Avodah Mailing List

Volume 27: Number 89

Thu, 25 Mar 2010

• 1. Re: Selling whiskey/bourbon (rabbirichwol...@gmail.com)
• 2. Davening: Is a Hat and Jacket Required (AES)
• 3. Re: Selling whiskey/bourbon (Zev Sero)
• 4. Re: Selling whiskey/bourbon (rabbirichwol...@gmail.com)
• 5. Re: Selling whiskey/bourbon (Zev Sero)
• 6. Re: Selling whiskey/bourbon (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 7. Re: Selling whiskey/bourbon (Micha Berger)
• 8. Re: Selling whiskey/bourbon (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 9. Re: Selling whiskey/ bourbon (Daniel Israel)
• 10. Re: Selling whiskey/ bourbon (Ben Waxman)
• 11. cottonseed oil (Eli Turkel)
• 12. Moshe's name in the haggadah. (Chanoch (Ken) Bloom)
• 13. Re: Intelligent design (david guttmann)
• 14. intelligent design (Eli Turkel)
• 15. What is Chametz? (Alan Rubin)
• 16. Re: Moshe's name in the haggadah. (Simon Montagu)
• 17. Re: Moshe's name in the haggadah. (Rich, Joel)
• 18. Re: Moshe's name in the haggadah. (Micha Berger)
• 19. Re: What is Chametz? (Micha Berger)

RRW
> Now - bottled wine is pre-diluted.

RZS
> Not true.

Rambam MT hil hametz 7:9 Touger edition p. 144

> In Talmudic Time wines were very strong and had to be mixed with water
> before being drunk.
> At Present, most commercially prodeuced wines have already been diluted
> with water...

P. 145
> .... At present when the wines commercially produced are SIGNIFICANTLY
> dilluted with water in the factories..


I want to express my gratitude to RZS for inspiring me to do this
research. [Hislamdus]


RZS
> But a drop of water *after* fermentation would make instant chametz.

Gotta Source?

To repeat
SA:
    Ho'eel
    uch'var nistabtlu hamayyid b'yayin qodem shelash ho'issa

Added to the wine Iwter is bateil before hitting the issa

Who is the first to be m'chaleiq between whether the wine has yet
fermented or not?

ZP
RRW                      
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

RSBA wrote (on Areivim):

: IIUC, wearing a hat and jacket during bentching is a stronger requirement
: than for davening.

RMB responded:

>>>It would seem from the yerushalmi, that's only if you ate mesubin....

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

And, according to the "mekubalim" cited by the Magen Avraham in SA OC
183:1 s"k 5, the requirement to wear a hat for bentching is only when
one is in Eretz Yisroel and not for those in chutz l'Aretz.

And the Magen Avraham also brings the Bach who states that a "yarei
shamayim" should wear a hat and jacket for bentching.

KT,
Aryeh

rabbirichwol...@gmail.com wrote:
> RRW
>> Now - bottled wine is pre-diluted.
> 
> RZS
>> Not true.
> 
> Rambam MT hil hametz 7:9 Touger edition p. 144

The Rambam says no such thing.
 
>> In Talmudic Time wines were very strong and had to be mixed with water
>> before being drunk.
>> At Present, most commercially prodeuced wines have already been diluted
>> with water...

This is absolutely not true.  Wine in Chazal's day was no stronger than
today.  In fact it was somewhat weaker, on average: it couldn't possibly
have been stronger than 12%, whereas nowadays we have wines that are as
high as 16%.   And our wines are certainly not watered!



> RZS
>> But a drop of water *after* fermentation would make instant chametz.
> 
> Gotta Source?

The same shulchan aruch you quoted.   It talks only about water from the
harvest, not from after fermentation.

> SA:
>     Ho'eel
>     uch'var nistabtlu hamayyid b'yayin qodem shelash ho'issa
> 
> Added to the wine Iwter is bateil before hitting the issa

So why is water in orange juice different?  You must surely have an
explanation for that, since you rejected the obvious one offered.


> Who is the first to be m'chaleiq between whether the wine has yet
> fermented or not?

I don't know who is the first to put this *obvious* chiluk on paper,
but it's explicit in SA Harav.   I haven't got sefarim here to check,
but I'd guess that if you look in the MA you'll probably find it there
too.   You should also look in siman 272 re raisin wine, where the same
chiluk applies: raisin wine is nearly 100% water and is still hagafen;
after fermentation one can add more water up to shiur mezigah but beyond
that it becomes shehakol.


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

Apparently there has been some confusing information I will do my best
BEH to set the record straight.

On dilution of wine

    Water has a long history of being used to dilute wine in order to
    make it more palatable. The ancient Greeks thought it was "barbaric"
    to drink undiluted wine.[1] They further believed that undiluted wine
    was unhealthy and that the Spartan king Cleomenes I was once driven
    insane after drinking wine that was not diluted with water. Today,
    few people dilute their personal drinking wine for consumption like
    the Greeks ==> but the use of water during the wine making process is
    still prevalent.[7]

    7. J. Robinson (ed) "The Oxford Companion to Wine" Third Edition pg
    762 Oxford University Press 2006

Thus, Wine is routinely diluted even nowadays
in the plant - see Touger Below.

Re: Orange Juice? - I don't know.  

Thus, when making matzah ashira by Adding water to the orange juice
first - it MIGHT be bateil - but I'm not sure.

OTOH, Adding Water to Wine first is definitely bateil as per an explicit
SA. That's mamash how the SA justifies adding it to the grapes.during
the harvest.

If anyone has a source for qualifying this SA in a different manner
please produce it. Otherwise I must take the SA at his word that adding
water to grapes is OK BECAUSE adding water to wine before it is mixed
is bateil.

And if anyone knows a poseiq who disputes this SA, please state that
source


AIUI, ashkenzim are chosheish that ingredients such as wine would have
some water that MIGHT speed up fermentation and therefore avoid this
matzah ashira. There might be other ch'shshos, but it is cetainly not
deemed hameitz gamur.


Now the SA Harav has said, 
A. that which is added in the normal process, does NOT dilute and remains
hametz gamur.

Thus, 
B. b'pashtus re: wine prior to matzah ashira - whan routine amounts of
water is added to wine, it still remains wine gamur.

C. Of course excessive amounts would be different.

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


is still added routinely in the wine industry. I cannot say if his
information is accurate or not. Lacking evidence to the contrary I
would assume he IS accurate. Nevertheless an error here is possible
- but I'd like to see some evidence that this is in error - not just
statements w/o support.


Diluting wine in the old days had little to do with the strength of
the alcohol, it had to do with preservatives used in cask wine before
bottling was perfected

As a matter of fact
The entire process of bottling wine changed everything I got this directly
from a wine professional - a sommelier - with a strong Jewish background.

Background:
Sommeliers several centuries ago used to determine how much water todilute
a given wine in order to serve it.

Nowadays that aspect is obsolete for sommeliers - as is m'ziga in
general. because today's bottled wine needs no m'ziga
Probably because
Either
A. It's pre-diluted
Or
B. It's palatable as is because it ages in the bottle w/o any preservatives.
Or
C. ???

Anyone still doing m'zigah is probably out of minhag avos or nostlgia.

FWIW Catholics still dilute their ritual wine because it was done at
yenner seder.

Also, I never quoted the Rambam. Just Touger's commentary. I don't see
how that was not clear, but now I am BEH setting the record straight.


RZS:
> It is indeed in the MA, 462:6, in the section beginning "veachar kach
> motzosi", in the name of the Knesses Hagedolah.

In siman 462 See
Hoq Yaakov 6 + 12
Ba'eir Hetev 7, 11
Hagah on MGA 6 by harav m'kutna 
MGA 3 

FWIW HY 6 [which I  saw 2nd] explicitly rejects Zev's Hilluq
As does BH 7 

As per HY 12 a few drops of water in ANY mei peiros before it hits the
issa is also bateil. My Hiluq follows HY, if the water hits the wine
first is different if it hits later. Hakkol modim a lot of water is
indeed a problem.


The Hiluq Both HY and BH make is simple
Drops of water in wine first is indeed bateil, in the batzeik it's too
late. MGA 3 says the same.

Batzir is not a  necessary hilluq at all
So why batzir in SA s'if 3? Pashut: that was the time water HAD to be
added "ee efshar". Not that adding later was necessarily too late.
The "too late" as per MGA 3 is leesha time.

BEH I will double check MB later at work.  

ZP
RRW
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

I wrote:
>> Who is the first to be m'chaleiq between whether the wine has yet
>> fermented or not?
> 
> I don't know who is the first to put this *obvious* chiluk on paper,
> but it's explicit in SA Harav.   I haven't got sefarim here to check,
> but I'd guess that if you look in the MA you'll probably find it there
> too.

It is indeed in the MA, 462:6, in the section beginning "veachar kach
motzosi", in the name of the Knesses Hagedolah.   


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

Someone asked:
> When was there ever a kehillah that were all makpid on glatt,
> despite holding that non-glatt was kosher al pi din? ...

R' Micha Berger answered:
> Who do you think immigrated to the US after the war, set up
> shlacht-hoizen free from the mafia infiltration that plagued
> the older ones, and thereby made glatt the norm here in the US?

If I'm understanding RMB correctly, yes they were "makpid on glatt", but
that hakpada was not for religious/kashrus reasons (but to be free of mafia
infiltration). Thus it is not a useful example for the discussion.

Akiva Miller

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On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 05:17:02AM +0000, kennethgmil...@juno.com wrote:
: If I'm understanding RMB correctly, yes they were "makpid on glatt",
: but that hakpada was not for religious/kashrus reasons (but to be free of
: mafia infiltration). Thus it is not a useful example for the discussion.

"They" the consumer, yes. The Hungarians who set up the shlacht-hoizen
brought glatt with them from their towns in Hungary. This then became
identfied in the American mind with being mafia-free, and thus more
reliable.

I ws bringing evidence, though, that there were large swaths of Eastern
Europe where glatt kosher was observed by entire towns. (Basically, by
repeating how I deduced that.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

R' Zev Sero wrote:

> One theory on why Ashkenazim don't eat matza ashira on Pesach is
> that we're afraid that despite all our care water may have found
> its way into the mei peiros. Sefardim are not worried about this;
> they acknowledge that *if* water were present it would make
> chametz, but they're confident that with proper care one can keep
> water out. (And to go back to our earlier discussion, according to
> this theory there is no reason to distinguish Pesach from Erev
> Pesach. There's an issur de'oraisa to each chametz on Erev Pesach
> after noon, so if we're worried about egg matzah having become
> chametz on Pesach then we must have the same worry on Erev Pesach
> as well.

I agree with your explanation about the Ashk/Sfard difference; that's what
I was taught too. But there still *is* reason to distinguish Pesach from
Erev Pesach, because on Erev Pesach - even after chatzos - chametz is
"merely" a lav, whereas on Pesach itself it is karays.

We're dealing with something that is not definitively assur by any shita.
At worst, there is a fear that manufacturing errors may have caused it to
become something other than our intended product. I can easily see why
someone (or a community) would want to be machmir for an issur karays, but
would rely on the mashgichim for an ordinary lav.

Akiva Miller

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Meir Shinnar wrote:
> The issue of mechirat chametz seems to fall under this rubric -
> clearly, as individuals, most of us can survive easily without selling
> chametz, even if we lose a few single malt scotches.....  However, as
> a community, we are dependent after pesach on stores having sold their
> chametz..

If the chumra is not to sell chametz, then your analysis holds.  If, 
OTOH, the chumra is not to sell chametz unless there is hefsid merubah, 
we may find that everyone can keep this chumra, however the result will 
in general be that only shopkeepers sell chametz.

Unless you are referring to not buying chametz after Pesach from someone 
who sold his chametz.  In which case you may be right, but I think RMB's 
point that this is a chumra at the expense of someone else's parnassa is 
more to the point.  Not to mention that (as someone else pointed out) 
chametz sheavar alav hapesach is only a kenas on the original owner, so 
it is hard to see any basis for such a chumra.

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

Rav Moshe essentially paskens this idea in his tsheuva on using wooden
spatulas one time and then exchanging them when baking matza. He rejects the
practice because there is simply is not enough wood around to do it for
everyone. And even if there is some individual great rav who is machmir, no
one should learn from that practice.

Ben
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Meir Shinnar" <chide...@gmail.com>

>
> This aspect of Rav Saadya is not one that is, TTBOMK,  widely repeated
> in later literature - and what RZS represents is more the aspect of
> the individual drive to perfection - regardless of the impact on the
> community - but the communal (communitarian?) position is one that
> some of us feel is sorely lacking in much of current discussion.

<<>> Cottonseed is  completely out of the question, because it grows on a
tree, and everyone  agrees that tree fruit are not included.  <<--

And what about all the poskim that prohibit Cottenseed oil?
I remember sveral years ago in EY, R. Landau gave a hecsher to cottenseed oil.
There was such an outcry that a few days before Pesach he was forced
to declare that
one should not use the cottenseed oil under his hechsher.

BTW if one looks at the Jewish Action article
http://www.ou.org/pdf/ja/5770/spring70/70-75.pdf
the OU allows cottenseed oil because cottenseed is not edible nothing
about it being a tree
they dont allow Canola oil and dont recommend Quinoa but do allow citric acid

-- 
Eli Turkel

I recall hearing as a child that the Haggadah makes no mention of Moses
anywhere. Obviously, if we look at a haggadah today, there is an
explicit reference to Moses, by Rabbi Yossi Hag'lili. Was this statement
that Moses isn't in the haggadah a complete fabrication, or is there a
source (and a girsa) to justify this statement?

--Ken

>[A] It may be that the universe is the product of Intelligent Design --
that the Creator set it up to develop along certain lines.
Toby Katz

>So God intelligently designed a system that deliberately extinguished 95 %
of all life forms over a period of a few million years? Hmmm!

Perhaps a better approach is D) God created something from nothing,
including nature. Nature then created something from something
--


RTK and RMB argue about ID. ID can be assumed, not proven. There is a macro
logic to the world even the extinsion of species. The universe comes into
being  and continues to finalize its form cataclysmically so that it
survives eternally at the cost of some species that somehow are able to
reemerge in different forms. The ID is not in every detail but the whole
enterprise. But this is only a subjective argument. We can also say that
this "intelligence" is evolutionary through a mechanism that came into being
on its own just like evolution explains the existence of biological species
without necessarily having an "intelligence" directing it.  

That is the issue. Proponents of ID are trying to use 'intelligence" as
PROOF that there is an "intelligent" and that is a fallacy. It is only once
one has proven or accepted (I go for the former, others claim that my proof
is fallacious) one can look back and say things make better sense with ID
and using that I am going to try and find the "Intelligent" behind it all
and emulate Him. Because that is all that I will ever know about Him - the
result of His actions. 

My point is that both RTK and RMB are right but miss the point of the issue.
It is a common occurrence in these arguments and using ID as proof for
existence of HKBH rather that using it to seek out Chochmato always falls
flat and in Kiruv may be harmful when confronted with a logical mind.

Chag Kasher Vesameach to all and thanks for great reading and thought
provoking discussions . 


David Guttmann
 
If you agree that Believing is Knowing, join me in the search for Knowledge
at http://yediah.blogspot.com/ 
 
Ve'izen vechiker (Kohelet 12:9) subscribe to Hakirah at www.hakirah.org 

To be clear "intelligent design" is a very specific topic. It has nothing to
do with G-d being intelligent.

Due to various attacks on creationism being non-scientific certain
groups (mainly
Protestant groups with a very literal reading of the Bible) have
invented "intelligent design" as an alternative to Darwin. Officially
"intelligent design" does not seek to prove that there is a G-d that created
the universe (again that violates separation of church and state). Rather the
main argument is that because nature is so complex it could not have
come by natural evolution.

Prof. Aviezer brought several proofs against the idea. He stressed that
because intelligent design is wrong it does not mean that Darwin and natural
evolution is right. His personal viewpoint is that evolution in correct but it
happened in jumps (eg a meteor hitting earth) rather than natural selection.

I have some statistical questions about Aviezer's arguments but when I asked
him he basically ignored the question.

-- 
Eli Turkel

Is chametz a purely Halachic construct, an empirically observable
phenomenon or something else?

Evidence for it not being an empirically observable phenomenon.

Chametz can only occur with 5 species. Is it not possible that other
species might also leaven?

Pure Mei Peyros cannot make chametz. But Mei Peyros is mostly water
and presumably bread made with it looks like it has leavened.

Evidence for it being an empirically observable phenomenon.

Doesn't the gemara in the dispute over whether rice leavens or rots
describe observing it to see what happens. (I might have remembered
this wrong)

So what is chametz?

Alan Rubin

On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 8:23 PM, Chanoch (Ken) Bloom <kbl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I recall hearing as a child that the Haggadah makes no mention of Moses
> anywhere. Obviously, if we look at a haggadah today, there is an
> explicit reference to Moses, by Rabbi Yossi Hag'lili. Was this statement
> that Moses isn't in the haggadah a complete fabrication, or is there a
> source (and a girsa) to justify this statement?

Moses' name appears at the end of a pasuk in RYHG's derasha, and the
derasha is based on the beginning of the pasuk. I have always assumed
that the original girsa only quoted "Vayar' Yisrael et hayad hagedola"
and later versions added the rest of the verse. I have no sources, but
it makes sense to me.

I recall hearing as a child that the Haggadah makes no mention of Moses
anywhere. Obviously, if we look at a haggadah today, there is an explicit
reference to Moses, by Rabbi Yossi Hag'lili. Was this statement that Moses
isn't in the haggadah a complete fabrication, or is there a source (and a
girsa) to justify this statement?

--Ken
_______________________________________________
R'JJS in a recent shiur on YUTORAH reports such a girsa, then gives other
reason (iirc name is mentioned vayaminu bhashem...implying secondary status
to night's focus on HKB"H)
KT
Joel Rich
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On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 04:27:44AM -0700, Simon Montagu wrote:
: Moses' name appears at the end of a pasuk in RYHG's derasha, and the
: derasha is based on the beginning of the pasuk. I have always assumed
: that the original girsa only quoted "Vayar' Yisrael et hayad hagedola"
: and later versions added the rest of the verse. I have no sources, but
: it makes sense to me.

I'm not sure we were ever nohagim to read half a pasuq. Maybe up to the
esnachta at beMitzrayim, is arguably permitted. (A discussion we had
WRT the first words of Fri night qiddush.) But my first instinct would
be that the original girsa also had the entire pasuq.

However, to say that something dragged in like this kele'akheir yad,
just to complete the pasuq, qualifies as mentioning Moshe, is also
questionable. Perhaps citations were altogether excluded from the decision
not to distract with mention of MRAH.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to
mi...@aishdas.org        suffering, but only to one's own suffering.
http://www.aishdas.org                 -Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949)
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 12:29:08PM +0000, Alan Rubin wrote:
: Is chametz a purely Halachic construct, an empirically observable
: phenomenon or something else?
...
: Chametz can only occur with 5 species. Is it not possible that other
: species might also leaven?

That's the whole discussion in the gemara about whether orez leavens.
I would think that R' Yochanan ben Nuri holds that chameitz means leaven,
in the biological sense. However, we follow the chakhamim that chameitz
means leavening one of the 5 grains, which are really 5 subtypes of the
2 grains for which EY is blessed, with water. Otherwise, the leavening
is called sirchon, not chameitz.

So, I would say that gemara (Pesachaim 35a) bears out a difference
between leaven and chameitz.

HOWEVER, the leavening of one of the 5 grains with exposure to water
is an empirically observable phenomenon. So the difference isn't about
empiricism. It may be biologically the same as other forms of leavening,
but it is different in an empirical way -- the ingredients differ.

: Pure Mei Peyros cannot make chametz. But Mei Peyros is mostly water
: and presumably bread made with it looks like it has leavened.

The problem with mei peiros, though, is fears of impurity. Not "looks
like". If any water was added to the H2O in the fruit, you could have
chameitz. And technically speaking, with the extra fructose provided by
the fruit juice, the yeast have a feast to work with and will produce
bubbles in the dough faster than with just water and starch to work with.

...
: So what is chametz?

As I suggested above, it is the leavening of water and one of the 5
species. Directly correlated to an empirical metzi'us, just not as broad
of a category as leavening.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A sick person never rejects a healing procedure
mi...@aishdas.org        as "unbefitting." Why, then, do we care what
http://www.aishdas.org   other people think when dealing with spiritual
Fax: (270) 514-1507      matters?              - Rav Yisrael Salanter


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