Avodah Mailing List

Volume 25: Number 396

Wed, 26 Nov 2008

• 1. Re: Sephardi-ism: some food for thought (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: Sephardi-ism: some food for thought (Zev Sero)
• 3. RSRH, Sinatra, and Love and Marriage (Prof. Levine)
• 4. Re: RSRH, Sinatra, and Love and Marriage (T6...@aol.com)
• 5. Re: RSRH, Sinatra, and Love and Marriage (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 6. Re: RSRH, Sinatra, and Love and Marriage (Daniel Eidensohn)
• 7. Re: RSRH, Sinatra, and Love and Marriage (Prof. Levine)
• 8. Disclosure (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 9. Re: Sephardi-ism: some food for thought (Richard Wolpoe)

On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 10:41:20PM -0000, Chana Luntz wrote:
:> RMM echoed R'Micha:
:>> I agree with R' Micha that Sefaradim seem to rely on
:>> majority-vote...whereas Ashkenazim rely on sevara....

: Eek.  I know that ROY dominates Sephardi psak these days, and this is often
: said about him  - although I confess I think people are often confusing...
:       if you really read his teshuvos you see they are a lot more
: sophisticated than that.  But he certainly canvasses all opinions and is
: prepared to rule against some of those he quotes.

: And I guess if you go back in time, the Shulchan Aruch (himself a Sephardi)
: does say this about himself in that that he decides by majority vote between
: the Rif, the Rambam and the Rosh.  

Those were the two cases I was thinking of.

: But still I think this is a huge generalisation...
:    the Ben Ish Chai, but what I have read does not come across that way at
: all (if anything he is very very influenced by Kabbalistic considerations,
: which the majority do not necessarily take into account)...

My point was only the generalization. And even if I'm mistaken, which is
quite likely (eg the BIH), the existence of this stereotype wouldn't stand
if in reality "Sepharda-ism" had a tendency of preferring leniency. Nor
does it stand up to the BIH's qabbalah-based taam hamitzvos means of
resolving ties. (Disproving this point was where this thread began.)

: > Where does the MB fit into this dichotomy?

: Well if you are going on stereotypes, then the stereotype of the MB is that
: he neither poskens based on sevara nor relies on majority vote, but tries to
: go l'chumra for all shittos...

Although I still do not believe the CC was attempting to pasqen this
way. Not a tangent I necessarily want to reopen right now, as it's true
of whomever decided the MB was a seifer of pesaq, whether it was the CC,
RAKotler, or RYKamenecki.

On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 11:03:39PM -0000, Chana Luntz wrote:
:> Of course one can't use chessed to justify mutating pesaq, 
:> but it is a "pro" to weigh -- or even to hunt out -- when 
:> faced with multiple justifiable answers?

: I have no clue about R' Zevin but you are forgetting about a whole range of
: halachic concepts which we do find throughout the literature operate to
: mitigate or and in some cases overrule what might otherwise be the
: straightforward psak - kavod habriyos ..., darkei shalom, shalom bayis,
: pikuach nefesh, b'shas hadchak ...                         even lifnin
: meshuras hadin somewhat - these are off the top of my head...

There are three issues:
1- The false issue of "rabbinic will halachic way". We all agree that
not everything a rav really wants to be able to do can be done. I am
just mentioning it because the blog title did, and to better clarify
#2...

2- Searching for a pesaq. This is like looking for senifim lehaqeil
in order to permit an agunah. It's an ends-driven system of halakhah
that is only usable for a few dinim. (This being a major error in C
legal process, #1 being another.)

This then slides with no clear line into #3...

3- Using the concerns for the needs of the sho'eil to decide a
machloqes. The poseiq isn't trying to pile up the reasons, but when left
with his usual methodology the argument lequlah isn't sufficiently weaker
to warrant the cost/pain to the sho'eil.

When I mentioned hefsed merubah, I conflated these two issues (the two
real ones). By bringing in more examples, you open the question for
each. And even more involved... when the basic question is deRabbanan,
does it justify seeking qulah? Was this particular deRabbanan coined
with an explicit loophole for this inyan?

And I guess my argument against this alleged Sepharadiism is that there
is no indication Ashk or Seph disagree on either.

I'm not sure I would lump all of these together. Hefseid merubah is
a chessed concern for the poseiq, but not a halachic issue for the
sho'eil. Darkei shalom, piquach nefesh, these are themselves halachic
mandates with their own specific dinim that outweigh many other halakhos.
The poseiq isn't seeking a qulah, he's seeking a chumrah in a more
significant din.

Of your list, perhaps only kavod haberi'os (when it's the sho'eil's kavod,
eg Shabbos toilet paper) fit my intent when I wrote of hefseid merubah.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A life of reaction is a life of slavery,
mi...@aishdas.org        intellectually and spiritually. One must
http://www.aishdas.org   fight for a life of action, not reaction.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            -Rita Mae Brown

Rich, Joel wrote:
  
>> No, this is not bari veshema.  It's not a personal financial dispute
>> between R Reuven and R Shimon.  R Reuven has paskened that what you want
>> to do is forbidden; but you speculate that perhaps he did so because he
>> wasn't sure.  Even if your speculation is correct, he was presumably
>> aware of R Shimon's reasons for permitting, and nonetheless decided not
>> to.  So if you have a rule to follow his psakim then you must be
>> machmir.  At most, what you have is not a safek but a sfek sfeka.

> What if your rule is to follow his psak when he is sure but not when he
> is msupak?

Then you don't know whether to apply that rule here.  You can guess
that *maybe* he's unsure, but you can't know that.
 


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

At 04:43 PM 11/25/2008, R. D. Eidensohn wrote:
>For many  couples if there is no attraction initially - the marriage will not
>succeed.

Attraction and love are two very different things. Indeed, I am sure 
that we all know of instances in which two people were very attracted 
to each other, but there was no love and no love developed.

RSRH was talking about love developing during the course of the 
marriage. He said nothing about attraction.

YL



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From: Daniel Eidensohn _yadmo...@012.net.il_ (mailto:yadmo...@012.net.il) 


>>R' Yitzchok Levine wrote:
> *Love and marriage, love and  marriage
> Go together like a horse and carriage
> This I tell you  brother
> You can't have one without the other
> *
> From a  Torah standpoint, there is something very wrong with the 
> lyrics. See  RSRH's commentary on Bereishis 24:67 




>>It is not helpful to present a statement out of context or even  give an 
interpretation which is not supported by the text. While there are  
marriages that follow the Yitzchok Rivka model there are others that are  
successful because they are the Yaakov - Rochel model. <<
 
>>>>>
My neighbor, R' Yakov Homnick, said in a shiur that  pretty much every way a 
marriage can come about is covered in the Torah.   You can marry "the girl 
next door"  -- somebody you grew up with and have  known for a long time -- like 
Avraham and Sarah.  You can have an arranged  marriage, like Yitzchak and 
Rivka.  You can meet a girl and fall in love,  like Yakov and Rochel.  All these 
marriages can be very happy and loving  marriages, Torah marriages.  
 
I will add only that, from a modern perspective (and I am including  Hirsch's 
19th century Germany as "modern"), it is the second of those three  marriages 
-- the arranged marriage -- that most needs defending and explaining,  as 
Hirsch set out to do in his commentary.  Another generation might have  been 
appalled by Yakov's courtship of Rochel and might have taken  Yitzchak's marriage 
in stride, but moderns are appalled by the idea of marrying  a girl you don't 
know, chosen for you by your parents.  So that was the one  that needed 
defending, and as Hirsch correctly says, such an arranged marriage,  made with the 
wisdom and experience of your elders, can indeed be a very happy  and loving 
marriage.  
 
Let me add that the Novominsker rebetzen A'H once told me, when I was a  
single girl, "When goyim get married they put a hot pot on a cold stove, but we  
Jews put a cold pot on a hot stove."  At the time I didn't really  understand 
what she meant (and I didn't take her advice, which was to "settle"  and marry 
a suitable person without worrying about "being in love"), but I  now perceive 
that there was wisdom in her words, because of the way that a  Torah life 
provides structure and support to a good marriage, regardless of  whether the 
marriage started off on the Avraham, Yitzchak, or Yakov model.
 
PS I am not comfortable with this subject line because it seems to put  
Hirsch and Sinatra on the same level, as two Torah commentators who have a  
disagreement.  Don't know how to change it but do want to register at least  a mild 
protest.





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R' Yitzchok Levine wrote:
> You will not get very far if you put the cart before
> the horse. This is the point of RSRH's commentary.

This will probably sound sarcastic, but I cannot think of any other way to ask it. It is a very serious question:

Please tell what you think of the pre-marriage relationship between Yaakov
and Rachel. (My 1963 edition of Hirsch has no comments at all on Bereishis
29:20, and I didn't see anything relevant in the psukim before or after
that one.)

Akiva Miller

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Prof. Levine wrote:
> At 04:43 PM 11/25/2008, R. D. Eidensohn wrote:
>> For many  couples if there is no attraction initially - the marriage 
>> will not
>> succeed.
> Attraction and love are two very different things. Indeed, I am sure 
> that we all know of instances in which two people were very attracted 
> to each other, but there was no love and no love developed.
>
> RSRH was talking about love developing during the course of the 
> marriage. He said nothing about attraction.
You missed my point. I wasn't asserting that love and attraction are the 
same thing. The example of Avraham not noticing his wife's beauty is 
another issue that we could make a didactic statement that beauty is not 
important and shouldn't be important. This however is contradicted by 
many other Torah sources. Similarly you can't take a posuk that says 
that Yitzchok came to love Rivka after they were married as a paradigm 
of the Torah view of the relationship between love and marriage - since 
it is contradicted by other sources such as Yaakov and Rochel. One data 
point can not be assumed to be representative of the population it was 
drawn from - especially when other data points contradict it.

Daniel Eidensohn

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At 06:29 PM 11/25/2008, you wrote:
>Prof. Levine wrote:
>>At 04:43 PM 11/25/2008, R. D. Eidensohn wrote:
>>>For many  couples if there is no attraction initially - the 
>>>marriage will not
>>>succeed.
>>Attraction and love are two very different things. Indeed, I am 
>>sure that we all know of instances in which two people were very 
>>attracted to each other, but there was no love and no love developed.
>>
>>RSRH was talking about love developing during the course of the 
>>marriage. He said nothing about attraction.

>You missed my point. I wasn't asserting that love and attraction are 
>the same thing. The example of Avraham not noticing his wife's 
>beauty is another issue that we could make a didactic statement that 
>beauty is not important and shouldn't be important. This however is 
>contradicted by many other Torah sources. Similarly you can't take a 
>posuk that says that Yitzchok came to love Rivka after they were 
>married as a paradigm of the Torah view of the relationship between 
>love and marriage - since it is contradicted by other sources such 
>as Yaakov and Rochel. One data point can not be assumed to be 
>representative of the population it was drawn from - especially when 
>other data points contradict it.
>
>Daniel Eidensohn

So you have a quarrel with RSRH, not with me.  He does precisely what 
you say one cannot (in truth, should not) do!

When I saw what he wrote about Yitzchok and Rivka the song Love and 
Marriage jumped into my head.

BTW, RSRH says nothing about the Pasuk that says that Yaakov loved Rachel.

There is a long essay in the Collected Writings VIII about the Jewish 
Woman. Tomorrow I hope to be able to scan part of it and post it.

YL



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In the thread "a troubling halacha", R' Eli Turkel wrote:
> R. Zilberstein in the shiur explicitly said not to put up
> mourning posters (common in Israel) if that will lead to
> female members finding out about the death. So he
> considers the possibility that even for relatives in town
> one should hide the information if possible

I'd like to open a discussion about some common themes which I perceive as running through several otherwise disparate threads.

In this most recent thread, we find an undisputed halacha which allows (or
perhaps encourages) us to avoid telling certain relatives about a death in
their family. Many of us are troubled by this, and would feel insulted if
such information was withheld from us. We all agree that there can be cases
where this withholding is a good idea, but we are troubled that the halacha
*seems* to take this issue so lightly.

In other threads over the years, we have seen different attitudes among
gedolim about teaching history, especially biographies. There are those who
feel strongly that the stories must be "cleaned up" and either presented in
the most immaculate way, or not at all. Others have disagree, explaining
that there are many ways in which a story is more effective if the warts
are exposed, and not hidden or denied.

I wonder if these two topics are actually linked. Personally, I do not
understand the value of hiding a parent's death from the daughter (in a
*typical* case!). I also support telling stories which show how tzadikim
dealt with their difficulties, rather than pretending that there were no
difficulties. In other words, I am *generally* in favor of full disclosure
(while still trying to avoid saying things which are harmful or stupid). I
wonder if people who support disclosure in one case, tend to support
disclosure in the other as well. Similarly, I wonder if people who support
silence and rosy worldviews in the first case would also tend to support it
in the other.

And if I am correct in this, I also wonder what other ideas would fit this
pattern. For example, I (a supporter of disclosure) am bothered by the
prohibition against teaching Torah to non-Jews. In my view, it makes us
look like a secret society with something to hide, rather than like an
enlightened teacher for the world. I do realize that there are real and
logical reasons behind this halacha, but (like the aveilus halacha above)
I'm still uncomfortable with it.

Similarly, halacha allows us to impress our family or students by telling
them something in the name of someone they respect, rather than in the name
of the true source, who they don't respect. I understand the pedagogic
reasoning behind this, but it makes things very difficult later on, when
trying to sort out who said what. (And this is not a new problem; I'd guess
that the #1 most frequently asked question in the entire Gemara is "How
could he say ABC? We know that he said XYZ, and the two are not
compatible.")

I hope I've made my question clear. Just in case I didn't, I sum it up
here: Is there a common thread behind these things? And if so, is there a
specific aspect of modern life which I might reject in order to make the
more secretive view more palatable to me?

Akiva Miller

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On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 5:41 PM, Chana Luntz <Ch...@kolsassoon.org.uk>wrote:

> RMP notes:
>
> > RMM echoed R'Micha:
> > > I agree with R' Micha that Sefaradim seem to rely on
> > majority-vote...whereas Ashkenazim rely on sevara.... <
>
> Eek.  I know that ROY dominates Sephardi psak these days, and this is often
> said about him  - although I confess I think people are often confusing the
> fact that he indeed lists pretty much every opinion ever stated (which
> unquestionably he does) and takes them seriously, with number crunching.  I
> think if you really read his teshuvos you see they are a lot more
> sophisticated than that.  But he certainly canvasses all opinions and is
> prepared to rule against some of those he quotes.
>
> A
>
> Regards
>
> Chana
>
>
Bet Yosef, Kar hachaim and ROY all list as many opionions as they can.  It
is one of my criticisms of MB that at times he cherry picks an opinion.
Example he Follows the Taz re: davening late on Shavuos night and fails to
mention the MGA who mentiosn ONLY Qiddush.  [FWIW the AHS mentiosn only the
MGA and omits the Taz.]

Another example is Zeicher/Zechrer in which MB mentions zero mar'eh maeqomos
and makes it appear to be a 50-50 safeik.

Another example is RMF/IM on using egg matzo on Shabbas erev Pesach, he
presumes that the zman "issur" for this minhag is at the end of the 4th
hour. This is stated as fact when the facts are it is [like a lot of things]
in dispute.  The mare'he meqiomos for eating matza ashira AFTER theoretical
10:00 AM include Rabbeinu Tam, Chok Ya'akov, noda beehuda, and the Aruch
haShulchan.  Given that the Chok Ya'akov speicalized on hilchos pesach and
that he wrote THE book  [viz. minchas Ya'aqov] onthe Rema's Toras Chatas, I
would give his opinion a lot of weight in parsing an ambiguous Rema.


This is why many Saphardic chachamim seem to feel ashkenaziim are not
playing straight because they list sources suporting their theses and often
omit those that do not fit the paradigm.

Now that does not mean all Seaphrdic methods are better.  Ashkenazim excell
in getting to the underlying sevara and tend to be more analytical than
encyclopedic.  So haveing a Bar-Ilan CD list of 75 posqim on a given issue
is not always the most practical method at arriving at p'saq.

The Shulchan Aruch Harav takes a middle approach. he attempts to give at
leat TWO slient shitos on any given controversy.  The Sefer hasheetos gives
even more [do not know if the author is Sephardic or not]

Micha and I have endless debatges on Halchicc metholody. Regardles of what
system one uses, it is nice to have a more obejctive system than a
subjective system.  The BY used a definite system to arrive at psaq.  That
said, he ignored his own rules at times but at least he stated his goals up
front.

Many posqkim are imho all over the place.  One modern poseiq seemed to have
been a devote of the Rambam in gneral, but when it came to women reading tge
megillah he apparently advocated a Humra based upon the Magen Avraham. It is
a strange mix for someone with a Maimonidean bent to over-rule the Rambam,
BY et. al. and push for the MGA. It is POSSIBLE that he felt it was the
logical or correct read in this case, but it has led a lot of people to see
this as putting subjective concerns over obejctive ones.

I have posted many times  that the AhS felt the Rashba's shita against
saying al neqqiyus yadayim when cleaing w/o water was correct, but defering
to the Rosh/Tur. Now here the AhS feels that the Halachic world over-ruled
his Svara.  The BY simlarly rejects Rif/Rambam re: 2 matzos at the Seder
based upon concensus. How many Posqim are willing to go against their own
predelications and give int to an obejctive criterium or set of critera?

And the great thing about BY Kaf Hachaim and ROY is that they PROVIDE you
the material to disagree wtih them!  In fact the Rema's single biggest
source for his hagahos is the BY himself [source: the Rem'as own haqdamah!]
To be fair, the Rema is often EXPLAINING the mechabeir and not disputing him
but you DO get the idea.

Even the Rema had a set of objective criteria - i.e. Minhag Asheknaz.  And
AIUI Ben Ish Chai relied upon the Arizal as his main source for going agains
the mechabei.


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