Avodah Mailing List

Volume 25: Number 367

Thu, 30 Oct 2008

• 1. Hypocrisy in halakhah (Michael Makovi)
• 2. rain on succot (Saul Mashbaum)
• 3. Re: purchasing shmitta produce (David Riceman)
• 4. Re: purchasing shmitta produce (David Riceman)
• 5. Re: Free Will vs. Physics (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: Giraffe is Kosher, Confirmed (Zev Sero)
• 7. Righteous Gentile is Equal to the Kohein Godol (Prof. Levine)
• 8. Re: Dirty diapers and brachos (T6...@aol.com)
• 9. Re: Dirty diapers and brachos (Micha Berger)
• 10. Re: Giraffe is Kosher, Confirmed (Milk Clotting?) (David Roth)
• 11. Re: Dirty diapers and brachos (Michael Kopinsky)
• 12. Re: Righteous Gentile is Equal to the Kohein Godol (Yitzhak Grossman)

I'm wondering how others would respond to the following sentiments of mine:

B'kedem: biglal chipusim b'Google, hittzarachti l'shanot jen tile
(zara b'anglit) l'milah acheret. B'hishtamshut b'Google translator,
hishtamashti b'safot rabot. Im tireh milah asher atah lo makir oto,
b'kol ofen ha'mashama'ut mishehu asher hu lo yehudi. B'kegon, "hindi
hudyo", ze "lo yehudi" b'filipino.

I'm sure there are other areas in which this concern would be raised,
but Jewish-nicht-Jude relations seems to bring it up the most, namely:
to what extent can hypocrisy be tolerated?

An example: traditionally-understood halakhah says that we aren't
responsible for our ox goring a nicht-jude's, we don't execute a Jew
who's murdered a nicht-jude, we don't save a nicht-jude on Shabbat,
etc. But what would be your response to the following hypothetical
        nicht-jude laws:
1) If a nicht-jude's ox gores a Jew, the nicht-jude is not responsible
2) A    nicht-jude who murders a Jew will not be found culpable in court
(though G-d will give him his cumupins (sp?), it should be noted)
3) A  nicht-jude cannot save a Jew's life on a nicht-jude holiday

How would we respond? Would we sit content and satisfied, saying that
the no-Judio's laws are perfectly righteous, seeing as how we do the
same? Or would we accuse them of racism and moral evil? If the latter,
are we not being hypocrites?

I believe this is what Rabbi Eliezer Samson Rosenthal intended; he
said that for centuries, we implored the no-Judios (Spanish) to see us
as fellow humans. Therefore, he asks, can we possibly not save them on
Shabbat??!! How can be demand they see us as equals, but fail to
accord them the same??!! Halakhic justifications aside, then, he
says,we must accept the Enlightenment's declaration that everyone must
be treated equally. For even if halakhah says otherwise, the sevara of
consistency versus hypocrisy demands it. A source? It is logical!

Similarly, Rabbi Dr. David Berger in an essay on the Egalitarian
Ethos, suggests that at the Christian Disputations, we realized that
even though the Christians were certainly racist, we were not entirely
innocent of that charge ourselves. We realized we had to look at our
own texts in their eyes, and ask ourselves how we'd feel had their
laws said the equivalent of what ours say. Therefore, starting with
Meiri, and culminating with his supporters (whom Berger lists as
Rabbis Hirsch, Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg, Ahron Soloveichik, Yitzhak
Herzog, and Kook), we looked for new ways to read an egalitarian ethos
(which we believed could be found in the Torah itself, especially with
Ben Azzai/tzelem elokim), and we realized we had to rewrite the
halakhah within its own parameters according to the values which we
found in the Torah itself.

Thus, I've seen, for example, Rabbi Nahum Eliezer Rabinovitch using
Ramban and Meiri to justify saving a non-Juif (French) on Shabbat
l'hatchila, without his even mentioning that anyone disagrees with
their opinion. We cannot simply overturn the halakhah, but we can
creatively tweak it to suite our interests according to our own
understanding of the Torah's ethos. (My question is on the hypocrisy
on the prior halakhah, and not on the exact dynamics of how we change
it, however.)

Another example comes to my mind: we say that the non-Juifs in galut
ought to have (notice my past tense - I am Zionist, after all...)
accorded Jews equal rights, yes? But I myself firmly believe that
while we may accord the Yishmaelites full socio-economic rights, it is
unconscionable to grant them political rights, even in a democracy.

(Moshe Feiglin notes that democracy really means to accord full rights
to "citizens" in a manner suiting to the regime; thus the Athenian
democracy limited "citizens" to "land-holding males"; why cannot we,
he asks, limit citizens to "Jews", and thus preserve Israel as a
democracy even as benei Yishmael are excluded therefrom? Obviously,
non-Juifs could still avail themselves of the status of ger toshav.)

I believe that the law of the ger toshav says the same, viz. he has
full rights to livelihood, but cannot hold a communal position. I'd
personally want to extend the prohibition to his even voting for who
will hold the communal position, while at the same time I'd find a way
to say that the non-Juif can in fact hold/vote-for a communal position
of non-political significance, but the point remains the same -
socioeconomically he is equal, but politically he is not; the precise
halakhic details are a separate issue, and not our point here. Now
then, we cannot be hypocrites, yes? So personally, I feel that if a
hindi-Hudyo (Filipino) country announced that Jews may have full
socioeconomic rights, but that as foreigners they cannot vote or hold
office, I do not feel we'd have the right to complain.

(America is a unique case, since the American definition of self
includes all who wish to become Americans, since America is explicitly
a nation of immigrants. So if America made this announcement against
Jews, perhaps we could in fact complain. But let us suppose a nation
with a more entrenched and static definition of self. For example, if
Germany or China announced that all non-ethnic-natives had
socioeconomic but not political rights, how would we feel?)

Obviously, I'd also insist (that in this hypothetical hindi-Hudyo
country granting us socioeconomic but not political rights) that Jews
be treated completely equally in civil and criminal law - this brings
us back to our first question, viz. discrimination of non-Ebreos
(Italian) in civil and criminal halakhah - is this hypocritical?

Mikha'el Makovi

R. Dov Kay wrote
>>

...In Peirush HaMishnayos, the Rambam states that it is a siman k'lala
if rains at "techilas hachag".  This has led many to speculate that
the siman only applies if it rains on the first night.  Others say it
is to exclude Shemini Atzeres.
>>
I regret incorrectly attributing the statement in the last sentence to
RMBerger.

Apparently some authoritative sources interpret the Rambam in PH in a
way that the siman klala applies to all the days of Succot, as is
indeed stated in the mishna.
Nirin li divrei acherim.

Saul Mashbaum

Zev Sero wrote:
> AIUI, if you sell peirot shevi'it, the money you receive is also kadosh,
> and must be spent only on food which must be eaten in its normal fashion,
> not wasted, etc, just like the fruit you sold.
Would this apply to paper money? I would have thought that the 
requirement of tzura means a three dimensional image.

David Riceman

My mistake.  I confused shmitta and maaser sheni.

DR

David Riceman wrote:
> Zev Sero wrote:
>> AIUI, if you sell peirot shevi'it, the money you receive is also kadosh,
>> and must be spent only on food which must be eaten in its normal 
>> fashion,
>> not wasted, etc, just like the fruit you sold.
> Would this apply to paper money? I would have thought that the 
> requirement of tzura means a three dimensional image.
>
> David Riceman
>

On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 04:40:45PM +0000, kennethgmil...@juno.com wrote:
: > Now, back to free will... Perhaps the problem is simply a
: > false dichotomy: we're asserting that the ability to make
: > that first decision is either determined entirely by
: > previous causes or part of it is random. Are they really
: > antonyms?

: I agree. Of course, previous experiences *are* a big factor in the
: current choice, but that's not the entirety of it. There is something
: more. It *appears* to be random, but that's because it's not part of
: our physical universe, and not even in our ability to comprehend.

It's a harder problem than that. Again, I don't see nature in the
discussion, anything about physicality, and therefore anything about
our inability to fathom the non-physical. (Which blindness I would
question anyway.)

We can't conceive of something that isn't random, and yet not fully
explainable by outside causes. Regardless of how cause is mediated to
effect whether it's nature, laws of higher olamos, psychology, etc... the
same question stands. It seems to be inherent in the definition of cause
and random -- if it has a reason, it's caused, if it didn't it's random.
Neither provide a basis for human accountability.

Internal causes had to have a start, which if you apply iteratively you
eventually have to get them back to external causes; how the person
was made, what he experienced. Nor can we say that people's freedom
within those external causes is random, dice aren't accountable for how
they land.

But this notion of chasing the caausal chain back made me think of
rishonim discussing the First Cause. A person isn't the First Cause. We
are only in His image. There is no parallel to Absolute Unity and
Timelessness, the elements of the answer to why the Creator Himself
doesn't require a creator to explain His existence.

To rephrase: If we can explain people's decisionmaking, then as some
point the explanation is grounded outside the person. They were made that
way. They were shaped that way by experience. (Or by decisions that in
turn must be traced back to that first decision.)

If there is no explanation, then it's a coin toss which explanation we
accept, and there is still no accountability.

Perhaps the answer must start with assuming that souls are lemaalah
min hazeman, or at least some aspect of them is. In which case, the
whole chasing of explanations goes way outside the comprehensible.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One who kills his inclination is as though he
mi...@aishdas.org        brought an offering. But to bring an offering,
http://www.aishdas.org   you must know where to slaughter and what
Fax: (270) 514-1507      parts to offer.        - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv

On Areivim, Gershon Dubin wrote:
> *http://tinyurl.com/5krcu6*

What doubt existed before this?  The Torah gives simanim, but they're
not good enough for some people.  The gemara gives more simanim, about
the horns and teeth, and they're not good enough either for some people.
But davka the siman of the milk convinces the skeptics?

Meanwhile, I wonder whether there isn't a treife mammal, somewhere out
there, whose milk will clot without special treatment.  (With special
treatment even camel milk will clot, and nowadays in Arab countries one
can buy camel butter and cheese.)

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

The quote below is from pages 225 - 226 of Rav Hirsch's essay 
Talmudic Judaism and Society.  Rabbi Hirsch wrote this essay in 1884 
at the request of Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Spektor (1817-1896), founder 
of the renowned Yeshiva of Kovno and acknowledged spiritual leader of 
Russian-Lithuanian Jewry.

The Sages of the Talmud are the teachers of probably the only 
religion that does not claim that it alone holds the key to 
salvation. Instead, they teach that the righteous of all nations have 
a portion in the world to come (Sanhedrin 105a). According to the 
Talmud, the Mosaic Law is eternally binding only upon the people of 
Israel. All others are regarded as wholly righteous in the eyes of 
God as long as they obey the seven Noachide laws. In this spirit, the 
Talmud (Sanhedrin 59a) comments in connection with Leviticus 18,5 
that a non-Jew who observes the laws given to him by God is an equal 
of the High Priest, for it is written: "Keep My statutes and My 
social ordinances which man [not only Jews] must carry out and 
through which he gains life." Likewise, Isaiah 26,2 does not read 
"Open the gates so that priests and Israel may enter" but" ... so 
that a righteous nation that keeps the faith may enter." In Psalms 
118,20 we do not read "This is the gate of the Lord; priests, Levites 
and Israel shall enter into it" but " ... the righteous shall enter 
into it." In Psalms 33, I we are not told "Exult, 0 priests, Levites 
and Israel, in the Lord" but "Exult, 0 righteous ones, in the Lord." 
Finally, the Psalmist (Psalms 125,4) does not pray "Do good, 0 Lord, 
to the priests, the Levites and to Israel" but "Do good, 0 Lord, to the good."

All the foregoing makes it clear that God's nearness, bliss and 
salvation is promised to every person who loyally and scrupulously 
carries out the duties laid down for him by God. As one Talmudic sage 
explicitly states: "I call heaven and earth to witness, be a man a 
Jew or a non-Jew, man or woman, manservant or maidservant-only 
according to their actions will the spirit of holiness rest upon 
them" (Tanna de be Eliyahu on Judges 4,4)

The entire essay may be read at 
http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/talmudic_judaism_society.pdf


Yitzchok Levine
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From: "Michael Kopinsky" _mkopinsky@gmail.com_ (mailto:mkopin...@gmail.com) 

I understand  that qualitatively, there is a difference between the tzoah of
a baby and  that of an adult. I have two metzius questions:

1) When does that change  actually take place? Is it actually eating grains
that affects the change, or  is it solid food in general?



>>>>>
The dirty diaper of a fully breast-fed baby smells like clover.  As  soon as 
the baby starts receiving formula or anything else, his diapers no  longer 
smell so good.  This is the metzius.




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



**************Plan your next getaway with AOL Travel.  Check out Today's Hot 
5 Travel Deals! 
(http://travel.aol.com/discount-travel?ncid=emlcntustrav00000001)
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On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 12:40:40AM -0400, T6...@aol.com wrote:
: The dirty diaper of a fully breast-fed baby smells like clover.  As  soon as 
: the baby starts receiving formula or anything else, his diapers no  longer 
: smell so good.  This is the metzius.

1- The dirty diaper of a fully nursed baby smells unpleasantly. It's just
a different unpleasant smell.

2- My son pushed me to do QSA Yomi with him this cycle, which in turn
was caused by my mentioning RDS's posts on the subject. BTW, I put
together the current QSAY cycle (with Jewish dates and holidays) in a
form you can import into Outlook. If you're interested let me know
if you want the EY or chu"l version. All of which was to say, we just
learned this.

QSA 5:5 says the age is one that "*acheirim* beyamav yecholim" to eat
a kezayis of cooked grain bikhday achilas peras. Leshitaso, the
particular diaper could be filled with pure processed mother's milk,
and it would still be a problem.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to
mi...@aishdas.org        suffering, but only to one's own suffering.
http://www.aishdas.org                 -Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949)
Fax: (270) 514-1507

I'm sorry if you've already seen this question.  This is a slightly
updated version sent to the
proper forum (thanks Micha!).

An article was recently cited (partially quoted below) regarding the
kashrut of the giraffe
being confirmed through determining that its milk clotts.

Can anyone provide a little more information about this milk clotting
criterion and the
source for its use?

Is this milk-clotting criterion a reverse-engineering of the ruling
that all butter is kosher because non-kosher milk doesn't make butter
(Sh.A. Y.D. 113:3, Shakh there #27, Rambam 3:15)?  I hadn't heard of
this using this criterion to determine the kashrut of an animal, nor
was I aware that further confirmation of the giraffe's kashrut was
needed.

Here is the most relevant piece of the article (http://tinyurl.com/5krcu6):
>> The team, led by Professor Zohar Amar, took a routine sample of milk and
>> found that it clotted in the way required by Jewish law for kosher certification.
>>
>> They submitted more milk for verification by the rabbinical authorities and
>> the paper reported that a ruling was made that giraffe meat and milk are
>> acceptable for observant Jews.
>>
>> The giraffe belongs to the family of grazing animals that have cloven hooves
>> and chew the cud, thereby making them consistent with kosher rules, but the
>> milk test was the final confirmation.
>>
>> "Indeed, the giraffe is kosher for eating," Rabbi Shlomo Mahfoud, who
>> accompanied the researchers in their work, said.
>>
>> "The giraffe has all the signs of a ritually pure animal, and the milk that
>> forms curds strengthened that."

Is whether milk clots "in the way required by Jewish law for kosher
certification" a test which is often used in kosher certification?

If anything, I would say that this experiment strengthened the claim
that kosher animals produce milk that can be used to make butter.  We
know from the Torah that giraffes are kosher and used that fact to
confirm this claim.  Has anyone ever tested whether pig or horse milk
can be used to make butter or cheese?

Kol Tuv,
David

On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 12:40 AM, <T6...@aol.com> wrote:

>   From: "Michael Kopinsky" mkopin...@gmail.com
>
> I understand that qualitatively, there is a difference between the tzoah of
> a baby and that of an adult. I have two metzius questions:
>
> 1) When does that change actually take place? Is it actually eating grains
> that affects the change, or is it solid food in general?
>
> >>>>>
> The dirty diaper of a fully breast-fed baby smells like clover.  As soon as
> the baby starts receiving formula or anything else, his diapers no longer
> smell so good.  This is the metzius.
>

Some of these questions might be strange, but are relevant to pshat in the
gemara.

What if the baby starts having formula, but then reverts to having
breastmilk again? Does his tzoah go back to its original smell?

What about question #2? Does the baby's mei raglayim change when he starts
eating/drinking things other than breast milk?

KT,
Michael
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On Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:44:16 -0400
"Prof. Levine" <llev...@stevens.edu> wrote:

> The quote below is from pages 225 - 226 of Rav Hirsch's essay 
> Talmudic Judaism and Society.  Rabbi Hirsch wrote this essay in 1884 
> at the request of Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Spektor (1817-1896), founder 
> of the renowned Yeshiva of Kovno and acknowledged spiritual leader of 
> Russian-Lithuanian Jewry.
> 
> The Sages of the Talmud are the teachers of probably the only 
> religion that does not claim that it alone holds the key to 
> salvation. Instead, they teach that the righteous of all nations have 
> a portion in the world to come (Sanhedrin 105a). According to the 

Rav Hirsch didn't have the power of the internet.  Islam apparently
believes in the possibility of salvation for Jews, Christians and
others.  From the Quran (2:62, available at http://quran-online.net/):

-----


those Sabaeans, whoso believes in God and the Last Day, and works
righteousness -- their wage awaits them with their Lord, and no fear
shall be on them; neither shall they sorrow.

-----



> Yitzchok Levine

Yitzhak
--
Bein Din Ledin - bdl.freehostia.com
A discussion of Hoshen Mishpat, Even Ha'Ezer and other matters


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