Avodah Mailing List

Volume 28: Number 160

Mon, 15 Aug 2011

• 1. Re: metziuses in nature.... (Zev Sero)
• 2. Re: hayom yom rishon.... (Zev Sero)
• 3. Re: shabbas//mishum eiva, etc??? (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: Do Women Need To Hear Eicha? (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: "God who knows the future" (Lampel)
• 6. Re: "God who knows the future" (Lampel)
• 7. Re: Kehunat Shem (Zev Sero)
• 8. Moshe R's Complaint: Unfair; Medrash Tanchuma VaEsChanan (Meir Rabi)
• 9. Seeking source: Rav Hirsch on the Churban (Joel C. Salomon)
• 10. greek logic and its beauty vis a vis torah logic.... (Harvey Benton)
• 11. Re: shabbas//mishum eiva, etc??? (Zev Sero)
• 12. women and kiddush levanahafter (Eli Turkel)
• 13. Re: Seeking source: Rav Hirsch on the Churban (Joel C. Salomon)
• 14. Re: "God who knows the future" (Lampel)
• 15. Re: hayom yom rishon.... (Lisa Liel)
• 16. Re: hayom yom rishon.... (Zev Sero)

On 14/08/2011 12:16 PM, Harvey Benton wrote:
> what metziuzes in nature still exist today, as described by chazal,
> even if they have not made their rulings into shulchan aruch,
> eg, some things described by the arizal, r. yehuda hachasid (
> practices we should/should not do) etc.,

Huh?


-- 
Zev Sero        If they use these guns against us once, at that moment
z...@sero.name   the Oslo Accord will be annulled and the IDF will
                 return to all the places that have been given to them.
                                            - Yitzchak Rabin

                    
                

On 14/08/2011 3:10 AM, Harvey Benton wrote:
> i was told that the reason we are allowed to use the babylonian names of
> our months (although) they (10 of 12) were names of babylonian gods

AFAIK only one is the name of a god, and it's one that's named in Tanach
so it's OK.  In any case, I suspect that the god was named after the
month (or both after the same other thing) rather than the other way
around.


> is that we are allowed to use the names of gods/months, that appear in
> the gemmara??

That's not a reason; who gave the amora'im the right to do so in the first
place?  We can use names used in Tanach, but where did you hear that this
extended to the gemara?  Rather, the fact that Chazal used the names proves
that there must be a heter.


> 1 is this true; 2. would this reasoning (at all?) apply to our using the
> names we currently use for our weekdays

And for five of our months, for that matter (Jan, and Mar-Jun).  And no,
they're not used in Tanach *or* the gemara, so how could this reasoning
apply to them?  Rather, they're allowed because these gods no longer have
any worshippers.


-- 
Zev Sero        If they use these guns against us once, at that moment
z...@sero.name   the Oslo Accord will be annulled and the IDF will
                 return to all the places that have been given to them.
                                            - Yitzchak Rabin

                    
                

On Tue, Aug 09, 2011 at 05:38:07PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
> On 9/08/2011 5:34 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
>> On Tue, Aug 09, 2011 at 05:28:50PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
>>>> See AZ 26a, R' Yosef says that a bas Yisrael may midwife for a nachris
>>>> besekhar -- mishum eivah.

>>> That's during the week, not on Shabbos!

>> That's his first statement, then the gemara adds:
>>      Savar R' Yosef lemeimar aveladei aku"m beShabesa bisekhar shari
>>      mishum eiva.

> Savar, but he didn't conclude that way, because there's no need.

If you were more clearly claiming that you feel that Shabbos is huterah
or dechuyah mishum eivah dates back to Chazal in principle, but the
metzi'us only made this pesaq lemaaseh in more recent times, I doubt I
would have been as surprised.


On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 11:56:40AM +0100, Chana Luntz wrote:
: a) a discussion of the differences between d'orisa asehs (positive
: commandments) and lo ta'asehs (negative commandments).  The former is much
: easier to "enact or go around" than the latter on the basis that telling
: somebody to shev v'al ta'aseh (sit and not do something) is very different
: to telling them to act to violate a prohibition.  An example of an enactment
: vis a vis d'orisa aseh is the rabbinical prohibition on blowing shofer on
: shabbas

According to R' Yonasan Sacks (of YU and the Agudah of Passaic-Clifton),
this power is limited to gezeiros protecting more chamur mitzvos. Not all
rabbinic legislation are gezeiros -- gezeiros here means specifically
avoiding violation due to habit or accident

: b) once you are in the realm of aseh's the gemora in Brachos 19b- 20a seems
: to suggest that the principle of kovod habrios allows you to shev v'al
: ta'aseh even for a aseh d'orisa.

I think this is a case of deOraisa vs deOraisa. Showing another person
kavod isn't derabbanan. Even if it was left to Chazal to spell out how
to balance the two dinim in specific cases.

I discuss this further in
http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2006/02/types-of-halachic-rulings.shtml
Quoting the relevent piece:
    The distinction between the second and third categories (dinim
    derabban and gezeiros, respectively) is subtle. In order to be a din
    (or issur, or melakhah) deRabanan, the prohibited action is one that
    is similar in purpose to the permitted one.

    In contrast, a gezeira does not even require an action. In the
    example I gave, it was inaction, leaving the pot where it is, that
    is prohibited. Second, the category includes things that are similar
    in means to the prohibited act, and will therefore cause confusion
    about what is and what isn't okay; and things which will allow people
    to be caught up in habit, and forget about the prohibition. Only a
    gezeira may defy an actual Divine law (although a pesaq will often
    define one), and even so only under specific circumstances. All of
    the following must be satisfied:

    - The law being protected is more stringent than the one being
      violated. This determination isn't easy.
    - The law is being violated only through inaction. No one is being
      told to actively violate G-d's commandment.
    - According to the Ta"z, the law being violated will still be
      applicable in most situations. It still must exist in some
      form. (Not every acharon agrees with this requirement.)

    In another way, a gezeira is less powerful than a normal rabbinic
    law in that it cannot be compounded. One may not make a "fence"
    for the express purpose of protecting another "fence".

: c) even where you are talking about lo ta'asehs, "going around" is often not
: considered a problem.  Of course the most famous case of going around is
: prozbul, ie a going around of the requirement to cancel personal loans in
: shmitta, but similarly sale of chametz (which is clearly preventing the
: violation of a negative prohibition) is another.

Pruzbul circumvents shemittah derabbanan.


: If you are talking about shabbas specifically, then I would agree with RZS
: here that the real underlying principle is pikuach nefesh.  We push aside
: even d'orisas where there is even a remote safek of pikuach nefesh, and it
: is the characterisation of the result of the aiveh leading to pikuach nefesh
: risks that allows for d'orisa shabbas violations where there is no
: alternative.

This requires believing that mishum eivah means very different things
in different contexts. I doubt mishum eivah between spouses, from parent
to child, or between two Jews is about an expectation that things would
get homocidal. And doing business beyom eideihem mishum eivah -- is that
really about piquach nefesh?

If mishum eivah is a buzzword representing single halachic concept,
I would say (and have, in our previous iterations) that there is simply
an issur against creating hatred in the world. Yes, it takes more eivah
to override Shabbos than stam a derabbanan, but that's at least making
the issue one of degree rather than splitting mishum eivah by kind.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             You are where your thoughts are.
mi...@aishdas.org                - Ramban, Igeres Hakodesh, Ch. 5
http://www.aishdas.org
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 05:34:12PM +0100, Chana Luntz wrote:
: RZS writes:
:> Af hein hayu be'otah pur`anut.  If there were a "chiyuv" on men then it
:> should logically apply to women too.

: This assumes that (a) the af hein b'oto hanes is a principle of logic that
: we can apply to circumstances other than those listed in the gemara and (b)
: that there exists a flipside principle of af hein hayu be'otah puranut.  

Or at least minhagically, women felt they ought to be there because women
went through it to and lemaaseh, enough have been going to Eikhah to create
such a minhag.

This isn't rabbinic legislation, where the logic is necessarily so
rigorous, nor necessarily the cause as opposed to post-facto validation
of existing practice.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When faced with a decision ask yourself,
mi...@aishdas.org        "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now,
http://www.aishdas.org   at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?"
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter

RMB:

<<In RCC's edition, the sentence that runs across Iyov pp 17-18 and the
one on Qoheles pg 195 line 5 both explicitly refer to Hashem's knowledge
of the future as part of His Knowledge of every perat.>>

RCC:

<I found the reference in Iyov (the first word on p. 18 is he'asid) but I
didn't see the relevance of the passage in Koheles.>

It's p. 194, not 195, lines 1-5.

Translation/transliteration:

"And this kefirah...that the Creator does not know the peratim...how would
he know the peratim...v'yeish deah b'Elyon b'assidos...if he knows the
present and future why yotzi mishpat m'u'kal b'shalom ha-r'sha'im v'yisurei
ha-tsadikim."

<The subject of the passage in Iyov is whether God knows particulars, which need not be
related to whether God knows the future...>

As you wrote, the first word on p. 18 is he'asid. Translation of entire sentence is:

"But we need to know that the Almi-ty  knows the individuals--all of them
and their peratim--those above and those below, their deeds and their
thoughts, the past and the present and the future."

And on p. 20:
"And returning to the daas of the koferim hagemurim, who deny [Hashem's]
knowledge, and say" [continue to 4 lines from the page's bottom]... "how
would Hashem know the future (asidos)...for if He would know the future he
would not have created these [who turn out to be] reshaim..."

Zvi Lampel

> RDC:
<The Ramban is particularly hard to decipher because he is not a full 
blown adherent of the Kalam - - he does think that nature exists as more 
than a delusion, but he also thinks that God regularly overrules nature 
(in fact, he thinks that the overruling itself follows laws).>

--only in the same way the Rambam does: that Hashem makes nature react 
favorably or unfavorably in response to man's actions.

*The Rambam* in /Ma'amar Techiass HaMeisim/, citing /pesukim/ and 
/Chazal/, distinguishes between miracles that involve the change of the 
nature of things, and those that merely manipulate natural possibilities 
without making changes in the intrinsic make-up of things. (E.g., they 
either intensify natural events, make natural processes uniquely effect 
specific locales or peoples, or make different natural phenomena 
coincide.) The former, alone, are "inherently non-natural." And the 
Rambam insists that such "changes-of-nature" type miracles last only 
temporarily, and that those things whose nature changed must eventually 
revert to their former nature ---the same point he made in the /Moreh. 
/(He adds that this serves to strengthen their status as miracles). On 
these grounds, he rejects a literal understanding of "the lion living 
peacefully with the lamb" in messianic times, because that entails a 
non-reverting and forwardly ongoing change, for an indefinite time, in 
the nature of beasts.

(2) *The Ramban, *concerning this rejection of the literal meaning of 
"the lion living peacefully with the lamb" in messianic times, raises 
two objections, one based on authority, and one based on logic:

(a)A /braissa/ has talmudic authorities taking the peaceful lion 
/pesukim/ literally

(b)The Rambam, as stated above, admits that some miracles can last 
permanently once initiated, such as that of nature reacting to man's 
behavior in a pattern of reward and punishment. The Ramban asks: Since 
the Rambam so admits that //some// phenomena that are miracles can last 
permanently, and that temporariness is not necessarily a factor for a 
miracle to exist, why not allow that to be so for /all /kinds of 
miracles across the board? Why create a distinction in durability 
between two types of miracles? The Ramban is not pointing out a shift in 
the Rambam's position. He is pointing out what he believes to be an 
unnecessary factor in the Rambam's formula: namely, that according to 
the Rambam's consistent view regarding the "/efshar/" (feasible) type of 
miracles, explicated in /Ma'amar Techiyas HaMeisim/, the Rambam admits 
that miracles don't //by definition// have to be temporary. That 
admission, according to the Ramban, leaves it unnecessary to posit 
imposed temporariness on /any/ miracles, including the "non-/efshar/" 
type. The Ramban, /contra/ Rambam, does not accept that the /pesukim/ 
and /Chazal/ saying that nothing is new under the sun, and that the 
world runs according to nature, compels one to make an unbreakable rule 
that Hashem will never enact permanent changes in the natures of things. 
There is therefore no reason, the Ramban says, for the Rambam to deny 
the literal interpretation of the /pesukim/ describing a permanent 
change in the nature of beasts in the messianic era.

Zvi Lampel
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On 14/08/2011 1:53 PM, Ilana Koehler wrote:
> Date: Mon, 08 Aug 2011 10:13:43 -0400
> From: Zev Sero<z...@sero.name>
>> On 8/08/2011 6:41 AM, Ilana Koehler wrote:
>>> How did Abraham get the Kehuna from Shem?
>
>> He didn't.  Where did you see that Avraham was ever a kohen?
>
> Answer:  Nedarim 32b; Tehilim 110.

The gemara says that the right to be the ancestor of the tribe of
kohanim was taken away from Shem and given to Avraham; it doesn't
say Shem was no longer a kohen, or that Avraham was one.  After all,
it was *after* this bracha that Avraham gave maaser to Shem, so he
must still have been a kohen.


> Did Shem sin with the beracha?
> If so, how?
> Where?
> Why?
> When?

Huh?  The gemara says what the sin was: blessing Avraham before Hashem.


-- 
Zev Sero        If they use these guns against us once, at that moment
z...@sero.name   the Oslo Accord will be annulled and the IDF will
                 return to all the places that have been given to them.
                                            - Yitzchak Rabin

                    
                

The entire Medrash T of VaEsChanan is devoted to elaborating the unfairness
of his being denied access to EY

We understand that those who attempted to wreck the king's Shidduch should
be denied access to the wedding; but how can the Shadchan - who never even
having seen the girl - yet vouched for her and successfully promoted the
king's Shidduch, how can he be denied entry to the wedding. At least let him
in to see if he was right; that indeed the Kallah is as beautiful as he
insisted she is.

Very sad indeed.

But I am puzzled that the Medrash T chose to ignore everything else in the
Sedra and dwell on this theme, expanding not just on the tragedy and
unfairness of Moshe R but many others as well.
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I recall recently reading something by Rav Hirsch where he says that the
mourning on Tisha B'Av is not so much on the destruction of the Beis
Hamikdosh, but that it had to be destroyed.  This tied in to Rav
Hirsch's take on Am Yisroel as the "mamleches kohanim" to the world.

I had thought this was in his essay on Chazon Yeshayahu (in the
Collected Writings, volume IV), but I do not see this concept there.
Does anyone know where I can find it?

Thank you,
--Chesky

RLevineStevens quoting R Hirsch, 


________________________________
V'dibarta Bom

The study of the Torah shall be our main intellectual pursuit. We are not
to study the Torah incidentally. We are not to study Torah from the standpoint
of another science or for the sake of that science. So, too, we are to
be careful not to introduce into the sphere of the Torah foreign ideas that
were developed on the basis of other premises. Rather, we should always
be mindful of the superiority of the Torah, which differs from all other
scientific knowledge through its Divine origin. We should not imagine
that it is based on mere human knowledge and accordingly is on the same
level as other human sciences.
..........
my question is, is the methodology of greek knowledge in their use of
logic (modus ponens, modus tolens, etc), better than ours (eg, kal v'chomer??)
is it this use, perhaps in the future, [moshiach times] that the chachamim
spoke of regarding the beauty of greece (shem v'yafet) in noach blessings.....
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On 14/08/2011 3:35 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> If you were more clearly claiming that you feel that Shabbos is huterah
> or dechuyah mishum eivah dates back to Chazal in principle, but the
> metzi'us only made this pesaq lemaaseh in more recent times, I doubt I
> would have been as surprised.

The topic was an attempt to reason *from* the heter to heal nochrim on
shabbos, to derive other heterim.  I pointed out that that heter is a
modern chiddush with a shaky foundation itself, and thus not a basis from
which one can derive anything new.



>: c) even where you are talking about lo ta'asehs, "going around" is often not
>: considered a problem.  Of course the most famous case of going around is
>: prozbul, ie a going around of the requirement to cancel personal loans in
>: shmitta, but similarly sale of chametz (which is clearly preventing the
>: violation of a negative prohibition) is another.

> Pruzbul circumvents shemittah derabbanan.

But it works just as well with shmitta de'oraisa.  It just wouldn't be
ethical to use it to circumvent the intent of the mitzvah d'oraisa.
Since the intent of the rabanan in continuing it nowadays is zecher to
the time when it was d'oraisa, making a pruzbul fulfils that intent.

In the case of mechiras chometz we have no idea what Hashems' intent was,
and there's no more problem going "around" it than there is with going
"around the intent" of basar bechalav by never eating milchigs.

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

after chana nicely summarized various opinions about women and havdala
can someone also please summarize the minhagim about women saying/not
saying kiddush levana

-- 
Eli Turkel

On 08/14/2011 06:20 PM, I wrote:
> I recall recently reading something by Rav Hirsch where he says that the
> mourning on Tisha B'Av is not so much on the destruction of the Beis
> Hamikdosh, but that it had to be destroyed.  This tied in to Rav
> Hirsch's take on Am Yisroel as the "mamleches kohanim" to the world.
> 
> I had thought this was in his essay on Chazon Yeshayahu (in the
> Collected Writings, volume IV), but I do not see this concept there.
> Does anyone know where I can find it?

I found the quote in the Isaac Levy translation of R' Mendel Hirsch's
Haphtoros, in the introduction to Haftora of Chazon Yeshayahu.  Dr. Levy
also included Rav Hirsch's essay, which is how I conflated them.

Follow-up question:  Is the concept I mentioned above ("The Jew mourns
not that the Temple was destroyed, but that it had to be") anywhere
*explicit* in Rav Hirsch's writings, or is that his son's interpretation?

--Chesky

My apologies for repeatedly messing up Rabbi David Riceman's (RDR's) 
initials ("RCC" and "RDC").

Zvi Lampel

On 8/14/2011 1:07 PM, Zev Sero wrote:
> On 14/08/2011 3:10 AM, Harvey Benton wrote:
>> i was told that the reason we are allowed to use the babylonian names of
>> our months (although) they (10 of 12) were names of babylonian gods
>
> AFAIK only one is the name of a god, and it's one that's named in Tanach
> so it's OK. In any case, I suspect that the god was named after the
> month (or both after the same other thing) rather than the other way
> around.

Definitely not.  The name actually means son of the sun in Sumerian.

>> is that we are allowed to use the names of gods/months, that appear in
>> the gemmara??
>
> That's not a reason; who gave the amora'im the right to do so in the first
> place? We can use names used in Tanach, but where did you hear that this
> extended to the gemara? Rather, the fact that Chazal used the names proves
> that there must be a heter.

Which doesn't help us much if we don't know what that heter is.

Lisa

On 14/08/2011 11:44 PM, Lisa Liel wrote:
> On 8/14/2011 1:07 PM, Zev Sero wrote:
>> On 14/08/2011 3:10 AM, Harvey Benton wrote:

>>> i was told that the reason we are allowed to use the babylonian names of
>>> our months (although) they (10 of 12) were names of babylonian gods
>>
>> AFAIK only one is the name of a god, and it's one that's named in Tanach
>> so it's OK. In any case, I suspect that the god was named after the
>> month (or both after the same other thing) rather than the other way
>> around.
>
> Definitely not. The name actually means son of the sun in Sumerian.

Which part means what?


>>> is that we are allowed to use the names of gods/months, that appear in
>>> the gemmara??

>> That's not a reason; who gave the amora'im the right to do so in the first
>> place? We can use names used in Tanach, but where did you hear that this
>> extended to the gemara? Rather, the fact that Chazal used the names proves
>> that there must be a heter.

> Which doesn't help us much if we don't know what that heter is.

We don't need to know the heter in order to do the same as they did.
But in fact, since only one of the months is the name of a god, and
that name appears in Tanach, they didn't need a heter and nor do we.
But my point here was precisely that "it appears in the gemara" can't
itself be a heter.

-- 
Zev Sero        If they use these guns against us once, at that moment
z...@sero.name   the Oslo Accord will be annulled and the IDF will
                 return to all the places that have been given to them.
                                            - Yitzchak Rabin

                    
                


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