Volume 27: Number 199
Sat, 20 Nov 2010
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Message: 1
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 09:16:33 -0500
Subject: [Avodah] Conflict -- the value of money...
In honor of the parashah in which Yaaqov goes back for some small jugs,
I liked the question posted in this mailing from torah.org. More than the
answer, so I'll just share the question as a discussion piece for the
chevrah...
-micha
Edutainment Weekly
by Jon Erlbaum
"Ipods, Eyeballs, & Happiness?"
(Insights from this week's Portion: <u>Vayishlach</u>)
INTRODUCING... A CLASH OF 2 COMPETING QUOTES (LET'S GET READY TO
RUMBLE!). WHICH CLASSIC QUOTE WILL EMERGE VICTORIOUS?
In the first corner, we have this week's RRR-1 (Relevant Religious
Reference #1):
One who makes a vow to ABSTAIN from wine is a considered a 'sinner'"
(because he has DENIED one of the permitted pleasures that his
Creator made available)
-- Babylonian Talmud, Nazir 19A.
VS.
And in the other corner, we have this Week's RRR-2 (Relevant Religious
Reference #2):
Eat bread with salt, drink water in small measure, sleep on the
ground, live a LIFE OF DEPRIVATION... If you do this, you will be
happy...
-- Ethics of the Fathers (Avos), 6:4
THE I-POD & THE EYE-BALL
The secret to happiness? A Panasonic 58" Flat-Panel Plasma HDTV, hands
down! Come to think of it, I'm pretty partial to the iPod Touch. And
dare I neglect to mention the iPhone 5G (coming soon, to an online
merchant near me), the newly anointed "APPLE" of my eye? Speaking of
my eye, by the way, I think we've stumbled upon the happiness dilemma:
neither the I-POD nor the I-PHONE is any match for the EYE-BALL, which
is constantly scoping the scene to find the next best thing. So what
does Judaism send us as a recipe for true happiness? A mixed message!
On one hand, we are held accountable for all of life's "permitted
pleasures" that we abstain from and don't take advantage of. And on the
other hand, we're told we can somehow be happy through living "a life of
deprivation" (see the 2 competing RRR quotes above). Can we really attain
pleasure through salt and sleeping bags, as the 2nd quote suggests? And
how does that strategy mesh with the 1st quote's mandate of making sure
to sample the smorgasbord of life's pleasures?
...
[The author's answer is at
<http://torah.org/learning/edutainment/5769/vayishlach.html>]
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Message: 2
From: David Riceman <drice...@optimum.net>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 11:20:34 -0500
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Days and floods
RMB:
<<"Yom" not meaning day has millenia of history>>
"Yom" is defined in context to mean "light"; see Breishis 1:5 "vayikra
elokim la'or yom". Of course one of the exegetical cruxes of the entire
chapter is that God's definitions are often ignored in the text ....
RMB:
<<But from a process and acceptability point of view, my problem is with
the creation of new peshatim where there is no TORAH reason to do so. I
find that kind of force fitting to another discipline beyond my personal
range of acceptibility. (Meaning that it doesn't even feel to me like
"a different but valid shitah".)>>
See RAK's Handbook of Jewish Thought vol 1 p. 145 item 7:75 and the sources
he cites. IIRC I pointed out in the previous go around that this is a
machlokes rishonim, elaborated in great detail in Sefer Igros Kenaos (which
RAK fails to cite), which contains the letters concerning the first
Maimonidean controversy. I think all of us neglected the opinion of
Sa'adyah.
David Riceman
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Message: 3
From: Meir Shinnar <chide...@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 12:27:54 -0500
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Local, Non-Global or Global Flood
RMB
>
> But from a process and acceptability point of view, my problem is with
> the creation of new peshatim where there is no TORAH reason to do so. I
> find that kind of force fitting to another discipline beyond my personal
> range of acceptibility. (Meaning that it doesn't even feel to me like
> "a different but valid shitah".)
The problem with this approach is how one defines what is a TORAH
reason - and one of the TORAH reason that I (and I think many
rishonim) subscribe to is that the TORAH has a monistic view of truth
- truth from the torah and from other valid sources can't be in
conflict - or, in later terminology, Hashem will not willfully deceive
us and lead us astray on these issues -and therefore, any apparent
conflict, we must have misunderstood one of the two sources - and
therefore, we must rethink our initial understanding of the two
sources to reconcile them - and therefore, there becomes a TORAH
reason to allegorize...
It is the rejection of this monistic view that is problematic.
This doesn't mean that every latest theory or archaeological find
causes us to change - but if warranted, such changes in understanding
are actually driven by an internal torah dynamic. Ultimately, it is
(IMHO) a far deeper emunah in the torah and the boreh that leads us
such changes than a far more surface emunah whose faith is bothered by
these contradictions or ends up with an antiintellectual stand.
Neither rashi nor rashbam saw a problem with ha"pshatim hamitchadhsim
bekol yom" - why do we?
Meir Shinnar
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Message: 4
From: Zvi Lampel <zvilam...@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 12:29:22 -0500
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Local, Non-Global or Global Flood
Thu, 18 Nov 2010 Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
<mailto:mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:
>"Yom" not meaning day has millenia of history, from well before anyone
confronted a scientific theory that said that time had a beginning, but
it was far more than 6,000 years ago..."Haaretz" in the context of the
mabul not meaning the entire planet has no such mesorah. <
*
"Aretz" not meaning the entire earth has millennia of history, from well
before anyone confronted a scientific theory that the Flood was not
global. *
**
*"Yom" in the context of the Creation account not meaning a regular has
no such mesorah. On the contrary, the mesorah is clear that it is a
regular day. And the Geonim and Rishonim clearly ascribe to this
meaning, and the Ramban insists upon it.*
**
*The Rambam in Moreh Nevuchim (**2:30**) invokes the unanimous position
of---*
**
*[a]ll our Sages...that all of this [the creation of Eve from Adam, the
tree of life, and the tree of knowledge, and the account of the serpent]
took place on the sixth day.... None of those things is impossible,
because the laws of Nature were then not yet permanently fixed.*
**
*For the Rambam's problem to make sense, he must have been presupposing
24-hour days. Had it been acceptable to posit---against the Gemora in
Chulin and against the Chazal he explicitly referenced---that the "days"
of creation were unspecified "periods" actually consisting of the
passage of numerous 24-hour days, there would be no difficulty of
containing all the events mentioned in the pesukim within one such
period, and no need to invoke the fact that the laws of Nature were not
yet fixed.*
**
*As you write later,*
**
"But from a process and acceptability point of view, my problem is with
the creation of new peshatim where there is no TORAH reason to do so. I
find that kind of force fitting to another discipline beyond my personal
range of acceptibility. (Meaning that it doesn't even feel to me like
"a different but valid shitah".)"
>RMB: (Back in the days of the rishonim, when they thought the earth
had no beginning, no one had a motivation to suggest that a day isn't a
day.)<
*The Ramban certainly was confronted with the idea that a day isn't a
day--and rejected it. And the Kuzari was confronted with a nation
claiming the world was hundreds of thousands years old. He did not solve
the problem, as he easily could have, by claiming the sixth day of
animals' and Adam's ("mankind's") life was an era. *
>RAs is an entire "this isn't literal" approach to the pereq as a whole.<
*---an approach that is not applied to the days of Breishis by any
classical commentator besides the Ralbag. The Ralbag bases himself on
the Chazal that everything was created fully-formed, and on the Chazal
that everything was created simultaneously. He concludes that although
the vegetation did not develop until the fourth day, the other
references to "day" are "stages." Everything else was created fully
formed at the first instant. Akeides Yitchak and the Abarbanel---who
often repeats the former's comments without attribution---attribute this
view to the Rambam as well, and go on to condemn it with several proofs
that it is untenable with the pesukim. The Abarbanel later reinterprets
the Rambam to conform with the meaning of day to be day.
They do not address the fact that the Ralbag himself, although often
referencing the Rambam, declared that no rishon before him suggested his
approach.*
>RMB: Shalom Carmy ...raised the ...following questions: It seems
obvious that Rabbi Kook doesn't advocate wholesale rejection of biblical
statements. To do so would render Tanakh useless as a source of history.
Under what circumstances would he countenance "deconstruction" of the
text...
My own position appears to be RSC's first hava amina "Only where biblical
texts contradict each other or rabbinic statements".<
*--Which is the stated position of Rav Saadia Gaon, the Rambam, Sefer
Ikkarim, and the approach practiced by all the rishonim, with the
baseline that words be taken at their primary meaning unless
contradicted by here-and-now sensual perception or logical construct.*
Zvi Lampel
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Message: 5
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 13:45:12 -0500
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Local, Non-Global or Global Flood
On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 11:20:34AM -0500, David Riceman wrote:
> RMB:
>> But from a process and acceptability point of view, my problem is with
>> the creation of new peshatim where there is no TORAH reason to do so. I
>> find that kind of force fitting to another discipline beyond my personal
>> range of acceptibility. (Meaning that it doesn't even feel to me like
>> "a different but valid shitah".)
> See RAK's Handbook of Jewish Thought vol 1 p. 145 item 7:75 and the
> sources he cites. IIRC I pointed out in the previous go around that this
> is a machlokes rishonim...
I just gave my own how things feel to me. I was pretty clear on that.
I didn't accept or deny a machloqes rishonim, I mentioned where my
instincts were. Probably said more about my upbringing than anything
else.
As for RAK's handbook, here's the quote:
7:75 There are times when the Torah speaks in allegory and
metaphor. [180]
There are four conditions under which there is a tradition that the
Torah is not to be taken according to its literal meaning: [181]
1. Where the plain meaning is rejected by common experience.
2. Where it is repudiated by obvious logic. [182]
3. Where it is contradicted by obvious scripture.
4. Where it is opposed by clear Talmudic tradition. [183]
180. Moreh Nevukhim, Introduction, from Hosea 12:11.
181. Emunoth VeDeyoth 7:2 (83a).
182. As in the cases of anthropomorphisms; Moreh Nevukhim 2:25. See
above, 2:23.
183. Cf. Minchath Chinukh 232:4; and Zohar 3:85a; Minchath Pittim,
Orach Chaim 156; Makor Chesed on Sefer Chasidim 673:1.
The question is whether scientific experiment is included under what
RAK meant by "common experience". More on this later, in reply to
RMShinnar. But #1 can't be applied to creation, the flood, anything
called a "neis", or has text in some other way saying "this was a break
from common experience".
3&4 speak of evidence internal to the Torah, 2, by speaking of logic,
rules out that which is implied by the claim itself or by the Torah.
All, internal evidence.
But more importantly, we aren't talking about literal vs allegory.
Yom literally means era, as in "lifnei ba yom Hashem hagadol vehanora".
Or a more significant example to our case, in Bereishis 2:4, the creation
era is called a yom -- "beyom asos H' E-lokim eretz veshamayim" --
not 7 of them!
On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 12:29:22PM -0500, Zvi Lampel wrote:
> *"Yom" in the context of the Creation account not meaning a regular has
> no such mesorah. On the contrary, the mesorah is clear that it is a
> regular day....
We've debated this numerous times. And I still believe you're mistaken.
> *The Rambam in Moreh Nevuchim (**2:30**) invokes the unanimous position
> of---
> *[a]ll our Sages...that all of this [the creation of Eve from Adam, the
> tree of life, and the tree of knowledge, and the account of the serpent]
> took place on the sixth day.... None of those things is impossible,
> because the laws of Nature were then not yet permanently fixed.*
Neither is the concept of day possible because time wasn't created yet.
That pereq begins, emphasis mine:
There is a difference between first and beginning (or principle). The
latter exists in the thing of which it is the beginning, or co-exists
with it; IT NEED NOT PRECEDE IT; e.g., the heart is the beginning
of the living being; the element is the beginning of that of which
it is the basis.
...
We find that some of our Sages are reported to have held the
opinion that time existed before the Creation. But this report
is very doubtful, because the theory that time cannot be imagined
with a beginning, has been taught by Aristotle, as I showed you,
and is objectionable. Those who have made this assertion have been
led to it by a saying of one of our Sages in reference to the terms
"one day," "a second day." Taking these terms literally, the author
of that saying asked, What determined "the first day," since there
was no rotating sphere, and no sun? and continues as follows:
Scripture uses the term "one day"; R. Jehudah, son of R. Simon,
said: "Hence we learn that the divisions of time have existed
previously." R. Abahu said, "Hence we learn that God built worlds
and again destroyed them." This latter exposition is still worse than
the former. Consider the difficulty which these two Rabbis found in
the statement that time existed before the creation of the sun. We
shall undoubtedly soon remove this difficulty, unless these two Rabbis
intended to infer from the Scriptural text that the divisions of time
must have existed before the Creation, and thus adopted the theory
of the Eternity of the Universe. But every religious man rejects
this. The above saying is, in my opinion, certainly of the same
character as that of R. Eliezer, "Whence were the heavens created,"
etc., (chap. xxvi.). In short, in these questions, do not take notice
of the utterances of any person. I told you that the foundation of
our faith is the belief that God created the Universe from nothing;
that time did not exist previously, but was created: for IT DEPENDS
ON THE MOTION OF THE SPHERE, AND THE SPHERE HAS BEEN CREATED.
And the after the one you quote:
There are, however, some utterances of our Sages on this subject
[which apparently imply a different view]. I will gather them from
their different sources and place them before you, and I will refer
also to certain things by mere hints, just as has been done by the
Sages. ...
So, while it's not impossible, the Rambam finds hints in Chazal that
it's not what the Torah teaches.
And the Abarbanel on Bereishis:
... Thus the Rambam does not understand the word day to be a temporal
day and he doesn't read Bereishis to be describing the chronological
sequence of creation.... This is the view of the Rambam which he
considered as one of the major secrets of the Creation. In fact he
tried hard to conceal this view as can be seen in his words in Moreh
Nevuchim (2:30). In spite of his efforts the Ralbag, Navorni and
the other commentators to Moreh Nevuchim uncovered his secret and
made it known to the whole world.... However, despite the Rambam's
greatness in Torah and the apparent support from Chazal, this view
of the Rambam is demonstratably false....
The Narvoni (as the Abarbanel notes) and the Shem Tov on the Moreh
understand the Rambam this way (that it's 6 steps in logical sequence,
not time), as does the Aqeidas Yitzchaq (Bereishis sha'ar 3), Ralbag
(Milchames Hashem 4:2:8),the Alshich (Bereishis 1:1) and RJBS.
...
> "But from a process and acceptability point of view, my problem is with
> the creation of new peshatim where there is no TORAH reason to do so. I
> find that kind of force fitting to another discipline beyond my personal
> range of acceptibility. (Meaning that it doesn't even feel to me like
> "a different but valid shitah".)"
The question of whether the Rambam crossed that line is an old one --
the Gra and RSRH both wrote that he did.
>> RAs is an entire "this isn't literal" approach to the pereq as a whole.
> *---an approach that is not applied to the days of Breishis by any
> classical commentator besides the Ralbag. The Ralbag bases himself on
> the Chazal that everything was created fully-formed, and on the Chazal
> that everything was created simultaneously....
And this could well be Rashi as well. We've been here done that. The sun
was placed in the sky on day 4, according to Rashi, not created then.
But if the mishnah says we can't comprehend maaseh Bereishis, than
anything we understand to be the literal meaning of the verse's
description of history is in error.
This is my own position -- not that the Torah is allegorical to the
exclusion of historical, but we can't fully understand either, nor the
scientific data. Therefore, all we can glean from the pasuq is lessons,
not history. The process took six days, in a way, and 13bn years, in a
way. And that seems to contradict -- nu, people are finite.
> Akeides Yitchak and the Abarbanel---who
> often repeats the former's comments without attribution---attribute this
> view to the Rambam as well, and go on to condemn it with several proofs
> that it is untenable with the pesukim. The Abarbanel later reinterprets
> the Rambam to conform with the meaning of day to be day.
??? See the quote above. The Abarbanel explicitly states that he and
the Narvoni do not see Moreh 2:30 as assertin a sequence in time.
> *--Which is the stated position of Rav Saadia Gaon, the Rambam, Sefer
> Ikkarim, and the approach practiced by all the rishonim, with the
> baseline that words be taken at their primary meaning unless
> contradicted by here-and-now sensual perception or logical construct.*
And, as above, appears to be the center point behind the Gra's rejection
of Hil' Yesodei haTorah and the Moreh.
On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 12:27:54PM -0500, Meir Shinnar wrote:
: > But from a process and acceptability point of view, my problem is with
: > the creation of new peshatim where there is no TORAH reason to do so. I
: > find that kind of force fitting to another discipline beyond my personal
: > range of acceptibility. (Meaning that it doesn't even feel to me like
: > "a different but valid shitah".)
: The problem with this approach is how one defines what is a TORAH
: reason - and one of the TORAH reason that I (and I think many
: rishonim) subscribe to is that the TORAH has a monistic view of truth
: - truth from the torah and from other valid sources can't be in
: conflict...
Yes. So the question is which do I assume was misunderstood, the science
/ philosophy, or the Torah. I'm arguing that if you have to change the
Torah ONLY because you need to eliminate the conflict, then to my mind
(or should I say "to my gut instinct?") you should instead wait for the
science to be ammended.
Or, just wait with the question altogether, seeing as we lack the tools
to find the single truth.
But not to modify the Torah. How then can you claim Toras Hashem temimah,
if it's not complete enough to point to correct peshat without scientific
help?
The issue isn't a rejection of monism, it's epistomology -- how much
weight do you give to the "evidence" of mesorah vs that given to
scientific data and theorization? At which point do you consider one
more likely to be in error than the other? And at which point do you
realize the whole topic is beyond our ken, and our understandings of
BOTH must be limited enough to cause the apparent problem.
(I repeatedly suggested a generic answer based on the Maharal about
the nature of miracles (pardon that turn of phrase) and suggested that
according to his formulation, they would leave never evidence behind
that could be experienced by anyone who doesn't live with the miraculous.)
:-)BBii!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger Take time,
mi...@aishdas.org be exact,
http://www.aishdas.org unclutter the mind.
Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm
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Message: 6
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 13:48:50 -0500
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Jousting bochurim at medieval Ashkenazi
On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 04:12:58PM -0500, Prof. Levine wrote:
> Please see http://tinyurl.com/2dwh9vl
Tosafos doesn't mention jousters getting injured. It would appear that
the wastage of clothes isn't bal tashchis, and the tzaar baalei chaim of
the horses is leto'eles, because one is being mesameiach chasan vekalah
in the usual way.
Jousting in armor must have been safer for the riders than I had pictured,
since otherwise jousting would pose other halachic issues that I would
have expected Tosafos to discuss.
:-)BBii!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger Mussar is like oil put in water,
mi...@aishdas.org eventually it will rise to the top.
http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507
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Message: 7
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 13:53:14 -0500
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Murder?
On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 01:00:46PM -0800, Harry Maryles wrote:
: What are the ethics of this billionaire offering a million dollars to
: anyone with a compatible kidney to donate it directly to him? There
: are people who might not otherwise be willing to donate a kidney that
: will now trip all over themselves at a chance to 'sell' their 'spare'
: kidney for a million dollars.
I don't see a moral problem, if this saves a life, poses only a small
risk to the donor (most people don't end up losing function in a kidney,
so one really is spare), and the kidney wouldn't have gone to someone
else so that you have to ask about the relative color of blood.
The only problem I could see is if the resulting anarchy or some other
unintended consequence gets in the way of the orderly disbersal of organs,
and thereby would cost lives in the long run. We may need to sacrifice
those who could leap-frog over the system in order to have a system
that overall would save far more. I don't know enough of the logistics
to know if this is a real problem, or not.
:-)BBii!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger The trick is learning to be passionate in one's
mi...@aishdas.org ideals, but compassionate to one's peers.
http://www.aishdas.org
Fax: (270) 514-1507
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Message: 8
From: Harry Maryles <hmary...@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 11:50:19 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Murder?
--- On Fri, 11/19/10, Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:
: On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 01:00:46PM -0800, Harry Maryles wrote:
: What are the ethics of this billionaire offering a million dollars to
: anyone with a compatible kidney to donate it directly to him?...
?
I don't see a moral problem, if this saves a life, poses only a small
risk to the donor (most people don't end up losing function in a kidney,
so one really is spare), and the kidney wouldn't have gone to someone
else so that you have to ask about the relative color of blood.
-----------------------------------------------------
?
Is there no ethical problem with a wealthy person having a better chance at
surviving a disease because of his wealth? Shouldn't health care be blind
to wealth?
?
HM
Want Emes and Emunah in your life?
Try this: http://haemtza.blogspot.com/
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Message: 9
From: "kennethgmil...@juno.com" <kennethgmil...@juno.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 18:41:39 GMT
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Is Turkey Kosher
A while back, we had a discussion about poskim who make decisions based on
their intuitive sense of what the answer ought to be, and then they find
sources to support it, as opposed to going into the subject neutral and
letting the sources determine the answer.
I sense many parallels to that here. As RAZZ was quoted:
> For some reason "bird controversies" erupted in the 18th and 19th
> centuries and when the turkey question was posed it often took the
> form of "why is it eaten?" rather than "may it be eaten?"
In RAZZ's view, it seems that Klal Yisrael, en masse, saw the turkey and
understood it to be kosher. Hanach lahem livnei Yisrael; im einam nevi'im,
b'nei nevi'im hem. As if to say, "If the rabbis don't understand it, let
them discuss and argue, but I know what's kosher." Not in an indifferent or
cavalier way, but in a sincere and temimusdik way.
Akiva Miller
____________________________________________________________
Obama Urges Homeowners to Refinance
If you owe under $729k you probably qualify for Obama's Refi Program
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Message: 10
From: "Jonathan Baker" <jjba...@panix.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 14:16:09 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Is Turkey Kosher?
From: Zev Sero <z...@sero.name>
> On 18/11/2010 10:42 PM, Rich Wolberg wrote:
> > In response to:
> >> The person who pointed me to this wrote, "According to R' Hamburger
> >> [author of Sheirushei Minhag Ashkenaz], Turkey has a valid mesorah."
> > Someone wrote (with such certainty):
> >> But we know beyond doubt that that isn't true.
> > In response to "But we know beyond doubt that that isn't true", I quote
> > from the end of the excellent, informative and scholarly article Is
> > Turkey Kosher? by Rabbi Ari Z. Zivotofsky, Ph.D., the following:
> A long quote that's irrelevant; having demonstrated that it's impossible
> for a genuine mesorah to exist, it certainly doesn't turn around and
> claim otherwise!
But what's a "genuine mesorah"?
I'm sure you've heard LG tell this story. Someone asked the Bobover Rebbe
"how can we eat turkey, since it's a New World bird?" Rebbe: "We have a
mesorah from our ancestors that we eat it." Questioner: "But how can that
be, since the turkey was unknown to our ancestors before 1500?" Rebbe:
"Well then, it's a good thing our ancestors weren't so frum! Now we have
a mesorah from them, so we eat turkey."
Most minhagim have a terminus ante quem. Otherwise the jokes about
cutting off the ends of the roast, or ducking in the back of the synagogue,
wouldn't be so funny.
--
name: jon baker web: http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker
address: jjba...@panix.com blog: http://thanbook.blogspot.com
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Message: 11
From: "Prof. Levine" <Larry.Lev...@stevens.edu>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 15:49:35 -0500
Subject: [Avodah] The MB and Spiders
The following is from today's Hakhel Email Bulletin:
>1. The Mishna Berura notes that there is a misconception among some
>that spiders can be dangerous to humans and that killing them is
>permissible on Shabbos. This, he writes, is not true, and they are
>not to be treated as snakes or scorpions.
I sent the following to the editor of this bulletin.
WADR to the MB, please see
http://www.termite.com/spider-identification.html There it lists
Brown Recluse Spiders ...deadly and aggressive, Black Widow Spiders
...highly venomous - can be deadly, Mouse Spiders ...venomous -
painful bite, Black House Spiders ...venomous - nausea. See this web
page for the details of the harm that these spiders can do.
I really think you have to send out a clarification about this issue. YL
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Message: 12
From: "Prof. Levine" <Larry.Lev...@stevens.edu>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 14:03:27 -0500
Subject: [Avodah] Diverse National Characteristics
RSRH comments on Bereishis 35
11 God then said to him: I am the All-sufficing
God. Be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a
community of nations shall come into being
from you; kings shall come forth from your loins.
Goy uk'hal goyim. The nation that will descend from you is to be one single
unit outwardly oriented, and a multiplicity of elements united into one
? inwardly oriented. Each tribe is to represent a special national quality;
is to be, as it were, a nation in miniature.
The people of Ya?akov is to become ?Yisrael,? is to reveal to the
nations God?s power, which controls and masters all earthly human
affairs, shaping everything in accordance with His Will. Hence, this
people should not present a one-sided image. As a model nation, it
should reflect diverse national characteristics. Through its tribes, it
should represent the warrior nation, the merchant nation, the agricultural
nation, the nation of scholars, and so forth. In this manner it will
become clear to all that the sanctification of human life in the Divine
covenant of the Torah does not depend on a particular way of life or
national characteristic. Rather, all of mankind, with all its diversity, is
called upon to accept the uniform spirit of the God of Israel. From the
diversity of human and national characteristics will emerge one united
kingdom of God.
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Message: 13
From: Zev Sero <z...@sero.name>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 13:45:28 -0500
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Local, Non-Global or Global Flood
On 19/11/2010 1:45 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> But more importantly, we aren't talking about literal vs allegory.
> Yom literally means era, as in "lifnei ba yom Hashem hagadol vehanora".
Huh? How do you know that isn't a literal day?
> Or a more significant example to our case, in Bereishis 2:4, the creation
> era is called a yom -- "beyom asos H' E-lokim eretz veshamayim" --
> not 7 of them!
Doesn't that mean the first day?
--
Zev Sero The trouble with socialism is that you
z...@sero.name eventually run out of other people?s money
- Margaret Thatcher
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