Avodah Mailing List

Volume 25: Number 284

Thu, 07 Aug 2008

• 1. Re: EVEN WHEN THE MOON IS HIDDEN, IT IS STILL THERE... (Micha Berger)
• 2. KSA, MB, AhS, Chayei Adam and other codes (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: KSA, MB, AhS, Chayei Adam and other codes (David Riceman)
• 4. Re: [Areivim] Washing during the nine days (Moshe Feldman)
• 5. spiders and King David (Eli Turkel)
• 6. medical consensus (Eli Turkel)
• 7. nes niglah (Eli Turkel)
• 8. kinnot and churban habayit (Eli Turkel)
• 9. Re: kinnot and churban habayit (Stuart Feldhamer)
• 10. Re: kinnot and churban habayit (Micha Berger)
• 11. Re: ID of chilazon vs. chagavim (Richard Wolpoe)
• 12. Re: KSA, MB, AhS, Chayei Adam and other codes (Richard Wolpoe)

On Wed, Aug 06, 2008 at 07:03:29AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg wrote:
: This month is called Av, which of course means "father"...

Actually Av is a Hebrification of the Babylonian Abu which in turn was
slurred from the Sumerian (Ur III) month "Aru" - lion, the mazal of
the month.

Even weirder is Elul, and the common derashah of turning it into an
acronym of Ani LeDodi VeDodi Li. Ululu was dedicated to Ishtar (which
gives us Hadassah's Babylonian name) a goddes of fertility, love and war,
associated with Venus, and played a similar role to Venus's/Aphrodite's
in their pantheon. The Kenaanim called her Asheirah, later Ashtarte,
the goddess with the qedeishos.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Zion will be redeemed through justice,
micha@aishdas.org        and her returnees, through righteousness.
http://www.aishdas.org
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 12:21am EDT, R Moshe Y. Gluck wrote to Areivim:
:           the Kitzur considered all the opinions that came before him, and
: he paskened accordingly. Sort of like the Shulchan Aruch itself before the
: Ramah came along. The KSA was meant as a practical Halachah Sefer. For
: example, in Hilchos Tefillin he lays out very clearly what one should do if
: a Retzuah breaks, and  is now too short (10:13): he should ask a Shailah.
: Now _that_ is a practical Sefer!!

In another post there sent 6 minutes later (Wed, 12:27am EDT):
:                                                  Reminds me of a story I
: heard about the Chofetz Chaim (IIRC, B'sheim R' Berel Wein). The Chofetz
: Chaim said, "I could have written the MB without the BH, but then people
: would have thought that I wasn't a Lamdan." The explanation for the
: statement was that had he written it in the same style as the Kitzur, people
: would have looked down at the MB. Now that the BH was there, people would
: know that the CC really _was_ a Lamdan, and now they would learn the MB.

I think the need for something more than a code for use as a code is
more than just establishing credentials.

One is supposed to follow a pesaq, not a book. How is one supposed to
know when the din in the code is zil qeri bei rav hu, and when one should
CYLOR (consult your local O rabbi)? IOW, not a question of the opinions
that came before but the opinions that are still around. Examples like
the short retzu'ah are in the minority, frankly.

Truth is, the MB surveys before giving a pesaq, so the BH wasn't needed
for knowing which are the still-open questions.

The AhS suffers from this problem sometimes. While he gives sevara, it's
often entirely explaining the single shitah that he pasqens according to.
Unless you're a purebred Litvak who needs to hold as they did in Litta
a century ago, there are going to be questions you don't know to ask.

OTOH, the AhS by providing some sevara, rather than a straight code
or a code + survey has the advantage of being a more interesting read.
Something as pragmatically necessary as convincing the reader to take
the author seriously.

Back on Tue, Aug 5, 2008 at 07:38am IDT (the timezone, not the
Newark-based phone company), R Danny Schoemann wrote:
: As somebody who reads AhS, SA and KSA daily, I would highly recommend
: reading the KSA over and over. I'm on my 7th round this year and I'm
: still amazed by the chidushim that I discover.

: True, there are some points that "we" pasken differently, and the
: MB-footnotes are numerous in some parts, but careful analysis will
: show that probably 99% of PRACTICAL halocho (as in "stuff we actually
: *do* on a regular basis) we all hold like the KSA. Besides, I am 100%
: that I won't go to Gehinom if I accidental pasken like the KSA.

I don't know if that's true WRT KSA 153-162 (in the SA it's YD 153-200)
in terms of percentage of commonly accepted din. And not only is there
a problem lehalakhah of erring in either direction, there are shalom
bayis issues if one's spouse wasn't expecting what RSG pasqened.

And being that there is no MB on YD, I presume there aren't that many
footnotes.

: Of course if you want to be 100% safe then don't learn the KSA. The MB
: will take you years to get through. The SA nobody learns  - after all
: the Nosei Kielim are way too numerous - and the AhS is way too long to
: ever finish. As a result you rely on your memory and imagination...
: and you may be in for a surprise upstairs.

I think finishing the AhS is doable. Finishing it while retaining much
of what I learned when I started... not with /my/ memory. So I still
agree with your masqanah.

: People tend to get distracted. They will insist on using the correct
: Nussach Siddur for Ma'ariv, even though there are about a dozen words
: difference between Askenaz/Sefard, yet they will zip through Shma
: forgetting that it's D'Oraysa and should be said carefully.

: You also hear people saying the introduction to Kedusha
: (Nekadesh/Na'aritzcho/Keser) with great fervor - even though it really
: belongs to the Chazzan - but race through Kodosh, Kodosh. Similar to
: being on expert on all the Hakdomos but never reading any Sefer.

I agree with the nussach issue. (In fact, I sometimes use a different
nusach's siddur than I'm davening in for the purpose of seeing how the
difference in lashon reflects on the tefillah.)

But WRT haqdamos.... For many sefarim, the haqdamah is where the mechabeir
puts the essence of his worldview, and is worth study even if you're not
sufficiently motivated WRT the seifer's topic to make your way through
the body of the text. In a very real sense, the content of the haqdamah
can be more important than that of the seifer.

: In the end of the day it's all about practical Halocho; and the KSA
: did a great job keeping it short and to the point.

Well argued.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Zion will be redeemed through justice,
micha@aishdas.org        and her returnees, through righteousness.
http://www.aishdas.org
Fax: (270) 514-1507

  This raises a tangential question.  To what extent, having grown fond 
of a code which is outside of your received chain of precedent, can you 
add it to the chain because you respect the author? I can think of one 
offhand example.  R. Haim Berlin, in his introduction to his Dad's (the 
Netziv) hiddushim on Shas, says that his Dad respected R. Akiva EIger so 
much that a few words of R. Akiva Eiger were machria for him against 
lengthy screeds by other poskim.
  More bluntly, now that you like the KSA so much, why haven't you 
started paskening with it against your previous tradition?

David Riceman

I wrote on Areivim:
>> The aveilus of Nine Days is equivalent to Shloshim.  <snip>   RMS is quoted
as saying: if someone wishes to be machmir on himself and not wash on
Erev Tisha B'Av, "m'heicha teisi." <<

On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 7:38 PM, Doron Beckerman <beck072@gmail.com>
wrote on Areivim:
> I've always wondered about the equivalence of  the Nine Days to Shloshim -
> m'heicha teisi.

Nefesh HaRav p. 191 cites Pischei Tshuva OC 551:3 citing Tshuvas Panim
Me'iros that a woman is permitted to have a haircut during the Nine
Days given that there are *some* poskim who permit her to have a
haircut during Shloshim.  The implication is that the Nine Days are no
more chamur than Shloshim.

Kol tuv,
Moshe

> Bal tashchis gives priority to saving fruit trees over non-fruit bearing
> ones. But can we say that any part of the beri'ah is really unnecessary?
> Didn't David haMelekh ask this about spiders, only to be proven wrong?

This is a famous midrash which I once quoted in a published article.
I was asked to document it and it turned out to be very difficult.
From memory (it was many years ago) this appears in some little known
medieval collection of midrashim.

As far as I know Baal Taschis applies to the destruction of anything useful
when there is no purpose.
Hence, one should not cut down non fruit bearing trees unless there is
a purpose. In theory one can cut down even a fruit bearing tree given
good enough
of a reason. However, Yavetz claims that this can bring a curse. Thus, poskim
are hesitant to allow cutting fruit trees except in exceptional cases or else
by selling the tree to a goy.
I am not aware of anything in halakha that differentiates between
destroying a species
or just an individual animal/plant.

However, the general approach of science today is that all species are connected
and that changing the ecology by eliminating one species can sometimes effect
the environment in ways not imagined.

-- 
Eli Turkel

Eli Turkel wrote:
> In a slightly different vein I heard in the name of Rav Elyashiv
> (from his s-i-l) that one needs to accept the opinion of modern medicine but
> not of individual doctors
> i.e. one distinguishes between universally accepted truths and individual
> opinions and theories.

I wonder what the context was.  I assume "accept" here can't mean
"accept as true."  Obviously the state of the art in medicine can be
wrong in a way that the consensus of Chazal can't be.  >>

I have to look up my notes. However, I assume he meant that we
would save a 8 month fetus on shabbat despite the gemara because
medical consensus today is that 8 month fetuses can live (even better
than 7 month fetuses).
However, had this been the opinion of some individual researchers
we would not over-ride the gemara
(how one answers the gemara is another question which is not
the present topic)

-- 
Eli Turkel

> kennethgmiller@juno.com wrote:
>> We often hear varied stories about this tzadik, or that gadol, and
>> frankly, they are sometimes difficult to believe. I have often heard
>> this as a common reaction to such incredulity: "If you think all these
>> stores are true, then you're a fool. But if you think they're all
>> false, you're an apikores. The message of these stories is that they
>> *could* be true."

I thought the original was from the Maggid who said that one who
believes all the stories of miracles from the Baal Shem Tov is a fool
OTOH one who believes he couldn't have done the miracles is an apikorus

-- 
Eli Turkel

Let me repeat a question from last year when I was not too happy
with the answers.

If one examines both Eicha and the kinnot there is in fact very
little emphasis on the physical destruction of the bet hamikdash.
The emphasis in Eicha and followed in the kinnot is on the
destruction of the city of Jerusalem which is now desolate and more
on the loss of life of both the general populace and special
individuals.

OTOH after the avodah of YK there are a number of beautiful
piyyutim on the loss of the bet hamikdash and the various utensils.

why is there so little mention of the actual destruction on tisha ba-av?

-- 
Eli Turkel

Well, which do you think is worse: Galut, or the Churban?

Which do you think is worse, the tremendous loss of life, or the Churban?

The comparison to Y"K is not a great one - on Y"K when we are specifically
referring to the Avodah, of course we would focus on the BH"M. But in
general, what is the greater tragedy?

Stuart

> why is there so little mention of the actual destruction on tisha ba-
> av?

On Wed, Aug 06, 2008 at 09:27:46PM -0400, Stuart Feldhamer wrote:
: Well, which do you think is worse: Galut, or the Churban?
: Which do you think is worse, the tremendous loss of life, or the Churban?

Mosher Rabbeinu was deprived of entering EY because of hitting the
stone, but he says that we were deprived of having us lead him there
because of cheit ha'eigel.

When it became clear that gallus would be necessary, that bayis rishon
would not last, HQBH was gozeir that Moshe -- whose actions aare eternal,
could not be the one to bring us home, nor the one to build the bayis.
By having someone else do it, HQBH enbled the onesh to be something less
than our extermination. "Let My anger be expressed on wood and stone,
and not on My people."

 From which it would seem that galus is worse, and churban bayis was
a gift so as to prevent needing even more human suffering to achieve
kaparah.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Zion will be redeemed through justice,
micha@aishdas.org        and her returnees, through righteousness.
http://www.aishdas.org
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 8:08 AM, Dov Kay <dov_kay@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:

>  R. R. Wolpoe wrote <<Or to put it another way, if resarch can ID a
> chilazon w/o a precedent -
> why not Chagavim?>>
>
> See footnote 19 of this article by R. Shaul Yonatan Weingort, originally
> published in Techumin: http://www.tekhelet.com/pdf/bein.pdf.
>
> The author argues for a distinction between simanim d'oraisa and simanim
> d'rabbanan.  The former may be relied upon without a mesora (eg fins and
> scales in fish), while the latter may not (eg birds).  With respect to
> chagavim, the Gemara explicitly states that "u'sh'mo chagav", which the SA
> then codifies as the requirement for a mesora.  In other words, the
> requirement for a mesora is built into the simanim for chagavim. This is not
> the case with techeles.
>
> May I respectfully ask that R. Wolpoe pay just a little more attention to
> the accuracy of his typing, as the typos are sometimes so egregious as to
> make his excellent posts hard to understand.
>
> Kol tuv
> Dov Kay
>

I apologize for the typos. What ARE the d'oraisso simanim for Hilazon?
Where is the Hilazon in the Torah anyway?

Re: The quoted Rambam re: consenus on Esrog etc.
AFAIK thought there are at least TWO forms of Techeilet today!

With regard to the Esrog we have a consensus THIS IS an esrog and this isn't

With regard to a Hilazon we have a shrug of the shoulders. Who can say for
sure which is which?

I'm sorry I have not the time to complete this interesting artcile

-- 
Kol Tuv / Best Regards,
RabbiRichWolpoe@Gmail.com
see: http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/
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On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 10:52 AM, Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org> wrote:

>
> In another post there sent 6 minutes later (Wed, 12:27am EDT):
> :                                                  Reminds me of a story I
> : heard about the Chofetz Chaim (IIRC, B'sheim R' Berel Wein). The Chofetz
> : Chaim said, "I could have written the MB without the BH, but then people
> : would have thought that I wasn't a Lamdan." The explanation for the
> : statement was that had he written it in the same style as the Kitzur,
> people
> : would have looked down at the MB. Now that the BH was there, people would
> : know that the CC really _was_ a Lamdan, and now they would learn the MB.
>

A friend who was a talmid atof Chofetz Chayyim yeshiva in Forset Hills
mentioned that there was a cynical rumor that the Ba'al Mishnah Brura "
merelywanted to join the bandwagon of nos'ei Keilim on the SA]  Sort lof
like joining an exclusive club.  Neither he, nor I, subscribe to this rumor,
but it was out there 20 years ago and might still have some life to it...



>
> I think the need for something more than a code for use as a code is
> more than just establishing credentials.
>
> One is supposed to follow a pesaq, not a book.


Sometimes books are not for psak for for Halachic education.
If you need a decision you might need to research deeper.
But I guess for a quickie you can pick a "rebbe" [e.g. MB or Cheyi Adam] and
go along with him.



> How is one supposed to
> know when the din in the code is zil qeri bei rav hu, and when one should
> CYLOR (consult your local O rabbi)? IOW, not a question of the opinions
> that came before but the opinions that are still around. Examples like
> the short retzu'ah are in the minority, frankly.
>
> Truth is, the MB surveys before giving a pesaq, so the BH wasn't needed
> for knowing which are the still-open questions.
>
> The AhS suffers from this problem sometimes. While he gives sevara, it's
> often entirely explaining the single shitah that he pasqens according to.
> Unless you're a purebred Litvak who needs to hold as they did in Litta
> a century ago, there are going to be questions you don't know to ask.
>
> OTOH, the AhS by providing some sevara, rather than a straight code
> or a code + survey has the advantage of being a more interesting read.
> Something as pragmatically necessary as convincing the reader to take
> the author seriously.
>
>
> -Micha
>

FWIW When I was at ner Yisrael they told us to never learn the AhS w/o SA
[or at least Tur] beforehand because the Ahs is really only adressing a
subset of the issues.

I have a friend [DK] who read the entire AhS w/ oaid of SA or Tur and said
the sefer satands on its own.

Maybe DK is rigth but I think Micha's criticsm is fair [hey we actualyl
agree}  Maybe you CAN read the AhS alone but yo uwill get a narrow view.
The MB has a lto of ma'alos in giving a wider range.

My conte6ion tion with MB is this: I am nto comfortable wit hTeimanim
"deifying Rambam"
and I'm eually uncfortable with the "velt" diefying the MB. That does not
mean it is not avaluable work. I'd be a lot happier if the "velt said
something like the MB is the ikar over 90% of the time, but not always.
[same maight be said for KSA,. too]

If you are heavily rationalistically inclinded [as where I teach] a
combination of Rambam and AhS would work nicely.  I would consider
interpolating the Chayei Adam/Chohmas Adam in order to get a summary of SA
and nos'ei Keilim


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