Avodah Mailing List

Volume 28: Number 5

Sun, 09 Jan 2011

• 1. Re: Refusal to pay, BM 17a (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: Upsheren (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: attending a C service [was: More on Reviving a Ritual of Tending...] (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: Are there any chemists on Avodah? (Hankman)
• 5. Re: Are there any chemists on Avodah? (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: worst aveirah (Zev Sero)
• 7. Re: (Not) Categorical imperative (dan...@kolberamah.org)
• 8. matzah in mitzrayim (Saul.Z.New...@kp.org)
• 9. R Chiyya Raba (Eli Turkel)
• 10. Re: matzah in mitzrayim (dan...@kolberamah.org)
• 11. Re: matzah in mitzrayim (Joshua Meisner)
• 12. Re: attending a C service [was: More on Reviving a Ritual of Tending...] (T613K@aol.com)
• 13. Q re last night's RYReisman shiur (Poppers, Michael)
• 14. Fwd: b'Ito u'b'Zmano (Micha Berger)
• 15. Yayin Mevushal (Alan Rubin)

On Wed, Jan 05, 2011 at 08:04:02AM -0500, Yitzchak Schaffer wrote:
: On BM 17a Rav Zvid speaks of the following case: beis din orders a loveh
: to pay, he claims he paid, eidim testify he did not. Rashi fleshes out
: that the BD issued the order, then the malveh confronted the loveh before
: eidim, whereupon he /refused/ to pay...

: Sounds to me like Rashi sees the defiance itself as leading to a loss
: of ne'emanus. Two questions:
: - what exactly is it about defiance of BD that dictates the loss of ne'emanus?
: - why does he only lose it l'osah mamon?

They're both one question; your "second question" limits the range
of possible answers to the first. Whatever the sevara to answer your
question, it has to be related to the maaseh at hand, and not a general
loss of chezqas kashrus. Huchzaq kafran le'oso mamon ONLY.

The general direction many other rishonim go in (Rif, R' Chanael,
Rashba, Ran, Ritva) is the idea earlier in the sugya that having the case
brought to beis din makes the halvaah like one that had a shetar. (R'
Chananel says that no, the gemara's case is one where there actually is
a shetar, but I'm only citing him to show that's the general topic the
rishonim focus on.) I presume because of the "ki ha" comparing it to
a case of paying on a kesuvah.

Don't know how that fits Rashi's "ho'il ubifneihem hei'iz la'avor a"p
BD". I agree he does seem to go in a different direction, maybe something
focused about being in denial (kafran, c.f. kefirah) WRT this particular
debt. If he's in such denial that he would lie to BD once....

Interesting contrast to the same claim without contradictory eidim, where
we would use migo that he admitted the loan happened at all to *add*
to his ne'emanus.

Just thinking out loud while I browse sources...

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Live as if you were living already for the
mi...@aishdas.org        second time and as if you had acted the first
http://www.aishdas.org   time as wrongly as you are about to act now!
Fax: (270) 514-1507            - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning

On Thu, Jan 06, 2011 at 06:32:13PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> On 6/01/2011 4:21 PM, Meir Shinnar wrote:
>> Do you have a source?    My understanding is that upsheren was first
>>  introduced when the talmide habesht made aliya

> http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=39166&;pgnum=227
> http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=39166&;pgnum=228
>
> Hebrew translation at:
> http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=39167&;pgnum=146

It's in R' Chaim Vital's Sha'ar haKavanos that the Ari took
his son to meiron on Lag baOmer for his first haircut, and
that it was a "well known custom" already before then.

OTOH, the Steipler Gaon and the Brisker Rav were venemently opposed. In
Orechos Rabbeinu vol 1 p 233 (R' Avraham Horowitz, a talmid) describes
the Steipler as getting angry when someone approached him to cut their
son's hair, and would chase them away.

R' Binyamin Shelomo Hamburger (Shoreshei Mnhag Ashkenaz II pp 251-267
notes it is not found among rishoni, and many mentions of baby boys
getting their hair cut.

We usually do this topic closer to Lag baOmer. Check out the "U"
page in the archive index. That's where I'm getting this stuff from.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "I hear, then I forget; I see, then I remember;
mi...@aishdas.org        I do, then I understand." - Confucius
http://www.aishdas.org   "Hearing doesn't compare to seeing." - Mechilta
Fax: (270) 514-1507      "We will do and we will listen." - Israelites

Check the archive, the threads at
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=E#ENTERING
%20A%20C%20SYNAGOGUE
(or <http://bit.ly/gA7ugu>) "Entering a C Synagogue" and
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=W
#WHEN%20IS%20A%20MECHITZAH%20NECESSARY
(<http://bit.ly/hHpMe2>) "When is a Mechitzah Necessary?".

:-)BBii!
-Micha

On Wed, Jan 05, 2011 at 02:37:52PM -0500, Hankman wrote:
: In the daf, 54a, the gemara brings a Tani Levi that describes the
: construction of the Misbeach. It was concrete-like in nature. It used
: forms much as we would today, aggregate of perfectly smooth stones
: (not to be felt when passing a fingernail over them) and some sort of
: matrix or "mortar" composed of some sort of mixture of sid, kunya and
: zefes, commonly translated as plaster or lime, lead, and pitch or
: bitumen. My question is about this "mortar" they used...

RMB wrote:

Mamcheh appears to mean "to disolve", according to Dr Jastrow. So I
don't a mixture, while accurate, is necessary the right mental image. I
think the lime is being used as an alkaline (wikipedia says it's caustic)
to reduce the lead. Bitumen and pitch, both tarry, are nore likely
to react with lead, but if we have a chemist rather than someone doing
web searches, it would help.

But back to the point, the lead was machah, and therefore not in a
shiny metal form when used for mortar. I'm figuring the verb holds
the answer, regardless of the chemical details.

CM asks:

Please explain two of the words you use. Tarry means ?, and "machah," is
this a typo for mamcheh meaning to dissolve or some other word whose
meaning I do not know? What is the right mental image? How do you get this
from "dissolve"?

I strongly suspect (by analogy to other archeo concrete) that the lime is a
primary component of the final mortar, and not just primarily used as an
alkaline caustic to reduce (what reaction exactly do you mean?) the lead
(although there of course could be some secondary chemical reactions going
on?). Of course this is but a gut feeling without any proof. I doubt highly
that the pitch was a primary component because then I imagine the mortar
would be more in the nature of some sort of asphalt and be a problem at
elevated temperatures of the fires on the surface of the mizbeach. I also
doubt the primary component was the lead for the reasons I posted as my
original questions in my first post. So if as you assume the lead is
"reduced" (whatever that means) chemically, what is its function in the
final mortar? Ditto, I was also looking for the function of the pitch (or
bitumen).

So like you said, we wait for either a chemist or a material scientist to comment for a clearer explanation (if any be known).

Kol Tuv

Chaim Manaster
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On Fri, Jan 07, 2011 at 01:50:55PM -0500, Hankman wrote:
: Mamcheh appears to mean "to disolve", according to Dr Jastrow. So I
: don't a mixture, while accurate, is necessary the right mental image. I
: think the lime is being used as an alkaline (wikipedia says it's caustic)
: to reduce the lead. Bitumen and pitch, both tarry, are nore likely
: to react with lead, but if we have a chemist rather than someone doing
: web searches, it would help.
: 
: But back to the point, the lead was machah, and therefore not in a
: shiny metal form when used for mortar. I'm figuring the verb holds
: the answer, regardless of the chemical details.
: 
: CM asks:
: 
: Please explain two of the words you use. Tarry means ?, and "machah," is
: this a typo for mamcheh meaning to dissolve or some other word whose
: meaning I do not know? What is the right mental image? How do you get
: this from "dissolve"?

I was referring to the shoresh of mamcheh, /MCA/. Jastrow pg 736 lists
mamcheh in a discussion of /MHH/ and /MCA/, and says both roots mean to
dissolve, disolute, or to make clothes threadbare and ragged.

See also his entry for mecha and mechi, pg 759. "Blot out" comes up;
and think of the word "macha'ah".

There is a copy at <http://www.tyndalearchive.com/tabs/jastrow>.

: I strongly suspect (by analogy to other archeo concrete) that the lime
: is a primary component of the final mortar, and not just primarily used
: as an alkaline caustic to reduce (what reaction exactly do you mean?) the
: lead (although there of course could be some secondary chemical reactions
: going on?)...

I am wondering if mamcheh means the lead was dissolved, rather than
a visible part of the result. It does look that way. OTOH, the word
"machi" is used when making a porridge out of parched grain, which isn't
a full disollution.

I don't know about other ancient concrete, I'm just playing with the word
definition and an on-line Jastrow.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "The most prevalent illness of our generation is
mi...@aishdas.org        excessive anxiety....  Emunah decreases anxiety:
http://www.aishdas.org   'The Almighty is my source of salvation;  I will
Fax: (270) 514-1507      trust and not be afraid.'" (Isa 12) -Shalhevesya

On 7/01/2011 12:05 PM, Micha Berger wrote:

> But none of the three yeihareig ve'al ha'avor are pushiable by seqilah.
> They're clearly worse -- which means there must be another dimension
> than that used by derashos miqal vachomer.

Why are those three clearly worse?  Who says that the severity of an
averah is what should determine whether it's nidche by pikuach nefesh?

For instance, murder is on the list not because of any measurement of
its severity but because it's not logical for pikuach nefesh to override
it: "who says your blood is redder than the other person's?"   In other
words, maybe in theory PKN would override it, except that by its nature
*someone* has to die, so why should it be the other person and not you?
Another avera may be worse than murder, but PKN overrides it because
it's not necessary for *anyone* to die.

Also, it's obvious that kibbush ha'aretz overrides PKN; otherwise it
would be impossible.  The reason it's not listed among "the three" is
simple: it's an asei, not a lo sa'aseh, so the language "yehareg ve'al
ya`avor" is simply inapplicable.  But one must do this mitzvah, if it
comes to ones hand, despite a high risk of death, and the certainty
that some participants will die.  And yet nobody will argue that
because it overrides PKN it's therefore more important than other
mitzvos.  Tefillin doesn't override PKN, not because it's less
important than kibbush ha'aretz but because its nature doesn't require
anyone's death.



> And since hevei zahir bemitzvah qalah kemitzvah chamurah, because you
> don't know their rewards, it would seem that severity in terms of beis
> din shel maalah is yet another axis by which one define "worse", even
> if one can't actually measure along that axis.

That refers to mitzvos, not to averos.  We *do* know the ranking of
averos, by the punishment they attract.  It follows that mitzvos are
ranked by their reward, but the problem is that we don't have that
information.  We know the reward for *some* mitzvos, but not for most,
so we can't tell whether any given mitzvah might get an even better
reward than "lema'an yirbu yemeichem", etc.




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

Quoting Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>:
> "Then he returned [to speaking] and said,

Sorry for going off your point, but I was wondering: you feel that  
"hadar" (I assume that is the word you are translating here as  
"returned") refers to the resumption of speech?  I would have  
translated it as "then he retracted and said."

the barley was  destroyed  by  barad.   the  wheat  would  not  mature 
until  bnai yisrael  was at har sinai. 
 one  would  assume that   flour  from previous  years  was  used . 

 this  was  then  not  shmura  wheat  of  today  , unless  they  harvested 
 wheat and  put  in a water-guarded  place  a year  before  commanded to 
do  so.....


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On Thu, Jan 06, 2011 at 04:35:56PM -0500, Joshua Meisner wrote:
: Unless one places R' Chiyya in the shnei alafim Torah, and draws the line
: between tannaim and amoraim after him.

R Chiyya died before Rebbe so why would one think that R chiyya cant
disagree
with Rebbe any less than other tannaim from that generation like R. Yishmael
the son of R. Yose etc.
R Chiya is generally consider a talmid-chaver of Rebbe

-- 
Eli Turkel
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Quoting Saul.Z.New...@kp.org:
> the barley was  destroyed  by  barad.   the  wheat  would  not  mature
> until  bnai yisrael  was at har sinai.
>  one  would  assume that   flour  from previous  years  was  used .
>
>  this  was  then  not  shmura  wheat  of  today  , unless  they  harvested
>  wheat and  put  in a water-guarded  place  a year  before  commanded to
> do  so.....

I thought that pshat was that they were not actually obligated in  
matzah the year of yetzias mitzriayim.  Otherwise, what does it mean  
that they didn't have time to make bread?  Why would they have been  
making bread in the first place, rather then matzah, unless there was  
no issur that year.  In which case there is no reason they should have  
used shemura flour.

On Fri, Jan 7, 2011 at 4:46 PM, <dan...@kolberamah.org> wrote:

> Quoting Saul.Z.New...@kp.org:
>
>> the barley was  destroyed  by  barad.   the  wheat  would  not  mature
>> until  bnai yisrael  was at har sinai.
>>  one  would  assume that   flour  from previous  years  was  used .
>>
>>  this  was  then  not  shmura  wheat  of  today  , unless  they  harvested
>>  wheat and  put  in a water-guarded  place  a year  before  commanded to
>> do  so.....
>>
>
> I thought that pshat was that they were not actually obligated in matzah
> the year of yetzias mitzriayim.  Otherwise, what does it mean that they
> didn't have time to make bread?  Why would they have been making bread in
> the first place, rather then matzah, unless there was no issur that year.
>  In which case there is no reason they should have used shemura flour.
>

A friend of mine asked that exact question (IIU RDI C) by seudah shlishis
today, regarding why the reason given for Bnei Yisroel taking matzos with
them is the lack of time necessary for the bread to rise brought about by
the haste in departing, given the issur chametz.  I tried to answer based on
the Mishnah in the 9th perek of Pesachim (96), which states that Pesach
Mitzrayim did not have the issur chametz kol shiv'a that Pesach l'Doros has,
but forgot the conclusion of the gemara that aligns this mishnah with a
drash of R' Yosei haGelili, that the issur still extended the entire first
day.

After the fact, I wondered if there was any significance to the fact that
the ba'al hashmu'ah of that (apparently accepted) shita is R' Yosei
haGelili, who also holds by the unaccepted shita that there's no issur
hana'ah by chametz at all (28b), so that in his mouth, the din would only be
referring to an issur achila that spanned the first day, but it seems more
likely that when the rabbanan accepted this drash, they interpreted it
k'shitasam that even the issur hana'ah would have existed on the entire
first day.  At any rate, RYhG is coming to be meikil, so that even if we
were to reduce the scope of his drasha, it would not achieve the desired
result.

Although the drash of RYhG is based on the passuk "v'Lo yei'acheil
chameitz", we hold like Chizkiyah (21b), who reads this passuk as referring
to an issur hana'ah, so there doesn't seem to be a way out on that path,
either.

To sum, then, it seems clear that there was an issur of owning chametz on
the night of 15 Nissan until the end of the day.  That being the case, why
could we not say that the reason for their not carrying chametz with them
was because of the issur, rather than using the practical reason of the
haste that the passuk specifies?

R' Yitzchok Dovid Frankel asks a related question in Machat Shel Yad, and
develops the idea that chipazon was an intrinsic part of Yetzias Mitzrayim,
so that despite their ability to avoid the rush by anticipating the Yetziah
earlier that day, there was a necessity that chipazon be associated with
Yetzias Mitzrayim, based on HaShem's haste in taking us out at exactly the
necessary time.  This being the case, perhaps this could also serve as a
reason for the Torah's pragmatic rationale for the matzos, rather than the
latent halachic rationale.


Joshua Meisner
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From: Micha Berger _micha@aishdas.org_ (mailto:mi...@aishdas.org) 
: 
 

Old TK: : My father (R' Nachman Bulman, for newbies) held that it is  assur 
to  enter 
: a C or R sanctuary for any reason.  He, and much  of the RW Torah  world, 
: sharply disagreed with RYBS and parts of the  MO world on this  issue...

RMB:  FWIW, in general, RYBS was  pretty machmir on this stuff. Many in the 
RW
world would agree to using a  catering hall owned by a non-O synagogue;
he would not.
 
TK:  My  father did not permit the use of a catering hall in  a non-O 
temple either, and he would not enter a non-O temple or synagogue  building at 
all, not even to attend the Orthodox wedding of frum relatives in  the social h
all.  

Old TK:  Personally R' Bulman dealt with  numerous individuals, probably  
thousands 
: over the years, who had  serious family conflicts with non-O relatives, 
non-O
: simchas and occasions,  visits home to non-O parents and so on.  He 
guided 
: them step by step  as to what to say and how to behave in order to be  
: mefayes their  disgruntled relatives.  But bending on principle was not 
part of
: the  allowable spectrum of reaction to these painful family  situations...

RMB:  It can be seen as a chumerah in kibud av va'eim,  not "bending".

TK: The idea that kibud av ve'eim overrides halacha  is contrary to Chazal. 
 Rashi explicitly addresses this question on the  pasuk "Ish imo ve'aviv 
tira'u ve'es Shabsosai tishmoru; Ani Hashem Elokeichem."  "A man (each of you) 
must fear his mother and his father, and keep my Shabosos;  I am Hashem 
your G-d" (Vayikra 19:3)
 
Rashi there says, "The Torah juxtaposed Shabbos to awe of one's father, to  
teach that even though I commanded you regarding awe of one's father, if he 
 tells you to profane the Sabbath, do not listen to him, and THIS IS TRUE 
WITH  REGARD TO ALL THE MITZVOS.  'I am Hashem your (pl) G-d.' You AND your  
father are obligated to honor Me, therefore do not listen to him to nullify 
My  words."
 
After a hundred and twenty years, believe me, a father will not look  back 
and say, "How wonderful that my son honored me, even to the extent of  
sinning befarhesya just to please me."  That will not be his  father's kovod in 
the olam he'emes.
 
By suggesting that attending services in a C cong /might/ be permissible  
for kibud av ve'eim, you are already conceding that attending services in a  
C cong might be permissible, period.
 
For if you grant that it is not permissible, you cannot claim that kibud  
ve'eim makes permissible what is forbidden, as we have just learned from  
Rashi.

 
 


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



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





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This past motzoei Shabbos, RYReisman riffed off "rippinu es Bavel v'lo
nirpasah" (Yirmiyahu 51:9) to speak about n'qudos (three types: (a)
d'geishim (b) dots on top of words in Chumash (c) vowels, e.g. chiriq and
tzeireh) as well as the special quality of the yud.  He quoted Rabbeinu
Bachyei on a rafeh evoking l'shon rakkah & a malei evoking l'shon
qasheh (re (a)) and re his'or'rus (re (b)) and then spoke of the "oneness"
of the n'qudah.  I understood how hQbH's "ani H' rof'echa" (fei/rafeh)
evokes His midas rachamim (a complete healing which doesn't cause other
problems, unlike human healing which hurts other body parts as part of
healing one part) and the dramatic lessons we can learn from the words and
phrases Ezra haSofeir pointed with dots (e.g. the Minchas Elazar on "lanu
ulvaneinu" referring to the chasadim we keep from others not being hidden
from baneinu), but if the n'qudah represents "oneness," shouldn't words
which represent how H' operates accordingly _have_ d'ge
 ishim rather than be rafeh?

Gut Voch/Shavua Tov and all the best from 
-- Michael Poppers via BB pager

I mentioned Friday night, at RZL's grandson's Shalom Zakhar, a notion from
R' Yaakov Kamencski about zeman and eis. One of the attendees asked:
: Do you have a source reference where I can see what Rav Yaakov's
: explication was, that prompted his adjusting  the Nusach?

Looking through Avodah's archive, since I remember discussing this here
before, I found that in the past I thought it was from R' Aharon. To
quote:

> R' Aharon Kotler zt"l commented to a student on the occasion of the
> birth of the student's son about the phrase "The beris should be
> be'ito ubizmano", using both "eis" and "zeman" to denote its proper
> time. Similarly the famous words of Koheles, "Lakol zeman va'eis...
> everything has its zeman and its eis..." Rav Aharon explained the
> difference. If the baby is healthy, then the beris is at the
> pre-decided time, on the eight day. If not, then it will be at the
> right time for that individual baby. Ideally the beris would be at
> both.

> An eis is a time that comes according to a prescheduled appointment,
> ready or not. It is a point in a shanah, in cyclic time that runs its
> celestial heartbeat regardless of human action. A zeman is a landmark in
> the course of progression. And so, one is "kovei'ah itim baTorah", one
> sets aside times for Torah. In Ma'ariv, we describe Hashem as "Meshaneh
> itim uMachalif es hazemanim -- the One Who changes the itim and switches
> the zemanim." Note that for "itim", the change is described as a shinui,
> reflecting the word shanah.

So, does anyone know who did say it, where it really does come from?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Like a bird, man can reach undreamed-of
mi...@aishdas.org        heights as long as he works his wings.
http://www.aishdas.org   But if he relaxes them for but one minute,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      he plummets downward.   - Rav Yisrael Salanter

As I understand it, according to many authorities, if a non-Jew
handles yayin mevushal this does not render it non-Kosher. The grounds
for this ruling is that cooking would invalidate the wine for  avodah
zara.

I am wondering about the logic behind this. There is a link between
kiddush and libations in the temple. Wine that is invalid for libation
in the temple might, lechatchilah at least, be unsuitable for kiddush.

If pasteurising or otherwise heating wine is enough of a mevushal to
take away the problem of touching by a non-Jew shouldn't that also
render it unfit for kiddush?

Alan


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