Avodah Mailing List

Volume 27: Number 165

Wed, 8 Sep 2010

• 1. shenatan mechachmato (Rich, Joel)
• 2. Ki Seitzei and Yaaqov (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: Ki Seitzei and Yaaqov (Gershon Dubin)
• 4. How game theory solved a religious mystery (Prof. Levine)
• 5. Re: new editions (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 6. Re: new editions (Micha Berger)
• 7. Game theory (Eli Turkel)
• 8. Lechem u Basar (was How game theory solved a religious mystery) (Prof. Levine)
• 9. Re: Hayinu keCholmim (Alan Rubin)
• 10. Is it permitted to say Tehilim for a sick person? (Prof. Levine)
• 11. Re: Lechem u Basar (was How game theory solved a religious mystery) (Zev Sero)
• 12. Re: Is it permitted to say Tehilim for a sick person? (Zev Sero)
• 13. Re: Is it permitted to say Tehilim for a sick person? (cgsteinm...@juno.com)
• 14. what was he thinking? (David Riceman)
• 15. Re: what was he thinking? (Ben Waxman)
• 16. Re: One African-American Family's Journey to Judaism (T6...@aol.com)

R' Micha in his eulogy for Rabbi Ehrenpreis asked:
Meeting Rabbi Ehrenpreis might have posed a halachic problem: Do I say
the berakah of ????? ?????? ???? ??? ? ? Who gave from His Wisdom to
flesh and blood?, the blessing made on meeting a superlative secular
scholar? Or do I say the berakhah ????? ?????? ?????? ? Who apportioned
from His Wisdom to those who have yir?ah of Him? being that this is one
of the most brilliant minds I ever met who studied Torah? Do I say both
? and if so, which comes first?

In Audios #101 on Hirhurim the following may be of interest:
http://ravkaplan.dafyomireview.com/
listen.php?f=%2Faud%2F5770-Halacha%2F5770-55-tzitzis-2-techelesv5g17lmp3

Rav Nissan Kaplan - Tzitzis/Tcheils

A nice matched pair (by me ? through hasgacha pratit?) of shiurim
on tcheilet/Tzitzit. R?Lebowitz goes through 9 objections to wearing
Tzitzit/tcheilet (most from writings of R'HS) and shows the weakness of
the opposition. R'Kaplan does something similar but includes status of
current "gedolim" sightings.

Bottom line sounds like "Friday evening, Sunday in the afternoon, what
have you got to lose" ? but change, "you know it don't come easy".

Economics also may take a part (but interesting to me that a "baal
Nefesh" requirement for Chalav Yisrael at an economic cost is considered
"standard" while a chance to do a possible mitzvah duraita isn?t. Is it
a cost difference?)

Also interesting is a quote from R'Hutner (by R'Kaplan) on no blessing
on a ben brit who is a scholar of secular wisdom.

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I have a half-developed idea about the parallels between this week's
parashah and the events in the second-half of seifer Bereishis. Bevause
I only have the start of an idea, I thought that it may be fun to bat
around here.

What started this notion was when I noticed that the Racheil is described
as "yefas to'ar". Then we have Yitzchaq's wayward son, Eisav. Yoseif,
the bekhor ben ha'ahuvah. And Yoseif is sent to be killed and left
there. (Unlike the person who must be taken down off the tree.) The ox
driven away, a plausible Yoseif reference as well. As is the shaatnez
garment. The lying husband, the rape victim -- Dinah? Etc...

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                Brains to the lazy
mi...@aishdas.org           are like a torch to the blind --
http://www.aishdas.org      a useless burden.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                      - Bechinas HaOlam

http://www.torah.org/advanced/mikra/5770/kiseitzei.html

Gershon
gershon.du...@juno.com

----------  Original Message ----------
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
...
I have a half-developed idea about the parallels between this week's
parashah and the events in the second-half of seifer Bereishis. Bevause
I only have the start of an idea, I thought that it may be fun to bat
around here.

What started this notion was when I noticed that the Racheil is described
as "yefas to'ar". Then ...

At 10:59 AM 8/20/2010, R. Micha wrote:
>The context of this discussion is <http://tinyurl.com/65okjc>, R' Yisrael
>Aumann (a/k/a Prof Robert Aumann, the Nobel Laureate in Economics 2005)
>and his explanation of a difficult question in hilkhos yerushah.

>On Areivim, RZS asked about the value in general:
>> *If* Prof. Auman was mechaeven to the intention of the original Amoraim,
>> then yasher koach to him, and we can now understand this gemara better
>> than the rishonim did; and maybe there are more gemaras that the same
>> knowledge will help interpret, but maybe that's the only one. Is it
>> really worth studying game theory just for that? Once one has 'filled
>> his belly with bread and meat', perhaps; but surely not until then.

>The quote about lechem ubasar is significant, and can't be summarily
>dismissed.

Does it not depend on how "big" a stomach one has. Some people are full
after eating only a small amount, while others can eat much, much
more. Furthermore, does not the RAMBAM say that one should eat just
enough to keep one alive, which is far from filling one's stomach? (This
is written to some extent tongue in cheek, yet there may be some real
truth in it.) YL
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R' Joel Rich asked:
> I've often wondered what responsibility a person has to check
> back with a posek (forget about books) or does he have to ask
> a new shailah when his posek is niftar (e.g.the poseik later
> in life decides hachzara is no good, or is niftar and the new
> rav in town holds differently)

If any such responsibility exists, it would have to be constant -- who
knows when the posek might change his mind? And one would also have to
maintain a list of such psakim so as to be able to re-ask them. I don't
see such a situation as being tenable.

The alternate answer then, would be: One should ask whenever circumstances
lead one to think that he should do so. One such situation would be where
he notices a conflict between his current posek and his previous one,
and so he asks the new one: "I once asked him, and he told me ABC. What
do you think I should do?"

Another example would be when one finds his circumstances have changed,
for whatever reason. One case would be where he suspects that a lenient
psak which he got in his early baal teshuva days might no longer be
appropriate. Another might be where he got a strict psak when he was
single, and now family or job considerations might make a different
approach more proper. Another would be when one moves to a new town and
he suspects that there might be a minhag hamakom that he is not aware of.

Too many people feel stuck by a strict psak they got when they were young,
or liberated by a lenient one. Neither approach is growth in Torah. Growth
is when when you look at who you are, and who you want to be, and look
for a way to get there.

Akiva Miller

On a related note, there is a three-way machloqes about how to determine
the shitah of R' Yosef Caro. I couldn't find the previous discussion of
this, when I still remembered who said what. ROY was involved.

1- Follow the SA.

The SA is his code, what do to in the "universal" sense. See the thread
"is psak local or universal" and the URL with which RSZN launched it
<http://garnelironheart.blogspot.com/2010/08/guest-post.html>.
"Garnel Ironheart" emphasized the "local" nature of halakhah, how much
it depends on the particulars of the case. R' Ben Hecht thought he
over-corrected, and wrote about the universal-general is no less critical.

To me it sounded like the reverse of when I wrote about halakhah
as a heuristic, weighing the pros and cons on legal-process,
mimetic, and spiritual desirata. And RnCL thought I was being to
"top-down" and corrected me by reinforcing the "bottom-up" aspects.
This then became one of three comments on Avodah that pointed out
parts of my theory on halachic process that needed more elaboration
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2007/12/halachic-process-addenda.shtml>
has quotes from her posts and my response.

Anyway, since a code emphasizes the universalist / top-down elements
of halakhah, it is more suitable for application to new cases. We do
not know everything about the case in the teshuvah, and there might
be something about that case that isn't in ours that wuold have made
a difference to the meishiv (in this case, Maran Bet Yosef).

2- Follow the teshuvah.

Teshuvos, being lemaaseh, are written with greater siyata diShmaya than
the theoretical. Therefore the teshuvah is more authoritative.

3- Follow whichever was later.

This sounds to me the most logical, however....

a- Arguably the Beis Yoseif was a rishon, but as the author of a post-SA
teshuvah the very same mechaber is arguably an acharon!

b- Dating his teshuvos are in most cases guesswork. It is usually unclear
which came after the SA.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                None of us will leave this place alive.
mi...@aishdas.org           All that is left to us is
http://www.aishdas.org      to be as human as possible while we are here.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                -  Anonymous MD, while a Nazi prisoner

All of Prof. Aumann's including the ones relevant to the gemara are at
http://www.ma.huji.ac.il/~raumann/publication.htm

In particular he has a recent response to several rabbis who disagreed
with his chiddush (in Hebrew) see 91. "????? ?????? ?? ???? ???? 3
????" ("A Response Regarding the Matter of the Man with Three Wives"),
Hama'yan 50, 2, Tevet 5770 (January 2010), pp. 1-11 (In Hebrew).
http://www.ma.huji.ac.il/~raumann/documents/hamaayanresponse3women_0
01.pdf
obviously these rabbis read his articles and understood them and I assume
had no background in game theory. In particular in the new article he
discusses various opinions of the rishonim

-- 
Eli Turkel

At 10:59 AM 8/20/2010, R. Micha wrote:
>On Areivim, RZS asked about the value in general:
>> *If* Prof. Auman was mechaeven to the intention of the original Amoraim,
>> then yasher koach to him, and we can now understand this gemara better
>> than the rishonim did; and maybe there are more gemaras that the same
>> knowledge will help interpret, but maybe that's the only one. Is it
>> really worth studying game theory just for that? Once one has 'filled
>> his belly with bread and meat', perhaps; but surely not until then.

>The quote about lechem ubasar is significant, and can't be summarily
>dismissed.

Is it possible that "filling one's belly with bread and meat" means
that one has to study secular subjects as well as Torah? After all,
R. Yhonason Eybeschutz wrote in Yaaros Devash 2:7 (as translated by
L. Levi in Torah and Science, pages 24-25):

For all the sciences are "condiments" and are necessary for our Torah,
such as the science of mathematics, which is the science of measurements
and includes the science of numbers, geometry, and algebra and is very
essential for the measurements required in connection with the Eglah
Arufah and the cities of the Levites and the cities of refuge as well
as the Sabbath boundaries of our cities. The science of weights [i.e.,
mechanics] is necessary for the judiciary, to scrutinize in detail whether
scales are used honestly or fraudulently. The science of vision [optics]
is necessary for the Sanhedrin to clarify the deceits perpetrated by
idolatrous priests; furthermore, the need for this science is great in
connection with examining witnesses, who claim they stood at a distance
and saw the scene, to determine whether the arc of vision extends so
far straight or bent. The science of astronomy is a science of the Jews,
the secret of leap years to know the paths of the constellations and to
sanctify the new moon. The science of nature which includes the science
of medicine in general is very important for distinguishing the blood of
the Niddah whether it is pure or impure and how much more is it necessary
when one strikes his fellow man in order to ascertain whether the blow
was mortal, and if he died whether he died because of it, and for what
disease one may desecrate the Sabbath. Regarding botany, how great is
the power of the Sages in connection with kilayim [mixed crops]! Here
too we may mention zoology, to know which animals may be hybridized;
and chemistry, which is important in connection with the metals used in
the tabernacle, etc.

Yitzchok Levine 
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Micha Berger suggested
> I encountered in the TY, Terumos 1:1 2b, a discussion of someone who
> r"l is sometimes shoteh sometimes lucid. The term used for healthy
> is "chalim". At the end, the gemara justifies translating the tanna
> accordingly by citing Yeshaiahah 38:17 "vesachalimeini vehachayeini".
> (Similar citation is in the TB, Mes Berakhos and Menachos 44b.)

> So perhaps "hayinu kecholmim" means "we will be like people recovering"?

Amos Chacham in the Mosad Rav Kook edition has a note as follows.

The Aramaic targum translates 'kecholmim' heich mar`aya de'ittasyan
- like ill people that were healed. It explains from the expression
'"vesachalimeini vehachayeini". Isaiah 38' 16", the exile is compared
to an ill person and the redemption to a cure.

I saw a more beautiful explanation on the Har Etzion website. On the
basis that the first paragraph is in the past and we are dealing with
stages of the redemption after the Babylonian exile.

'Return us like flashfloods in the Negev and not like the original return
when a small number came back when we were like in a dream.'

Alan Rubin

I think that anyone reading the subject line would answer in the
affirmative. Yet the post at http://tinyurl.com/26yqak5 says

Rambam in Hilchos Avoda Zara 11:12 who after forbidding to say pessukim
from the Torah for physical relief quite vehemently, saying that not
only is that considered magic it also includes the one who does it among
Koferim in the Torah! because the words of the Torah are supposed to
heal the Nefesh and not the Body. He then continues "avol habori shekoro
pesukin o mizmor mitilim kedei shetogen olov zechus kerioson veyinotzel
mitzoros unezokim harei zeh mutar." A healthy person who reads verses or a
poem of Tehilim so that he should be protected by the Zechus of reading,
that is permitted. Note that there is no way that someone is allowed to
read for another person. It is only permitted to say it for oneself.

He also says that one is not allowed to make a meshebeirach for a
sick person!

Yitzchok Levine 
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Prof. Levine wrote:
> At 10:59 AM 8/20/2010, R. Micha wrote:

>> The quote about lechem ubasar is significant, and can't be summarily
>> dismissed.

> Is it possible that "filling one's belly with bread and meat" means that 
> one has to study secular subjects as well as Torah?

No, that's the exact opposite of what it means. The Rambam's language
is very clear.

> After all, R. 
> Yhonason Eybeschutz wrote in Yaaros Devash 2:7 (as translated by L. Levi 
> in Torah and Science, pages 24-25):
> For all the sciences are "condiments" and are necessary for our Torah, 

Condiments. Exactly. *Not* food.

-- 
Zev Sero
z...@sero.name

Prof. Levine wrote:
> I think that anyone reading the subject line would answer in the 
> affirmative. Yet the post at http://tinyurl.com/26yqak5 says

[...]

> He also says that one is not allowed to make a meshebeirach for a sick 
> person! 

The fact that he reaches such a bizarre conclusion, which blatantly
contradicts Tanach and the Gemara, proves that his premises are wrong.

-- 
Zev Sero
z...@sero.name

See Merkeves Hamishna on the Rambam, and Shu"t Tzitz Eliezer v 17 Siman
30.
CGS

On Sun, 22 Aug 2010 11:52:26 -0400 "Prof. Levine"
<Larry.Lev...@stevens.edu> writes:
Rambam in Hilchos Avoda Zara 11:12 who after forbidding to say pessukim
from the Torah for physical relief quite vehemently, saying that not
only is that considered magic it also includes the one who does it among
Koferim in the Torah! because the words of the Torah are supposed to
heal the Nefesh and not the Body. He then continues "avol habori shekoro
pesukin o mizmor mitilim kedei shetogen olov zechus kerioson veyinotzel
mitzoros unezokim harei zeh mutar." A healthy person who reads verses or a
poem of Tehilim so that he should be protected by the Zechus of reading,
that is permitted. Note that there is no way that someone is allowed to
read for another person. It is only permitted to say it for oneself.

Yitzchok Levine 
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I attended a wedding this afternoon, and I, along with a local rabbi,
was an eid for the tenaim. I wanted him to sign first because he's a
synagogue rabbi, and (I kid you not) he wanted me to sign first because
my beard is whiter than his. Finally he asked me if I'm a talmid hacham
[sic], I said no (truthfully), and he signed first.

I am puzzled, however, since even a real talmid hachamim is permitted
to deny being one, and what kind of red blooded American would miss the
chance to legally lie to an authority figure like a synagogue rabbi? Is
there anyone who would answer yes to that question? What was he thinking?

David Riceman

I was told about someone had to go see Rav Moshe. Before meeting Rav
Moshe in person he asked him if he should say that bracha that one
recites when seeing a talmid chacham. Rav Moshe answered yes.

Ben
-----  Original Message ----- 
From: "David Riceman" <drice...@optimum.net>
> I am puzzled, however, since even a real talmid hachamim is permitted to 
> deny being one, and what kind of red blooded American would miss the 
> chance to legally lie to an authority figure like a synagogue rabbi? Is 
> there anyone who would answer yes to that question? What was he thinking? 

re-posted to Avodah by request

I posted this to Areivim:
>>Yvonne Durant: One African-American Family's Journey to Judaism
>>Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yvonne-durant
>>/one-african-american-fami_b_660836.html

>>or http://tinyurl.com/28w88yn

>>Jewish mother gave her black baby up for adoption in the 1960's

In a message dated 8/23/2010 , Larry.Lev...@stevens.edu then wrote:

The article says
"This night will be like no other night I've experienced with a Jewish
family. While I have been a guest for many years at my friend Maggie
Klein's family Passovers (I come armed with containers to take home matzo
ball soup and charoset, and Maggie's sister, Fran Fink, is happy to fill
them up), where I addressed the late matriarch as "Mother Klein," I have
never been the guest of a Modern Orthodox African-American family. Tonight
I will be one of two Gentiles, the other being Elyse's sister, Arnette
Haynes, and we'll be joined by two other couples -- six children in all,
and two dogs."

My understanding is that one is not allowed to invite a non-Jew to eat
at one's home on Yom Tov. See http://tinyurl.com/24to8zh

YL 

For various reasons it has happened that we did have goyim to our house
for yom tov -- once for a seder -- and my understanding is that you
are not allowed to cook for them on yom tov but if you cooked before
yom tov, you can put the food on the table for everyone including the
non-Jewish guests. The second seder is more of a problem because you
have to warm up the food on yom tov. The first seder is less of a problem
because you put the food on the heat before yom tov started.

Anyone who follows the link RYL provided will see that it says you can't
/cook/ for goyim on yom tov, it doesn't say you can't invite them to
your table.

I would also like to ask what you would do with a non-Jew who is both A.
planning to undergo an Orthodox gerus and is in the process of learning
and also B. currently married to a Jew who is on the way to becoming a BT.

I do not think kiruv can be done nowadays without also being mekarev
goyim. We live in a strange Alice in Wonderland world. There is no
non-Orthodox Jew who doesn't have goyim in his family -- his father,
his wife, his in-laws. In fact, even most FFBs today -- if they have any
non-frum relatives -- have goyim somewhere in the family. As I have said
before, I believe that we are living in the last generation in which
kiruv is even still possible.

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

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