Avodah Mailing List

Volume 28: Number 21

Mon, 07 Feb 2011

• 1. Dollar Bills In the Bathroom? (Prof. Levine)
• 2. Re: Dollar Bills In the Bathroom? (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: Dollar Bills In the Bathroom? (Michael Kopinsky)
• 4. Toch kedei dibbur / cheilek (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: R Chiyya Raba (Rich, Joel)
• 6. Re: Dollar Bills In the Bathroom? (Daniel Eidensohn)
• 7. Re: Dollar Bills In the Bathroom? (Rafi Hecht)
• 8. taxes (Eli Turkel)
• 9. Re: Ayil Meshulash (Michael Kopinsky)
• 10. Re: God of Love, vs. Just God (Michael Kopinsky)
• 11. Re: God of Love, vs. Just God (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 12. God of Love (Eli Turkel)
• 13. The Vilna Gaon and Secular Wisdom (Prof. Levine)
• 14. Re: Dollar Bills In the Bathroom? (Micha Berger)
• 15. Must A Women Subject Herself To A Caesarean Delivery? (Prof. Levine)

 From http://revach.net/article.php?id=4955

It is not permissible to brings something with Hashem's name into a 
bathroom unless it is inside a double wrapped enclosure. What about a 
US dollar bill which says, "In G-d We Trust"? Must you leave your 
money outside or double bag it?

The Shevet HaKehosi (3:271) brings the Shach (YD 179:11) who says 
that you may erase Hashem's name if it is written in another 
language, such as the word
G-d. The Gilyon Maharshas adds that this is not the case if it is 
written in Ksav Ashuris. The Sdei Chemed says it is a machlokes 
whether we can erase Hashem's name written in foreign letters.

Even those who hold that erasing Hashem's name written in foreign 
letters is assur, it is only if it spells Hashem's name in Lashon 
HaKodesh and not the foreign word for it. If it is a foreign term in 
foreign letters than according to most poskim it is muttar to erase. 
The exception is Rav Yaakov Emden who forbids even this. However the 
source for Rav Yaakov Emden's issur is unclear and the Keses Sofer 
says that he may have meant only unnecessarily.

Furthermore says the Shevet HaKehosi the dollar bills are not written 
by anyone with any kavana for Shem Hashem, it is merely printed by a 
machine. Therefore he concludes that it has no Kedusha and may be 
taken into a bathroom, but if someone wants to be machmir, Tavo Alav Bracha.

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On Fri, Feb 04, 2011 at 08:41:59AM -0500, Prof. Levine wrote:
> From http://revach.net/article.php?id=4955

As I commented there... 

    Who said that the "God" in "In God We Trust" necessarily refers to
    the Creator, the notion of Deity that Yahadus teaches?

    To most people making and handling the bills, it refers to a
    trinitarian deity, something so different from what we believe
    in that it's not just slightly different beliefs about the same
    G-d. Even according to Tosafos's famous heter, it's their notion
    of the Father who is an imperfect understanding of Hashem. "God"
    refers to all three persons of the trinity.

    And according to the obverse side of the Great Seal of the United
    States, printed about an inch away, the God in question is a Grand
    Architect (shown by the lines and numbers involved in the pyramid)
    who is above the world and passively watches it (the eye floating
    above). There is a picture represtenting a Deistic concept of deity
    on the same bill.

    Would, a parallel to the Sheivet haKehasi's answer would work in
    reverse to permit idolatrous references that were produced by machine?

To explain that 2nd paragraph further, since someone commented in reply
something that reflected a lack of clarity on my part:

Tosafos famously suggest the heter about trinitarianism being shituf.
But what they suggest is that when Xians speak of "the Father" they
mean the true G-d, and therefore the other two persons of the trinity
comprise a shituf. But that means the word "God" on the bill doesn't
refer to HQBH, it refers to Him plus two others working together. If
we were to follow the Sheivet haKehasi's logic with Tosafos's opinion,
the question would only arise if the bill said "In the Father we trust."

A major question is what do we call a mistaken description of HQBH
and what do we call a description of a different Deity? Hashem doesn't
have attributes. Otherwise I would have thought the issue was between
differences in Essence and difference in Attributes. Maybe it's whether
the other monotheistic religion differs about what G-d is/isn't or
whether they err in how He appears to us. Still, it makes for a very
difficult line to define.



In light of today being Rosh Chodesh (and which month it's Rosh Chodesh
of) I would like to make the oilem this offer:

I will gladly remove all she'eilah ufiqpuq from your homes of any avaq
AZ or shituf. Email me for an address to which you can send any bills
with the offending statement or picture, and I'll make sure to get rid
of them for you.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes
mi...@aishdas.org        exactly the right measure of himself,  and
http://www.aishdas.org   holds a just balance between what he can
Fax: (270) 514-1507      acquire and what he can use." - Peter Latham

On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 8:41 AM, Prof. Levine <llev...@stevens.edu> wrote:

>  From http://revach.net/article.php?id=4955
>

The story goes that one of the Soloveitchiks (maybe R' Moshe Soloveitchik?)
had the shaila about taking money into the bathroom. He wasn't sure which
god (or G-d) it was referring to, so he asked a priest. The priest said he
didn't know either, at which point Rav Moshe decided that if even the priest
doesn't know, we don't need to be choshesh.

KT,
Michael
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A possible explanation for why the halachic quantum of time is a cheileq --
which tokh kedei dibbur (the time it takes to say 4 words of 10 syllables)
is a pretty solid approximation...

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/01/hugs-follow-a-3-se
cond-rule.html

    Hugs Follow a 3-Second Rule
    by Rebecca Kessler on 28 January 2011, 1:23 PM

    Ever wondered how long a hug lasts? The quick answer is about 3
    seconds, according to a new study of the post-competition embraces of
    Olympic athletes. But the long answer is more profound. A hug lasts
    about as much time as many other human actions and neurological
    processes, which supports a hypothesis that we go through life
    perceiving the present in a series of 3-second windows.

    Crosscultural studies dating back to 1911 have shown that people
    tend to operate in 3-second bursts. Goodbye waves, musical phrases,
    and infants' bouts of babbling and gesturing all last about 3
    seconds. Many basic physiological events, such as relaxed breathing
    and certain nervous system functions do, too....

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and
mi...@aishdas.org        this was a great wonder. But it is much more
http://www.aishdas.org   wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a
Fax: (270) 514-1507      "mensch"!     -Rav Yisrael Salanter

In summary some of these are sweeping statements which CI never got into
the details of how to implement them. Again as R. Fisher points out many of these
are great chiddushim which the CI simply states and takes for granted without
proving them or pointing to earlier authorities.



--
Eli Turkel
 ===========================================
Which is a fascinating part of the halachic process.  Take the 2000 year
issue - was the CI saying that this concept was innate in the rulings of
previous generations and the CI was only articulating it?
KT
Joel Rich
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This is discussed in the Igros Moshe Y.D. I #172 page 346

This reminds me of the Dead Sea scrolls, where everything else was
written in Ksav Ashuri except for the Shem Havaya, which was written
in Ksav Ivri, suggesting that the Sefer was permitted to be used in
any which way (and therefore wasn't a "Sefer Kadosh" per se). I also
wonder if this was a big reason for ancient Hebrew coins being
engraved with Ksav Ivri script rather than Ksav Ashuri.

Perhaps, then, Ksav Ashuri was used for "Chol" matters and Ksav Ivri
was used for "Kadosh" matters.

What then do we say about our script font?

Best Regards,
Rafi Hecht
rhe...@gmail.com
416-276-6925
www.rafihecht.com
---
Never Trust a Computer You Can't Throw Out a Window - Steve Wozniak



On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 8:41 AM, Prof. Levine <llev...@stevens.edu> wrote:
> From http://revach.net/article.php?id=4955
>
> It is not permissible to brings something with Hashem's name into a bathroom
> unless it is inside a double wrapped enclosure. What about a US dollar bill
> which says, "In G-d We Trust"? Must you leave your money outside or double
> bag it?
>
> The Shevet HaKehosi (3:271) brings the Shach (YD 179:11) who says that you
> may erase Hashem's name if it is written in another language, such as the
> word
> G-d. The Gilyon Maharshas adds that this is not the case if it is written in
> Ksav Ashuris. The Sdei Chemed says it is a machlokes whether we can erase
> Hashem's name written in foreign letters.
>
> Even those who hold that erasing Hashem's name written in foreign letters is
> assur, it is only if it spells Hashem's name in Lashon HaKodesh and not the
> foreign word for it. If it is a foreign term in foreign letters than
> according to most poskim it is muttar to erase. The exception is Rav Yaakov
> Emden who forbids even this. However the source for Rav Yaakov Emden's issur
> is unclear and the Keses Sofer says that he may have meant only
> unnecessarily.
>
> Furthermore says the Shevet HaKehosi the dollar bills are not written by
> anyone with any kavana for Shem Hashem, it is merely printed by a machine.
> Therefore he concludes that it has no Kedusha and may be taken into a
> bathroom, but if someone wants to be machmir, Tavo Alav Bracha.
>
>

<<Does dina d'malchuta give infinite power to government?>>

First a guarantee that no one in Italy ever paid, in practice, more than
100% taxes.

My problem with taxes is actually the opposite. First it is not clear
if dina demalchuta applied today in the strict sense when governments can
not
take away citizenship for not paying taxes. There are also limitations on
imposing
new taxes.

More problematic is the Rama on local community taxes. First it seems like
he is quoting a bunch of early authorities on the minhag and in their
community
and it is hard to make any coherent sense of it.
In particular there are rules like taxes are valid only if every tax paying
member is invited to voice his opinion. He explicitly says that the town
council
cannot impose taxes. That is reasonable for a small shtetl not for New York
city not to speak of national taxes. Taxes have to be of an old nature (how
did they ever
get started?). Increasing taxes for a new situation is extremely difficult.
The options for taxation is either a flat per person tax or according to
money
(the rules for per money are very detailed eg ones real estate holding dont
count)
but certainly not modern progressive tax rates.

In summary I would venture that it would be impossible to set up modern town
taxes and
real estate taxes according to the Rama

-- 
Eli Turkel
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On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 11:30 AM, Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:

> No claim the Gra wrote the book, or even that the notes were pieced
> together like a puzzle, literally his words.
>


"...v'hasefer nimtza b'ksav yad mamash..."

The average reader would take that to mean that (some version of) the book
was in his manuscripts, not just random notes.

KT,
Michael
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On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 7:08 PM, Moshe Y. Gluck <mgl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> R' David Riceman:
> "Ein menahamim es ha'adam b'sha'ah shemeiso mutal l'fanav".  If the
> gentleman was really in distress, it may not have been the best time for
> this discussion.
>
> The classification of an event as mercy or justice is not an objective one,
> but a subjective one.  As you correctly note, it can change depending on
> how
> wide your perspective is.  My experience is that wider perspective makes
> events seem more like mercy.  As evidence I cite the above ma'amar Hazal;
> distress narrows a person's horizons, making him less able to take the
> wider
> perspective which may make him realize that something was really good, and
> thus less able to accept nehamah.
> ------------------
>
> I disagree; the classification of something as mercy or justice is
> objective. We may not - and generally do not - have the facts necessary to
> be able to correctly analyze it. Your experience notwithstanding, sometimes
> "zooming out," so to speak, makes events seem _less_ like mercy.
> I also disagree with your last sentence, above. Or, at least, the
> implication I'm reading into it - that if something ultimately leads to a
> good result then it is "really good." It is not, usually, so - it might be
> more accurately described as something that happened that is really _bad_
> but that had a good result coming as a result of it, anyway.
>


When you punish your son or send him back to his room after bedtime, are you
doing it as a loving father or as a just father? Your son, from his limited
experience, sees this as a dichotomy; we, who have the breadth of
understanding and experience to know that setting and enforcing clear limits
is the greatest chesed a parent can perform for a child, do not see the
conflict. Perhaps your son is even able to recognize that being sent back to
bed is a bad thing but that has a good result coming out of it, but in the
time of his distress he is unable to recognize that the punishment itself is
done out of love.

The metaphor can be extended much further as well.

KT,
Michael
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I wrote:
> My feeling is that He is a just God, as RMYG writes, but in
> addition, He is also a loving God. Here's my logic: As humans we
> suffer from not having the ability to scan the entire scope of
> the human experience so as to understand the love of what Hashem
> does, but He is always loving, our perceptions notwithstanding.

R' Moshe Y. Gluck asked:
> R' AM, forgive me for saying this, but your logic does not seem
> logical, unless it is going completely over my head; it seems
> more like conjecture than anything else. Could you elaborate?

No apologies needed; I'm glad to explain. *I'm* sorry for not being clear enough.

I was simply commenting on RMYG's original suggestion that He is *not* a
loving God. If I understood him correctly, the only evidence he offered was
the question: "How can a Loving God do ___(many terrible things)_____ to
me?"

Now, was that a real question or a *rhetorical* question? WADR, RMYG seems
to be using it as a rhetorical question, meaning that a Loving God would
NOT do such things, and therefore we must find other ways to describe Him,
such as a Just God.

But I prefer to take it as a real question: How can a Loving God do such
things? And my answer is: We are too short-sighted. I'll admit that it is
difficult/impossible to understand how can a Loving God do such things, but
that's only because we have not yet reached the end of the story. If we do
ever merit seeing and understanding the whole story (which might not be
possible), then we will indeed see the love that He put into those acts.

It seems to me that this is very similar to the idea the RMYG himself was
saying: God often seems to be unfair, but if we *would* be able to scan the
entire scope of the human experience, then we *would* be able to see Him as
a Just God. I don't see any difference between these these misperceptions
of Him, and so I figured that whatever wording one uses for His Fairness
would also apply to His Love.

Akiva Miller

____________________________________________________________
$65/Hr Job - 25 Openings
Part-Time job ($20-$65/hr). Requirements: Home Internet Access
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/4d4c31df4a1c1f08e2st02vuc

<<The classification of an event as mercy or justice is not an objective
one, but a subjective one.  As you correctly note, it can change depending
on how wide your perspective is.  My experience is that wider perspective
makes events seem more like mercy.  As evidence I cite the above ma'amar
Hazal; distress narrows a person's horizons, making him less able to take
the wider perspective which may make him realize that something was really
good, and thus less able to accept nehamah.>>

The Holocaust was subjectively just that no amount of sophistry can change
it into something
of mercy when millions of little children are murdered

-- 
Eli Turkel
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The following is from pages 148-149 of  Judaism's Encounter with 
Other Cultures: Rejection or Integration?

Given what the GRA said below, one can only wonder why music is not 
taught in all of our yeshivas.  For the record, a friend of mine who 
is the secular studies principal of a Mesivtha in Brooklyn wrote to 
me that his school does have a course in music appreciation. YL

R. Israel of Shklov (d. 1839) wrote:

I cannot refrain from repeating a true and astonishing story that I 
heard from the Gaon's disciple R. Menahem Mendel.  It took place when 
the Gaon of Vilna celebrated the completion of his commentary on Song 
of Songs. . . . He raised his eyes toward heaven and with great 
devotion began blessing and thanking God for endowing him with the 
ability to comprehend the light of the entire Torah. This included 
its inner and outer manifestations. He explained: All secular wisdom 
is essential for our holy Torah and is included in it. He indicated 
that he had mastered all the branches of secular wisdom, including 
algebra, trigonometry, geometry, and music. He especially praised 
music, explaining that most of the Torah accents, the secrets of the 
Levitical songs, and  the secrets of the Tikkunei Zohar could not be 
comprehended without mastering it. . .  He explained the significance 
of the various secular disciplines, and noted that  he had mastered 
them all. Regarding the discipline of medicine, he stated that he 
had  mastered anatomy, but not pharmacology. Indeed, he had wanted to 
study pharmacology with practicing physicians, but his father 
prevented him from undertaking its study,  fearing that upon 
mastering it he would be forced to curtail his Torah study whenever 
it would become necessary for him to save a life. . . . He also 
stated that he had  mastered all of philosophy, but that he had 
derived only two matters of significance from  his study of it. . . . 
The rest of it, he said, should be discarded." [11]

[11.] Pe'at ha-Shulhan, ed. Abraham M. Luncz (Jerusalem, 1911), 5a.



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On Fri, Feb 04, 2011 at 10:45am EST, I wrote:
:     And according to the [re]verse side of the Great Seal of the United
:     States, printed about an inch away, the God in question is a Grand
:     Architect (shown by the lines and numbers involved in the pyramid)
:     who is above the world and passively watches it (the eye floating
:     above). There is a picture represtenting a Deistic concept of deity
:     on the same bill.

I erred. Not that this is 100% on topic, but it involves the metzi'us
without which the halachic discussion couldn't procede....

This is an accurate description of the eye and the pyramid before the
text was added. Here's a picture to help clarify what I'm talking about
<http://www.dw-jotd.com/images/great_seal_obverse.png>

The text reads "ANNUIT COEPTIS" on the top edge, and "NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM"
on the bottom.

"Annuit coeptis" means Providence "has approved of [our] undertakings".
Drawing a deduction that since they succeeded, God must have approved
of the revolution. That's not Deism.

("Novus ordo seclorum" is from Virgil's Evolugue and means "a new order
for the ages." "Seclorum" means "world" from which we get "secular" --
worldly, but also refers to time; lehavdil cf "le'olam". For more info,
see <http://www.greatseal.com>.)

In any case, we're back to just the trinitarian issue, and the reference
to the god of the trinity, rather than the True G-d or at least just
the Father (invoking Tosafos's shitah about shituf).

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
mi...@aishdas.org         'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
http://www.aishdas.org    'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
Fax: (270) 514-1507                     - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l

 From http://revach.net/article.php?id=4965

Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach & Rav Elyashiv ybcl"c - Must A Women 
Subject Herself To A Caesarean Delivery?

If a woman cannot give birth naturally and her delivery will require 
Caesarean section, can she refuse her husband's request to have children?

The Nishmas Avrohom (OC 330:2) brings from Rav Elyashiv shlit"a that 
the Meshech Chochma (Noach 9:7) says that a woman, although patur 
from the Mitzva of having children (as only a man is chayav), 
nevertheless is obligated to her husband to bear him children. This 
is despite that there is inherent danger in childbirth. Therefore 
says Rav Elyashiv the extra measure of danger inherent in a c-section 
will not exempt her from her obligation to her husband.

However, says the Nishmas Avrohom, Rav Shlomo Zalman argued and held 
that the only obligation a woman has to her husband is for a natural 
childbirth. This was understood when she agreed to get married. 
However a c-section was not part of the agreement and she may 
therefore refuse to have one.

He goes as far as saying that even if right before childbirth the 
doctors says that it may be dangerous for the child to be born 
naturally and a c-section would prove to be a much safer alternative 
to delivering a healthy child, she may still refuse on the grounds 
that she is afraid to undergo the operation, even at the expense of the child.

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