Avodah Mailing List

Volume 28: Number 162

Tue, 16 Aug 2011

• 1. Re: "God who knows the future" (David Riceman)
• 2. Re: hayom yom rishon.... (Lisa Liel)
• 3. Past Yahretzeit #50 (Beth & David Cohen)
• 4. Re: havdallah, and other berachos (Lisa Liel)
• 5. havdallah, and other berachos (David Riceman)
• 6. Re: havdallah, and other berachos (Micha Berger)
• 7. Re: shabbas//mishum eiva, etc??? (Micha Berger)
• 8. Re: isnt koach of being maykil greater?? (Micha Berger)
• 9. Re: Do Women Need To Hear Eicha? (Micha Berger)
• 10. Re: Past Yahretzeit #50 (Zev Sero)
• 11. Re: isnt koach of being maykil greater?? (Zev Sero)
• 12. Re: shabbas//mishum eiva, etc??? (Chana Luntz)
• 13. Re: shabbas//mishum eiva, etc??? (Zev Sero)
• 14. Re: Past Yahretzeit #50 (Moshe Y. Gluck)
• 15. Re: Characterizing our era (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 16. Re: God who knows the future (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 17. Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach: Swimming Before Davening? (Prof. Levine)
• 18. Re: Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach: Swimming Before Davening? (Micha Berger)

RMB:

<< The common people do. Open an organizer, or Outlook. Time is arranged 
in a line down the page.>>

Me: << I don't know how to determine the "common" view of time, but I 
suspect it's viewed as a cycle, not a progression.>>

In some contexts.  Cycles help explain "l'ma'alah min hazman", but 
people also think of time as a tree.  Imagine any strategy meeting at a 
business: "If they offer X we'll counter with Y, but if they offer X 
prime, we'll counter with Y prime".  That is free will in a nutshell.

But of course people think of time in all sorts of ways depending on 
context (so my "not" above is clearly wrong).  IIRC Clifford Geertz, the 
noted anthropologist, has an essay about someone who told him that 
Tuesday is a green lizard.

David Riceman

On 8/15/2011 12:24 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 09:32:05AM -0500, Lisa Liel wrote:
>> Why not?  We have children named Dennis or Denise, both of which come
>> from Dionysus.  The Yiddish name Feivush/Feivel (and the English name
>> Phoebe) both come from Phoebus Apollo....
>
> BTW, add Isidore (Isis + adore) and Isibelle (Isis + belle=beauty) to the
> list. And since I'm reprising things we said in 2009, lets ad the biblical
> names Ehud (which Lisa told us was "Sumerian for House of Shamash (E.UD),
> where Shamash was their sun deity), and the name Anat (a Canaanite deity)
> in Shamgar ben Anat.

I'm skeptical about Isabelle.  I thought that was a derivative of 
Izevel/Jezebel.

> BTW, notice that the fifth thing lists in the mishnah (Taanis 4:6) of
> the calamities that occured on 17 beTammuz was the introduction of a
> tzelem into the heikhal. According to the gemara (28b) this was during
> bayis rishon. (Citing Daniyel 12:11 and 9:27.)
>
> To me it seems significant about AKhG telling us to call the month in
> which this happened a name that brings AZ into the calendar. (Even if
> I can't say /how/ it's significant.)

Interesting.

Lisa

The notion that one no longer says kaddish or otherwise commemorates the
yahretzeit of on who was niftar over 50 years ago --- halacha, minhag or
nonsense?
Sources?

Thanks

David I. Cohen
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On 8/15/2011 11:01 AM, Zev Sero wrote:
> On 15/08/2011 11:32 AM, Lisa Liel wrote:
>> I always heard that. That there were 120 members from its inception
>> until its end, but never more than 71 at any one time.

> If the KhG never numbered more than 71, then how is it greater bechochma
> *uveminyan* than any subsequent sanhedrin?

Do we have a source that says that explicitly?


On 8/15/2011 11:16 AM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 12:01:51PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
>> If the KhG never numbered more than 71, then how is it greater bechochma
>> *uveminyan* than any subsequent sanhedrin?

> Minyan hatalmidim shebayeshivah - Bartenura (Edios 1:5)

> There is a logical problem with Shemaya veAvtalyon being one of the zugos,
> since that means that those two geirim were dayanim in the Sanhedrin, and
> one, the av beis din. One suggestion is that while they contributed to the
> discussion and ran the court, they weren't voting members.

Were they gerim?  I thought they were descendents of gerim.

Lisa

RLL:

<<I always heard that. That there were 120 members from its inception 
until its end, but never more than 71 at any one time.>>

One of my rebbeim cited a Yerushalmi which claimed that there were 85 
members, and said that the list of householders in Ezra contained 85 
names.  He claimed that the number of members of the KhG changed with 
the clan structure of the Jews of EY (see Yerushalmi Megillah 70d that 
85 members of the KhG approved of Purim, and Yerushalmi Berachos 4d that 
120 members of the KhG established the text of shmoneh esraih).

The article in Otzar Yisrael gives a summary of the scholarly consensus 
around 100 years ago (including both of the references above).

David Riceman

On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 11:17:40AM -0500, Lisa Liel wrote:
>> There is a logical problem with Shemaya veAvtalyon being one of the zugos,
>> since that means that those two geirim were dayanim in the Sanhedrin, and
>> one, the av beis din. One suggestion is that while they contributed to the
>> discussion and ran the court, they weren't voting members.

> Were they gerim?

Edios 5:6, Yoma 71b, Gittin 57b.

AFAIK, Graetz was the first two argue that they weren't geirim.

I found where that "one suggestion" came from. I wrote last year
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol27/v27n134.shtml#04>:
:       RYBS asked R' Moshe Soloveitchik about how Shemaya veAvtalyon could
: have been one of the zugos. RMS answered that he had asked his own father,
: and R' Chaim answered that while they ran the Sanhedrin and voiced their
: opinions, they didn't actually vote.

The Rambam and the Gra explain Edios 1:3 with the assumption that they
were geirim.

Hillel says that a melo hin of drawn water invalidates a miqvah, "she'adam
chayav lomar kilshon rabbo". There are numberous explanations of what
one has to do with the other.

Rashi says it's the use of the measure "hin" rather than saying "12 log"
or "3 qav". "Hin" isn't used in the mishnah; but since that's how Hillel
heard it, that was the term he used.

The Rambam says that really Hillel said "melo 'in", not "melo hin". Then
Hillel explained that he did so since Shemaya veAvtalyon spoke with an
accent and couldn't say a hei. There is no such sound in Greek.

The Gra notes that lemaaseh the mishnah says "hin", not "in". Why would
Hillel see value in imitating an accent, anyway? The Gra therefore
suggests the explanation for for adding the word "melo" in "melo hin".
Since their saying "in" was confusing, S&A used more words to be clearer,
and Hillel did as well.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Mussar is like oil put in water,
mi...@aishdas.org        eventually it will rise to the top.
http://www.aishdas.org                    - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 03:45:48PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
> 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.

And I said that the theory behind the heter dates back to the gemara, and
it's only its applicability to real situations that was new. The hava amina
in the gemara is that the eivah couldn't be avoided, and the gemara says that
in such a case, we violate Shabbos. Then it nullifies the assumption about
the case. But the kelal WRT violating Shabbos stood unchallenged.

Why isn't that a valid point for extrapolation?


>>: 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.
...

I'm not sure it would be mutar. Abayei appears to be defending the validity
of pruzbul (Gittin 36b) not "mearly" its morality. And it follows up with
a question about Hillel's Sanhedrin was still overturning the Sanhedrin that 
enacted shemittah derabbanan. And that's when Rava invokes hefqer BD hefqer.

There is a machloqes Rashi and Tosafos whether Rava's answer replaces Abayei's
or completes it. Ayin sham.

> 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.

Agreed.

> In the case of mechiras chometz we have no idea what Hashems' intent was,

I'm not sure we can pasqen a deOraisa based on taam hamitzvah, no matter
how obvious it may seem.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where
mi...@aishdas.org        you are,  or what you are doing,  that makes you
http://www.aishdas.org   happy or unhappy. It's what you think about.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Dale Carnegie

On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 06:01:40PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
> Oh, and the answer to the question in the Subject header is that you have
> completely misunderstood that line.  It takes more certainty to be meikil,
> precisely because one may always be machmir, whether it's necessary or not,
> so when in doubt that's what one should do...

I don't think this is quite correct either. (And we last visiteed this
just last March!)

The idiom is used twice in shas, Berakhos 60a and Beitza 2b. As Rashi
puts it in Beitza ("deheteira adif leih"), "tov lo lehashmi'einu koach
divrei hamatir".

When there is a machloqes tannaim that has two possible cases, and one
has more reason to be pasqened lequlah than the other. The makhloqes
will be phrased as being about the more machmir case, because it's more
important to show how meiqil the tanna who is matir actually is being.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure.
mi...@aishdas.org        It preserves health, promotes convalescence,
http://www.aishdas.org   and helps us cope with adversity.
Fax: (270) 514-1507         - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei"

On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 11:10:03AM +0100, Chana Luntz wrote:
: I don't think that the whole discussion between RZS and myself makes any
: sense if we are indeed (as he and I agree) talking about a minhag.  If the
: minhag is that women go, then that is the minhag, and if they don't it is
: not...

Rambam Hil' Mamrim 2:1-3 talks about batei din establishing minhagim. To
square that with the impression one generally gets (as per RnCL) I
suggested that the difference between "what people do" and a formal
minhag is whether it can get post-facto rabbinic approval. IOW, it has
to be found to fit the system.

Recall RYBS's more extreme position (and I think only a Brisker would say
this) that /every/ minhag follows a matbei'ah already found in a mitzvah.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             We are great, and our foibles are great,
mi...@aishdas.org        and therefore our troubles are great --
http://www.aishdas.org   but our consolations will also be great.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Rabbi AY Kook

On 15/08/2011 2:34 PM, Beth & David Cohen wrote:
> The notion that one no longer says kaddish or otherwise commemorates
> the yahretzeit of on who was niftar over 50 years ago --- halacha,
> minhag or nonsense?
> Sources?

Nonsense, as far as I know.

But I have been informed, on what basis I don't know, that after 50 years
one does not move a grave.  For all I know this may be just as nonsensical.


-- 
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 15/08/2011 5:22 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 06:01:40PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
>> Oh, and the answer to the question in the Subject header is that you have
>> completely misunderstood that line.  It takes more certainty to be meikil,
>> precisely because one may always be machmir, whether it's necessary or not,
>> so when in doubt that's what one should do...

> I don't think this is quite correct either. (And we last visiteed this
> just last March!)
>
> The idiom is used twice in shas, Berakhos 60a and Beitza 2b. As Rashi
> puts it in Beitza ("deheteira adif leih"), "tov lo lehashmi'einu koach
> divrei hamatir".
>
> When there is a machloqes tannaim that has two possible cases, and one
> has more reason to be pasqened lequlah than the other. The makhloqes
> will be phrased as being about the more machmir case, because it's more
> important to show how meiqil the tanna who is matir actually is being.

And why is it more important?  Because it's *harder* to be meikil.
Because one may *not* be meikil if one is in doubt.  So quoting a case
where someone is machmir doesn't prove that they really hold that way,
while quoting a case where he was meikil does prove it.


-- 
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 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

Not sure what this adds.  Clearly the rabbis are not likely to just stam
tell people to shev v'al ta'aseh for no reason at all.  So clearly if they
enact this they are going to be protecting something.  But I am not sure it
is as simple as this.  For example, since we are getting in to Shmitta
below, how about the statement that when the rabbis instituted Shmitta
rabbinically, that causes a shev v'al ta'aseh situation regarding the
collecting of d'orisa loans (Gitten 36b).  How does that fit within the
definition of gezeros as defined here?

> : 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.

What is the halachic basis ie source text for kovod habrios (other than in
relation to not having to return a lost object, which is very specific)?
Are you saying it is halacha Moshe m'Sinai?  It appears to be one of these
fuzzy cases where proof texts are sometimes brought from Nach, but
technically for a d'orisa don't you either need a proof text, or a statement
that it is halacha Moshe m'Sinai?

I read the surprise in the gemora that kovod habriyos overrides the mitzvah
d'orisa of listening to the rabbis as indicating that it is by definition
something less than a full fledged d'orisa.  Were it a full fledged d'orisa,
would  this be such a surprise - would not it be obvious that it would
override what the rabbis said.

> : 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.

Only according to Abaye.  According to Rava it would seem it would even
circumvent shemittah d'orisa (not that that necessarily means we have
shemittah d'orisa, but that is not how it works).

> 
> : 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?

No, I don't believe that any of these relate to pikuach nefesh.

But you have to get back to basic principles.  A rabbinic enactment in any
form or fashion cannot simply allow you to violate a lo ta'aseh of the
Torah, and certainly not one of shabbas. It doesn't matter what it is, the
level of power isn't there.  It can allow you to violate other d'rabbanans,
it may allow you to violate by way of shev v'al ta'aseh, it may (as we saw
in shmitta above) allow you to violate a d'orisa in relation to monetary
matters with the power invested in hefker beis din hefker.  It may allow
kiddushin to be uprooted (as we see with somebody who nullifies a get after
sending it but before it is received by the woman), but there is just no
inherent power to allow a violation of a lo ta'aseh of shabbas without
pikuach nefesh at the back of it.  

> 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.

So long as you accept the concept of mishum eiva as rabbinic, then while it
can be the guiding principle that causes the rabbis to make various
enactments, it cannot of its own accord deal with d'orisas.  But I don't see
that as a problem.  In many of the mishum eiva situations, the rabbis are in
fact uprooting a d'orisa allocation of property (whether between husband and
wife, interfamilial etc) using the principle of hefker beis din hefker.
Mishum eiva is the guiding light which is causing the rabbis to act (and
yes, there may well be imitatio dei type considerations in terms of creating
hatred in the world), but hefker beis din hefker is the means, otherwise
they would be powerless to pursue the goal of diminishing eiva.  Similarly
with uprooting kiddushin, the means for doing so is that all kiddushin is
made according to the daas of the rabbis, but the reason the rabbis might
choose to do so in a particular case could in theory have been mishum eiva.
Similar considerations are also clearly at play here, but without pikuach
nefesh, the rabbinic power is just not there.

> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha

Regards

Chana

On 15/08/2011 5:13 PM, Micha Berger wrote:

> And I said that the theory behind the heter dates back to the gemara, and
> it's only its applicability to real situations that was new. The hava amina
> in the gemara is that the eivah couldn't be avoided, and the gemara says that
> in such a case, we violate Shabbos. Then it nullifies the assumption about
> the case. But the kelal WRT violating Shabbos stood unchallenged.
>
> Why isn't that a valid point for extrapolation?

Because "ein lemeidin...ela mitoch maaseh".  Until it's a practical psak,
we don't know on what other grounds it might have been dismissed, had the
grounds actually used not been available.  Only once it's accepted do we
know that it's valid.



>>> 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.
> ...
>
> I'm not sure it would be mutar.

It's an explicit Sifri, as Tosfos points out, which is why Tosfos says
the problem the gemara is discussing is the ethics, not the technical
validity.


> Abayei appears to be defending the  validity of pruzbul (Gittin 36b)
> not "mearly" its morality.

How do you see that?


> And it  follows up with a question about Hillel's Sanhedrin was still
> overturning the Sanhedrin that enacted shemittah derabbanan.  And
> that's when Rava invokes hefqer BD hefqer.

You're misremembering the sugya.  The question that causes Rava to bring
up HBDH is the exact opposite: the gemara asks how the rabbanan could
impose shmita if it doesn't apply mid'oraisa.  And on *that* Rava answers
that they did it by the power of HBDH.


> There is a machloqes Rashi and Tosafos whether Rava's answer replaces
> Abayei's or completes it. Ayin sham.

Rashi says that Rava's answer will also work for the chachamim who
argue against Rebbi, and hold that shmitta is d'oraisa.  Tosfos, who
points out the explicit Sifri that pruzbul works mid'oraisa, and
therefore says that the problem is ethical, says Rava couldn't give
his answer to the question on Hillel because HBDH doesn't solve the
ethical problem.



>> 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.
>
> Agreed.
>
>> In the case of mechiras chometz we have no idea what Hashems' intent was,
>
> I'm not sure we can pasqen a deOraisa based on taam hamitzvah, no matter
> how obvious it may seem.

Not sure what you mean here.  If we knew the intent of the mitzvah, then
it would be unethical to circumvent it, just as it would have been
unethical for Hillel to circumvent the purpose of Shmitta de'oraisa
(which we *do* know because the Torah tells us).


-- 
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

                    
                

R' David Cohen:
The notion that one no longer says kaddish or otherwise commemorates the
yahretzeit of on who was niftar over 50 years ago --- halacha, minhag or
nonsense?
Sources?
------------------


for the niftarim in WWII.

KT,
MYG

I wrote:
> Consider the comparison **you've** made between the Tur and the MB:
> The Tur (and it's relatives, such as the SA) were the standard-
> bearers for centuries. The a major upheaval occurred, in which a
> new standard-bearer appeared (the MB), which focused only on a
> particular section of the prior one, concentrating on those
> halachos considered most relevant for the times.

R"n Lisa Liel and R' Micha Berger have called me on this, and to put it simply, they are correct, and I was wrong.

I was focusing on the simple differences in material covered: The Gemara
contains both halacha and aggada, and also majority and minority views. The
Rambam deliberately shortened this, and omitted aggada and minority views,
while still including all halacha, whether relevant or not nowadays. The
Tur shortened that to only the halachos which are relevant nowadays.

The MB focused on a still-smaller area. But why? I think I was working on
the presumption that he was continuing a long tradition of writing for
balabatim. Like the Rambam and Tur before him, perhaps the Chofetz Chaim
felt that shtark lerners have no excuse but to learn Kol HaTorah Kulah, but
the ordinary people are unable to do this, and aren't even able to learn
what the common folk of the last generation learned; and therefore,
perhaps, the Chofetz Chaim took it upon himself to write the MB.

The problem with the above analysis is that it gives the impression that
the Chofetz Chaim considered Orach Chayim to be less [something] than Yoreh
Deah. I hsve no idea why there's no MB on YD (or EH or CM). Perhaps it was
simply a lack of time, or perhaps there were other considerations. But the
bottom line is that my post gave the impression that the Other Three Turim
are less [something] than Orach Chaim, and I regret giving that impression.

Akiva Miller


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I wrote:

> Similarly, if a woman is not pregnant, or is in the beginning
> stages of her pregnancy, it is perfectly okay to pray for the
> gender of the child. While it is true that Hashem *does* know
> what gender the child will end up being, He has not yet - so to
> speak - made this decision. There is still time to pray and
> influence this future choice of His. At some point in the
> pregnancy (40 days, IIRC) He will make that decision, based on
> whatever factors He uses for this sort of thing, at which point
> the child's gender will not be an undecided thing that one may
> pray for, but it will be an accomplished fact, which no one may
> pray for (except for those tzadikim who are allowed to pray for
> miracles, which this would be).

I was asked why I made this distinction between the early and late stages
of pregnancy, and specifically where I got this shiur of "40 days". After
all, the Mishna (Brachos 54a) and Rambam (Brahos 10:22) simply say that
this prayer must not be said then the wife is pregnant. Whence this
exception for early pregnancy?

The source seems to be the Tur OC 230, who writes, "... but davka after 40
days of pregnancy. But within 40 days, his tefilah is effective." The MB
(230:1) explains, "Because the shape of the newborn will have been formed;
but witin 40 days, tefilah is effective."

But I looked in the Bais Yosef and Bach, and did not see any explanation of
this addition. (Perhaps someone whose rishonim skills are better than mine
can help out.) And I do think that it *is* a point which does need to be
explained, as it seems to cut to the core of some of what we've been
discussing.

I don't remember R' David Riceman mentioning it in this discussion, but
there's a principle which would seem to support at least some of his
position. "Amar Rabi Yitzchak: Bracha only comes on something which is
hidden from the eye." (Bava Metzia 42a) As long as no one *knows* the
child's gender, it can still be changed for the better. Why should it
matter that this is usually determined at a certain stage in the fetus'
developement, if no one knows?

My posts thus far have been based on what seems to be the acepted halacha
of the Tur, Mechaber, and Mishneh Brurah, that it *does* make a difference.
But I think RDR's questions have a good point, and until I understand this
halacha better, I feel I must bow out of the conversation.

Akiva Miller

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 From http://revach.net/article.php?id=3316

For medical reasons a person needed to go swimming as part of his 
therapy for a bad back.  He asked Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach if he 
may do so before davening.  Rav Shlomo Zalman asked him if after 
going swimming he would still daven BaZman.  The person answered that 
he would daven at a 7 am minyan, to which Rav Shlomo Zalman confirmed 
that 7 am is BaZman.

The questioner then explained that he could go swimming later during 
the day but it would come at the expense of his learning 
schedule.  Rav Shlomo Zalman said that in that case he may swim 
before davening. (Aleihu Lo Yibol OC 66)
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On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 07:21:29AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote:
> From http://revach.net/article.php?id=3316
...
> The questioner then explained that he could go swimming later during the 
> day but it would come at the expense of his learning schedule.  Rav 
> Shlomo Zalman said that in that case he may swim before davening. (Aleihu 
> Lo Yibol OC 66)

I am unsurprised because the sevara seems straightforward: The
problem with eating before davening is placing one's guf before one's
neshamah. Presumably something parallel would apply to one's morning
workout as well. But here a motivator is another ruchani goal -- learning.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha


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