Avodah Mailing List

Volume 26: Number 74

Thu, 30 Apr 2009

• 1. Re: is mayim acharonim a chumra? (Rich, Joel)
• 2. Yeast isn't chameitz (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: Panhandlers In Pizxa Shops, And Elsewhere (Jay F Shachter)
• 4. Re: Selling Real Chametz (Arie Folger)
• 5. Re: sefirah perushim and zadukim (T6...@aol.com)
• 6. Re: is mayim acharonim a chumra? (Liron Kopinsky)
• 7. Re: is mayim acharonim a chumra? (Ari Z. Zivotofsky)
• 8. Re: is mayim acharonim a chumra? (rabbirichwol...@gmail.com)
• 9. Re: netilat yadaim (Micha Berger)
• 10. Re: sefirah perushim and zadukim (Micha Berger)
• 11. Re: sefirah perushim and zadukim (Zev Sero)
• 12. Re: The Knowledge Conundrum (Michael Poppers)
• 13. Re: The Knowledge Conundrum (rabbirichwol...@gmail.com)
• 14. Re: sefirah perushim and zadukim (rabbirichwol...@gmail.com)
• 15. Re: is mayim acharonim a chumra? (Michael Poppers)
• 16. mayim achoronim (2) (Shlomo Pick)

 

         

         

         

        I should also note that the noted Dayan of Frankfort, the author
of the

        Yosef Ometz, in paragraph 155 states that according to the
Kabbalah one

        should wash mayim acharonim nowadays.

         

        

         

        Yom Atzmaut Sameiach

         

        Shlomo Pick

         

         ========================

        And the source in Kabbalah is where?
        kima,kima comes the redemption

        Joel Rich

         

         

         

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On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 09:43:19PM -0400, T6...@aol.com wrote to Areivim:
: Yeast itself is not chometz, although, when  combined with flour and water 
: (and other ingredients), it causes dough to become  chometz...

I think more to the point of issur veheter, the issur "kol machmetzes lo
socheilu" is understood to refer only to fermented and leavened foods that
can cause something to become chameitz (R' Yehudah and stam bereiasa,
but no issur kareis) or were thereby made chameitz (R' Eliezer). See
Pesachim 43b.

In any case, even though yeast would qualify as a leavening agent, it's
not included in the pasuq.

I recall R' Menachem Zupnik saying in a Shabbos haGadol derashah that
chameitz that is not ra'ui la'achilah, only la'achilas kelev, is assur
as machmetzes, not chameitz. Thus preserving the kelal in kol haTorah
qulah in defining ochel as something a person could eat. Machmetzes
needn't be ocheil nefesh, and therefore broadens the scope.

But that's a 15 yr old memory. Might be garbled.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 20th day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org        2 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Yesod sheb'Tifferes: What role does harmony
Fax: (270) 514-1507                   play in maintaining relationships?

Someone posted the following inquiry to the Areivim mailing list (I
have posted my reply to the Avodah mailing list, where I think the
discussion more properly belongs, as it involves questions of
halakha):

> 
> Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 14:10:40 EDT
> Subject: [Areivim] Begg[a]rs in Pizza Shops, etc.
> 
> They come over to you in between your mezonos and your first bite of pizza  
> (or hamotzee if you are so inclined) and they ask you for Tzedaka.  Are  
> these considered "real" aneeim?  Are you supposed to give to them or hold  
> onto your tzedaka and give it to a Rabbi who can guarantee it gets where it  
> needs to go?  
>  

The answer to your question is No.  You are to do neither.  You are to
give them, or at least offer them, some of your pizza.

Rambam rules, in a passage that is often poorly understood, in Sefer
Zra`im, Hilkhot Mattnoth `Aniyyim 7:7, that you must give the
panhandler something.  In 10:19 Rambam makes it clear that God will
deal with the panhandlers who are not genuinely needy.  God does not
need us to assist Him in this detection process.

However, we are not obliged to give the panhandler money.  This is
difficult for many of us to understand, because we live in a society
that has been largely built by Gentiles, and in consequence we have
lost the categories of thought suitable to understanding the Torah
properly.  The Torah does not describe a money economy (neither does
Rambam, for that matter).  The Torah does not tell us, for example, to
calculate the money value of our annual income, and to give a certain
proportion of it to Kohanim, a certain proportion to Leviim, et
cetera.  Rather, the Torah gives us separate and distinct commandments
for different forms of wealth.  We have to give, e.g., some of our
grain to Kohanim.  If the grain is worked into bread (and therefore
acquires increased value, due to the additional labor that has gone
into it) a separate commandment requires us to give some of the bread
to Kohanim.  There are separate and distinct commandments for fruit,
and for livestock, and for wool, and for other forms of wealth.

The same thinking applies to the commandment of tsedaqah.  Rambam
assumes this implicitly in 7:6 by distinguishing a stranger asking for
food from a stranger asking for clothing (the former beggar must be
accommodated immediately; the latter beggar may be required to wait
while we investigate the story).  We do not have to give the
panhandler money that can be converted into cheap wine.  The
panhandler who asks for money for food can be given food.  The
panhandler who asks for money for the bus can be put on the bus.  If
you don't want to wait for the bus, buy him a fare card, if your
public transportation system uses fare cards.  This is, in fact, what
I do.  Or, rather, it is what I offer to do.  Most of the time my
offer is declined.  That's fine with me.  I haven't violated the
halakha by refusing to help a beggar, and on the rare occasions when
my offer is accepted, I know that my money is actually going to help
someone.

If I encounter a panhandler on the street rather than in a pizza shop,
and if I am rushing somewhere and don't have time to stop, I will give
the panhandler money.  I know that the panhandler is almost certainly
a wino and a liar.  I know it better than most people, because I
usually offer to go into the nearest supermarket and buy the
panhandler some groceries, and I know how often my offer is refused.
But that knowledge doesn't bother me so much as it seems to bother
some people.  Actually, that the panhandler is a liar bothers me more
than that the panhandler is a wino.  An alchoholic who wants money for
a drink needs that drink.  He feels terrible if he can't have that
drink.  He will feel much better after he has the drink.  Certainly
there is a sense in which he would have a better quality of life, in
the long run, if he stayed away from alchohol long enough to lose his
dependency on it, but that isn't going to happen.

The other reasons why it doesn't bother me is that we don't give
tsedaqah for the sake of the recipients, we give tsedaqah for
ourselves.  God gave us mitzvoth for our own benefit.  God does not
need us to give tsedaqah in order to redistribute wealth according to
His plan.  The beggar will get what God wants him to have regardless
of what I do.  God commands us to give tsedaqah because we need to do
it for our own sake, because the giving of tsedaqah has an effect on
the giver which is beneficial to him.  I know that the panhandler is
going to spend my money on cheap wine.  I give him the money anyway
(when I don't have time to buy him a meal) because if I were to walk
by him without giving him anything, it would gradually change me into
someone I don't want to be.

The third reason why I give the beggar money is for the Qiddush
HaShem.  In a kosher pixza shop that is patronized only by Jews, this
third reason is equally applicable to both sexes.  On the street, this
third reason is more applicable to men than to women, who are not
visibly Jewish, except on hot summer days when it's kind of obvious.
But I wear a yarmulka when I go out into the street.  When I give the
panhandler money, after literally hundreds of other people have passed
him by and ignored him, the other people on the street can see that a
man wearing a yarmulka is giving a beggar charity.  This, I hope, will
lead them to conclude something about the Jewish people, and not, I
hope, that we are sanctimonious fools, but that we are charitable and
compassionate.  Who knows but that this example may some day come back
and help our people in ways that we cannot now envision.

I'll tell you whom I do refuse to give money to, and it isn't the
panhandler in the pizza shop, or on the street.  It's the man with ten
children who learns in Kollel full time, and who says exactly that
when he comes into synagog asking for money to support his family.
He, and not the goyishe addict, is the man who deserves nothing.


                        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

                        "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur"

R Joel R. wrote:
>> Could be because he didn't believe that there was real kavanah to make a
>> real sale - so there is no contradiction between the 2 statements above.

RRW replied:
> Perhaps - but wouldn't this same logic nullify our bittul :-) as also
> insincere?

According to the 'Arukh haShul'han (see the sources there), that is
one of the reasons why 'Hazal also required bediqah (based on an
analysis of Rashi's and Tos.' exposition on habodeq tzarikh
sheyevatel, as well as other Rishonim)

IOW, theoretically it works, but practically, it depends on our
intentions. See the 'AhS for alternative understandings of the gemara.

KT,
-- 
Arie Folger
http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/
http://www.ariefolger.googlepages.com

 
From: rabbirichwol...@gmail.com

>>This past shabbos we were  learning sefira and we looked at the humash.

Eureka! I was dumbounded!  How did Zadokim know WHEN to cut the omer?

The Hanafa and Sefira follows  the shabbas AFTER the ketzira. But the
time of ketzira is not pinned  down!

Why not 2-3 weeks after hag hamatzos!? It never identifies when to  cut
only hanaf-sefira after Shabbos! <<

 
 
>>>>>
You have put your finger on one of most ironic  things about the Tzadokim 
and the later Kara'im -- namely, that they perforce  developed their own 
"Torah shebe'al peh."
 
In this case, I believe that they taught that you cut the first barley on  
the first Motzai Shabbos of Pesach, whether Shabbos happened to be the first 
day  of Pesach or the last day or whatever day of Pesach it fell, and they 
celebrated  Shavuos seven weeks after that, always on a Sunday.  Which  
reminds me of that lovely Peggy Lee song, "You can kiss me on a Monday, a  
Tuesday, a Wednesday.....but never on a Sunday, 'cause that's my day of  rest."  
In the case of the Tzedokim it was:  you can't start  counting the omer on a 
Monday, a Tuesday, a Wednesday....but always on a  Sunday 'cause that's 
what I think best....And you can't have Shavuos on a  Monday, a Tuesday, a 
Wednesday... but only on a Sunday..."
 
Which Sunday?  They had to make up their own Torah shebe'al peh for  that.


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




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3)
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In this similar light, does anyone know where the minhag originated for
women to not do Mayim Achronim? It seems that none of the sources (mentioned
in this email thread at least) differentiate at all.
Kol Tuv,
~Liron
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this article discusses your question and mayim achronim in general:
http://www.ou.org/publications/ja/5762winter/legaleas.pdf

Liron Kopinsky wrote:

> In this similar light, does anyone know where the minhag originated 
> for women to not do Mayim Achronim? It seems that none of the sources 
> (mentioned in this email thread at least) differentiate at all.
> Kol Tuv,
> ~Liron
>
>
>  
>

Liron:
> In this similar light, does anyone know where the minhag originated
> for women to not do Mayim Achronim? It seems that none of the sources
> (mentioned in this email thread at least) differentiate at all.

I was told by a YU roommate (circa 1973)that women were presumed to wash
the dishes and therefore no cheshash of melach sdomis

I have never been able to verify this severa as being accurate or just
an urban legend but R Shlomoh Pick was a good friend of this roommate
and maybe he can...

Kt
RRW
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 08:27:55AM -0700, Saul.Z.New...@kp.org wrote:
: http://www.atranet.co.il/gordon/netilat.pdf
: http://rationalistjudaism.blogspot.com/2009/04/n
: etilat-yadayaim-shel-shacharit-ritual.html

: hygeinic netilah kabbalistically transformed to something else again; like 
: sfira, which we know is counted , as the tora tells us, to remove 
: zuhama....

Only if you assume zuhama is a hygienic issue rather than some
metaphysical one. When Chazal speak of the zimah that descended on Adam
and Chavah with eating from the eitz hada'as, I don't think that was a
physical gas.

But the first link is to the article I mentioned from Gesher, in which
there is a contrast made between nigleh's attitude toward tum'ah (must be
removed as a precondition to certain mitzvos) and nistar's avoidance of
tum'ah and urge to remove it ASAP. As I wrote then (in response to RZS),
more of neigl vasr comes from the latter. You can now check the article
to see if I recalled it correctly. (It was 13 years ago, so perhaps I
should have said "... to see how significantly my recollection drifted
from the original.")

The blog entry points to a second article by R' Martin L Gordon on one of
my perennial problems. "Mezuzah: Protective Amulet or Religious Symbol"
<http://www.mesora.org/mezuza-gordon.pdf>.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 20th day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org        2 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Yesod sheb'Tifferes: What role does harmony
Fax: (270) 514-1507                   play in maintaining relationships?

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 03:16:46PM -0400, T6...@aol.com wrote:
: In this case, I believe that they taught that you cut the first barley on  
: the first Motzai Shabbos of Pesach, whether Shabbos happened to be the first 
: day  of Pesach or the last day or whatever day of Pesach it fell, and they 
: celebrated  Shavuos seven weeks after that, always on a Sunday....

That's the way they teach it when they teach gemara, but WADR to my
rabbeim, I think they misunderstood. The standard way of explaining
the Tzeduqi position when teaching gemara is based on the assumption
that they held like the Qara'im later did.

If there is any relationship between the Tzeduqi calendar and that
described in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Tzeduqim made Pesach the same
day of the week every year. The Qumran sect had a year of an even
number of weeks -- 364 days. (The Xian Easter is similar, but assumes
a significance to Pesach beginning on Thursday, not Shabbos.) Seifer
haYovelim (a pseudepigraphic book often attributed to Alexander Yannai)
also assumes a 364 day year. And if the theory of authorship is correct,
that would certainly link it to the Tzeduqim.

What I find compelling about this (other than the existence of a number
of other positions attributed by the gemara to the Tzuqim found in the
DSS) is that it would explain why Rabban Gamliel was plagued by Tzeduqim
giving false testimony about seeing the new moon. They were doctoring
Sanhedrin's data to make their calendar happen.

But it would mean that they too would start counting the omer from the
2nd day of Pesach. What they differ on is whether that day must ALSO
be a Sunday.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 20th day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org        2 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Yesod sheb'Tifferes: What role does harmony
Fax: (270) 514-1507                   play in maintaining relationships?

T6...@aol.com wrote:

> You have put your finger on one of most ironic things about the Tzadokim 
> and the later Kara'im -- namely, that they perforce developed their own 
> "Torah shebe'al peh."

Maybe, but not in this case.  In this case their way seems supported
by pashtus haksuvim.  In any case, their objection is not to tradition
as such, but to attributing those traditions to Sinai, and therefore
considering them binding.

-- 
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, Vol 26, Issue 73, R'Micha replied to RRW:
>> My undeerstandin of Kuzari and Hirsch is that we have emunah based upon
mesorah. <<
> While that's true, I think that today, giving the recent rupture in
mesorah and the number of people not born in mesorah-bearing homes, it's
easier to build mesorah on the experience of doing mitzvos.
> Kind of like "More than the Jews have kept the Shabbos, Shabbos has kept
the Jews."
> It certainly seems true of effective kiruv techniques; a Shabbos or a
chavrusah in gemara have done more kiruv than all the philosophical
discussions combined. <
Yes, but perhaps that "Shabbos or a chavrusah in gemara" is also
influential because the person you are being m'qareiv looks to you and your
m'sorah (referring back to what RRW wrote) as a guiding light.  I know such
is true in re to my longtime Aish haTorah chavrusas (officially, "students"
to my "tutor"/"mentor"ing).

All the best from
--Michael Poppers via RIM pager
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Michael:
> Yes, but perhaps that "Shabbos or a chavrusah in gemara" is also
> influential because the person you are being m'qareiv looks to you and
> your m'sorah (referring back to what RRW wrote) as a guiding light. I
> know such is true in re to my longtime Aish haTorah chavrusas...

Michael and I are both highly influence by the KAJ kehillah which really
has suffered little rupture in its legacy and mesorah from Hirsch's day.

I imagine that certain Hassidic groups have very vibrant mesoros that
are clung to tightly. Maybe talmidei haGRA have same in EY where the
holocost was not a big factor.

One KAJ memeber (who is almost like an uncle to me) has been very
persistent about the role of Mesorah in our system of Both belief
and action.

In Yekkishe kehillos the Maharil, Rema, etc. are as alive as Mishna
Brura is in the Yeshivisher velt.

KT
RRW  
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

> In any case, their objection is not to tradition as such, but to
> attributing those traditions to Sinai, and therefore considering them
> binding.
> Zev Sero

I have seen the above stated on the web by Karaites. So I concur withat point

But I'm not sure about tzadokim.  In fact,
One of my professors in YU's Revel grad school
Said that tzadokim had alternate mesoros.

AISI, they must have had an axiom telling them to do the first Sunday
after pesach because the pashtus hakra states its dependent upon
agricultural considerations...

The need for this axiom dovetails with the professor's statment.
This case is not absolute proof, but imho it is highly suggestive...

KT
RRW
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

In Avodah Digest V26#73, RSP noted:
> In OH, 181:1 the mechaber states emphatically that mayim achronim is an
obligation....Chaza"l even pegged it to a verse in these parshot of
vayikra, that one should be holy, this is mayim acharonim. At the end of
this chapter, in no.10 the mechaber says that there are some who do not
practice (she'ein nohagim) to wash mayim achronim, with the tosophot in
berachot brought as the source. <
The Tur says what RSP noted, and, after quoting Tos'fos, he writes at the
end of the siman, "V'ham'vareich nami [isn't noheig to wash mayim acharonim
--MP], kivan she'ein anu osin k'mo she'amar hapasuq 'ki qadosh Ani'-zeh
shemen areiv, gam bin'tilah lo nahagu. V'lo miqri l'didan 'yadayim
m'zuhamos' kivan she'ein anu r'gilin litol v'ein anu maqpidim b'kach...."
In other words, the argument would be that not only, as per Tos'fos, is
melach S'domis not found nowadays (going back to y'mei Tos'fos, many
hundreds of years ago), but also our practices contradict important aspects
of the d'rashah and of the concept of zuhama: (a) we're not fully following
the d'rash of "v'hisqadishtem" re using shemen, and that d'rash isn't
halfway, so it apparently doesn't apply l'halacha; and (b) since we're not
particular to always wash our supposedly m'zuhamos hands after eating, we
apparently don't have the condition which would mandate mayim acharonim in
order to remove zuhama.  (Re point (a), BTW, the counterpoint of BY 181:1
is worth the price of admission!)

> Interestingly, the remah says nothing in either place, seemingly agreeing
to the mechaber's view. <
DM 181:1 is crystal clear: "Mihu haminhag k'divrei haTos'fos [sheheivi
Rabbeinu b'sof hasiman -- Chidushei Hagahos]."  As RRW has pointed out in
the past, you really need to check out Tur SA -- SA is really an extract of
BY and DM on Tur SA.  I can't speak to why no extract (much less a quote)
of RMA's words is in SA 181, but he certainly did write upon the subject.

> Finally the great forerunner of all minhag ashkenaz, the maharil, also
obligated mayim acharonim, see spitzer ed., p. 117, no. 41, and especially
note heh. <
Could I bother you to quote the phraseology verbatim?  Online, the words of
the Lublin 1590 edition (http://hebrewbooks.org/11762 -- see pp.160-161)
don't tell me anything about a mandate for mayim acharonim but rather seem
to relate to explaining an "over la'asiyasan" question brought by Tos'fos.
Thanks.

All the best from
--Michael Poppers via RIM pager
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i received the following from Danny, which was published in areivim:
> The gist of it is that mayim acharonim is a chova
> and is so viewed by the shulchan aruch

Sort of. The SA ends off Hil. MA (OC 181:10) with: Some do not have
the Minhag to wash MA...

Just keeping the record straight.

- Danny
My reply: Sorry to disagree: SH 181:1: Mayim Acharaonim Chova" and that's that. 
Later on in 181:10 he wrote: Yesh she-ein nohagim letol mayim acharonim.
And therefore according to the klallei pesak of the SH, I am allowed to
write: mayim acharonim is a chova.
This is so viewed by the shulchan aruch.  It's chova, and there are some...
Furthermore, when one says SA, one also means the generic one, and not just
the mechaber, and in this case, let's say using the MB, which is generally
accepted as the last word in Halakha for the yeshiva world and present day
posekim, there is no way out, for in MB 22, he cancels the yesh nohagim 
by presenting four views:  According to the Gra one must wash hands, 
according to mekubalim one must be zaheer in mayim acharonim, and both the 
maharshal and chida were very stringent in this.
And that's that.
Shlomo
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