Avodah Mailing List

Volume 27: Number 201

Mon, 22 Nov 2010

• 1. days (Eli Turkel)
• 2. Re: Local, Non-Global or Global Flood (Arie Folger)
• 3. "I, who in my simplicity have no dealings with mysticism" RSRH (Prof. Levine)
• 4. Re: Is Turkey Kosher? (Zev Sero)
• 5. Re: Is Turkey Kosher? (Akiva Blum)
• 6. Re: Is Turkey Kosher? (Zev Sero)
• 7. Re: Is Turkey Kosher? (Harry Weiss)
• 8. Is Turkey Kosher? (david guttmann)
• 9. Re: Local, Non-Global or Global Flood (Micha Berger)
• 10. Re: The MB and Spiders (Micha Berger)
• 11. Re: Answered tefilot (Micha Berger)
• 12. Re: Local, Non-Global or Global Flood (Zev Sero)
• 13. Hachnasat orchim v. Shmona Esrei (Jonathan Dickson)
• 14. Re: Local, Non-Global or Global Flood (Micha Berger)
• 15. Re: Is Turkey Kosher? (Zev Sero)
• 16. Re: Is Turkey Kosher? (Micha Berger)

This whole discussion of the meaning of days is not of our
concern and is a stupid discussion. Who is anyone to change
pshat based on things which we are not enjoined to know

see
R. Aharon Schechter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO01hVfDFjI&;feature=related

-- 
Eli Turkel

RMB wrote:
> 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?

A different formulation of the problem, which, admittedly, doesn't
fully answer our question, but nonetheless agrees with your assertion
that "just wait with the question altogether, seeing as we lack the
tools to find the single truth," but gives a useful result, is the
following question:

Given we cannot arrive at a definite answer in these matters, and
given that some of us have different gut feelings than others, is it
heresy to posit one kind of reconciliation or another? To that
question, I believe that the negative answer will be true in many more
cases than usually acknowledged.


KT,
-- 
Arie Folger,
Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/
* Basler Gymnasium experimentiert mit Chawrut?-Lernen
* Where Will We Find Refuge ... from technology overload
* Video-Vortrag: Psalm 34
* We May Have Free Will, After All
* Equal Justice for All
* Brutal Women of Nazi Germany
* Gibt es in der Unterhaltungsliteratur eine Rolle f?r G"tt?

The following is from pages 38 and 39 of Rav Breuer - His Life and His Legacy.

  Most poignant are the tone and contents of a letter addressed in 
1864 to R. Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer, rabbi of Thorn and a founder of 
Chibat Zion. The letter was sent in response to R. Kalisher's 
"complaint" regarding R. Hirsch's lack of enthusiasm for his programs 
for Jewish resettlement.

If my vision is so shortsighted that I can not recognize the good and 
the truth that will result - as your exalted opinion contends - from 
your efforts regarding settling Eretz Yisrael and that which you hold 
as a great mitzvah and responsibility - my humble opinion differs. 
I,  who in my simplicity have no dealings with mysticism, see no 
greater good than in holding on to the path paved by our forefathers . ..

And if my understanding is so blunted that I can not see the dawning 
of redemption being manifested in the emergence of a number of 
families who are close to power,  [it is because] almost all of them 
- with the exception of the one who lives here in Frankfurt - have 
distanced  themselves from the ways of Torah and mitzvos and they are 
counted among those who have thrown off the yoke of religion. My eyes 
have been blinded so that I can not imagine that God would choose 
such light-headed people as His agents.
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On 21/11/2010 5:57 AM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 08:17:37PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
>> On 19/11/2010 2:16 PM, Jonathan Baker wrote:
>>> But what's a "genuine mesorah"?

>> Back to Moshe Rabbenu.  That is the premise of the whole business of
>> requiring a mesorah for birds.

> Does it need to go that far back? What if the mesorah is only from
> before our fear that we might mis-read the simanim?

AIUI, the opinion that a mesorah is needed holds that the simanim are not
and never have been dispositive, not just that we're not beki'im in them.
Remember that these simanim are not misinai, they're rules of thumb
that Chazal came up with from observation of the species they examined,
and they have exceptions. The strictest mesorah-requiring opinion holds
that the exceptions Chazal listed are not comprehensive, just the ones
they knew about, and there might be others they hadn't discovered.

On 21/11/2010 7:21 AM, Micha Berger wrote:
> Which would add to the likelihood of conflating turkeys with the
> tarnigol adumah which has a mesorah.

Once again, where do you get the idea that there is a mesorah of
kashrus for the tarnegol adumah (assuming there even is such a bird)

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

> From: avodah-boun...@lists.aishdas.org On Behalf Of Zev Sero
> Sent: Sunday 21 November 2010 3:18 AM

> On 19/11/2010 2:16 PM, Jonathan Baker wrote:
>> But what's a "genuine mesorah"?

> Back to Moshe Rabbenu.  That is the premise of the whole business of
> requiring a mesorah for birds.

Chazal had a system for identifying kosher birds, and it's clear that
they actually used it. No mesorah could claim to be older than whatever
time the system was still being used.

Akiva

On 21/11/2010 1:40 PM, Akiva Blum wrote:

>> Back to Moshe Rabbenu.  That is the premise of the whole business of
>> requiring a mesorah for birds.
>
> Chazal had a system for identifying kosher birds, and it's clear that
> they actually used it. No mesorah could claim to be older than whatever
> time the system was still being used.

Why shouldn't a mesorah be older than that?  And if I recall the
discussion in Eilu Treifos correctly, the system they came up with
was more descriptive than prescriptive, and was something they derived
by observing the birds they had a mesorah for.   And the opinion that
no system is good enough, and one needs a mesorah, goes back to their
day.

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

> From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
>> On 19/11/2010 2:16 PM, Jonathan Baker wrote:
>>> But what's a "genuine mesorah"?
>
>> Back to Moshe Rabbenu.  That is the premise of the whole business of
>> requiring a mesorah for birds.
>
> Does it need to go that far back? What if the mesorah is only from
> before our fear that we might mis-read the simanim?

I remember a shiur of Kosher tidbits on OU Radio  a while back that
addressed the Turkey issue (among others) and mentioned that besides the
simanim and the fact that it has been eaten for hundreds of years there is
one other factor.  There  was an Amora brought that claimed to be familiar
with all of the prohibited species of fowl.  Since he obviously could not
have been familiar with Turkey, that would indicate that it was not a
prohibited species.

RZS wrote:

>Back to Moshe Rabbeinu.  That is the premise of the whole business of
requiring a mesorah for birds.

See Rambam Ma'achalot Assurot 1:15 that a Baki Baminin Ubeshmotehen - an
ornithological expert who can identify the birds as to their names-   does
not require bedika and therefore Simanim and he establishes the Mesora as
per the end of the Halacha - vene'eman Hatzayad ...

Next Halacha continues that one who is not an ornithological expert checks
the simanim the Chachamim (not Moshe) established. As you learn on the perek
you get a clear picture that Mesora is established either by an
ornithological expert (of the names the Torah refers to - of course) or by
checking the simanim and establishing that the bird fits the rules. The ones
who establish seem to be local Chachamim see again Halacha 15 - ...ne'echal
bemasoret vehu sheyhyeh davar pashut "beoto makom" shezeh of tahor. 

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 

On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 01:45:28PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
>> Yom literally means era, as in "lifnei ba yom Hashem hagadol vehanora".

> Huh?  How do you know that isn't a literal day?   

Because I am pretty sure that Hashem's explicit reign at the end of history
will last for more than 24 hours. Similarly, does the pasuq in Zechariah
that you append to Aleinu speak of Hashem and His Name/Reputation being
one only for 24 hours? Was Yom Yerushalayim only 24 hours?

>> 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?

It means the period in time that included "asos Hashem shamayim va'aretz"
and "vayitzer H' E-lokim es ha'adam", as well as His planting the gan,
through the creation of woman. In fact, the parashah telling us what
happened "on the yom that H' E-lokim made eretz veshamayim" doesn't end
until after Hashem punished the snake, Chava and Adam, but before we are
expelled from gan eden.

That's not to say the expulsion was necessarily on a different yom,
but that there is no indication that it was on the same one. Altogether
a non-intuitive place for a pesuchah, but so it is.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy,
mi...@aishdas.org        if only because it offers us the opportunity of
http://www.aishdas.org   self-fulfilling prophecy.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                              - Arthur C. Clarke

On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 03:49:35PM -0500, Prof. Levine wrote:
> 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 ...

But in practice, the odds of anyone one of us finding a dangerous
spider in our homes and needing to kill it on Shabbos is minimal. You
saw the wooden structures the CC lived among (the picture of him is in
front of one) and it was vanishing small in his mileau. Lo kol shekein
for Hakhel's readership.

The truth is that for the spiders most of us find in our homes,
the biggest outcome from killing a spider is a greater likelihood of
reflexively swatting at and killing a mosquito or fly.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 07:01:50PM +0200, D&E-H Bannett wrote:
> Re: The comment on melekh ozer umoshi'a umagen <<A list would either have 
> a vav before all but the first word, or only before the last one.>>

> Hebrew usage is not the same as English. Note the listing in the Torah of 
> the names of the five daughters of Tzlofchod ben Hefer.  Every time with 
> different vav's. none following the modern English rules.

An "and" before all but the first word wouldn't be modern English either.

But doesn't the vav before veNo'ah group her with Makhlah and Chaglah,
Milkah and Tirtzah in a second group? I seem to recall that there was
a medrash explaining why the daughters were split into two lists.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

On 22/11/2010 6:07 AM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 01:45:28PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
>>> Yom literally means era, as in "lifnei ba yom Hashem hagadol vehanora".
>
>> Huh?  How do you know that isn't a literal day?
>
> Because I am pretty sure that Hashem's explicit reign at the end of history
> will last for more than 24 hours. Similarly, does the pasuq in Zechariah
> that you append to Aleinu speak of Hashem and His Name/Reputation being
> one only for 24 hours? Was Yom Yerushalayim only 24 hours?

I've always assumed that both pesukim refer to the Yom Hadin, which
is surely a literal day.   What makes you think otherwise?



>>> 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?
>
> It means the period in time that included "asos Hashem shamayim va'aretz"
> and "vayitzer H' E-lokim es ha'adam"

Rashi explicitly says otherwise.


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

What do you do if, while you are davening the Amidah, guests arrive and one
needs to interrupt it to greet them? (let's assume that, if you didn't
interrupt the Amidah, the guests would give up and you would lose the
chance of hachnasat orchim).

One the one hand, we learn from the Gemara in Shabbat (127a) "gadol
hachnasas orchim mikabalas pnei ha'shechinah" (because Avraham interrupted
his conversation with HKBH in order to greet the melachim).

On the other hand, I'm not aware of any halacha that allows one to interrupt one's Amidah for hachnasat orchim.

Why is that?

(especially when you consider that our davening is, presumably, a lower
level of engaging with HKBH than Avraham's was. So kal vechomer, we should
be able to interrupt it to carry out hachnasat orchim).

My 9-year-old daughter's question, not mine - any thoughts?

kol tuv

Jonny

Save paper ..... think before you print.

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On Mon, Nov 22, 2010 at 08:46:44AM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
>> Because I am pretty sure that Hashem's explicit reign at the end of history
>> will last for more than 24 hours. Similarly, does the pasuq in Zechariah
>> that you append to Aleinu speak of Hashem and His Name/Reputation being
>> one only for 24 hours? Was Yom Yerushalayim only 24 hours?

> I've always assumed that both pesukim refer to the Yom Hadin, which
> is surely a literal day.   What makes you think otherwise?

There is no mention of Yom haDin, just of Yom Hashem. The notion that
would need explanation would be your assumption that they're identical.
Or even that Yom haDin was a day -- I would think it's shorter.

>>>> 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?

>> It means the period in time that included "asos Hashem shamayim va'aretz"
>> and "vayitzer H' E-lokim es ha'adam"

> Rashi explicitly says otherwise.

Rashi on 2:1 explicitly says that "kulam nivera'u barishon". Nothing
about a given day. In fact, taken very literally, Rashi is saying that
everything was created at the start of the week, as he says on 1:14
about the me'oros, "they were created since yom 1, and on the 4th [yom]
it was commanded on them to hand in the raqia'". One could argue that
Rashi would understand 2:1 as referring to the yom/period that was far
shorter than a day in which everything was nivra yeish mei'ayin.

(I now must pause to apologize to Rn Lampel for raising her husband's
blood pressure that drastically. <grin>)

For that matter, on which yom were shamayim va'aretz created? IOW,
does yom echad begin with "bereishis bara E-lokim", or with "veha'aretz
haysah"? Is 1:1 an introduction, telling you that shamayim va'aretz,
whose creation is described in full from 1:2-1:3 (including the creation
of Shabbos), was in the beginnning of? Is it, as the Ramban takes it,
a distinct event before yom echad?

How we understand 1:1 in relation to the rest of the pereq will change
what yom means in 2:1.

But in any case, returning to the first sentence of the previous
paragraph: There is nothing in Rashi that says that the yom in which
shamayim va'aretz were made was not the yom in which the story happens.
In fact, since the pasuq in question says, roughly, "Here's a story of
something that happens in the yom in which heaven and earth was created",
is would take some work to say that it happens on a different yom. And
if 1:1 is an introductory overview, then 2:1 is saying maaseh bereishis
took a yom.

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 22/11/2010 12:57 AM, Harry Weiss wrote:
> I remember a shiur of Kosher tidbits on OU Radio  a while back that
> addressed the Turkey issue (among others) and mentioned that besides the
> simanim and the fact that it has been eaten for hundreds of years there is
> one other factor.  There  was an Amora brought that claimed to be familiar
> with all of the prohibited species of fowl.  Since he obviously could not
> have been familiar with Turkey, that would indicate that it was not a
> prohibited species.

But that proves too much -- it would apply equally to all New World
species (as well as those of Australia, the Pacific, etc.)

On 22/11/2010 4:25 AM, david guttmann wrote:
> RZS wrote:
>> Back to Moshe Rabbeinu.  That is the premise of the whole business of
>> requiring a mesorah for birds.

> See Rambam Ma'achalot Assurot 1:15 that a Baki Baminin Ubeshmotehen - an
> ornithological expert who can identify the birds as to their names-   does
> not require bedika and therefore Simanim and he establishes the Mesora as
> per the end of the Halacha - vene'eman Hatzayad ...

Baki bishmotehen must by definition go back to Moshe.  The only way
one could possibly know what a bird was called in Moshe's time is by
that knowledge being passed down a chain of "rabbi tzayad".  There's
no physical evidence that can show what a bird's name was in a dialect
spoken thousands of years ago.

> Next Halacha continues that one who is not an ornithological expert checks
> the simanim the Chachamim (not Moshe) established.

Yes.  The Rambam holds that mesorah is *not* necessary.  Today we
pasken otherwise.

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

On Mon, Nov 22, 2010 at 04:25:06AM -0500, david guttmann wrote:
: RZS wrote:
:> Back to Moshe Rabbeinu.  That is the premise of the whole business of
:> requiring a mesorah for birds.

To reply to RZS's point... The Torah lists treif birds. What one would
need a mesorah for back to MRAH would be which birds are treif. See SA YD
82:1 "... ela manah minim temei'im bilvad, ushe'ar minei ha'of mutarim".
Continuing in the next siman, bediqa is needed because of a lack of
expertise in knowing what those 24 minim temei'im include.

: See Rambam Ma'achalot Assurot 1:15 that a Baki Baminin Ubeshmotehen - an
: ornithological expert who can identify the birds as to their names- does
: not require bedika and therefore Simanim and he establishes the Mesora as
: per the end of the Halacha - vene'eman Hatzayad ...

Your name is Guttman, so I assume you come from a family of Ashkenazi
"good people".

Ashkenazim don't hold like the Rambam. It's a machloqes SA and Rama,
see YD 82:3. The Rama says we're noheig to follow the yeish omerim who
say you don't eat any bird without a mesorah, and identifies this as
the shitah of the Arukh. (R' Nasan ben Yechiel, 1030-1106 CE, Italy --
a talmid of R' Hai Gaon and thus sufficiently qualified to be a bar
pelugta of the Rambam.)

In fact, among the shitos RAZZ lists to explain the common eating of
turkey by Ashkenazim is that of the Otzar Yisrael, that eating turkey
either predates the Rama's pesaq, or predates universal acceptance of
that pesaq among Ashkenazim (and is an instance where other poseqim won
out in setting precedent). So, the whole thing might revolve around when
we stopped holding like the Rambam.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             If a person does not recognize one's own worth,
mi...@aishdas.org        how can he appreciate the worth of another?
http://www.aishdas.org             - Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye,
Fax: (270) 514-1507                  author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef


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