Avodah Mailing List

Volume 27: Number 18

Fri, 15 Jan 2010

• 1. Re: New Brachos (Arie Folger)
• 2. Re: New Brachos (Chana)
• 3. Re: New Brachos (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 4. Judaism is unique (Yitzchok Levine)
• 5. Ein Mevatlin issur lechatchilah (rabbirichwol...@gmail.com)
• 6. Re: New Brachos (Zev Sero)
• 7. Re: New Brachos (Arie Folger)
• 8. Bal Tashchit (Liron Kopinsky)
• 9. Re: Bal Tashchit (Micha Berger)
• 10. Re: Bal Tashchit (Zev Sero)
• 11. Re: Bal Tashchit (Liron Kopinsky)
• 12. Re: Bal Tashchit (Joshua Meisner)
• 13. Re: Bal Tashchit (Micha Berger)
• 14. Re: New Brachos (Chana)

R'nCL replied to RAM:
> And note that hanosen l'ayef koach would seem to violate both of
> your questions: - does the situation call for a beracha? - no it would
> seem according to the gemora, which does not mention it.  Is it an
> established nusach?  Not at the time of the gemora.

I don't think that both blessings are of a kind. Birkot hanehenin are
seen as necessary before enjoying teh world. Hanoten laya'ef koa'h is
of a different breed, a pure sheva'h. What did you mean to say that
according to Ashkenazi siddurim, we are not allowed to feel rested
without a blessing? That sounds implausible. Rather, as we pasqen like
the Rosh, that birkot hasha'har are birkot hasheva'h and not hanehenin
(hence they are recited even without following a direct benefit, i.e.,
even if I stay all day in pijamas, and do not get dressed anew, I
still make a malbish 'arumim), so, too, is hanotein laya'ef koa'h a
birkat hasheva'h.

Sheva'h does not necessarily depend on a situation the way birkot
hanehenin and birkot hamitzvot do, and hence, the situation upon which
we react by praising G"d, is more fluid. Thus, I would argue that you
will sooner encounter a berakha levatalah in birkot hanehenin and
birkot hamitzvot, than in birkot hasheva'h. This is confirmed by the
fact that we do not hesitate to praise G"d by singing poems that
include His Name (a.k.a. zemirot*)



* = And don't tell me of that strange "minhag" of not pronouncing His
Name in zemirot, a minhag that I am intimately familiar with, for it
is inherently contradictory. If one praises "HaShem", one has praised
a word, not G"d. We use that word when mentioning texts by way of
demonstration, in order to abstain from mentioning His Name, but
surely, when praising Him, we should address Him, and not play acting
out games.



Kol tuv,
-- 
Arie Folger,
Latest blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/
* Internet Halakha: Should we Expect Privacy?
* Newsflash: King David had Literate Servants
* Was die j?dische Frommigkeit animieren soll
* Equal Justice for All - even in Israel?

RAF writes:

> R'nCL replied to RAM:

Actually it was RMB who postulated that we need to always ask the two questions to understand the issue.

> > And note that hanosen l'ayef koach would seem to violate both of
> > your questions: - does the situation call for a beracha? - no it
> would
> > seem according to the gemora, which does not mention it.  Is it an
> > established nusach?  Not at the time of the gemora.
> 
> I don't think that both blessings are of a kind. Birkot hanehenin are
> seen as necessary before enjoying teh world. Hanoten laya'ef koa'h is
> of a different breed, a pure sheva'h. 

I do not disagree with this.  But, the new hypothetical brocha that RAM
came up with, that of saying "Baruch Hashem Who makes pretty rocks" On
walking down the street and seeing a pretty rock, seems to me to be a form
of sheva'h rather than nehanin (ma'aseh breishis and zocher habris is
surely shevah, rather than nehenin, and I took the rock case to be similar.
 You could I suppose say that RAM is proposing his brocha because he is
getting pleasure from the pretty rock, but we don't generally consider what
we see as giving us benefit in this way, and of course similarly we could
say that we definitely get benefit if we are given koach, but as you say we
don't generally say this).  

And then RMB was asking his two questions:

> 1- Does the situation call for a berakhah?
> 2- Is this berakhah an established nusach?

As I understood it, not just on the steak, but on this brocha as well, ie
as I understood it, RMB was saying that does the situation "seeing a pretty
rock" call for a beracha (answer no, because we don't make brochos on
rocks, but we do on seeing a rainbow or on thunder or on the ocean etc) -
ie he was not distinguishing between brochos of sheva and nehanin.

> Sheva'h does not necessarily depend on a situation the way birkot
> hanehenin and birkot hamitzvot do, and hence, the situation upon which
> we react by praising G"d, is more fluid. Thus, I would argue that you
> will sooner encounter a berakha levatalah in birkot hanehenin and
> birkot hamitzvot, than in birkot hasheva'h. This is confirmed by the
> fact that we do not hesitate to praise G"d by singing poems that
> include His Name (a.k.a. zemirot*)

Again, I don't disagree.  But, it seemed to me, when RAM was proposing the
brocha that he felt would be a bracha l'vatala as he had always understood
it,  it was a new brocha of sheva that he came up with.  The point he was
making was that if he felt that it was truly magnificent that Hashem
created pretty rocks, and he wished to praise him for this, he had, up
until this point, understood that he could not do so because to do so was a
form of bracha l'vatala.  RMB then proposed asking his two questions in
relation to all brochos to get to the issue, which would seem to include
brochos of shevah.

Now, what I was trying to point out was that in a similar case, you have a
new brocha (one not found in Shas), the issue that worried the Taz and
others was the existence of a rule that one should not create new brochos
post Shas, but not because there is an issue of bracha l'vatala d'orisa.
And on the other hand ROY and others understand the Mechaber as not liking
hanoten layef koach not because it is a new brocha that violates an
accepted position that post shas we do not come up with new brochos
(because after all, not to accept new brochos post Shas is surely a form of
minhag, and Ashkenazim saying it is also a minhag, so one minhag can trump
another), but because if you do so, you get into bracha l'vatala territory.
 Sheasani k'rotzono is surely a bracha of shevach, but ROY says you should
say it without shem or malchus.
 
> * = And don't tell me of that strange "minhag" of not pronouncing His
> Name in zemirot, a minhag that I am intimately familiar with, for it
> is inherently contradictory. If one praises "HaShem", one has praised
> a word, not G"d. We use that word when mentioning texts by way of
> demonstration, in order to abstain from mentioning His Name, but
> surely, when praising Him, we should address Him, and not play acting
> out games.

I don't disagree with this either.  But, (although interestingly I don't
think the Sephardi poskim posken like this) I can see a logic that *if* you
say that merely mentioning HaShem's name when it is not given sanction by
Chazal to do so (which is the way I understand RAM to have understood the
matter of a  bracha l'vatala up until now), then why would you not
potentially have problems with mere songs?  The question is, what is wrong
with a bracha l'vatala?  Is it that one is giving false witness by saying
something that is (implicitly or explicitly) not true (such as one is going
to eat when one is not), or is it that mentioning Hashem's name without
sanction is in itself the problem, and it does not matter what else you put
around it?  It seems to me that your approach is consistent with the
Ashkenazi approach as I understand it, but which RAM is struggling to
understand, but I am not sure it works with the Sephardi approach (but that
may be because I don't fully understan
 d that approach).

> Kol tuv,
> --
> Arie Folger,

Regards

Chana

One cannot investigate the concept of "bracha Lvatalah" very far without
running into the claim that it is connected to Lo Tisa. But I never
understood that. If one says a well-intentioned prayer, how can one claim
that he has taken Hashem's name in vain? Beyond Lo Tisa, it also conencted
to the issurim of shevuos of various kinds, and I never understood that
either. I am blessing, not swearing.

But R"n Chana Luntz's post has opened my eyes, and I thank her. There are
many many kinds of oaths, and often, the determination of whether something
is an oath or not will sometime depend merely on the context. For example,
Hashem's repetition of the phrase "lo osif - I will not continue" a second
time (Bereshis 8:21) is what made it into a *shevua* that He would no
longer continue, according to Rashi. (Thanks to Wikipedia for that
example.)

If so, then it is only my mistaken opinion that a blessing is not an oath. Chazal feel differently and say that it *is*. RCL wrote:

> If you understand this in the context of the discussion vis a
> vis shevuos, you can understand that if a bracha is the formula
> to be said to permit eating the steak, then if you say the
> bracha and you do not eat the steak, then you are effectively
> making a statement, using the Shem Hashem, which says sheochal,
> and then you do not eat, which is shav indeed (or sheker, but
> I don't think it really matters which pasuk we are talking
> about here - note that the gemora there prefers to use shav to
> describe sheachalti, or shelo achalti, ie about the past,
> which would seem to make the terms sheker more applicable.
> Note also that on 21a it understands shav to apply only when
> the statement is to contradict that which is well known with
> the other psukim applying to the four references to eating).

I have not learned that Gemara, so I'm not familiar with the ideas you're
bringing. But I am coming around to the idea that when Chazal designed a
bracha (whether they specified the precise text is irrelevant), they made
it equivalent to an oath. In doing so, they invoke a whole set of rules
about what that bracha means and when it can be said. Perhaps this is also
why it is important to have a precise definition of what is and is not a
bracha: it must contain Shem and Malchus.

For example, Hamotzi is equivalent to swearing that one will now eat some
bread; if he does not do so then it is equivalent to a false oath.
Similarly, if he says Shehakol during a Hamotzi meal and does eat the
shehakol food, it is not a false oath, but it is an unnecessary oath.

But, if it is a bracha which Chazal did NOT design, then it does not have
any rules which define its meaning. That is why it cannot be considered
equivalent to an oath, and is exempted from these entire categories of
Bracha L'vatalah and Bracha She'eina Tzricha. (Only the brachos which
Chazal designed can fall into these categories. For example, suppose
someone says Al Hamichya BEFORE eating some cake. From the text, it is not
necessarily a Bracha Acharona; one could argue that it is a valid Bracha
Rishona but that he is guilty of changing the "matbea shetiv'u chachamim" -
he changed the form from that specified by the Chachamim. But my guess is
that it *would* be a Bracha L'vatala, because Chazal defined Al Hamichya as
a shevua thanking Hashem AFTER one eats, and he did not eat anything
beforehand.)

I can now retract my previous post, in which I said that a brand-new,
original bracha would be the worst kind of bracha Lvatalah, because it is
totally wasted, not filling any need seen by Chazal. Instead, it seems that
new brachos escape this category on a technicality, because they cannot be
defined as oaths.

I hope the above makes sense and is correct. If anyone disagrees, please
suggest another explanation of why New Brachos don't count as L'vatala. But
if the above is correct, then perhaps this thread can be considered
answered and closed.

Akiva Miller

PS --- I was looking for an example of such a new bracha, and I wrote:

> But suppose I am walking down the street and I see a very pretty rock.
> It is so pretty that I want to praise HaShem for it, so I say, with
> Shem and Malchus and in Hebrew, "Baruch Hashem Who makes pretty rocks."
> That's NOT assur.

RCL and R' Arie Folger accept this example, and start analyzing its status
as Birchas Hanehenin or Shevach, or perhaps something else. That is
interesting, and I do not want to interrupt their discussion.

But, if anyone's curious I will lay out the criteria which led to my choice
of using pretty rocks for my example. First of all, I needed a bracha which
has never appeared in any siddur anywhere, because of that would lead to
too many side conversations on ground which was already covered elsewhere.
I considered something like "Who makes many kinds of cheese", but then we
would get sidetracked on whether or not this was in fact an
already-existing bracha, and that the only problem is that of deviating
from the standard text. I needed something totally original, and pretty
rocks was the best I could come up with. Nehenin or shevach never entered
my mind.

____________________________________________________________
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In his commentary on Shemos 6

7 I will take you to Myself as a people and I will be a God to you; 
you will come to know that I am Hashem, your  God, Who brings you out 
from under
the burdens of Egypt.

RSRH writes

Li l'am. These two short words are the first statement of Israel's
destiny. They express the quality that makes Judaism so unique. It is
entirely inappropriate to refer to Judaism as "the Jewish religion"; it is
thoughtless to define Judaism as a religion, to classify it with the other
religions, and then to be amazed that this "religion" includes so many
elements that transcend the conventional bounds of "religion." Li L'am:
Israel is to be a people unto God.

This statement alone already makes it clear that Judaism, as established
by God, is not a religion at all. True, Judaism also embraces
elements generally characterized as "religion," but the term "Judaism"
is completely different and infinitely broader. In "religion," God has
only temples, churches, priestly orders, congregations, etc. Nations, peoples,
are subject only to kings and governments; they are founded on
the concept of statehood, not on religion and God. In Judaism, however,
God founded not a church, but a nation; a whole national life is to be
fashioned by Him. Israel will be His people, not just a congregation of
believers. 
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This is a "redux" Re: Can we lechatchilah rely upon the b'di'avad whilst
under the auspices of an eino-Yehudi?

See SA O"Ch Hilchos YT
517:2

Regarding a Yisrael asking an eino-Yehudi to purshase something on YT.

Here is a key phrase that *MIGHT* have kashrus implications

SA.
> ...muttar... Aval im ragil b'chah assur.. D'EIN ZEH HASHUV B'DIAVAD
> KEIVAN D'RAGIL B'CHAH"

IOW what coulf be kosher b'diavad on an ocassional basis would fail if
done on a regular basis.

Illustration of how I'd apply it
If eino-Yehudi bakes dairy bread ONCE and labels the package only, I
can make a case that it slips through the g'zeira against baking dairy
bread w/o forming an intrinsic siman.

BUT
If I give hashgacha and the eino-Yehudi is ragil - then it's tantamount
to using a dairy bread l'chathcila w/o an intrinsic siman and l'chatchila
relying upon the package. [And that would depend upon where you stand
on that issue]

KT
RRW
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

kennethgmil...@juno.com wrote:

> I have not learned that Gemara, so I'm not familiar with the ideas
> you're bringing. But I am coming around to the idea that when Chazal
> designed a bracha (whether they specified the precise text is irrelevant),
> they made it equivalent to an oath. In doing so, they invoke a whole set
> of rules about what that bracha means and when it can be said. Perhaps
> this is also why it is important to have a precise definition of what is
> and is not a bracha: it must contain Shem and Malchus.
> 
> For example, Hamotzi is equivalent to swearing that one will now eat
> some bread; if he does not do so then it is equivalent to a false oath.
> Similarly, if he says Shehakol during a Hamotzi meal and does eat the
> shehakol food, it is not a false oath, but it is an unnecessary oath.

But surely the most basic requirement of an oath is intent.  Suppose
someone hands me a page of transliterated Urdu, which I read, and I
then find out that it said "I swear, al daas bes din ve'al daas horabim
and without any asmachta, and with every expression of shevu'ah, to
give Mr Imran Khan $1M", surely it is of no effect, since I had no idea
what I was saying.   Hashem's repeating "lo osif" is a *sign* that He
was taking an oath; it's not some sort of magic formula that "trapped"
Him kiveyachol into an oath that He didn't mean to take!  If someone
doesn't know that repetition is a conventional way of indicating an
oath, then how can his repetition have that meaning?


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

Daer Ovedim, I want to apologize for an overlong post, but I believe
that you will enjoy some of the ideas expressed herein.

R'n CL wrote:

> I do not disagree with this. ?But, the new hypothetical brocha
> that RAM came up with, that of saying "Baruch Hashem Who
> makes pretty rocks" On walking down the street and seeing a
> pretty rock, seems to me to be a form of sheva'h rather than
> nehanin (ma'aseh breishis and zocher habris is surely shevah,
> rather than nehenin, and I took the rock case to be similar.

That's right.

>?You could I suppose say that RAM is proposing his brocha
> because he is getting pleasure from the pretty rock

No, I don't consider that hanaah, either. However, I don't see why he
couldn't be so awed that he would be moved make, say, an 'oseh ma'aseh
vereishit. In fact, it may be justified (a bit tricky here, but it's
clearly the case when seeing awesome wonders of nature). That is a
reaction of sheva'h upon seeing something awe inspiring, not at all a
matter of being neheneh,

> As I understood it, not just on the steak, but on this brocha
> as well, ie as I understood it, RMB was saying that does the
> situation "seeing a pretty rock" call for a beracha (answer no,
> because we don't make brochos on rocks, but we do on seeing
> a rainbow or on thunder or on the ocean etc) - ie he was not
> distinguishing between brochos of sheva and nehanin.

He wasn't distinguishing, I was.

> Again, I don't disagree. ?But, it seemed to me, when RAM was proposing the brocha that he felt would be a bracha l'vatala as he had always understood it,

That's indeed how he felt. And it may be correct. But it may also be incorrect.

<SNIP>

> on the other hand ROY and others understand the Mechaber
> as not liking hanoten layef koach not because it is a new
> brocha that violates an accepted position that post shas we do
> not come up with new brochos (because after all, not to accept
> new brochos post Shas is surely a form of minhag, and
> Ashkenazim saying it is also a minhag, so one minhag can
> trump another), but because if you do so, you get into bracha
> l'vatala territory. ?Sheasani k'rotzono is surely a bracha of
> shevach, but ROY says you should say it without shem or
> malchus.

You are quoting the paramount Sefardi qanai, while I was explaining a
possible understanding of the Ashkenazi position. Apples and pears.

<SNIP>

> I can see a logic that *if* you say that merely mentioning
> HaShem's name

[nitpick: isn't HaShem already implying G"d's Name? Sounds like good
yom tov and mayim macharoinim wasser to me ;-) --AF]

> when it is not given sanction by Chazal
> to do so (which is the way I understand RAM to have
> understood the matter of a ?bracha l'vatala up until now),
> then why would you not potentially have problems with mere
> songs?

The logic goes the opposite way. Quite obviously, most people don't
have such gripes. Yes, we are exceedingly careful about not
pronouncing G"d's Name unnecessarily, but we do generally pronounce it
when praising Him in religious song and poetry, as well as in
voluntary prayers (zemirot, te'hinot). Almost no one has a problem
with this. So, merely pronouncing G"d's Name outside of the framework
of Talmudically prescribed prayers isn't yet levatalah. Hence, the
reason why it may be considered levatalah has to do with the formula
of blessings.

I suggest the following speculative thought. As we know (well, if you
read the gemoraus precisely, and also look in teh Yerushalmi) that the
Anshei Knesset haGedolah did not formulate the prayer as we now know
it. They didn't formulate the shemoneh 'essrei, because it didn't
crystallize until hundreds of years later (I will provide a counter
sevara below, which doesn't impact my argument here). What they did do
is, first of all, to innovate the use of the berachot. In Tanakh, we
can count on the fingers of one hand all the berakhot, and only one or
two have shem umalkhut (Vayvarekh David is the one/one of them). Thus,
it seems that in Bayit Rishion different forms of prayer were used.

The AKhG innovated the use of blessings and made it the cornerstone of
prayer. They also formulated some actual berakhot and some actual
prayers.

Now perhaps AKhG felt that berakhot are so special, that the use of
such formulas should be severely curtailed, for it is, perhaps, akin
to a shevu'a, in that using it wrongly would result in a recitation
levatalah. This elaboration is of course based on your suggestion of
looking at shevu'ot for comparison.

However, that doesn't mean we can't innovate blessings at all, just
that it is so dear and risky that only very seldom may a post Talmudic
blessing appear.

NOTE: The Avudraham shows a strong affinity between the Tefillat
'Hannah and the shemoneh 'essrei. Hence, it is possible that AKhG and
even their predecessors had a rough list of topics and an order in
which these topics ought to have been included in prayer, when someone
would pray (remember that the obligation to pray twice and then thrice
daily is from after the 'hurban, tefillot keneged temidim tiqnum).
However, people were still free to drop some of those topics in favor
of others, as the Yerushalmi implies. In other words, there was only
partial standardization.

And it should not be surprizing that some aspect of the shemonei
'essrei would be so old, even though the text only became fixed with
Rabban Gamliel deYavneh and that even then it took another 5-6
centuries to really become fixed (give or take the minor differences
between the 'edot), for the whole idea of praying three times a day is
also hundreds of years older than its institution. Daniel regularly
prayed thrice daily and we quote in modim the phrase 'erev vavoqer
vetzahorayim, which is from Tehillim, so this idea, perhaps that when
one engages in prayer, or when one wants to engage in ideal prayer,
that one should pray thrice daily, well that may be as old as tefillat
'Hannah, or even older. Perhaps that is the meaning of tefillot Avot
tiqnum.

Kol tuv,
-- 
Arie Folger,
Latest blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/
* Das innige Gebet einer Frau
* Eine falsche Ethik
* Internet Halakha: Should we Expect Privacy?
* Newsflash: King David had Literate Servants
* Was die j?dische Frommigkeit animieren soll
* Equal Justice for All - even in Israel?

Hi,
An interesting discussion I had with my chavruta this morning:

1) If someone accidentally spills a drop of milk into a big pot of
chicken soup, it is still for sure kosher because of bittul baRov. Are
you obligated to serve the soup because of Bal Tashchit?
[Side note, you may also be obligated to show you don't reject the
concept of bittul baRov.]

2) If someone holds by a particular chuma - say an Ashkenazi who only
eats glatt meat. If someone gives them non-glatt meat as a gift are they
allowed to throw it out or is it Bal Tashchit? (They should find someone
who doesn't hold by that chumra to give it to).

3) If someone is very health-conscious with their food and get given
a gift of a pack of hotdogs, can they throw it out or is it Bal
Tashcht? They obviously don't want to give it to someone else as it is
"unhealthy" although probably fine in small doses. (My chavruta suggested
that if throwing this out would be assur, why wouldn't it also be assur
to throw out a pack of cigarettes, but I don't buy the analogy.)

Any ideas as to where the bal tashchit line falls?

Thanks,
Liron

On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 01:34:00PM -0800, Liron Kopinsky wrote:
: 1) If someone accidentally spills a drop of milk into a big pot of
: chicken soup, it is still for sure kosher because of bittul baRov. Are
: you obligated to serve the soup because of Bal Tashchit?

R' Yaakov Moshe haKohein Lessin, the Slabodka alumnus who was mashgiach at
YU (short bio <http://www.yu.edu/riets/index.aspx?id=28202>), famously
never finished a desert. As an excercise in self-discipline, there was
always a bit of cake (or whatever) left on his plate.

I repeated this story to someone, who asked my about bal tashchis in
wasting that last forkful of cake. I suggested that perhaps RYML
considered the excercise in perishus to be a proper use of the cake.

A similar answer would work here.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur
mi...@aishdas.org        with the proper intent than to fast on Yom
http://www.aishdas.org   Kippur with that intent.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                       - Rav Yisrael Salanter

Liron Kopinsky wrote:

> 3) If someone is very health-conscious with their food and get given
> a gift of a pack of hotdogs, can they throw it out or is it Bal
> Tashcht?

Bal tashchis degufa adif.

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

On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 01:34:00PM -0800, Liron Kopinsky wrote:
> : 1) If someone accidentally spills a drop of milk into a big pot of
> : chicken soup, it is still for sure kosher because of bittul baRov. Are
> : you obligated to serve the soup because of Bal Tashchit?
>
> On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 1:42 PM, Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:
> R' Yaakov Moshe haKohein Lessin, the Slabodka alumnus who was mashgiach at
> YU (short bio <http://www.yu.edu/riets/index.aspx?id=28202>), famously
> never finished a desert. As an excercise in self-discipline, there was
> always a bit of cake (or whatever) left on his plate.
>
> I repeated this story to someone, who asked my about bal tashchis in
> wasting that last forkful of cake. I suggested that perhaps RYML
> considered the excercise in perishus to be a proper use of the cake.
>
> A similar answer would work here.
>
> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha
>

 I would argue that these two cases are not analogous. That minor piece of
cake remaining is of no use to anyone other that R' Lessin. If so, it is his
choice whether the best use of the cake is to eat it or to hold back from
eating it. Similarly, if someone is served food and is full before their
plate is finished, throwing out the leftovers would most likely not be
wasting the food because no one else would eat it anyway.
An entire pot of chicken soup however, could very well still be used and
showing "restraint" and not using it might fall under ???-?????? ???????
???????? - al tehi Tzaddik harbe.
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On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 4:42 PM, Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 01:34:00PM -0800, Liron Kopinsky wrote:
> : 1) If someone accidentally spills a drop of milk into a big pot of
> : chicken soup, it is still for sure kosher because of bittul baRov. Are
> : you obligated to serve the soup because of Bal Tashchit?
>
> R' Yaakov Moshe haKohein Lessin, the Slabodka alumnus who was mashgiach at
> YU (short bio <http://www.yu.edu/riets/index.aspx?id=28202>), famously
> never finished a desert. As an excercise in self-discipline, there was
> always a bit of cake (or whatever) left on his plate.
>
> I repeated this story to someone, who asked my about bal tashchis in
> wasting that last forkful of cake. I suggested that perhaps RYML
> considered the excercise in perishus to be a proper use of the cake.
>
>
> Kiddushin 32a relates a ma'aseh in which Rav Huna tested his son's mida of
ka'as by tearing a silk garment (that he would eventually inherit) in his
presence.  It notes that doing so would ordinarily be a violation of bal
tashchis, were it not that the tear was actually done along a seam.  This
being the case, it seems that the use of an otherwise useful item as a
mussar tool would still be considered bal tashchis.

- Josh
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On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 07:20:46PM -0500, Joshua Meisner wrote:
: Kiddushin 32a relates a ma'aseh in which Rav Huna tested his son's mida of
: ka'as by tearing a silk garment (that he would eventually inherit) in his
: presence.  It notes that doing so would ordinarily be a violation of bal
: tashchis, were it not that the tear was actually done along a seam.  This
: being the case, it seems that the use of an otherwise useful item as a
: mussar tool would still be considered bal tashchis.

Perhaps only because the same goal could have been obtained by tearing
along a seam.

What makes your earlier application of al tehi tzadiq harbei difficult
is that "bal tashchis" isn't about throwing food out, it's about wasting
it. So you first must define use vs waste.

Perhaps upholding a chumrah is sufficient use for a food, one that could
not be obtained otherwise. Perhaps one ought to take any food one treifs
up, and find a homeless nachri who isn't an aku"m. Perhaps there is a
reason why a tereifah "lakelev tashlichun osah" rather than just throw
it out. (Other than the silence of the kelavim during yetzi'as Mitrayim,
as that only answers why them in particular.)

But we haven't generalized this in the past 2 millenia to other non-kosher
food (not even neveilos), so I really doubt that is how far bal tashchis
goes.

:-)BBii!
-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

RAF writes

> You are quoting the paramount Sefardi qanai, while I was explaining a
> possible understanding of the Ashkenazi position. Apples and pears.

I agree.  The point I was trying to make to RAM was, that the Ashkenazi
position makes a lot of sense.	If anything it seems to be the Sephardi
position that I find hard to understand (which is the opposite of where he
was coming from, as he said that he understood the Sephardi position, as it
gelled with everything he had been taught, but could not understand the
Ashkenzai position).

> The logic goes the opposite way. Quite obviously, most people don't
> have such gripes. Yes, we are exceedingly careful about not
> pronouncing G"d's Name unnecessarily, but we do generally pronounce it
> when praising Him in religious song and poetry, as well as in
> voluntary prayers (zemirot, te'hinot). Almost no one has a problem
> with this. So, merely pronouncing G"d's Name outside of the framework
> of Talmudically prescribed prayers isn't yet levatalah. Hence, the
> reason why it may be considered levatalah has to do with the formula
> of blessings.

I agree, and as you elaborate (and which I have snipped), this fits very nicely into the whole Ashkenazi framework

> However, that doesn't mean we can't innovate blessings at all, just
> that it is so dear and risky that only very seldom may a post Talmudic
> blessing appear.

I think it probably needs to be a bit stronger than that, given the way the
rule is cited.	Whether the rule not to make post Talmudic brochos is
indeed linked to the rule not to make post Talmudic gezeros (which is where
we started) is interesting to consider (note they both source in the Rosh).
 And you do need two caveats:

a) fiddling around with portions of the wording of a brocha does not constitute a new brocha; and
b) minhag may allow for violations of the no post Shas brochos rule.

But other than that, I think what you say makes perfect sense within the Ashkenazi context.

I do want however to spend some more time on the Sephardi position, 
because, as I have tried to articulate, that one seems to be the more
difficult to understand.  And I don't know how to reconcile RAF's research
with the Sephardi position.  But even more basic than that, I don't
understand what is underlying the Sephardi position. This is probably of
far less interest to RAF than it is to me, because he lives fully within an
Ashkenazi context, and hence the Sephardi limud is only really about a road
not taken, although for learning's sake it no doubt has value.	But of
course for me, who lives somewhere between the two worlds - as I have
articulated before, it is of far greater relevance [For those who do not
know my background, I am Ashkenazi who married a Sephardi man, and, because
one of the big issues that worried me about the shiddush before I married
was the vast differences in minhagim, we agreed before we married that
while in terms of food related matters in the ho
 use we would keep the Sephardi minhagim, I would otherwise retain my own
 minhagim. That means that I say sheasani kerotzono with shem and malchus,
 bench lulav with a brocha (using the Ashkenazi method of shaking the
 lulav, not the Sephardi one) etc etc].

That is not to say I cannot quote the Sephardi position. The ROY teshuva in
which he says that shasani k'rotzono must be said without Shem and malchus
and if said with Shem and Malchus it is a brocha l'vatala is to be found in
Yechave Da'at chelek 4 siman 4.  And indeed he holds that the Rosh's
prohibition on new brochos post Shas is due to bracha l'vatala issues.	And
I can indeed understand the chain of tradition that leads ROY to say this,
a chain of tradition which fundamentally stems back to the Rambam who holds
(as per the Magen Avraham siman 215) that the issur bracha l'vatala hu
issur min haTorah shenemar lo tisa et hashem Hashem Elokecha l'shav (see
fuller details as to where the Rambam states this in ROY's teshuva).

But what that ultimately seems to mean is that I do not understand the Rambam.

Or rather, if I was just looking at the pasuk of lo tisa, without any
background, I might well understand it to mean when it says that one shall
not take the name of Hashem in vain, that that meant that one was in
violation of the lav if one mentioned Hashem's name at any time when it was
not absolutely necessary.  And in fact it seems to me that we do take this
approach with regard to the shem hameforash.  Even somebody who knows how
to pronounce it (like the Kohen Gadol) cannot just go around pronouncing
it, he only says it on Yom Kippur in the correct place etc.

But, it seems to me, to say what the Rambam seems to say (or at least the
way that it is understood by the various commentators down the line to ROY)
means that we have to say the same thing regarding the word(s) we use in
our brochos.  We only know that a brocha is absolutely necessary if
formulated by Chazal, and anything else is potentially not necessary.

Now it seems to me that the alternative way of reading the pasuk (the
Ashkenazi way) is that lo tisa prohibits using Hashem's name in any context
that is false (not just unnecessary).  That comfortably picks up the
various shavuah issues, as they are only discussing giving malkos when
somebody uses Hashem's name to say something that is false, like I ate when
I didn't, or something that is known to everybody to be untrue.  And I can
see how one can get to making brocha on something and then not eating it as
being within the same category.

But logically the Ashkenazi way does not lead one to object on lo tisa
grounds to sheasani kerotzono, as this statement is one of shevach which is
undoubtedly true.

So how do we explain the Sephardi approach?  I don't think we can say
according to the Sephardi approach (as RAF has logically said according to
the Ashkenazi approach) that "Hence, the reason why it may be considered
levatalah has to do with the formula of blessings." - because the formula
of blessing appears unquestionably to be a d'rabbanan formulation, and yet
according to the Sephardi approach deviating from it makes for a d'orisa
violation.  Ie according to the Sephardi approach, there must be something
in the use of Shem and Malchus that triggers off a d'orisa (that it would
seem gets waived if the brocha is one instituted by Chazal, presumably
because if Chazal say it is necessary then it is necessary, ie they define
what is not in vain, but anything they don't specifically say is not in
vain is in violation).	But that would seem logically to lead to saying
Hashem's name in zmiros etc as being equally problematic, but the Sephardi
tradition is not so.  Oh, and just t
 o throw into the mix, ROY holds that despite the Mechaber not wanting the
 saying of hanoten l'ayef koach, that this is to be said with Shem and
 Malchus (although I confess the ultimate basis seems to be that while we
 can't find any evidence of it being in Shas, it is such an old brocha,
 known by the geonim, that it must really have been in Shas and gotten
 lost).  This is despite hanotel l'ayef koach really being a new brocha,
 whereas one could argue that sheasani krotzono is really a refiddling of
 the form of shelo asani isha so as to make it true in context.

So all this is really saying - how does one explain the Rambam, and I don't at this stage have any real answers to this.

> Arie Folger

Regards

Chana



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