Avodah Mailing List

Volume 25: Number 350

Sat, 04 Oct 2008

• 1. Re: Praying to angels (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: Additional Tefilos for Parnoso etc (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: Praying to angels (Zev Sero)
• 4. Re: Praying to angels (Daniel Israel)
• 5. Re: Pat palter (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 6. Re: Praying to angels (Micha Berger)
• 7. Abortion (Yitzhak Grossman)
• 8. Re: Abortion (Micha Berger)
• 9. Re: Free Will Vs. Physics (Micha Berger)
• 10. Re: Pat palter (Rich, Joel)
• 11. Out of Hand Leads to Out of Our Hand (Cantor Wolberg)
• 12. Re: Praying to angels (Richard Wolpoe)
• 13. Re: Out of Hand Leads to Out of Our Hand (Micha Berger)

On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 3:37pm IDT, R Danny Schoemann wrote:
: While we believe that Hashem is everywhere, we also say our tefillos
: go "up" to be heard. For a whisper or thought to go anywhere it needs
: intermediaries if it's to go anywhere.

This is the antinomy of Transcendence vs Immanence.

R' Aryeh Kaplan ("Jewish Life - Summer '74") describes it with the
following mashal:
    A very good analogy would be trick glasses in which the right lens
    is red and the left is green. Therefore, if a person wearing such
    glasses looks at a white paper, he sees it as red with his right
    eye, and as green with his left. If he looks at it through both
    eyes he sees some psychedelic mixture of red and green, but under
    no conditions can he perceive the color white.

And creating the stone so heavy even He can't lift it:
    The attributes of action would say that He can create such a stone,
    "G-d is omnipotent and can do all things." The negative attributes
    would indicate that such a stone could not exist.

Interestingly, it's the derakhim that stress Immanence, though, that pay
more attention to the mechanics of the mal'akhim. (E.g. chassidus.) Not
sure what to make of that.

RDS, contues:
: Vaguely parallel to talking on the phone; I'm talking directly to you,
: yet there are thousands of pieces of "machinery" helping my voice
: along.

And on Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 12:09pm EDT, R Zev Sero replied:
: This is explicit in gemara and halacha: we are told that while the
: tefila of a minyan, or of an individual during the Aseret Yemei Teshuva,
: goes directly to its destination, the tefila of an individual during the
: year must be conveyed by mal'achim, who don't understand Aramaic, and
: therefore can't convey those passages in the tefila.  What exactly this
: means isn't clear to me, but it's there in all the sources, black on
: white.

: The problem with this is that mal'achim are not supposed to have
: bechira.  Indeed, the definition of shituf is the belief that the
: powers above, such as the sun and moon or the mal'achim, have the
: bechira not to convey Hashem's blessings to us, and therefore have
: to be cajoled, or even bribed, in order to do so, just as is the
: case with a king's ministers and servants....

This is the difference between Machnisei Rachamim and "H' sefasai
tiftach". If the mal'akh is just machinery, why aren't I asking Hashem
for His assistance in getting them to work right, just as I do for my
lips and tongue? I wouldn't ask the phone for help. Asking the mal'akhim
goes beyond the gemaros which assert they are involved.

: So where does that leave us with "machnisei rachamim" and "shlosh
: esre midot"?  All I can say is that this was dealt with over the
: centuries by those well above my pay grade, and the overwhelming
: majority concluded that it should be said.  My bottom line is that
: if R Amram Gaon and R Shrira Gaon wrote to say it, it can't be wrong.

Not sure why the 13 middos are included. I assume this is a reference to
something in a piyut that I missed. As middos of how Hashem acts toward us
that we should emulate (cf Tomer Devorah), where is the implied middleman?

All your bottom line shows is that it's appropriate RAG and RSG. What
about for someone who can't resolve the question? If I personally can't
see how the prayer isn't shituf, am I allowed to say it? What would my
kavanah be?

GCT and :-)@@ii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A person lives with himself for seventy years,
mi...@aishdas.org        and after it is all over, he still does not
http://www.aishdas.org   know himself.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter

On Fri, Oct 03, 2008 at 05:06:50PM +1000, SBA wrote:
: Did you notice how wealth and parnoso seem to be allotted special status on
: the Yomim Noroim, with special bits and pieces added for this purpose?

For someone who spends most of his waking hours pursuing a paranasah,
there is more going on than "memonam shel Yisrael". It invites HQBH into
a central part of his day. A powerful expression of bitachon.

Even if I am still bothered by how bad "Dikarnus"a" sounds in Latin.
"Dei" (god) + "carnosa" (fleshy) certainly sounds more like Yeishu than
anything Jewish.

GCT and :-)@@ii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Time flies...
mi...@aishdas.org                    ... but you're the pilot.
http://www.aishdas.org                       - R' Zelig Pliskin
Fax: (270) 514-1507

Micha Berger wrote:

> : So where does that leave us with "machnisei rachamim" and "shlosh
> : esre midot"?  All I can say is that this was dealt with over the
> : centuries by those well above my pay grade, and the overwhelming
> : majority concluded that it should be said.  My bottom line is that
> : if R Amram Gaon and R Shrira Gaon wrote to say it, it can't be wrong.
> 
> Not sure why the 13 middos are included. I assume this is a reference to
> something in a piyut that I missed. As middos of how Hashem acts toward us
> that we should emulate (cf Tomer Devorah), where is the implied middleman?

The piyut "shlosh esre midot", which addresses "kol midah nechonah"
directly, asking it to put in a good word for the speaker.


> All your bottom line shows is that it's appropriate RAG and RSG. What
> about for someone who can't resolve the question? If I personally can't
> see how the prayer isn't shituf, am I allowed to say it? What would my
> kavanah be?

Whatever RAG and RSG intended.  Just like in the yehi ratzons after
tashlich, where we ask that what we've read go up "as if we understood
all the secrets and combinations of Holy Names that come out of them..."



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

On Fri, 03 Oct 2008 15:36:52 +0000 Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> 
wrote:
> If I personally can't
>see how the prayer isn't shituf, am I allowed to say it? What 
>would my kavanah be?

The MB (and probably others) suggest in several places (but in very 
different contexts) that a person should have kavannah on some act 
to fulfill whatever Chazal intended.  I don't see why this 
shouldn't work here.  As long as you don't think the person who 
wrote the prayer intended shituf, have kavannah to bring out 
whatever the author intended.

--
Daniel M. Israel
d...@cornell.edu

R' Joel Rich asked:
> Is the understanding of this from the time of the original
> exemption that we know the ingredients are kosher and that
> he never uses the oven for something else or just that
> "normally" this is the case (i.e. no one is checking on a
> regular basis on this particular baker)

R' Zev Sero responded:
> AIUI, at the time it was unheard of for bread to contain
> anything treif, so there was no need to worry about it.
> This continued to be the case in many countries until quite
> recently.  Bread was bread, and it had known ingredients,
> none of which were a problem.

I'm not disputing RZS's comments, and similarly re another poster who wrote about tea and beer having standard ingredients and not needing a hechsher.

But the way I read RJR's post, he was not asking only about the
ingredients. He was also asking about the oven. How do we know that the
non-Jewish baker used his oven ONLY for bread?

Some might respond by noting, "Duh! We're talking about a *baker*! What
else would be in that oven beside bread?" Well, if I'm not mistaken, wasn't
it a common practice for the Jewish community (who couldn't afford to have
an oven in each home) to keep their Shabbos lunch all together in a common
oven? A separate pot for each balabusta, but still, if we use a common oven
isn't it at least possible that the local non-Jews might have similar needs
and similar solutions? Why presume that the palter's oven was kosher?

Akiva Miller

____________________________________________________________
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On Fri, Oct 03, 2008 at 11:59am EDT, R Zev Sero wrote:
:>Not sure why the 13 middos are included. I assume this is a reference to
:>something in a piyut that I missed. As middos of how Hashem acts toward us
:>that we should emulate (cf Tomer Devorah), where is the implied middleman?

: The piyut "shlosh esre midot", which addresses "kol midah nechonah"
: directly, asking it to put in a good word for the speaker.

That's really confusing. At least mal'akhim are nivra'im. What are the
middos?

:>All your bottom line shows is that it's appropriate RAG and RSG. What
:>about for someone who can't resolve the question? If I personally can't
:>see how the prayer isn't shituf, am I allowed to say it? What would my
:>kavanah be?

: Whatever RAG and RSG intended.  Just like in the yehi ratzons after
: tashlich, where we ask that what we've read go up "as if we understood
: all the secrets and combinations of Holy Names that come out of them..."

Similarly, on Fri, Oct 03, 2008 at 4:25pm GMT, R Daniel Israel wrote:
: The MB (and probably others) suggest in several places (but in very 
: different contexts) that a person should have kavannah on some act 
: to fulfill whatever Chazal intended.  I don't see why this 
: shouldn't work here...

First, there is a difference between mitzvos ma'asiyos and tefillah. The
latter is avodah shebaleiv, and kavanah is the core part of the mitzvah.

There is also a difference between a black box and a tefillah that seems
to be saying something wrong. It's not just a lack of possible kavanah,
it's that the tefillah brings up thoughts one shouldn't be having. It's
a negative, not a zero.

GCT and :-)@@ii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur
mi...@aishdas.org        with the proper intent than to fast on Yom
http://www.aishdas.org   Kippur with that intent.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                       - Rabbi Israel Salanter

On Fri, 3 Oct 2008 00:41:50 EDT
T6...@aol.com wrote [on Areivim, quoted with permission]:

...

> pro-life movement.  As one example, the Pope would say that a baby's life  comes 
> before the mother's and that a mother should die rather than allow an  abortion, 
> but the majority of Protestant pro-lifers would give the mother's life  
> preference.

Note that Rav Yitzhak Shor (Resp. Koah Shor #20) initially suggests that
according to Rambam that the Halachic dispensation to abort a fetus to
save the mother's life is the principle of Rodef, it follows that where
the danger to the mother is unrelated to her pregnancy, abortion is
prohibited even to save the mother's life!  He is discussing a case
of potentially fatal maternal hemorrhaging, where the (Jewish) doctor
has determined that there is absolutely no way to save the woman without
aborting the fetus, and he argues that if medical science (which he
terms "tevunos hachmos nisgavos") determines that her ailment is
unrelated to her pregnancy, which is certainly plausible since many non
pregnant women suffer from similar problems, then since the fetus is
not causing her danger, we may not abort it, even though our inaction
will result in the mother's death.

After a lengthy analysis, however, he concludes that even according to
Rambam, the primary justification for permitting abortion is, as Rashi
says, that the fetus is not a 'nefesh', and Rambam only invokes the
principle of Rodef to imply that if we can save the mother by merely
amputating a part or parts of the fetus, as opposed to destroying
it, then we must do so, just as we are commanded to do in a classic case
of Rodef.  He therefore concludes that even Rambam would permit abortion
in the aforementioned case.

> --Toby  Katz

Yitzhak
--
Bein Din Ledin - bdl.freehostia.com
An advanced discussion of Hoshen Mishpat

On Fri, Oct 03, 2008 at 01:01:14PM -0400, Yitzhak Grossman wrote:
: Note that Rav Yitzhak Shor (Resp. Koah Shor #20)...
: After a lengthy analysis, however, he concludes that even according to
: Rambam, the primary justification for permitting abortion is, as Rashi
: says, that the fetus is not a 'nefesh', and Rambam only invokes the
: principle of Rodef to imply that if we can save the mother by merely
: amputating a part or parts of the fetus, as opposed to destroying
: it, then we must do so, just as we are commanded to do in a classic case
: of Rodef...

More than that, the very same Retzichah 1:9 continues by not applying
rodeif once the baby's head emerged. If the child really was a rodeif
WRT retzichah, why does the Rambam shift to "ein dochin nefesh mipenei
nefesh" after birth rather than just being consistent?

I recommend hitting the archive topics from around
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=A#ABORTION
onward and the Mar'eh Meqomos raised there and at RMTorciener's
Hamakor at <http://www.hamakor.org/ishus/abort.htm> (formally on
aishdas.org/hamakor/... correct any links to the new location).

GCT and :-)@@ii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The trick is learning to be passionate in one's
mi...@aishdas.org        ideals, but compassionate to one's peers.
http://www.aishdas.org
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 07:07:05PM -0400, Rich, Joel wrote:
: [R' ???:]
:>> If you meant to do a mitzva and through no fault of your own you were
:>> unable to complete the action, you still get schar
:>> But not as if you had actually done it.

: [Cantor Wohlberg:]
:> That's true. If you had done it, you'd be in the first row.  If you were
:> unable to complete the action, you'd be in the second or third row.

RJR:
: I'm not sure this is a settled question-I have heard it both ways.

I think it's pretty straightforward. As Yishma'el was, people are judged
"ba'asher hu sham". So, it simply depends on whether trying and failing
creates the same roshem on the person as trying and succeeding.

This notion of judgment as a consequence of personal state, which in
turn is ha'adem nif'al lefi pe'ulosav is a central theme in the essays
in the first third of my handbook for Aseres Yemei Teshuvah
<http://www.aishdas.org/10YemeiTeshuvah.pdf>.

GCT and :-)@@ii!
-Micha

But the way I read RJR's post, he was not asking only about the
ingredients. He was also asking about the oven. How do we know that the
non-Jewish baker used his oven ONLY for bread?

Some might respond by noting, "Duh! We're talking about a *baker*! What
else would be in that oven beside bread?" Well, if I'm not mistaken,
wasn't it a common practice for the Jewish community (who couldn't
afford to have an oven in each home) to keep their Shabbos lunch all
together in a common oven? A separate pot for each balabusta, but still,
if we use a common oven isn't it at least possible that the local
non-Jews might have similar needs and similar solutions? Why presume
that the palter's oven was kosher?

Akiva Miller

____________________________________________________________
Baruch shekivanta - I think I remember once learning that we assume all
there keilim (including stoves I guess) are assumed not ben yomo but I
don't know why or if so, was there an attempt to see the local teva. I'm
having a hard time answering why a takkana originally made because of
"maybe they'll feed us treif" (rashi) or chatnut (tosfot) has emerged as
it has and why pat palter was acceptable other than as a horaat shaah,
and if the metziut changed why isn't factory bread which has neither of
the issues not "pat yisrael" much the same as milk per R' Moshe (and why
was R' moshe later say yeshivot should drink chalav yisrael other than
for "salute the flag" reasons.)
GCT
Joel Rich
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: All I can say is that looking back at events in life, etc. etc., it
: becomes apparent that there was much good not apparent at the time.
: The more you look back, the more you can gain bitachon.

"You are speaking to someone who lost a child, so I have a hard time
embracing that idea..."

You are absolutely correct and there is no way to justify what I said  
in light of what happened to you.

There was a book that an O. rabbi wrote regarding the Holocaust. His  
thesis was very interesting.
He said that if someone actually experienced the horrors of the  
holocaust or had loved ones killed, then
that person has every right to be angry at God or even not believe in  
Him. The interesting twist on his
thesis was that if someone was NOT in the holocaust and only knew  
about it through others or history books,
then this person was not entitled to be angry at God or to become an  
atheist because of it.

ri
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On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 12:09 PM, Zev Sero <z...@sero.name> wrote:

> The problem with this is that mal'achim are not supposed to have
> bechira.  Indeed, the definition of shituf is the belief that the
> powers above, such as the sun and moon or the mal'achim, have the
> bechira not to convey Hashem's blessings to us, and therefore have
> to be cajoled, or even bribed, in order to do so, just as is the
> case with a king's ministers and servants.




> Zev, ditto.


Actaulyl we debated this. There are those who say taht mal'achim do NOT lakc
behira but lack a yetzer horo. So they have a choice, jsut that they will
never do anything BAD or out of a sense of temptation. In fact we see the
mal'achim beating Hashem re: the giving of thTorah nad the saving of Israel
at the yam Suf.  It is therefore not a lack of bechira but a lack of
temptation that sets them apart. A Mal'ach might refuse to send a prayer out
of asense of midas hadin jsut as Mal'achim opposed saving Israel [hallalu
ovdei AZ  v'chulei]  E.G. it says that G-d does not hear th eprayer of
someone wearing sha'atnexz, maybe this is the mal'ach's job is to block
certain tefillos as passul. But HKBH's middas Harachahhmim can over-ride
this at certain junctures.

So a Mal'ach can do not harm unless Hashem asks him to do harm, but a
Mal'ach might have bechira within certain parameters of yetzer tov.

However, it can STILL be assur to adress a Mal'ach even so. machnisei
Rachamim deals with this and see my apologetics for this point in my Avodah
Post of year 2000 and re-posted to Nishmalbog recently.



-- 
Gmar Chasima Tova
Best Wishes for the New Year 5769
RabbiRichWol...@Gmail.com
see: http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/
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On Fri, Oct 03, 2008 at 04:20:00PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg wrote:
: He said that if someone actually experienced the horrors of the  
: holocaust or had loved ones killed, then
: that person has every right to be angry at God or even not believe in  
: Him. The interesting twist on his
: thesis was that if someone was NOT in the holocaust and only knew  
: about it through others or history books,
: then this person was not entitled to be angry at God or to become an  
: atheist because of it.

I believe that we should suspend judgment. The bochein kelayos valeiv
doesn't have to. Such as Yosef Lampel who wasn't raised religious to begin
with, saw the Nazis kill his father, and spent his bar mitzvah hiding from
the liquidation of the Budapest Ghetto in a sewer. (Mr Lampel ended up
an MK under a different name, heading a party known for not doing the O
community any favors.) But "entitled" to be an atheist I think is going
too far.

I could also see making a biblical argument in the reverse: Abraham
accepted the Aqeidah without complaint. However, he gets argumentative and
(it would seem to me) angry when G-d told him about His plans for the
5 cities of the Sodom plains. "Would You even sweep away the righteous
person with the evil one?" (Bereishis 18:23)

Similarly, it's only when Hashem threatens the Jewish people that Moshe
cries "mecheini na misifrekha". His own tribulations... they are nisyonos
to spur further growth, not sources of anger.

But to return to the question... If anyone has pragmatic advice for
developing bitachon, please chime in.

Gut Voch and a GCT!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes
mi...@aishdas.org        exactly the right measure of himself,  and
http://www.aishdas.org   holds a just balance between what he can
Fax: (270) 514-1507      acquire and what he can use." - Peter Latham


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