Avodah Mailing List

Volume 25: Number 338

Tue, 23 Sep 2008

• 1. Re: Geirut (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: "bo bayom" (Saul Mashbaum)
• 3. Re: "bo bayom" (Rich, Joel)
• 4. childbirth as a time of sakana (Joseph C. Kaplan)
• 5. Re: childbirth as a time of sakana (Joseph C. Kaplan)
• 6. Assur to own... (Michael Kopinsky)
• 7. Free Will vs. Physics (Moshe Y. Gluck)
• 8. Re: Geirut (Rabbi Y. H. Henkin)
• 9. Re: Free Will vs. Physics (Micha Berger)
• 10. Re: Geirut (Daniel Eidensohn)
• 11. Re: Free Will vs. Physics (Zev Sero)
• 12. Standing For Qri'at Shma` (Jay F Shachter)
• 13. Re: Standing For Qri'at Shma` (Gershon Dubin)

RDE sent me some pages from Techumin 19 (5759) pp 115-138 "Bitul Giyur
kesheQabbalas haMitzvos Haysah Pegumah" by R' Tzevi Lifshitz. It is not part
of COTAR's free collection (see <http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Responsa/COTAR/>)
and due to copyright law, we can't post it on the lists's web space. Which
makes sense, if Bar Ilan let us put the rest of COTAR on line, then they
would have no product to sell to cover the responsa project's payroll...

Much of the article is about incomplete QOM. For now, at least, I'll
just stick to the section (1) about needing QOM altogether.

Tosafos (Yevamos 45b "mi lo tovlah", Qiddushin 62b "geir"), Rosh (Yevamos
4:31), Tur (YD 268), SA (268:3):
    QOM is not only mandatory, but requires being before 3 dayanim and
    during the day.



Rambam, according to the Ba"ch (YD 285 "vekhol inyanei"): 
    QOM is not meaqeves. [I argued here that the Ba"ch's "kol iqar"
    means that some minimal form of QOM would be meaqeves.]

Rambam, according to the shu"t Tuv Daas vaDaas, maharura tinyana 111:
    QOM is meaqeves, miderabbanan

Rambam, according to the Chemdas Shelomo (YD 29-30), (cf Achiezer (III
#21), shu"t Bnei Banim (III 15; RYHH is CC-ed)):
    QOM is meaqeves. However, informing him of some of the substance of
    the mitzvos is only lekhat-chilah. 
    And at least according to the ChSh, it would mean that if the person
    went to the miqvah and we don't know what's going on his his head,
    we assume QOM.

Rambam according to R' Zolty (Qovetz TSBP 13 (5731) pg 37 "Dinei
Qabbalas Geirim:)
    QOM is a tenai necessary for geirus to be chal. It's not part of
    the process of geirus, and yet is me'aqeves. [This is how the Rambam
    appeared to me.] R' Zolty gets it from the words "lehikaneis laberis
    ulehistofeif tachas kanfei haShechinah veyeqabeil alav ol Torah,
    tzarikh milah, tevilah uqorban. [I think the quote from pereq 12 is
    more clearly telling.]



Ritva (Yevamos 24b "halakhah kedivrei ha'omer"), as explained by R'
Yafhan (ad loc):
    QOM meaqeves

Ritva (Yevamos 47b "umodiin oso"), as explained in Darkhei Moshe (YD
268:1-2) -- cf Melameid leHo'il (YD 87)
    QOM einah meaqeves



Mordekhai (Yevamos 4, 287 110)
    geirus lesheim davar requires observing the geir's behavior
    afterward.



In his discussion of the Rambam, RZLifshitz notes the difficulty in the
Rambam IB ch. 13, and lists many many names for each side of the Rambam --
whether Shimshon and Shelomo's wives' geirus was chal, or wasn't. Was
the Rambam assuming there was a break in their AZ and they returned, or
there wasn't and they never left AZ.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Like a bird, man can reach undreamed-of
mi...@aishdas.org        heights as long as he works his wings.
http://www.aishdas.org   But if he relaxes them for but one minute,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      he plummets downward.   - Rav Yisrael Salanter

JoshH...@aol.com wrote:
>>
RYBS,in Al HaTeshuvah IIRC,  quoted the idea from Rav Kook in Olat
Rayah, on the tefillah of' 'Elokai ad shelo notzart ieini kedai.'
>>

In Y'mei Zicharon, p.11, in the course of a discussion of the fact
that every person has a mission in life, RYBS writes (my free
translation):


"RAY Hakohen Kook would explain the words " Elokai  ad shelo notzarti"
as follows: My God, before I was created "eini k'dai" - in countless
periods of time, in which I did not live, I could not have fulfilled
my mission in this world. You therefore waited to create me until the
generation arrived in which I would be granted the possibility to act
as Your agent in this world."

Thus a person is created at the perfect time, the unique time in
which he has the possibility to fulfill his potential of making a
positive impact on the world.

I don't see here the concept that the world could not do without the
person born, but the above is indeed a very nice thought for a bar/bat
mitzva.

It's like "Yiftach b'doro k'Shmuel b'doro" R Moshe Besdin once said on
this that just as if Yiftach had lived at the time of Shmuel, he would
not have been a leader, so too if Shmuel had lived at the time of
Yiftach,  Shmuel would not have been the leader of Klal Yisrael he
subsequently was, but rather Yiftach would have nevertheless been the
shofet in that generation. A person is born "just in time".

Saul Mashbaum

In Y'mei Zicharon, p.11, in the course of a discussion of the fact that
every person has a mission in life, RYBS writes (my free
translation):


"RAY Hakohen Kook would explain the words " Elokai  ad shelo notzarti"
as follows: My God, before I was created "eini k'dai" - in countless
periods of time, in which I did not live, I could not have fulfilled my
mission in this world. You therefore waited to create me until the
generation arrived in which I would be granted the possibility to act as
Your agent in this world."



Saul Mashbaum
_______________________________________________
It's also in the footnotes to the R' YBS machzor (thanks to R' Lustiger)
see p 118 of the Yom Kippur Machzor.
KT
Joel Rich
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I'm not sure that I understand RDE.  Is he saying that ALL women throughout
the generations who died in childbirth (long before the was any inducing
labor) -- our pious great-grandmothers and their great-grandmothers etc.
etc.) -- died because they were being punished for one of the "three sins
for which women die during childbirth"?  And is he saying that if, God
forbid, a woman dies in childbirth today (as still happens although, thank
God, it is much rarer today than it was in previous times), that we can
know that she violated one of those three sins? If that is what he is
saying, does anyone else have any problem with RDE's analysis?	If it's not
what he's saying, I apologize for my question.

Joseph Kaplan  
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RDE wrote in response to my post:

 You have made one very serious error in the reading of my post. I posted
 the translation of the view of Rav Moshe Feinstein - not my own. If you
 think that i have mistranslated please show me where."

I apologize; I missed that it was a translation of the Igrot Moshe.  I 
shjould have been more careful.  But, to be quite frank, I don't understand 
R. Moshe.  So, I repeat my question, with, of course, the deference that is 
due R. Moshe:

 Is he saying that ALL women
throughout the generations who died in childbirth (long before the was
 any inducing labor) -- our pious great-grandmothers and their
 great-grandmothers etc. etc.) -- died because they were being punished
 for one of the "three sins for which women die during childbirth"?
 And is he saying that if, God forbid, a woman dies in childbirth today
 (as still happens although, thank God, it is much rarer today than it
 was in previous times), that we can know that she violated one of
 those three sins? If that is what he is saying, does anyone else have
 any problem with this analysis?

Joseph Kaplan

I remember hearing somewhere that the only three things that are assur to
own are chometz b'pesach, avodah zarah, and dishonest weights.

Is this true?

The two counterexamples that people have mentioned are
a) sefarim chitzonim, and
b) dangerous dogs.

As for a), I'm not sure that there's an issur of owning at all. We say that
certain things should be burned (e.g. sefer torah shekasvo min, IIANM), but
I don't recall seeing the word issur used in that context.  (Then again, I
haven't learned much of the topic...) I don't think dangerous dogs are a
counterexample either, since the dog itself is not actually assur b'etzem,
it's just that you're not allowed to create a dangerous situation. Owning a
dangerous dog is no different from owning a house with a usable roof and no
fence.

KT,
Michael
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A friend of mine put on his Facebook status: ______ wants to know whether there is free will or only physics.

I wrote this to him, any comments?

Obviously, this is a topic that has been hashed and rehashed by many people
lots smarter than me, so I doubt I'll add anything to what you already know
about the topic. But if you want to know my personal reasons for believing
in free will vs. physics, here goes:
First off, believing in free will doesn't mean believing that physics has
no effect on a person's choices, just that there are also choices that a
person makes independent of physics. I don't have any theological problem
with that - presumably it is all toted up correctly, weighted properly, in
the big accountant's office up there. 
Second, I believe that Hashem exists and runs the world and gave the Torah, which clearly says that we have free will (U'vacharta B'chayim.). 
Third, seems to me that if everything ran according to physics, much of it
would be totally random. If the world was random, seems to me that
randomness leads to destruction and disorder. The world is a very ordered
place, with many things in it operating along specific mathematic formulae
like fractals and the Golden Ratio. It works very dependably and
predictably. It doesn't seem random at all. So if I assume that everything
is physics, then I would have to assume it was random, and if it was
random, it should be totally unstable and destructive. And, in the main, it
isn't. 
I don't know how much proof this is, but if you look at people who clearly
are not in control - schizophrenic, bipolar, depressed - you see that a lot
of their behavior is destructive (that's in my experience with such people
- I haven't studied the literature). That fits my theory - their brains are
not running - to a much greater degree - on free will, and that's why their
behavior is much more destructive. Take it or leave it. :-) 

KT,
MYG

Shalom,

Thank you.

The Hebrew "kol ikar" in the Bach [transliteration mine. -micha]:
    Af al pi dekasav harav Rambam
    dekasher af al pi shelo hayah lesham qabalas mitzvos kol iqar,
    mihu Tosafos vehaRo"sh cholqin al zeh
    deqabalas mitzvos vadah me'akev
means "at all" and not as you speculated. (By the way, "l'sham" is with
a kamatz and is the Bach's way of saying "sham", see about 12 lines
further in the Bach--last line of p. 214b in standard editions.)

Also ShutTuv Taam veDaat , Telitaah, chelek 2 (and not as cited--will
anyone try to look it up?) no. 111, second teshuva, writes stam that
kabalat mitzvot is a "machshir" miderabanan and doesn't mention only
Rambam. Also see Bnei Banim vol. 2 no. 36 (1).

With Torah blessings,
Yehuda Henkin

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Micha Berger" <mi...@aishdas.org>

> RDE sent me some pages from Techumin 19 (5759) pp 115-138 "Bitul Giyur
> kesheQabbalas haMitzvos Haysah Pegumah" by R' Tzevi Lifshitz. ...

> Tosafos (Yevamos 45b "mi lo tovlah", Qiddushin 62b "geir"), Rosh
> (Yevamos
> 4:31), Tur (YD 268), SA (268:3):
>    QOM is not only mandatory, but requires being before 3 dayanim and
>    during the day.

> Rambam, according to the Ba"ch (YD 285 "vekhol inyanei"):
>    QOM is not meaqeves. [I argued here that the Ba"ch's "kol iqar"
>    means that some minimal form of QOM would be meaqeves.]

> Rambam, according to the shu"t Tuv Daas vaDaas, maharura tinyana 111:
>    QOM is meaqeves, miderabbanan

> Rambam, according to the Chemdas Shelomo (YD 29-30), (cf Achiezer (III
> #21), shu"t Bnei Banim (III 15; RYHH is CC-ed)):
>    QOM is meaqeves. However, informing him of some of the substance of
>    the mitzvos is only lekhat-chilah.
>    And at least according to the ChSh, it would mean that if the
>    person
>    went to the miqvah and we don't know what's going on his his head,
>    we assume QOM.

> Rambam according to R' Zolty (Qovetz TSBP 13 (5731) pg 37 "Dinei
> Qabbalas Geirim:)
>    QOM is a tenai necessary for geirus to be chal. It's not part of
>    the process of geirus, and yet is me'aqeves. ...

On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 12:07:56AM -0400, Moshe Y. Gluck wrote:
: First off, believing in free will doesn't mean believing that physics
: has no effect on a person's choices, just that there are also choices
: that a person makes independent of physics...

As a mashal, the proverbial psychology experiment watches how mice learn
to navigate a maze. The maze limits the paths the mice can take, and
only give them a certain set of decisions they can make. But they do
freely make them.

Physics limits free will -- I can't choose to fly just by flapping my
bare arms. But within the domain of options physics allows, my choices
are free.

...
: Third, seems to me that if everything ran according to physics,
: much of it would be totally random...

This depends on physics.

In Aristo's conception, everything chain of events starts with an
intellect, and follows deterministically from that by the laws of nature.
Since intellect is built into the system as initiating the sequence
that must obey physics, there is plenty of "room" explicitly given for
free will.

In Newton's universe, everything was deterministic. If you had complete
knowledge of the location and momentum of every particle, if was believed
that you could use the formulae to know the state of the universe at
any other point in time.

Nowadays, we have quanum effects and consequential non-deterministic
elements to physics. All we can compute with certainty is the probability
of various future states.

: me that randomness leads to destruction and disorder. The world is a
: very ordered place, with many things in it operating along specific
: mathematic formulae like fractals and the Golden Ratio. It works very
: dependably and predictably. It doesn't seem random at all. So if I assume
: that everything is physics, then I would have to assume it was random,
: and if it was random, it should be totally unstable and destructive. And,
: in the main, it isn't.

This would argue for hashgachah -- hashgachah kelalis, if not HP. Not
for bechirah.

But it's untrue, because even just having laws that are statistical in
nature will yeild beautiful orderful things like crystals.

: I don't know how much proof this is, but if you look at people who
: clearly are not in control - schizophrenic, bipolar, depressed - you see
: that a lot of their behavior is destructive (that's in my experience with
: such people - I haven't studied the literature)...

It might be circular reasoning. We define the concept of mental illness
in terms of impaired function, and productive abnormalities aren't tagged
and studied. And some of it may be a problem of square pegs and round
holes; some people are simply less able to function in society because
our societies are built for more mainstream psyches.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where
mi...@aishdas.org        you are,  or what you are doing,  that makes you
http://www.aishdas.org   happy or unhappy. It's what you think about.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Dale Carnegie

R' Henkin wrote:
> Also ShutTuv Taam veDaat , Telitaah, chelek 2 (and not as cited--will
> anyone try to look it up?) no. 111, second teshuva, writes stam that
> kabalat mitzvot is a "machshir" mideraban
As cited by Sagi & Zohar p168
??"? ??? ??? ???? ?????? ?????? ??? ?' ???? ???

?? ???? ????? ???? ?????? ?? ????? ???? ???? ?? ????? ??? ????? - ?? 
???? ????. ????? ?????? ??? ?? ?????, ????? ?????? ??? ????? ???????. 
???? ????? ??? ???? ??? ???? ?????? ???? ????. ???????, ?? ?? ???? ??? 
????? ?? ??? ???? ??? ????? ???, ??? ?? ?? ????? ?????. ????? ??? ???? 
????? ??? ?? ?????.
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Micha Berger wrote:

> Physics limits free will -- I can't choose to fly just by flapping my
> bare arms. But within the domain of options physics allows, my choices
> are free.

There's a well-known (I think) saying: With enough mesirus nefesh one can
jump off the roof for the sake of Hashem, but no amount of mesirus nefesh
will allow one to jump up to the roof.

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

It may be of sociological interest that the author of the following
remark, in Vol 25, Issue 337:

>
> It reminds me of the Shema. Halachically, if you are already standing  
> then you are not supposed to sit for the Shema,
> and conversely, if you are already sitting, you are not supposed to  
> stand -- having to do with kavannah, etc.
> 

failed to mention the reason originally given for why one should not
stand immediately prior to reading the Shma` -- namely, that there
were people who claimed that one has to be standing for the Shma`, but
that the halakha is that one may be seated, so if one sits until the
Shma` and then stands up, it appears that one is disagreeing with the
psaq, and stating by one's actions that one is obliged to be standing
for the Shma`.  This could lead to everyone's standing for the Shma`,
as a xumra if nothing else, and our Sages did not want the community,
whom they loved, to be subjected to burdensome xumrot.  The primary
concern was not the kavvana of the individual worshiper, it was the
comfort of the community.  That this notion fails to appear in the
above-cited quote may be, as I said, of sociological interest.


                        Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter
                        6424 N Whipple St
                        Chicago IL  60645-4111
                                (1-773)7613784
                                j...@m5.chicago.il.us
                                http://m5.chicago.il.us

                        "Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam."

-- j...@m5.chicago.il.us (Jay F Shachter) wrote:

<<This could lead to everyone's standing for the Shma`,
as a xumra if nothing else, and our Sages did not want the community,
whom they loved, to be subjected to burdensome xumrot.  The primary
concern was not the kavvana of the individual worshiper, it was the
comfort of the community>>

Not at all.  Since insisting on standing for daytime Shema and sitting for
evening Shema was the position of Beis Shammai, the sages did not want
anyone following Beis Shammai, whose opinion is emphatically rejected
lehalacha.

If you look at the Gemara there (Berachos 11a) you'll see how strongly the
chachamim felt that one should not do like Beis Shammai.  Nothing whatever
to do with anyone's comfort, beloved or not.

Gershon
gershon.du...@juno.com

____________________________________________________________
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