read in Beitza
36 then I have to reconsider my position in light of new evidence.

But I have kahsa:  SA endorses yerushalmi's heter of clapping with the back
of one's hand but STILL codifies the Mishna of ein mtapchin et. al.
otherwise as is. Which means that the Mehcabeir saw this Yerushlami and was
ONLY keikel with a shinuy.

If Rema had given Tsasfos a more hearty endorsement instead of saying yeish
somchin after saying mutav sheyihyy shoggegin, I would NOT have had a
problem with paskning like this Tosafos.

FWIW, I am going over the Zichru Toras Moshe 3rd time with Kehilas YT [1st
time] and the ZTM  [i.e ba'al Chayei Adam] codified the mehaber AS IS - iow
no dancing period. The Kehillas YT mentions lechavod hatorah as an
exemption.  AIUI this was an evolution from Rav Hai's heter on Simchas Torah
alone.


-- 
Kol Tuv / Best Regards,
RabbiRichWolpoe@Gmail.com
see: http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/
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Just listened to an interesting shiur by R' Bleich.  He mentions 3
categories of haarama.   The first is those where chazal felt negatively
- where there was a "purpose" being lost (e.g. bringing tvuah in through
roof so as to avoid matnot - since the purpose was to have a leisure
class who could teach).  The second was those that chazal were
indifferent to (e.g. sale of chametz since there was no "mitzvah" to
have chametz to get rid of [iirc he did mention possible to have just a
little for biur]) and third those that chazal approved of (e.g.
involving non-Jew in ownership of cow so as not to have bchor issue
where would have to let it wander until had mum)

This led to discussion of heter iska and changing nature of borrowing
(providential loan to capital formation)

Question. Where would pruzbol fit into this classification scheme?  Are
there any other classification schemes?  There are other obvious
interesting implications this year but I'd rather stick to the
classification issue for now.

KT
Joel Rich
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> Question. Where would pruzbol fit into this classification scheme?  Are
> there any other classification schemes?  There are other obvious interesting
> implications this year but I'd rather stick to the classification issue for
> now.
>
> KT
> Joel Rich

I'll say the "intrinsically bad" category, but with an asterisk:

In an ideal world, we wouldn't have prozbul; the rich would lend to
the poor without fear of the impending shemitta.

But, in the world in which we live, the rich were going to avoid
lending (breaking the lav of not helping the poor) or lend but not
remit (breaking that lav), and the poor were going to go, well, poor.
So Hillel made a bedieved work around to solve everyone's problems.
But ideally, we wouldn't have this, so maybe it falls into the
negative category, but with an eit la'asot lashem sort of asterisk.

Mikha'el Makovi

 
 
>>> Aside from this, many Torah laws are phrased  very
similarly to Hammurabi-ish laws (especially parshat  Mishpatim),
whether because of common idioms and style (see above), or in  order to
draw a contrast with what is different between the laws.... 


 
 

>>>>>Actually, this is in fact davka why Rav Hirsch says  we must learn
Canaanite, Egyptian, Babylonian, and Roman culture and history  - he
says we cannot understand the Torah's moral laws without knowing  what
they are polemicizing against. I will humbly suggest we extend  Rav
Hirsch's words to many ritualistic laws too.

Mikha'el  Makovi



>>>>>
1. How do you know the Code of Hammurabi came first? Maybe Torah came  first, 
and it was not they who influenced us (if only to prompt a  response), but we 
who influenced them?   For all we know, the Torah  laws being taught in the 
yeshiva of Shem v'Ever may have been widely known (and  changed, and distorted, 
with the passage of time) by the various Semitic peoples  of the Middle East. 
 The Avos knew and kept the Torah long before it was  given on Sinai.
 
 
2. Did Hirsch really advocate learning "Canaanite, Egyptian, Babylonian,  and 
Roman culture and history"?  Did he really say, "we cannot understand  the 
Torah's moral laws without knowing what they are polemicizing  against?"  Do you 
happen to remember where he says this? It's not  totally impossible but 
doesn't sound exactly like him.  
 
The Torah lists many forbidden sexual relationships, and says that the  
Canaanites did these things and that's why they deserved to lose their land, and  
we had better not do what the Canaanites did lest we get kicked out, too,  c'v. 
 But aside from the information that the Torah and Nevi'im themselves  
provide about the types of immorality that the Canaanites engaged in, does  anyone 
seriously suggest that we should study Canaanite religions and social  
practices in depth, from Canaanite sources, in order to fully understand what  the 
Torah forbids and why? 


--Toby  Katz
=============





**************Wondering what's for Dinner Tonight? Get new twists on family 
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> 1. How do you know the Code of Hammurabi came first? Maybe Torah came first,
> and it was not they who influenced us (if only to prompt a response), but we
> who influenced them?   For all we know, the Torah laws being taught in the
> yeshiva of Shem v'Ever may have been widely known (and changed, and
> distorted, with the passage of time) by the various Semitic peoples of the
> Middle East.  The Avos knew and kept the Torah long before it was given on
> Sinai.
>
> R' Toby Katz

I think archaeological evidence clearly establishes that Hammurabi was
roughly contemporaneous with Avraham Avinu. Even if this is
inaccurate, it is long before the Torah.

However, your idea that Hammurabi is based on Shem v'Ever does carry
weight - Rav Kook (Edar Hayakar, pp. 42-43; translated in Ben Zion
Bokser, The Essential Writings of Abraham Isaac Kook, pp. 48-49)makes
*exactly* this claim.

However, Rav Kook then goes on, in the same writing, to speculate that
just as prophesy is given in accordance with the recipient's nature,
so too the Torah could have been given in terms of then-present idioms
and cultural elements, etc. He tweaks this argument, however: it is
not merely stam that prophesy is given in terms that its recipient is
familiar with; rather, there is more: "[W]hatever educational elements
there were before the giving of the Torah, which gained a following
among the [Jewish] people and the world, if they only had a basis in
morality and it was possible to raise them to a high moral level - the
Torah retained them. In a more enlightened outlook, this is the sure
foundation for the acknowledgment of a good cultural element deep in
the nature of man." (translation of Bokser, ibid.) (My note: Is Rav
Kook alluding to derech eretz kadmah laTorah?)

Rav Hertz makes a somewhat similar argument to Rav Kook's: After
showing numerous parallels between the Torah and Hammurabi, and noting
that many seem to be deliberate contrasts, while others are explicable
as merely having common Semitic background (as opposed to direct
inheritance from Hammurabi to the Torah, which, if true, would cause
us to expect Babylonian loan-words), Rav Hertz writes (page 406):

"The resemblances in the two codes are due to the common usage of the
Semitic ancestors of both Babylonians and Hebrews. This common element
was in Babylon developed into the Code of Hammurabi; but in Israel it
was, under Divine Providence, sifted and transmuted in such a way as
to include love of stranger, protection of slave, the Ten
Commandments, and the law, 'Thou shalt love they neighbor as thyself'
(Leviticus XIX, 18, 34)."

I can only wonder, however, if "[t]his common element" is Shem v'Ever
as R' Toby might have it.

> 2. Did Hirsch really advocate learning "Canaanite, Egyptian, Babylonian, and
> Roman culture and history"?  Did he really say, "we cannot understand the
> Torah's moral laws without knowing what they are polemicizing against?"  Do
> you happen to remember where he says this? It's not totally impossible but
> doesn't sound exactly like him.
>
> R' Toby Katz

Trumath Tzvi, page XVII:

How, asked Samson Raphael Hirsch, can we understand the sublime word
pictures of world history painted by the prophets without an adequate
knowledge of contemporary secular history? The Jewish youth who knows
from his historical studies [the contempt for human life shown by the
ancient Egyptians,] the social oppression and moral degeneration in
Rome of old, the oppression and licentiousness of [ancient Greek
society], understands and appreciates a thousand times better the
sublime and divine character of the Sinaitic law. And as to the study
of nature which is so necessary for the understanding of Jewish
religious thought and practical religious life, the Talmud reproaches
those who fail to undertake it with the words of Isaiah (5:12): "And
the doing of God they do not contemplate and the work of His hands
they do not see" (Shabbath 75a).

footnote: I. Grunfeld, Three Generations: The Influence of Samson
Raphael Hirsch on Jewish Life and Thought (London: 1958), pp. 15-16.

> The Torah lists many forbidden sexual relationships, and says that the
> Canaanites did these things and that's why they deserved to lose their land,
> and we had better not do what the Canaanites did lest we get kicked out,
> too, c'v.  But aside from the information that the Torah and Nevi'im
> themselves provide about the types of immorality that the Canaanites engaged
> in, does anyone seriously suggest that we should study Canaanite religions
> and social practices in depth, from Canaanite sources, in order to fully
> understand what the Torah forbids and why?
>
>  R' Toby Katz

Maybe we don't all need to study it in-depth, but certainly it seems
we should have a basic knowledge of more or less what was going on
then. We don't all need a crystal-clear picture, but certainly the
kind of knowledge one can get from a Hertz chumash plus visits to the
history museum, along with a first-edition (not second-edition)
Soncino Tanach or a Daat Mikra, couldn't hurt. And maybe a few of us
*should* study it in-depth...because Rav Hertz and the Daat Mikra-ists
did do so, I can rely on their digests.

Mikha'el Makovi

.

> Chazal can't be wrong. If you believe that derashos are constructive --
> and amazingly include something halakhah lemaaseh even in the midbar! --
> then it means their position DEFINES halakhah.
>
> Asserting they were wrong would mean asserting that HQBH gave them the
> tools to construct a law He would't have approved of. Does Hashem err?
>
> ...
> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha
>

Assuming:

> Chazal can't be wrong.


To be asolute then: How does masechta Horyos work?  Are Hazal more
infallible than a Sanhedrin?

It appears fro mteh Torah and hazal that

   1. Nasi
   2. Sanhedrin
   3. Kohein Gadol

Are all quite fallaible, Even Aharon corrected Moshe Rabbeinu once.  And
Elazar Hakohein completed an error of Ommision by Moshe Rabbeinu.


-
Kol Tuv / Best Regards,
RabbiRichWolpoe@Gmail.com
see: http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/
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On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 2:10 PM, Michael Makovi <mikewinddale@gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> Maybe we don't all need to study it in-depth, but certainly it seems
> we should have a basic knowledge of more or less what was going on
> then. We don't all need a crystal-clear picture, but certainly the
> kind of knowledge one can get from a Hertz chumash plus visits to the
> history museum, along with a first-edition (not second-edition)
> Soncino Tanach or a Daat Mikra, couldn't hurt. And maybe a few of us
> *should* study it in-depth...because Rav Hertz and the Daat Mikra-ists
> did do so, I can rely on their digests.
>
> Mikha'el Makovi
> _______________________________________________
>

Tangentailly I learn very little Nach for the same reason.  W/O a context of
what was being talked about and w/o understanding contemporary idioms
[bittuyim] the meforshim imho are sometimes making the difficult to
comprehend impossible to comprehend.

If we could really understand the Nevi'im in the same way their
contemporaries could it would be quite different.  And if I could really
understand the imagery in Koheles it would make a lot more sense.

Humash - although older - is much more alive because it has been kept in the
foreground for much  longer.   there are still issues that  are tough to
understand. But When my daughter mentioned that s'or and dvash were
considered Egyptian Delicacies, that which stumped the Sefer Hachinuch came
alive for me. Espeically in light of the Rambam on Bassar beChalav.

Even the chronologies in Shof'tim are subject to re-interpretation. For
example, we all know that Huldah and Yirmeyahu were contemporaries;  but
there is a PRESUMPTION that Shof'tim never over-lapped on the time line. But
who can say for sure that the last few years of Shofeit X were not the first
few year of Shofeit Y?  Just because the SIMPLE read is that they were
linear does not necessarily mean there was ZERO overlap.   IOW, we are
projecting how  the chronology WAS based upon the way WE would write it.
But in Nach, maybe overlaps were not accounted for stylistically.

Remember the numerous Persian Kings squeezed in by Hazal to fit a span of 52
years? That  could be a prime example not of SHORTLIVED rules but
OVERLAPPING rulers.  Remember Midian had 5 kings at one time in  P. Pinchas
and several kings at the same time in Shof'tim.

-- 
Kol Tuv / Best Regards,
RabbiRichWolpoe@Gmail.com
see: http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/
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