Avodah Mailing List

Volume 26: Number 46

Fri, 06 Mar 2009

• 1. Fw: Word Choshen (rabbirichwol...@gmail.com)
• 2. Re: Choshen (Zev Sero)
• 3. Re: Choshen (Michael Poppers)
• 4. Re: To DE or to D no E? (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 5. Re: To DE or to D no E? (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: Rambam's naturalism (Michael Makovi)
• 7. Avedat Akum (Zev Sero)
• 8. Re: To DE or to D no E? (rabbirichwol...@gmail.com)
• 9. Re: To DE or to D no E? (Micha Berger)
• 10. A D'var Torah on Purim - Rav Shimon Schwab (Yitzchok Levine)
• 11. Zilzul: Parameters (rabbirichwol...@gmail.com)
• 12. Purim Question (Cantor Wolberg)
• 13. Re: Purim Question (Micha Berger)
• 14. Re: Avedat Akum (Yitzhak Grossman)
• 15. Re: Friday Night blessings (T6...@aol.com)
• 16. Tisha Qabbin (rabbirichwol...@gmail.com)
• 17. Keeping Up With The Tsibbur (Jay F Shachter)
• 18. Rav S. Schwab's Last Public Address - Bitachon and Emunah (L. E. Levine)
• 19. Shmoneh esrei - 18/19 (D&E-H Bannett)

More details.

From: Leonard Levy 
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 17:24:29 
To: <rabbirichwol...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Word Choshen

BDB has following for root chet, shin, nun : " (...meaning not certain;
Arabic *chasuna* is *be excellent, beautiful*; *chusn* *beauty, all
excellence; *hence pss. çùï [choshen -mb] either as chief ornament
of ephod, or as the most excellent, precious article of high priest's
attire)."

Indeed the root chet sin nun in Arabic is the very common word for beauty,
which is the meaning of the name "chasan", and even more popular in the
diminuitive form "chusein".
Of course, chet is pronounced in arabic as "het", but so as to be clear
that it was a chet (not a heh), I transcribed with ch.

Hope this helps,
Len

rabbirichwol...@gmail.com wrote:
> I had my student look into it:
> 
> the meaning is unknown. bdb speculates it is from Arabic "beautiful", "an 
> ornament"

A Hebrew word can't have come from Arabic.   It may be cognate to an
Arabic word, both deriving from a common ancestor, but Arabic isn't old
enough to have influenced Biblical Hebrew, or even Mishnaic Hebrew.


-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
z...@sero.name                 eventually run out of other people?s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher

In Avodah Digest V26#45, R'Micha quoted RDrMC:
> R Matisyahu Clark's Hirchian Dictionary has
<< ChShN: shield, protect chest
e[xplanation]/c[ommentary]: breast pocket; pouch (Ex 28:4 choshen v'eiphod
um'il)
c[ognate] m[eaning]: absorb and store [p[honetic] c[ognates](A26): /ChSN/
store strength; /ChTzN/ arm; /AZN/ ponder; /ASN/ distress; /EShN/
concentrate smoke; /HTzN/ arm] >> <
From RSRH (ILevy translation) on Ex 28:4: "This word only occurs referring
to this article of clothing of the High Priest.  According to V.16 its size
was a square span and according to V.22-29 [dare I say: V.29-30 --MP] it
was worn on the breast [as RaShY notes on V.4 --MP], hence it is usually
translated a 'breast plate.' It is phonetically related to
<ches-samech-nun> which means the safe keeping of valuable possessions, and
to <ches-tzadi-nun> the arm bent to hold something fast. According[ly --MP]
<ches-shin-nun> which was double (V.16) and which was for the purpose of
keeping the Urim and Tumim between its two layers, would really designate a
kind of breast pocket or pouch."

All the best from
--Michael Poppers via RIM pager
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R' Micha Berger wrote:
> The only people who wouldn't know that a D-labeled product
> isn't really DE are the same people who don't know what to
> look on the ingredient list. Anyone up the learning curve
> to know the halakhos of DE would hopefully be in a position
> to make the determination themselves.

I think what you are saying is that there are those among us who are
knowledgable enough that they can say: "This label says OUD, but I can see
that the ingredients do not include any whey or lactose or caseinate or any
other milchig thing. Therefore, I know that I can eat it immediately after
meat, and the OUD hechsher is merely for less-knowledgable people."

If that's what you mean, then here's my comment: The ingredients list has
to be *very* explicit for this to work. The list could include natural or
artificial flavors, and it could easily be milchig, yet slip past the
chochom who is looking for more technical terms.

Akiva Miller

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On Thu, Mar 05, 2009 at 12:22:25PM +0000, kennethgmil...@juno.com wrote:
: I think what you are saying is that there are those among us who are
: knowledgable enough that they can say: "This label says OUD, but I can see
: that the ingredients do not include any whey or lactose or caseinate or
: any other milchig thing. Therefore, I know that I can eat it immediately
: after meat, and the OUD hechsher is merely for less-knowledgable people."

: If that's what you mean, then here's my comment: The ingredients
: list has to be *very* explicit for this to work...

Back before the "D", the OU required anything milchig that could be an
issue to be listed, even where gov't did not.

I am assuming that the same is true today, although DE (by definition)
actually requires far fewer things not to be hidden.

However, at this point we traveled into Areivim-land, what does or
doesn't the OU do. Not the halakhos of DE and na"t.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "And you shall love H' your G-d with your whole
mi...@aishdas.org        heart, your entire soul, and all you own."
http://www.aishdas.org   Love is not two who look at each other,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      It is two who look in the same direction.

R' Micha asks,
>Where do you get this out of what the Rambam writes?

It's explicit in the Shemonah Perakim, chapter 8. Rambam says that
"hakol biydei shamayim hutz miyirat shamayim", means that G-d controls
our actions insofar as He created the natural laws in the first place.
So, as one of my rabbis put it, if your car crashes, it's because G-d
made black ice slippery.

R' Micha further asks,
> Where's the chiddush, that's Moreh III:18 explicitly!
> From Friedlander's translation:
> ... Divine influence, that reaches mankind through the human
> intellect...the greater the share is which a person has
> obtained of this Divine influence...the greater must also be the effect
> of Divine Providence upon him, for the action of Divine Providence is
> proportional to the endowment of intellect...The relation of Divine Providence is
> therefore not the same to all men; the greater the human perfection a person
> has attained, the greater the benefit he derives from Divine Providence.

This is a separate issue; Manekin deals with this issue elsewhere in
his book, summarizing four shitot on how this works:
1) Divine Providence is the information gained from the Active
Intellect, and the opportunity it proffers for more correct
(materially, not spiritually) living
2) Divine Providence is the spiritual, completely non-physical, reward
that is identical with overflow from the Active Intellect
3) Divine Providence is the CAUSE, not result, of connection with the
Active Intellect; since only physically and mentally perfected
individuals receive this intellectual overflow, they experience Divine
Providence insofar as they couldn't have received this overflow
without having already been physically and mentally perfected
4) Divine Providence is the de-corporealization of a person, that
results from his connection with the Active Intellect, rendering him
relatively protected from physical material accidents

What Manekin is proposing regarding the Divine Will, however, is
separate from intellectual Divine Providence. Manekin proposes a
distinction between Eternal Will and Novel Will. Eternal Will is that
which Rambam proposed in Shemonah Perakim and Avot, that G-d
pre-implanted miracles and governed via natural law, etc. Novel Will,
is G-d's eternally unchanging and consistent will, that nevertheless
produces novel miracles and such, just as a constant and unchanging
fire can produce different effects.

Manekin proposes that by the time of the Moreh, Rambam had realized
better the contradictions between Aristotle and the Torah, as shown by
the Moreh's emphasis of the fact that an eternal universe would negate
miracles, etc. Rambam in the Moreh emphasizes that G-d must be
volitional and willful, albeit while retaining the Aristotelian notion
that G-d's will cannot change, given the insinuation that His will
lacked perfection previously.

So according to Manekin, G-d's will caused Sodom to be destroyed, not
via anything intellectual like the Active Intellect, but just stam
because His will causes evil things to be destroyed, and good things
to prosper, stam, without anything involving the Active Intellect or
intellectual perfection.

Thus, Manekin says, his article was controversial for making Rambam too "frum".

Michael Makovi

On Areivim, Yitzhak Grossman wrote:
> "Shoshana L. Boublil" <toram...@bezeqint.net> wrote:

>> Halacha does discuss issues of returning an Aveida, for example to a goy, 
>> and that at times it is even prohibited

> I have no idea what your source is for that reason for the
> prohibition.  I am aware of two different reasons given by the
> Poskim, those of Rambam and Rashi (see Shulhan Aruch HM 266:1 and Sema
> ibid. 2).

A nafka mina between the two reasons: according to the Rambam (and the
Mechaber) if you know the owner is a decent person who doesn't break any
of the 7MBN then it should be permitted to return his avedot even where
there is no issue of chilul/kiddush Hashem.  But according to Rashi it
would still be forbidden, and the only heter for returning it is kiddush
Hashem.

But I have a problem understanding Rashi's svara.  If we follow it along
it would seem that it should be forbidden to do any voluntary action that
parallels an obligatory one, or to refrain from any permitted thing that
parallels a forbidden one.   It should be forbidden to eat matzah a whole
year, for fear that when one eats it on Pesach people will say "oh, he
always eats that"; similarly it should be forbidden to abstain from meat,
for fear that when one turns down treife meat people will say "oh, he's
a vegetarian".  If one fasts often, how will it be apparent that ones
fasting on Yom Kippur is leshem mitzvah?  If one never accepts clothing
as security for a loan, then when one happens to lend to a widow how
will it be apparent that one is obeying the commandment not to take her
clothing?



-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
z...@sero.name                 eventually run out of other people?s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher

Micha:
> However, at this point we traveled into Areivim-land, what does or
> doesn't the OU do. Not the halakhos of DE and na"t.

When you look at SA you see many halachos in which we are machmir because
"we are not beqi'I'm" anymore.

EG how fatty Is meat or how lean legabei contamination via melicha.

What OU seems to be doing is lechatchila suggesting we can no longer be
beqi'I'm between nosein ta'am and nat bar nat.

So we should surrender another valid kula by lechatchila "dumbing down"
which means to me we shouid force the issue of no longer distinguishing...

We have a valid hilluq
We know how it works
But let's blur the distinction and write off nat bar nat for the sake
of????

A simple post on OU's website could educate the masses. Artscroll's book
on kashrus has it.

KT
RRW
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

On Thu, Mar 05, 2009 at 02:37:19PM +0000, rabbirichwol...@gmail.com wrote:
: When you look at SA you see many halachos in which we are machmir because
: "we are not beqi'I'm" anymore.
: EG how fatty Is meat or how lean legabei contamination via melicha.

These are arts, learned only through shimush. Once the chain of shimush
is lost, it's pretty hard to recreate.

: What OU seems to be doing is lechatchila suggesting we can no longer be
: beqi'I'm between nosein ta'am and nat bar nat.

This is not an art, but knowledge that can be easily conveyed in text. I
fail to see the similarity.

: So we should surrender another valid kula by lechatchila "dumbing down"
: which means to me we shouid force the issue of no longer distinguishing...
...
: A simple post on OU's website could educate the masses. Artscroll's book
: on kashrus has it.

But no one is saying that milchig vs nosein ta'am is to be ignored.
Rather, the OU is saying that they have far more people who look for
their symbol on package labels than read their web site, talk to their
rabbi, or would otherwise learn what the DE means.

You're confusing a corporate decision not to take responsibility to
have an educztion campaign they can't do well with a halachic decision
that will set precedent.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
mi...@aishdas.org         'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
http://www.aishdas.org    'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
Fax: (270) 514-1507                     - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l

R. Moshe Schwab, the eldest son of Rav Shimon Schwab, ZT"L, has given 
me permission to post this D'var Torah. It comes from the sefer Rav 
Schwab on Prayer.  Please go to

http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/r_schwab_purim.pdf

You may be interested to learn that Rav Schwab's 14th Yahrtzeit is 
coming up on Purim. (He was Niftar on Purim Kotton.)

Yitzchok Levine 
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One of my chaveirim was pointed out that a certain professor was mezalzal
hazal re: peshat on when to start sefira and essentially held that the
tzadoqim were correct...

OTOH, this fellow seemed to feel it is ok to me mezalzel many minhaggim
that he construed as minhag ta'ut.

There are also cases when:
Rambam picked on Behag
Ra'avad picked on Rambam
Re'ah picked on Rashba, etc.  They were not always congenial...

Q: When is it kosher to be mezalzel and when is it not? IOW what are
the parameters?

KT
RRW
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Before going to shul for Megillah at night one should get dressed in  
Shabbos clothing.
Candles should be lit in the home (without a bracha) and the table  
should be set just as on Shabbos.
Shulchan Aruch w/Mishnah Berura 695:1

If the above is in the S.A., what about the minhag of dressing up in  
costume?

ri
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On Thu, Mar 05, 2009 at 04:18:15PM -0500, Cantor Wolberg wrote:
: Before going to shul for Megillah at night one should get dressed in  
: Shabbos clothing.
: Candles should be lit in the home (without a bracha) and the table  
: should be set just as on Shabbos.
: Shulchan Aruch w/Mishnah Berura 695:1

In contrast, see the Rama OCh 696:8. Apparently the minhag simply hadn't
reached Sepharad yet.

Wearing formalwear with a mask seems to be a way to be yotzei lekhol
hadei'os.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 15:07:12 -0500
Zev Sero <z...@sero.name> wrote:

...

> A nafka mina between the two reasons: according to the Rambam (and the
> Mechaber) if you know the owner is a decent person who doesn't break any
> of the 7MBN then it should be permitted to return his avedot even where
> there is no issue of chilul/kiddush Hashem.  But according to Rashi it
> would still be forbidden, and the only heter for returning it is kiddush
> Hashem.

Be'er Ha'Golah (266:2) actually gives this nafka minah, arguing that
according to Rambam, the prohibition does not apply to contemporary
non-Jews.

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

From:  Michael Poppers <MPopp...@kayescholer.com>
Cc:  KennethGMil...@juno.com
 


In  the RProfDS article RAM noted (again, the URL  is
<http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/eng/vayechi/sper.html>), note  the
language (presumably a translation :)) of the "Pachad Yitzchaq"  quote:

<< I have seen some fastidious people who do not bless  *their disciples*
{emphasis mine --MP} with both hands, and say that it  should be done
thus so as not to mix mercy with strict judgment. I,  however, used to
bless those who were married with both hands, one for him  and the other
for his wife, and bachelors with one hand.  >>


Shabbas Shalom/A guten Shabbes and all the best  from
Michael Poppers * Elizabeth, NJ, USA
>>>>>
 
Re "bless those who were married with both hands, one for him and the  other
for his wife, and bachelors with one hand" -- This would seem to have  some 
relevance to the question that was recently raised here, whether a man  should 
bless his daughter-in-law?  It seems that he should put his hands on  his 
son's head, and not on his daughter-in-law's head.
 

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

--------------------




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I'm trying to clarify how 9 qabbin work

It seems ko'ach gavra is a given.

Q:  is a keili needed?
 
If not then turning on a shower might be sufficient ko'ach gavra 

If a keili is required then this will not work.

Good Shabbos
RRW
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

On Thu, 5 Mar 2009 18:41:58 +0200, Efraim Yawitz <efraim.yaw...@gmail.com>
made the following comment (technically, a question, not a comment) on
our sister mailing list, Areivim; I have redirected my response to
Avodah, where I believe the discussion more properly belongs:

> 
> On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 6:53 AM, <T6...@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>> BTW about how to have kavana in Shmoneh Esrei when you are speeding
>> through the davening to keep up with the minyan -- somebody once
>> asked my father zt'l about that and he replied that he had the same
>> problem (!!) and that you should concentrate on one thing, one word
>> or one idea for each paragraph.
>>
>
> Who says you have to keep up with the minyan?  If you start Shmoneh
> Esrei with them, can't you take as long as you want?
>

No.

If you do, you are preventing people from walking in front of you, and
you are preventing anyone within 4 amot of you from sitting down.  If
you take longer to complete the Amida than the tsibbur does, then you
are, at best, thoughtless, rude, and inconsiderate, unless you first
stick yourself in a corner more than 4 amot away from everyone else,
and that applies to both men and women.


                        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

Neil Harris sent me Rav Shimon Schwab's last public address in 
response to my message yesterday about Rav Schwab's D'var Torah about Purim.

Neil wrote, "I actually blogged about it last year, 
<http://uberdox.blogspot.com/2008/02/rav-schwab-ztl-on-emunah-and
-bitachon.html>here. 
It was posted online years ago."

I sent the article to R. Moshe Schwab, Rav Schwab's eldest son. He 
replied,  "Thank you very much for bringing this back to my 
attention. This was written by my father's ZT"L loving and faithful 
talmid, Benny Ettlinger, whom my father would jokingly ( but with 
much truth to it) refer to as  '"B'ni" Ettlinger  because of his 
filial-like devotion to his Rebbe.

You may access this article, which is titled Bitachon and Emunah, at 
http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/articles_by_rav_shimon_s
chwab.html 
It is a very powerful piece.

Again, Rav Schwab's 15th Yahrtzeit is on Purim.


Yitzchok Levine 
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A week or two ago, a posting on the number of brakhot in shmoneh esrei
suggested, IIRC, something like that the addition of birkat ha-minim in
E"Y changed the 18 to 19.

It appears, however that in E"Y there were originally 17 b'rakhot,
gematria tov and the addition of birkat ha-minim made it 18, k'minyan
chai.

Among other places, it can be seen in TY B'rakhot. In a discussion of
reasons for different numbers of b'rakhot , it states on daf 8,. halakha
3, "if one says to you there are 17, tell him that "shel minim kvar
kav'u chakhamim b'Yavneh".

The reason is that what were two b'rakhot in Bavel were combined in
one b'rakha in E"Y. In the same column of halakha 3 in the Yerushalmi,
it also states. "v'shel David b'voneh Yerushalayim".

That the b'rakha beginning V'lirushalayim (Sefaradim: Tishkon) and the one
after it, that begins with Et tzemach were one brakha in E"Y is attested
to also by the nusach E"Y found in the geniza and old manuscripts.
The b'rakha ends, BA"H, Elohei David (u) boneh Yerushalayim.

Didn't some list members wonder at times about the unusual nusach in our
Boneh Yerushalayim brakha? We say, come back to Jerusalem and live in it
as promised and rebuild it soon ... and speedily prepare David's throne
there. Why does David appear here when the next b'rakha is specifically
about David.

Even if one accepts, for some reason,that David deserves to be in two
b'rakhot, we are told that the last phrase of a b'rakha should be on
the same subject as the b'rakha ending ,k'ein sium lifnei ha-sium. But
here a new subject interrupts. For that reason, Sefaradic and Chabad,
nusachaot reverse the last two phrases so the inappropriate, off the
subject, phrase should not be the last one before the b'rakha.

Why is this remnant of David in Boneh Yerushalyim? Was it in the original
Bavel nusach which had separate b'rakhot for Yerushalayim and David?
Or, perhaps, someone looked in the Tosefta or Yerushalmi and interpreted
the statement that one is kolel David b'voneh Yerushalayim as applying
also to a nusach other than that of E"Y.


k"t,
David 



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End of Avodah Digest, Vol 26, Issue 46
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