Avodah Mailing List

Volume 28: Number 32

Thu, 03 Mar 2011

• 1. Orlah (Eli Turkel)
• 2. Re: yaroq (Liron Kopinsky)
• 3. Re: yaroq (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: yaroq (Zev Sero)
• 5. Re: yaroq (Akiva Blum)
• 6. Re: The Tube of an Egg (Poppers, Michael)
• 7. Molad Alert: Friday night (Danny Schoemann)
• 8. yaroq (Eli Turkel)
• 9. Re: Molad Alert: Friday night (Akiva Blum)
• 10. Re: Molad Alert: Friday night (Micha Berger)
• 11. Re: Oranges from Israel (D&E-H Bannett)
• 12. Re: Oranges from Israel (Micha Berger)
• 13. Re: Molad Alert: Friday night (Zev Sero)
• 14. Re: Molad Alert: Friday night (Micha Berger)
• 15. Re: How long did Nevuchadnetzar reign? (Akiva Blum)
• 16. Re: yaroq (Micha Berger)

I found my copy of "halichot sadeh" from 17 years ago! Throughout the years
they list
the percentages of fruit and land that is orlah for each fruit.
In that issue there was a very short description of the rules

According to R. Elyashiv (it seemed to indicate not everyone agrees) If the
trees are widespread
in EY there MIGHT be a problem of Orlah even for low percentages because of
Kavuah.
Today (ie 17 years ago) there are places in EY where there is no Orlah
because that area
has many religious settlements and because of hasgachot and also because
there are no new
plantings. Thus, they conclude that only if the amount of land that has
Orlah is more than
20% of the total is there any suspicion of Orlah. In that year the estimate
was that no commodity
had more than 15% of the land Orlah.
There are other opinions that disagree and allow the food if less than 50%
of the produce is Orlah.


some examples (4 years ago - last volume I have)

pears 0.5% Orlah
Apricots 4.5%
Nectarines 4.2%
Peaches 1.8%
Olives for food 0.02%
olives for oil 3.4%
Grapes 1.2%
Apples under 1%
figs 1%
plums 1.6%

some varieties that mighty have a problem according to R. Elyashi
apricot - early spring
nectarine - gali, 5-15
grapes - crimson


-- 
Eli Turkel
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RMB:
But Rashi ad loc (Chullin 89a "shehatekheiles domeh
layam") says "shehachilazon min hayam, umar'is damo domeh layam" --
explicitly speaking of dam chilazon, not tekheiles itself!

But Rashi on Brachos is specifically talking about the color of the dye,
since you have to distinguish between techelet and carti in a beged.
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On Wed, Mar 02, 2011 at 10:04:11AM -0800, Liron Kopinsky wrote:
:> But Rashi ad loc (Chullin 89a "shehatekheiles domeh
:> layam") says "shehachilazon min hayam, umar'is damo domeh layam" --
:> explicitly speaking of dam chilazon, not tekheiles itself!

: But Rashi on Brachos is specifically talking about the color of the dye,
: since you have to distinguish between techelet and carti in a beged.

Which implies that the final dye isn't yaroq kekarti.

Rashi could still say (despite my argument that he meant the initial
dam, not the dye) that tekheiles is yaroq. As long as it's not the same
shade as a karti. It would give a later time for misheyaqir than if
it were blue vs green. Or a nearly black bluish-purple. But still,
a plausible one.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

On 2/03/2011 11:14 AM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 02, 2011 at 10:47:14AM +0200, Eli Turkel wrote:
> : In modern Hebrew yaroq is Green. Does anyone have any sources that
> : discuss what yaroq could have been in the gemara?


> "Esrog... vehayaroq kekarti"... (mishnah on Sukkah 34b) So, a karti,
> generally translated a leek, is something R' Yehudah considers too yaroq
> to be a good color for an esrog, but R' Meir makhshir.
[...]
> "Kekarti" is also a description of very yeroqah on Chullin 47b.

You seem to be assuming that "yarok kekarti" means "very yarok".  That
is not so.   "Yarok kekarti" simply means "green"; its alternative is
"yarok kekarkom", which means "yellow".   There is no implication about
the precise shades of green and yellow.  Even a pale green is "yarok
kekarti", and even a pale yellow is "yarok kekarkom".   An esrog is
supposed to be "yarok kekarkom", not "kekarti"; but the tana'im differ
on whether being completely "kekarti" and not a bit "kekarkom" makes
it pasul or merely not mehudar.

"Yarok" itself, in leshon chazal, means both colours, and all shades
within them; they saw them all as shades of the same colour, just as we
English-speakers see dark blue and sky blue as shades of the same
colour, though Russian- and Ivrit-speakers see them as separate colours.

-- 
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 [mailto:avodah-boun...@lists.aishdas.org] On Behalf Of Eli Turkel
Sent: Wednesday 02 March 2011 10:47 AM


In modern Hebrew yaroq is Green. Does anyone have any sources that
discuss what yaroq could have been in the gemara?

 Tosafos Succah 31b
 
It seems yaroq includes yellow and green.
 
Akiva 

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In Avodah V28n31, R'Micha responded to me:
> I thought the reverse... That the Maharil was diverting from common
pronunciation and spelling based on logic in contradiction to the
accepted wording.
> Picture an oil lamp like one of these
<http://www.museumsurp
lus.com/Pictures/9685.JPG>. The hole used to fill it is a couple of
inches from the wick. Into that hole, and angling
away from the wick, is a reed being used as a thin pipe to feed in oil
from a resevoir. A lot more plausible than oil dripping from a hole
empty eggshell, and more likely to parallel something a yotzeir would
manufacture from cheres. <
I understand it's more logical to pair "sh'foferes" with a reed than an
egg, but I disagree that it's more logical to feed a lamp with a reed
[presumably a bridge from a reservoir, as R'Micha noted] than to feed it
directly with a reservoir or that "v'yit'nena al pi haneir" is easier to
perform with a swamp reed than with an eggshell (as I wrote, "it seems
rather difficult to place a reed on, or even suspend it over, a lamp,"
although if "al pi" can be understood as meaning some hole other than the
one from which the flame issues...). 

More importantly, I find this "diverting from common pronunciation and spelling" to per se be illogical in the face of l'shon CHaZaL as recorded:
(1) How is "reed" rendered elsewhere in Torah sheb'al Peh?  AFAIK, in more
than one place, the word used is "qaneh."  Why a unique lashon of
"sh'foferes shel bitzah" in this particular mishnah?
(2) How is "sh'foferes" used elsewhere by CHaZaL?  In BT Chulin 57b, we
have "sh'foferes shel qaneh," a "tube of reed" used to splint a hen's
thighbone -- seems to me if such a tube was meant by our mishnah in
Shabbos, "sh'foferes shel qaneh" is a phrase the tanna could have used. 
Alternatively, the mishnah could have just used "sh'foferes" for a tube
(see BT Niddah 21b and Eiruvin 43b -- in the former sugya, it would seem to
be the right size for a neir, and RaShY [or "RaShY"] in both places
translates it as "qaneh chalul").  When, in Vayiqra Rabbah 16, "haysa
m'vi'ah sh'foferes shel beitzah v'haysa m'mal'ah osahh afars'mon," would
MaHaRYL also say that the word is "bitzah" and that a reed tube would be
filled with balsam, or would he agree that in that situation, ChaZaL meant
an eggshell?!  [Kudos to Jastrow's dictionary for the cites.]
(3) Last and not least, it seems to me from BT Sanhedrin 5b that CHaZaL
were sensitive to recording the word for "swamp" in such a way that it
couldn't be mistaken for the word for "egg": they spelled the plural of the
Tannaitic "bitzah" with an ayin, even though, as noted by Rabbeinu Tam, the
issue was one of pronunciation and the plural would properly be spelled
beis-tzadi-yud-end_mem (no ayin).  I would suggest that if the intention in
our mishna was to spell the word for "swamp," an ayin would have been used
instead of a heih even though the Tannaitic spelling is beis-tzadi-heih
just to ensure no confusion with the word for "egg."

All the best from 
-- Michael Poppers via BB pager

For those who announce it in shul:

"The was WAS on Friday night at 7 Hours and 12 parts."

Chodesh tov and Gut Shabbos,

- Danny

<<I know Rashi says Techeilet is Yarok, which is similar to Carti. (Brachot
9A
on the mishna)>>

Doesnt help since we are trying to find out the color of techelet.
So this is circular reasoning

-- 
Eli Turkel
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From: avodah-boun...@lists.aishdas.org On Behalf Of Danny Schoemann
Sent: Thursday 03 March 2011 10:58 AM
> For those who announce it in shul:
> "The was WAS on Friday night at 7 Hours and 12 parts."

Please note, that should be 12 hours (midnight) and 7 chalakim.

Akiva

On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 01:38:11PM +0200, Akiva Blum wrote:
: Please note, that should be 12 hours (midnight) and 7 chalakim.

Wondering... Does anyone's shul's gabbai also announce the time in the
local standard? And, the Avodah question: How is it appropriate /not/
to?

As I understand it, the original idea was for people to know the time
of the molad. Then we didn't want to lose the qesher to the yishuv nor the
ease of just adding n molados to a known molad, so even when we stopped
living in the area from Alexandria to Bavel that included the Jews of EY,
we still used the time (pre timezone) used there.

But now that no one thinks in solar time, instead in standard (or daylight)
time, we are losing the initial point! Shouldn't we therefore announce
both?

We know "Jerusalem" Solar Time is 21 min ahead of Isreal Standard Time,
but I don't think we know that to the nearest cheileq. Instead, we can
just give this nearest-minute approximation.

So, for example, this Shabbos here in EST, shouldn't the gabbai say
something like:
    The molad was last night, 7 chalaqim after midnight "Jerusalem" solar
    time,
    which was 4:49pm to the nearest minute our time.


To recap what I got from last time we discussed the molad:
We don't know exactly where the location is for which we're announcing the
molad. Problem is that the molad is now too short as the moon is slowing
down. We're pretty sure it was set up for Alexandria, the westernmost
edge. However, due to this slippage, the announced molad is now average
time of the new moon roughly halfway between Israel and Bavel.

This makes it impossible to do the math to the nearest cheileq.

Anyone want to correct flaws in my memory or understanding?

-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

Someone on list might remember my posting some years ago on 
this subject.

Some forty years ago, when I was installing electronic 
equipment in five orange packing houses, I discovered that 
every place had a religious worker at an early stage of the 
process who, in addition to his regular job, took t'rumah 
and ma'aser from each batch (at the request of the local 
rabbanut).  I commented, though, that on the rare occasion 
when that person was absent from work, I didn't find someone 
replacing him.

So, (as of forty years ago) the chances were  that the fruit 
was m'ussar. So, if you m'asser, do not make a b'rakha.


David 

On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 03:41:10PM +0200, D&E-H Bannett wrote:
> Someone on list might remember my posting some years ago on this subject.
...
> So, (as of forty years ago) the chances were  that the fruit was m'ussar. 
> So, if you m'asser, do not make a b'rakha.

I mentioned this more recently than your post, when someone objected to
my mentioning demai. (I forget the context.)

Point is, if most amei haaretz, or most fruit from Jews, didn't take
maaser, there would have been no gezeira of demai. The fruit would have
been assur mishum rov. Damai is a taqanah requiring someone to avoid
this one particular mi'ut (as long as it's shekhiach).

I would therefore think that today, such places' fruit, even though
*usually* maaser-ed, would also be demai and assur derabbanan.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Man is capable of changing the world for the
mi...@aishdas.org        better if possible, and of changing himself for
http://www.aishdas.org   the better if necessary.
Fax: (270) 514-1507            - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning

On 3/03/2011 3:58 AM, Danny Schoemann wrote:
> For those who announce it in shul:
> "The was WAS on Friday night at 7 Hours and 12 parts."

That should be: "The molad was this morning, at 7 chalakim past midnight".
(Or "at 23 seconds past midnight". I don't understand why we announce it
in minutes and chalakim, a division that has no traditional basis; either
use just chalakim, for tradition's sake, or minutes and seconds. It's not
as if there's anything holy about the chelek, it's just an archaic time
unit used at the time when the rules for the perpetual calendar were set,
and the average month was therefore rounded to the nearest one.)

NOTE: The actual molad, as opposed to the calculated one, will be on
Friday night at 10:46 Israeli standard time, i.e. 11:06 Yerushalayim Mean
Time, which makes the calculated molad only 54 minutes off. Not bad
considering that we know our month has a rounding error of 1/3 of a
second, accumulating to 4 seconds a year, or one hour every 900 years.

SECOND NOTE: For those who like to calculate the molad themselves,
working from a known benchmark, this month will be a new one that can be
easily remembered. The last easily-remembered benchmark was Marcheshvan
5665, 79 months ago, which was getting to be a bit much to calculate in
ones head. The easiest method, I find, is to work out how many months
it has been since the benchmark, multiply that by 1.5 days and mod 7,
then multiply the number of months by 3/4 of an hour and add that to
the result, then subtract that number of minutes and add that number of
chalakim, then add the benchmark.

E.g. 79 is 80 minus 1. 80 times 1.5 days is 120 days, mod 7 is 1 day.
Minus 1.5 days is minus half a day. 3/4 of 80 hours is 60, minus 3/4 of
an hour is 59:15; minus 79 minutes, or 1 hour 19, brings us to 57:56.
Plus 79 chalakim, or 4 minutes 7, gets us back to 58:00:07. 48 hours
is obviously 2 days, so we're at 2 days, 10 hours, and 7 chalakim.
Add the known benchmark of Thursday at 2 am, gets us Shabbos at noon
and 7, minus the half day we got earlier gets us to midnight and 7.
And now we can scrap that old benchmark and start counting from this one,
so the arithmetic will get easier. Particularly in working out how many
months it's been, which involves working out how many leap years there
have been, and remembering which year it was in.


On 3/03/2011 10:48 AM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 01:38:11PM +0200, Akiva Blum wrote:
>: Please note, that should be 12 hours (midnight) and 7 chalakim.

> Wondering... Does anyone's shul's gabbai also announce the time in the
> local standard? And, the Avodah question: How is it appropriate /not/
> to?

> As I understand it, the original idea was for people to know the time
> of the molad.

The only real reason to know the molad is to calculate from it when
rosh chodesh should be.  And since kiddush hachodesh can only take
place in EY, all that matters is when the molad is then.  Of course
with our system all that matters is the molad of Tishri, which
ironically is the only one not announced, so we have to calculate it
from the one that is announced!  But we can use our molad for a rough
approximation, and see that this coming rosh chodesh *ought* to be on
Shabbos.  So we wonder why it's Monday instead, and are led to the
answer, that this coming molad Tishri will be late Tuesday afternoon,
making Rosh Hashana Wednesday, and that would mean Yom Kippur on Friday
which we don't like, so we'll push it to Thursday, and that drags all
the roshei chodesh of this year forward a day or two.

-- 
Zev Sero
z...@sero.name

On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 10:50:38AM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> The only real reason to know the molad is to calculate from it when
> rosh chodesh should be.  And since kiddush hachodesh can only take
> place in EY, all that matters is when the molad is then...

The reason I learned too long ago to remember when is also found in Shaar
haKolel. (R' Avraham David Lavut, av DB of Niolayev, rav of Mykolaiv,
1814-1890, and as I'm sure RZS knew before I looked him up -- RMMS's
father-in-law).

When BD was / will be meqadesh the chodesh, they made a se'udah that
included saying berakhos for the new month. Our Birkhas haChodesh is a
legacy of that se'udah. The announcement of the molad takes the place
of when the eidim would arrive.

Something I picked up either here or on Mail Jewish was that it was
enacted laafukei the Qaraim, who to this very day go al pi re'iyah.
(E.g. see <http://karaite-korner.org/kknmr.shtml>, which was last updated
with the re'iyah for Tishrei 2010.
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/karaite_korner_news> has posts from
yesterday (Mar 2, 2011 CE) about the current search for yellow barley
to determine which is Chodesh haAviv.)

The Shaar haKollel's (and my father's or early-grade rebbe's) explanation
implies that the qehillah should know what the time of the molad means
in terms they think in. This second reason doesn't, since the only point
is reminding the masses it's precalculated.

But in any case, I never had thought the announcement was for the
pragmatic purpose of enabling in-the-head calculations.

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

On Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 6:00 AM, kennethgmil...@juno.com <
kennethgmil...@juno.com> wrote:

>
>
> So: If Evil Merodach became king in the 37th year of Yehoyachin's exile,
> that was the 44th year of Nevuchadnetzar, *not* the 45th.
>
> The key to understanding this is that the first year of Yehoyachin's exile
> was the eighth year of Nevuchadnetzar. The only way to get to the number 45
> is by considering the first year of Yehoyachin's exile to be *after* the
> eighth year of Nevuchadnetzar. But it wasn't. Yehoyachin's exile did not
> begin after the 8th year; it began *during* the eighth year.
>
>
Perhaps it's because kings reigns can overlap, but years of exile
don't necessarily overlap. Therefore, the the first year of Evil Merodach
can be the same year as the last of Nevuchadnetzar, because  Evil Merodach
will count the first part of his reign as a whole year. However, the posuk
won't count a year of exile for Yehoyochin until a full year has elapsed.

Akiva
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On Wed, Mar 02, 2011 at 04:31:52PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> You seem to be assuming that "yarok kekarti" means "very yarok".  That
> is not so.   "Yarok kekarti" simply means "green"; its alternative is
> "yarok kekarkom", which means "yellow"...

Not really... I take it to mean "very green", I just didn't bring in the
English yet because that would presume the conclusion. In fact, the point
of the latter part of that post was to support the argument that Rashi's
description (Shemos 25:4, Chullin 89a) of dam hachilazon as yaroq fits
the "pale sickly yellow green" of a baby whose bris should be delayed,
and thus of the extract from the hypobranchial gland that is used for
that particular candidate for techiles. I would have therefore thought
it clear I meant the exact reverse of how you took me.

It seems pretty clear that pre-modern Hebrew only had three words for
color: adom, yaroq and kachol. So yaroq would run all the way from karkom
(which is saffron, not quite a yellow) to aqua. RSRH notes this, and
then points out that every other seemingly color word really refers to a
specific substance. Tekheiles isn't a color. It's specifically wool dyed
by a specific dye. Similarly argoman. You say "kekarkom", or "kekarti",
so I guess if you wanted to refer to that shade of blue you /could/ say
"ketekehiles" or ke'argaman. But that's using simile, not names of colors.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The thought of happiness that comes from outside
mi...@aishdas.org        the person, brings him sadness. But realizing
http://www.aishdas.org   the value of one's will and the freedom brought
Fax: (270) 514-1507      by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook


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