Avodah Mailing List

Volume 26: Number 118

Thu, 18 Jun 2009

• 1. Regarding the two occasions of the m'raglim (Cantor Wolberg)
• 2. Seforim or Internet? (Gilad Field)
• 3. Re: Avodah] Hashgacha Pratis for goyim (rabbirichwol...@gmail.com)
• 4. Re: Sodom bed [was Torah Homeschooling| (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: tannur shel achnai (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: Shelach (rabbirichwol...@gmail.com)
• 7. Re: Sodom bed [was Torah Homeschooling| (rabbirichwolpoe@gmail.com)
• 8. Re: Sodom bed [was Torah Homeschooling| (Micha Berger)
• 9. Re: tannur shel achnai (rabbirichwol...@gmail.com)
• 10. Re: Seforim or Internet? (Rich, Joel)
• 11. Re: tannur shel achnai (David Riceman)
• 12. Re: tannur shel achnai (Micha Berger)
• 13. Re: Sodom bed [was Torah Homeschooling| (Daniel Israel)
• 14. Re: Sodom bed [was Torah Homeschooling| (T6...@aol.com)
• 15. Re: Regarding the two occasions of the m'raglim (Liron Kopinsky)
• 16. Re: Officiating at a Mixed Marriage (Akiva Blum)
• 17. Re: Sodom bed [was Torah Homeschooling| (Zev Sero)
• 18. Re: Officiating at a Mixed Marriage (Zev Sero)
• 19. Re: Sodom bed [was Torah Homeschooling| (Yitzhak Grossman)

R' Wolpe wrote: "OTOH, who did he pick? The successful merageil from  
last time around -
> Kaleiv, and a known zealot for HQBH - Pinechas."


My point was that it wasn't necessary in the first place to send
m'raglim. That indicated a deficiency in bitachon.
ri

I'm sure this is not the first time this has been discussed on this
list, but in today's makor rishon (http://jtimes.co.il/) there was an
interesting discussion about seforim-based versus computer-based
learning.
To summarize the views presented, Rav Angleman  of Ateret Kohanim felt
that the ease of the Internet diminished from the toil required for
talmud torah.

Rav Felix (Va'ad Rabbanay Yesha) felt, while it wasn't his style
wasn't for him he saw a need for computer-based learning for the
future (quotes "es laasos a'Hashem... originally torah sh'baal peh
didn't even use books, then there was a need for printing and now
there is a need for http://hebrewbooks.org/).

And finally, Rav ben Meir of Yeshivat Shvut Yisrael in Efat felt it
was just  a new tool.  He tells a story about when a certain young man
was using Encyclopedia Talmudit his RY admonished him & the talmid
responded that it was no different then the Shita Mekubetzes - the
only difference was his grandfather only had a shita! the RY then
agreed to the bachur.

Interested in hearing other takes on this.

Plz post

MM:
"and Plato's preexistent unformed matter.)

Michael Makovi"

Lich'ora A literal read of breishis 1:1-3 actually supports pre-existing primordial matter.

Did Plato know Miqra w/o TSBP?

KT
RRW
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 02:41:11AM -0400, T6...@aol.com wrote:
: A. Romulus and Remus, twins suckled by she-wolf -- founders of  Rome
: B. Phoenix -- bird that dies in fire and is reborn from the  ashes
: C. Salamander that is immune to fire
: D. Adonis or Narcissus -- handsome man who sees his reflection in  water 
: and falls in love with his own image
: E. All twelve signs of the Zodiac

One needs to distinguish between these cases. All of the following
are possible:

1- Ideas we got from them but thought that they were accurate secular
knowledge.
2- Meshalim they used that we liked
3- Ideas of ours that they liked
4- Meshalim of ours that they liked
5- Ideas that predate both us and them
6- Truths both of us reached independently
Etc...

Your list therefore runs the risk of misleading, because putting them
all together suggests to the casual reader to expect a single unifying
answer and I doubt that's true.

A-B are ideas that the locals considered history and science. It
makes sense for Chazal to accept them as fact, not only metaphor.
Whereas the only way Chazal could borrow D is because they liked the
myth's mashal. Alternatively, D could be them evolving myth around the
retelling of our story. And because it's mythical, there is no way we
can use the same answer I would suggest for E.

E is more complicated. The Zodiac predates matan Torah. We were all taught
about how tying up a sheep and offering it as the first Pesach was a
blow to the Egyptians, and your grade-school rebbe or Morah explained
it's because they worshipped sheep. Similarly, the problem at the end
of Bereishis when the brothers moved down to Mitzrayim and their being
shepherds.

The Avudraham argued that they didn't so much worship sheep as worship
the Zodiac. Thus, killing a sheep DURING Nissan was what was particularly
in defiance of Egyptian religion. And if you could be a shepherd without
tending your flock in Nissan, I don't think they would have minded.

:  
:  
: 
: 
: 
: --Toby  Katz
: ==========
: 
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Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Here is the test to find whether your mission
mi...@aishdas.org        on Earth is finished:
http://www.aishdas.org   if you're alive, it isn't.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Richard Bach

On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 02:31:52PM -0700, Saul.Z.New...@kp.org wrote:
: http://www.springbird.net/  on the similarity between uncertainty of 
: reality in physics,  and in halacha, as demonstrated  by the upcoming 
: gmara 
: lecture with sourcesheets 

I too noted the similarity, but I think that drawing a parallel to QM
superposition of states is a more grandiose claim than necessary. First,
because there is nothing like a chi wave that is a function whose value
for a given point in space and time is a complex number whose magnitude
squared gives probability.

Second, because there isn't even clarity that the model involves
statistics at all. For example, sefeiq sefeiqa would become rov is we
map uncertainty to statistics. However, that would also mean that safeiq
plus mi'ut would become rov -- 50% + 5% is still greater than 50%. But
in practice, mi'ut bemaqom sofeiq lo amrinan!

Rather, I think (as per the Maharal) that eilu va'ilu is the effect of
our having minds that are more limited than the Divrei E-lokim Chaim
under discussion. Each is therefore a limited model, what we can fit
into our realities of an Infinite Divine Thought. The question is like
asking how the same statue could case two drastically different shadows
depending upon which angle you shine your light upon it.

And I think that uncertainty WRT birur metzi'us has to do with how
people think about cheftzos and pe'ulos whose actual state is in doubt.
We can entertain and be worried of conflicting possibilities about the 
same object at the same time -- until we determine which is true.

That creates the same parallel without involving the
incomprehensibilities of QM. I know it lacks the excitement...

BTW, if the topic interests you, see the 5 issues of Higayon editted by
R' Moshe Koppel before it got folded into BDD (and shrunk).

As for my own positions, here are the blog entries:
Eilu vaEilu:
    <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2005/03/eilu-vaeilu-part-ii.shtml> (part I
    is the research of more informed minds)

The role of knowledge in defining metzi'us:
    http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2009/03/halakhah-phenomenology-1.shtml
        on microsopic bugs and birkhas hachamah -- the gap between what
        is, and what we relate to (microscopic bugs are, but we can't
        experience them and birkhas hachamah's tequfah isn't, but we
        relate to it anyway)
    http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2009/04/halakhah-phenomenology-2.shtml
        on the difference between once-perceived metzi'us (qavu'ah,
        eidus) and never perceived yet perceivable in principle (safeiq)
    http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2009/04/halakhah-and-phenomenology-3.shtml
        safeiq and rov and why "'isah' lashon safeiq hi"
    http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2009/04/halakhah-and-phenomenology-4.shtml
        qavu'ah as a kind of qavu'ah logic, and the difference between
        ranking birur by which is more recent vs which refers to
        metzi'us and which refers to din in cases of doubt

I have yet to write part 5 -- if halakhah is about what a person knows
or is responsibile for not knowing, what about metaphysical effects of
what's really there?

Tir'u baTov!
-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

Cantor Wolberg:
> My point was that it wasn't necessary in the first place to send  
> m'raglim.
> That indicated a deficiency in bitachon.

AIUI, and perhaps Zev and others were saying is:

Moshe's agents were evaluating the quality of the land. This evenetually
became "lookng the gift-horse in the mouth.". It devolved into a negative
Judgment

OTOH Yehoshua's agents had a different mission, find out their military
vulnerabilities - just as an army scout goes ahead to see the military
layout.

This is not just post facto apologetics. Yehoshua was already an
accomplished general who would challenge the Sar Zeva Hashem by asking
"are you theirs or ours!" Yehoshua was not just courageous, he was
lehavdil an agressive general in the mode of a George Patton. So his
charge was about pragmatic tactics.

As I See him, Yehoshua was also agressive in last week's parsha "adoni
moshe k'la-eim". His persona comes accross to me as bold, fearless,
confident (in HKBH)

So I find it unlikely that Yehoshua's mission betrayed any lack of
bitachon.

Also Moshe himself sends men l'regaeil es ya'zer in parshas huqqas.
Unlikely that Moshe didn't learn from shelach

Zev already outlined about 90% of my proposed 2nd posting.

The key verb is that in mission 2 of moshe and in mission 1 of yehoshua,
the verb lerageil appears. In shelach it never does only lassur.
Iirc Zev hit on this distinction already - And it is key to my hint.

The last 2 cases were military. Aiui the agents in Shelach were not
secret. They were like newcomers coming to a city and consulting real
estate agents for the layout of the land in a socio-ecpnomic sense.
EG someone from the city moves to a suburb they check out the choicest
neighborhoods, where the schools, shuls, jobs etc. may be found. That is
apparently the mission in shelach and it backfires.

AISI the mission was probably not about lack of emuna re: conquest,
rather it was lack of emunah re: how good the land really was. The spies
devolved it into a military "mission impossible" on their own.

KT
RRW
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

> The Avudraham argued that they didn't so much worship sheep as worship
> the Zodiac. Thus, killing a sheep DURING Nissan was what was particularly
> in defiance of Egyptian religion.
> -Micha

I love this peshat

Caveat:
May I ask from a hard-headed analytical scientific POV:

Is there any evidence that the Egyptians at the time of Moshe Rabbeinu
worshipped the zodiac as we know it now?

If nor then The Avudraham might be retrofitting an anachromistic peshat.
A beautful thought to be sure... But do we have solid evidence?

KT
RRW
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 09:15:23PM +0000, rabbirichwol...@gmail.com wrote:
: May I ask from a hard-headed analytical scientific POV:
: Is there any evidence that the Egyptians at the time of Moshe Rabbeinu
: worshipped the zodiac as we know it now?

The zodiac, pretty much as we know it, was found on the sarcophagus of
Ramses II (usually dated to 1223 BCE, a couple of centuries or so
off from Yetzi'as Mitrayim). It can be seen at the Louvre, or
at <http://www.dudziak.com/picture.php/egyptian_zodiac4927> (although
the oblique angle obscures making out the signs on it. Aries was
associated with their god Amon Ra, a sun god with ram horns.

Which both weakens and supports the Avudraham's point. Looks like they
had a ram god, so rams may have been special. However, Nissan being
about rams was definitely true.

And so, Google confirms the notion that the Zodiac wasn't gotten from
Hellenic or Roman culture but predates matan Torah. Although I have to
tell you, weeding out hits from authoritative sources (museums and
archeological journals) from nut-jobs was really difficult on this one.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision,
mi...@aishdas.org        yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view.
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507

Plz post

Micha:
"However, that would also mean that safeiq
plus mi'ut would become rov -- 50% + 5% is still greater than 50%. But
in practice, mi'ut bemaqom sofeiq lo amrinan!"
 -------------
A few notes:
Disclaimer I took ONLY  one semester of probablity and staistics so I know very little...

It appears from Yore Dei'ah that a safeik is almost always approximately 50-50

In terms of Rov (excluding the case of "chad bitrei") it seems to need more
than a slight rov.  IOW 51% is not enough to be mevareir a solid safeik
rather more is needed.

I have tried to see if the Rov of s'feik s'feika is close to the first or
2nd standard deviation. (Ostensibly a 75% probability all things being
equal)	Iow I am trying to harmonize scientific stats with Halachic norms. 
And So far it hasn't flown..

And I still don't get the logic for kavua nor have I heard an explanation that clicks with me so far.  (I guess g'zeira works best)

KT
RRW
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

 

And finally, Rav ben Meir of Yeshivat Shvut Yisrael in Efat felt it was
just  a new tool.  He tells a story about when a certain young man was
using Encyclopedia Talmudit his RY admonished him & the talmid responded
that it was no different then the Shita Mekubetzes - the only difference
was his grandfather only had a shita! the RY then agreed to the bachur.

Interested in hearing other takes on this.
_______________________________________________
Well, there was a clear break with halachik impact when we went from
writing to oral (per R'HS that's why post Talmudic authorities are not
permitted to disagree with Talmudic authorities unless they have a
different Talmudic authority to rely on) - but that's imho a different
transition.  However using programs to do some analysis might be
different as it goes to the nature of "thought:"

Imho the likely psak comes from R' Zimmerman -"If your time to you Is
worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'Or you'll sink like a stone For the times
they are a-changin'."

Note however the cautionary words at the end of the psak:
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'


KT
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rabbirichwol...@gmail.com wrote:
> And I still don't get the logic for kavua
Try looking up Laplace's rule of indifference (Wikipedia calls it the 
"principle of indifference").

David Riceman

On Wed, June 17, 2009 6:05 pm, David Riceman wrote:
: rabbirichwol...@gmail.com wrote:
:> And I still don't get the logic for kavua

: Try looking up Laplace's rule of indifference (Wikipedia calls it the
: "principle of indifference").

The principle of indifference says that if the die has 6 sides of
equal weight, the probability of any particular side is 1/6. And
unless you have reason to know that the coin is biased, the
probability of getting a heads is 1/2. I don't see the connection to
ignoring rov.

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight,
mi...@aishdas.org        and he wants to sleep well that night too."
http://www.aishdas.org     - Rav Yosef Yozel Horwitz, Alter of Novarodok
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:46:45 -0600 Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> 
wrote:
>A-B are ideas that the locals considered history and science. It
>makes sense for Chazal to accept them as fact, not only metaphor.

That works for me, but you're going to get resistance from the, 
"anything Chazal say on any topic represents absolute truth, and 
never their best understanding" crowd.

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

 
From: Zev Sero _zev@sero.name_ (mailto:z...@sero.name) 

>>What about the  possibility that the story just might be true?  If it
is, then no  explanation is needed for how it came down to the Greeks.<<


--  
Zev Sero         
 
 
>>>>
Might be true that it happened in Sodom or might be true that it happened  
in Greece?  Actually the possibility is close to nil.   It would  benefit 
nobody and would make no sense at all.   Well maybe a  tyrant like Sadam who 
mutilated political opponents might have done something  like that to people 
he mistrusted and wanted to make an example of.    But I think that the 
Sodom bed is a metaphor for a cruel,  totalitarian regime that forces everyone 
to conform.
 
     

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



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>
> My point was that it wasn't necessary in the first place to send
> m'raglim. That indicated a deficiency in bitachon.
> ri


I heard an interesting understanding of the story of the Meraglim. If you
read through the peshat very carefully, it seems that the spies were tasked
with finding out about the land - is it good, is it bad, is it fortified
etc. and they messed up when they editorialized (by saying "Efes/but we
cannot...").

In reality the sending of the spies on their fact-finding mission wasn't a
lack of bitachon, but rather was proper planning for entering the land. It
is important to know, for example, if all the cities are fortified and you
need to bring seige weponary etc.

Kol Tuv,
~Liron
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On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 1:40 PM, Zev Sero <z...@sero.name> wrote:

>
>
> The marriage of two non-Jews certainly does have halachic validity;
> the wife becomes an eshet ish.  And a rabbi is absolutely permitted
> to perform or supervise at a ceremony to make it so: I even know one
> non-Jewish couple who were married under a chupah by an Orthodox rabbi!
> I couldn't make it, so I don't know exactly how different it was from
> a standard chupah, but if I were to do it I'd probably just omit the
> shem umalchus from the brachot, and replace "kedat moshe veyisrael"
> with "keminhag kol ha'amim".  And translate it all to English.
>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Not so poshut at all. See Chelkas Yaakov EH 78, and Cahvos Yair 185.

Akiva
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T6...@aol.com wrote:
 
>>What about the possibility that the story just might be true?  If it
>> is, then no explanation is needed for how it came down to the Greeks.<<

> Might be true that it happened in Sodom or might be true that it 
> happened in Greece?

In Sdom.

>  Actually the possibility is close to nil.   It 
> would benefit nobody and would make no sense at all.   Well maybe a 
> tyrant like Sadam

Not a tyrant but a bloodthirsty town of sadists.  That *is* what they
were destroyed for, after all.

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

Akiva Blum wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 1:40 PM, Zev Sero <z...@sero.name> wrote:

>> The marriage of two non-Jews certainly does have halachic validity;
>> the wife becomes an eshet ish.  And a rabbi is absolutely permitted
>> to perform or supervise at a ceremony to make it so: I even know one
>> non-Jewish couple who were married under a chupah by an Orthodox rabbi!
>> I couldn't make it, so I don't know exactly how different it was from
>> a standard chupah, but if I were to do it I'd probably just omit the
>> shem umalchus from the brachot, and replace "kedat moshe veyisrael"
>> with "keminhag kol ha'amim".  And translate it all to English.
     

> Not so poshut at all.
> See Chelkas Yaakov EH 78, and Cahvos Yair 185.

Both of these are about making a shiduch, not about marrying them.
The only reason the Chelkas Yaakov comes up with to forbid making
the shiduch is that it will eventually cause children to be born
who will worship AZ.  Where that is not an issue, there should be
no problem with making the shiduch.   The Chavos Yair has even less;
he says there is no issur in making a shiduch, but only that he
received from "gedolim uzkenot" that it's not a good idea, without
any reason given at all.  Given that, I don't see any reason to
refrain even from making a shiduch, but that's not even at issue here.

When a non-Jewish couple ask a rabbi to marry them, they've already
found each other, and if the rabbi turns them down they'll just have
a different ceremony or none at all.   Even in the unlikely event that
their eventual children will serve AZ or make tzoros for yidden (and
that is unlikely in any couple who would ask for a Jewish wedding in
the first place!) the ceremony doesn't assist, even indirectly, in
those children being conceived.  They're already together, their
first child may already have been conceived, so what possible harm
could a ceremony do?

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

On Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:41:11 EDT
T6...@aol.com wrote:

...

> With a bit of research I could find a lot of examples of parallel  stories 
> in Jewish and non-Jewish ancient sources, but it's late and  I'm tired so I 
> will just mention a few that pop into my head, and the erudite  talmidei 
> chachamim (and secular historians) who people these august pages will  surely 
> be able to cite chapter and verse and correct my mistakes if I have  messed 
> up some details.
>  
> A. Romulus and Remus, twins suckled by she-wolf -- founders of  Rome

http://books.google.com/books?id=6MGM64ceEYAC&;pg=PA29

> B. Phoenix -- bird that dies in fire and is reborn from the  ashes
> C. Salamander that is immune to fire

http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/22677/

> D. Adonis or Narcissus -- handsome man who sees his reflection in  water 
> and falls in love with his own image

I'm not sure what you have in mind here; perhaps the story of Shimon B.
Shetah and the Nazir?

http://h
e.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A9%D7%9E%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%9F_%D7%94%D7%A6%D7%93%D7%9
9%D7%A7#.D7.A0.D7.96.D7.99.D7.A8_.D7.A6.D7.93.D7.A7

or

www.kitzur.com/22mpj

But in that story, the Nazir didn't exactly fall in love with his
image; rather, he felt an overwhelming temptation toward sin.

> E. All twelve signs of the Zodiac

In any event, the examples you give are very different from my point
about the stories of the beds of Procrustes and Sedom.  The former are
merely instances of beliefs common to Hazal and gentiles, the existence
of which is hardly surprising; the latter is a narrative which appears
in one form as an organic part of Greek mythology, and in another as an
organic Talmudic Aggadah about a Biblical narrative.

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


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