Avodah Mailing List

Volume 27: Number 197

Thu, 18 Nov 2010

• 1. Re: Local, Non-Global or Global Flood (Joshua Waxman)
• 2. Is Turkey Kosher? (Prof. Levine)
• 3. Re: Murder? (Harry Maryles)
• 4. Jousting bochurim at medieval Ashkenazi weddings. (Prof. Levine)
• 5. Re: Is Turkey Kosher? (Zev Sero)
• 6. Re: Is Turkey Kosher? (Micha Berger)
• 7. Re: talmudic thinking (Micha Berger)
• 8. Re: Is Turkey Kosher? (Zev Sero)
• 9. Re: Local, Non-Global or Global Flood (Zvi Lampel)
• 10. "Brain death" as a halachic criterion for death (Saul Mashbaum)
• 11. Re: Is Turkey Kosher? (Rich, Joel)
• 12. Re: Is Turkey Kosher? (Micha Berger)
• 13. Re: Is Turkey Kosher? (Zev Sero)
• 14. Re: Is Turkey Kosher? (Micha Berger)
• 15. Re: Local, Non-Global or Global Flood (Zev Sero)
• 16. Re: Maaser Sheni and Yerushalayim bizman hazeh (Danny Schoemann)

To bolster your Zeide's peshat, since others are questioning it, I would 
point out that Rav Yonasan Eibeshitz says more or less the same thing,
in terms of considering whether the New World, America, was flooded.
He considers it acceptable to say that it was not, assuming that it was 
uninhabited by humans at that ponit. At least in a hava amina:
To quote from my own translation:
?
http://parsha.blogspot.com/2010/10/rav-yonasan-eibeshutzs-rocket-shi
p.html
?
"And if so, how could humans have come there before the Deluge to the New World 
without a ship? And if you say that there were no men there, then even the 
Deluge didn't descend there, for it would be to no purpose."On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 
at 12:27:12PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> OK.? IIRC, my zaida told me this in response to my question about
> the Ararat mountains being much lower than the Himalayas.? He asked,
> how did I know the flood reached India?? If humans were confined to
> Western Asia then there was no reason for anywhere else to be flooded,
> and the Ararat mountains (the Kurdish mountains, as Onkelos calls them)
> may well be the highest in that region.

?
Of course, he goes on to reject it, because otherwise how is Eretz Yisrael 
considered 

"pure", over other lands. 
?
kol tuv,
josh
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At 03:13 PM 11/17/2010, Micha wrote:
>Rav Dovid Lifshitz didn't eat turkey on any day, but he held it was kosher
>mei'iqar hadin. Of RDL's talmidim, only one was advised to share this
>chumerah -- and only if he didn't tell people. So, the story circulates
>without sheim omero. (In case you're wondering, no, not me.)

>This is much the same as RNKamenetzky reported about his father, R'
>Yaakov Kamenecki, "My father did not advocate that others abstain"
>(personal fax to RAZZivotofsky, as reported in the Journal of Halakhah
>and Contemporary Society).

The following is from http://tinyurl.com/24gj9xb

Generally the minhog in Ashkenaz was to eat turkey, (in the work 'Minhogei
Amsterdam' you can see turkey cited as one of the birds eaten). There
were very few families, (mostly in Russia and Lithuania) that did not
eat Turkey, but that definitely was not the common minhog.

The person who pointed me to this wrote, "According to R' Hamburger
[author of Sheirushei Minhag Ashkenaz], Turkey has a valid mesorah."

YL

--- On Wed, 11/17/10, Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:

> A question is also (and this is more halachically significant) whether
more lives are risked overall if one lets individual recipients to
buy their way to the head of the line. That goes beyond the ethics of
penalizing someone too much for their poverty.
?
----------------------------------
?
Another ethical/halakhic question. Let us say a billionaire needs a kidney
to save his life. He's been given days to live withpout a transplant. No
compatible donor has yet been found... and there are a few people in
similar situations that are in line ahead of him to get one from UNOS
should?it become available.?
?
What are the ethics of?this billionaire?offering?a million dollars to
anyone with a compatible kindey to donate it directly to him? There are
people who might not otehrwise be willing to donate a kidney that will now
trip all over themselvs at a chance to 'sell' their 'spare' kidney for a
million dollars.
?
HM

Want Emes and Emunah in your life? 

Try this: http://haemtza.blogspot.com/




      
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Please see http://tinyurl.com/2dwh9vl

YL


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On 17/11/2010 3:53 PM, Prof. Levine wrote:

> Generally the minhog in Ashkenaz was to eat turkey, (in the work 'Minhogei
> Amsterdam' you can see turkey cited as one of the birds eaten). There
> were very few families, (mostly in Russia and Lithuania) that did not
> eat Turkey, but that definitely was not the common minhog.

Yes, we know that.  But on what basis did that minhag arise?  It must
have started in places where they didn't believe a mesorah was necessary,
or else out of a mistaken belief that a mesorah existed elsewhere.


> The person who pointed me to this wrote, "According to R' Hamburger
> [author of Sheirushei Minhag Ashkenaz], Turkey has a valid mesorah."

But we know beyond doubt that that isn't true.


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

On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 04:07:28PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> Yes, we know that.  But on what basis did that minhag arise?  It must
> have started in places where they didn't believe a mesorah was necessary,
> or else out of a mistaken belief that a mesorah existed elsewhere.

See RAZZ's article available at http://www.kashrut.com/articles/turkey/
originally published in the Spring 1998 issue of the RJJ Journal.

It would seem that the turkey road in on the coat-tails of the tarnigol
adumah. The MA (79:14) and the MB (79:14), and the latter cites the MA
and Ateres Zeqeinim as quote the Bach in identifying the tarnigol adumah
with the "english hen", and traces it back to talmidei R' Yonah (if I
got TR"Y correct) and the Rashba. The problem, as RAZZ notes, is that
the halakhah in question, that one can't daven near the excrement of a
tarnigol adumah because it is smellier than that of other tarnigolos,
is mentioned in the Y-mi, and where would they have encountered a turkey?

FWIW, I just texted someone who worked in Be'eirot Yitzchaq (a member
of Qibbutz haDati located between Petach Tiqva and the airport) and
he replied that turkey droppings do qualify as particularly less more
odorous than chickens'.

But I think (again, from reading RAZZ) we're meiqil because it's a
machloqes rishonim if a bird with no safeiq about the simanim needs a
mesorah to begin with, and (now guessing) perhaps we didn't pasqen that
way until after turkey got grandfathered in.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When one truly looks at everyone's good side,
mi...@aishdas.org        others come to love him very naturally, and
http://www.aishdas.org   he does not need even a speck of flattery.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Rabbi AY Kook

BCC: Author of Avakesh blog

On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 12:14:32PM -0800, Saul.Z.New...@kp.org wrote to
Areivim:
: on whether  secular  knowledge is an impediment  to  talmudic thinking 
: http://parsha.blogspot.com/2010/11/how-eliyahu-segal-can-lea
: rn-yerushalmi.html
: http://www.avakesh.com/2010/11/talmudic-thinking-and-secular-ed
: ucation.html

They do not contradict. RJWaxman (parsha.blogspot) is speaking of "the
importance of knowing realia. And that this does not detract from knowing
gemara and halacha, but might in fact bolster it."

Avakesh (I don't see where he makes his identity explicit, so I won't)
opens his blgo entry:
> To a modern man, the ability to think talmudically comes with
> effort. Conditioned by the scientific outlook, we tend to think of many
> concepts in a very different way than the Talmud, and without training,
> we see its discussions as peculiar and strange.

One is speaking about knowing science, the other is speaking about
the science-centric outlook that is part of modern man's culture. In
comments on the Avakesh post, I argue that a big part of the problem
is that we're taking a legal system designed to shape minds and souls
and playing the game of facts. That's a "scientific outlook" -- dealing
more with what experiment tells us is there than worrying about what
it feels like when you do it, and how to *legislate* (not fact-find)
so as to maximize the resulting person.

This is also a central theme in the Lonely Man of Faith. The family
that only prays together in order to stay together (to paraphrase an ad
campaign RYBS refers to in the essay), not because prayer is an end in
itself. As he writes:
    Modern science has emerged victorious from its encounter with nature
    because it has sacrificed qualitative-matephysical speculation for
    the sake of a functional duplication of reality and substituted the
    quantus for the qualis. (pp 12-13)

Adam I (Majestic Man) wants to now "how", not "why". It's the Adam of
pereq 1 who is told "umil'u es ha'aretz VEQIVSHUHA". It's Adam II who
is covenental and seeks redemption.

And the Man of Faith is lonely in two ways: First, existentially --
he is driven by a need to connect, always feeling an alone-ness that
requires rectification. Thus the need for covenental communities and the
path to redemption. Second, in practice modern man has built a culture
so enamored of Adam I, those who strive to develop the Adam II within
them are few and lonely.

    While the ontological loneliness of the man of faith is due to
    a God-made and willed situation and is, as part of his destiny, a
    wholesome and integrating experience, the special kind of loneliness
    of contemporary man of faith referred to at the beginning of this
    essay is of a social nature due to a man-made historical situation
    and is, hence, an unwholesome and frustrating experience. (pg 91)

    By rejecting Adam the second, contemporary man, eo ipso, dismisses the
    covenantal faith community as something superfluous and obsolete. (pp
    91-92)

When someone trying to think like the gemara keeps on falling back to
those tools designed for empirical "how" in order to understand a law
based on "why", he is disoriented. He is trying to accomplish some further
goal, turn the why into a how (the prayer into family relationship glue),
and so is looking at mechanisms.

Compare this disorientation and what I wrote above about "how to
legislate so as to maximize the resulting person" based on how we
experience something to this quote from Avakesh:

    To the scientific mind, it is very curious to call the mere act
    of placing a seed in the ground, "planting". We see planting as a
    process which involves surrounding the seed with earth, watering and
    tending it in the appropriate conditions, and then producing from
    it a growth. Because we see the process as a totality of growing,
    we necessarily see the linguistic content of the word "planting" in
    a much wider context. Chazal, instead, looked at what one sees when
    planting takes place and they saw a seed being placed into the ground,
    that is what they saw, and that is what they saw. As such, connecting
    two bodies of water is the same as placing a seed into the ground.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One who kills his inclination is as though he
mi...@aishdas.org        brought an offering. But to bring an offering,
http://www.aishdas.org   you must know where to slaughter and what
Fax: (270) 514-1507      parts to offer.        - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv

On 17/11/2010 5:32 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 04:07:28PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
>> Yes, we know that.  But on what basis did that minhag arise?  It must
>> have started in places where they didn't believe a mesorah was necessary,
>> or else out of a mistaken belief that a mesorah existed elsewhere.
>
> See RAZZ's article available at http://www.kashrut.com/articles/turkey/
> originally published in the Spring 1998 issue of the RJJ Journal.

Which boils down, more or less, to my summary.  The minhag arose either
in places where they allowed birds based on their simanim, or in places
where they mistakenly thought there was a mesorah.

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

On 11/17/2010 3:13 PM, Zev Sero <z...@sero.name>wrote:
> >> my question about  the Ararat mountains being much lower than the 
> Himalayas.<<

The Ramban asks the same question about Mt. Olympus, and answers it, 
retaining the stand that the Mabul was global, with Eretz Yisroel being 
the sole possible exception--based upon a posuk in Navi.

And one wonders what coverage of earth 40 straight days and nights of 
rainful, and "maaaynos ha'aretz" bursting forth water, would accomplish.

Zvi Lampel

In a previous posting, I wrote about an article on the subject of "brain
death" as a criterion
for halachic death:
 >>>
This long essay mentions that almost all poskim who oppose "brain death" as
a halachic criterion nevertheless say that it is permissible to accept an
organ which was harvested  on the basis of "brain death". One halachic
justification for this position, cited in the name of R Ahron Soloveitchik
is that the prohibition of being machzik ydei ovrei avera is nidche by
pikuach nefesh, based on Nedarim 22. See page 70 of the cited essay, note
192.
 >>

I would like to expand on the above proof from Nedarim 22.
The amora Ula was accompanied by two people  when travelling from Bavel To
EY.
At some point, one of them slashed the throat of the other! The murderer
then asked Ulla if this was okay with him. Ulla, apparently fearing for his
life, said yes, and even suggested that the murderer increase the incision
he made. When Ulla arrived in EY and related this incident to R. Yochanan,
expressing his fear that he acted improperly in expressing his approval for
a murder, R. Yochanan said his action was justifiable, since his life was in
danger.

This incident indicates that abetting a murder is permissible in a case
where not doing so puts one's life in danger. This is the essential position
taken by those who consider harvesting organs after "brain death" alone
murder, but permit use of such organs ex post facto.

There is a dispute among the rishonim at what point exactly Ulla expressed
his approval for what was done. The Meiri says it was after the attacked
person had died. The Rosh and the Ran, however, say that at the point when
Ulla suggested expanding the excision, the attacked person was still alive;
his death was deemed inevitable, however, and  expanding the incision would
merely hasten it.

According to the Meiri, it was precisely because the attacked person was
already dead that it was permissible for Ulla to acquiesce to the murder;
possibly, before the murder, expressing approval for a future murder would
be avizrayhu d'r'tzicha, which is *not* doche pikuach nefesh.
OTOH, the Rosh and Ran's position indicated that  expressing approval even
for a future murder is permissible, if not doing so puts one's life in
danger. The implications of this dispute for the case of organ removal and
transplant is obvious.

The permissibility of accepting organs from a "brain dead" donor is not
obvious. The article in question states:

>>

Rav Auerbach originally ruled so strongly against reliance on brain death
that he even prohibited receiving an organ from a brain dead patient, even
though the prospective recipient would die and there were other patients
ready and able to accept this organ in his place

>>

Saul Mashbaum
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Which boils down, more or less, to my summary.	The minhag arose either in
places where they allowed birds based on their simanim, or in places where
they mistakenly thought there was a mesorah.

-- 
Zev Sero             
===============================

IIrC R'HS says it's the latter based on the sfardim and the ashkenazim picked it up from them.
KT
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On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 07:37:47PM -0500, Rich, Joel wrote:
:> Which boils down, more or less, to my summary. The minhag arose either
:> in places where they allowed birds based on their simanim, or in places
:> where they mistakenly thought there was a mesorah.

: IIrC R'HS says it's the latter based on the sfardim and the ashkenazim
: picked it up from them.

I'm going to repeat myself because RZS's "boils down, more or less, to
my summary" hides I point I made. RAZZ's article includes mention of
that MB, who sites a trail of sources back to the rishonim that shows
that people believed the turkey was the tarnigol adumah which already
had a mesorah. A different route than the two RZS lists, including the
one RJR recalls RHS giving.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is our choices...that show what we truly are,
mi...@aishdas.org        far more than our abilities.
http://www.aishdas.org                           - J. K. Rowling
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On 17/11/2010 8:05 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 07:37:47PM -0500, Rich, Joel wrote:
> :>  Which boils down, more or less, to my summary. The minhag arose either
> :>  in places where they allowed birds based on their simanim, or in places
> :>  where they mistakenly thought there was a mesorah.
>
> : IIrC R'HS says it's the latter based on the sfardim and the ashkenazim
> : picked it up from them.
>
> I'm going to repeat myself because RZS's "boils down, more or less, to
> my summary" hides I point I made. RAZZ's article includes mention of
> that MB, who sites a trail of sources back to the rishonim that shows
> that people believed the turkey was the tarnigol adumah which already
> had a mesorah.  A different route than the two RZS lists, including the
> one RJR recalls RHS giving.

1. Rishonim?  It's the Bach.
2. Since when does the taregol adumah (whatever it is, or if there even
is such a thing in the first place) have a mesorah for kashrus?
3. Even if it were rishonim, and there were a mesorah for the tarnegol
adumah being kosher, this is just an example of the second option: a
place where they mistakenly thought there was a mesorah.



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

On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 09:39:22PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
>>                                   RAZZ's article includes mention of
>> that MB, who sites a trail of sources back to the rishonim that shows
>> that people believed the turkey was the tarnigol adumah which already
>> had a mesorah.  A different route than the two RZS lists, including the
>> one RJR recalls RHS giving.

> 1. Rishonim?  It's the Bach.

If you open the MB RAZZ points to, you'll see he traces it back to
the Rashba and the TR"Y, who I described in my prior post as "Talmidei
Rabbeinu Yonah (if I got TR"Y correct)".

Yes, your post does summarize RAZZ's article, however, I found in
this footnote a useful source for a third guess at the history.

Now, how the Bach could think the Rashba in the 13th cent could have
been talking about turkeys is a different question.

> 3. Even if it were rishonim, and there were a mesorah for the tarnegol
> adumah being kosher, this is just an example of the second option: a
> place where they mistakenly thought there was a mesorah.

Yes, but a different kind of mistake.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When memories exceed dreams,
mi...@aishdas.org        The end is near.
http://www.aishdas.org                   - Rav Moshe Sherer
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On 17/11/2010 2:14 PM, Micha Berger wrote:

> But where did your Zeide get his peshat from?

I don't know where he got it.  For all I know it may have been his
own sevara.


> Recall the baseline assumption, "leshacheis kol basar asher yeish bo
> ruach chaim" (6:17) Wouldn't any medrash that says the flood was more
> local than the spread of all sorts of fauna actually explicitly say so --
> or at say something that would require you to conclude so?

In a place where there were no people, what purpose could a flood serve?
The idea that the animals sinned too can't be taken literally; animals
have no bechira, so if they corrupted their ways it can only be as a
result of the behaviour of the people around them.  So where there were
no people, surely the animals behaved as they normally would, so why
destroy them?

In the 1656 years between Adam and the flood, did people spread out
over the whole world?  Was there a "dor haflaga" to make them do so?
How big was the whole human race, then?  Did they multiply like rabbits
as they seem to have done in the first few centuries after the flood,
or did they reproduce slowly and remain few, as might be deduced from
how long the named men took to have their first child?


> As for your question, perhaps the Himalayas were already well exposed
> before Harei Ararat. However, the teiva wasn't near the Himalayas at
> the time, and therefore didn't come to rest on them.

This is difficult to work into Rashi's treatment of the dates.  He
certainly seems to assume that these were the highest mountains, the
exposure of whose tips the Torah notes as a milestone.  But then,
Rashi's treatment of the dates isdifficult anyway.


> I also wonder why someone would posit a local flood while still denying
> the age of human habitation of India, China, Tanzania (think Kilimanjaro),
> etc...

It's not a matter of having to confront evidence, it's just not seeing
a need for a truly global flood.


> (In any case, my original point on Areivim was just that it's not a
> typical "Moderate Chareidi" position to posit a local flood; you'll find
> few chareidim of any sort considering the idea.)

I don't know; I've never conducted a survey.  But I gave one counter-
example.  Yes, he may have been an outlier; "data" is not the plural
of "anecdote".  But this is the anecdote I have personal knowledge of,
so to me the idea of a local flood isn't startling.

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

RMB asked:
"Otherwise, why couldn't someone eat it [Maaser Sheini] in Y-m? The
dividing line would be the availability of parah adumah, not the
BHMQ."

Working from memory:
Maaser Sheini required the BHMQ and the city walls. IIRC in the days
of the Mishkan this was not a requirement, and "visibility of the
Mishkan" was the defining factor.

After trying to find sources on Toras Emes
(http://www.toratemetfreeware.com/Downloads.htm):
Rambam Hil. Maaser Sheini 2:1 - we learn from a Hekesh to Bechor that
Maaser Sheini only applies when the BHMQ is standing.

 ???? ??? ???? ?????? ????? ????? ??????? ????? ????? ???? ?''? ?????
????? ??? ???? ???? ??? ?? ???'. ????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???
???? ???? ???????? ??? ???? ???? ????? ???? ???? ?????? ?????? ???????
???? ?????. ??? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ???? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?? ????
??? ?? ???? ??? ???? ????:

Also see the Gemara in Zevochim 119a which discusses Nov and Givon;
Shilo is mentioned in the Mishna (4th Perek, 112b) with the "visbility
factor"

??? ????? ????? ????? ??? ??? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? ???? ?????
???????? ?????? ???? ???? ????? ???? ????? ?????? ????? ?? ??????
?????? ???? ????? ??? ??? ?????

- Danny

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