Avodah Mailing List

Volume 28: Number 197

Mon, 03 Oct 2011

• 1. Tnu `Eyneykhem Liyofi (Jay F Shachter)
• 2. Re: Kategor and Sanegor (T6...@aol.com)
• 3. Re: Kategor and Sanegor (harchinam)
• 4. Re: Sources for "Lonely Man of Faith" (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: Kategor and Sanegor (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: Kategor and Sanegor (T6...@aol.com)
• 7. BeRosh Hashana Nifkedu... (Gershon Dubin)
• 8. Re: Kategor and Sanegor (Micha Berger)
• 9. Re: Kategor and Sanegor (Zev Sero)
• 10. Re: Evolution, Hashgachah and Tehillah (Micha Berger)
• 11. Re: Evolution, Hashgachah and Tehillah (Micha Berger)
• 12. Re: Humanoids Talmud Torah (Micha Berger)
• 13. Re: US Law and the 6 mitzvos bnei noach (Micha Berger)
• 14. Re: kosher switch (Micha Berger)
• 15. Re: Shabbath In An Airport (Micha Berger)

Our sister mailing list, Areivim, recently hosted an extensive
discussion about "Fashion-Conscious Orthodox Women Push[ing The]
Limits of Modest Dress".  The discussion began when someone cited a
newspaper article about a store in Crown Heights that claims to sell
women's clothing that is "sexy but still permitted by the laws of
modesty", or words to that effect.  The discussion lasted a long time,
but has subsided in the past seven days, which is good, because it may
allow me to have the last word.  The consensus on Areivim was that
Jewish women who wear skintight skin-colored pants are acting
improperly and the discussion was mostly about how strongly they
should be condemned (there was also some discussion about whether they
are aberrant outliers, or potentially dangerous trendsetters).  The
consensus is wrong.

A day or two days before my wedding, I met briefly with Rabbi _____
(you will know why I conceal his name, if you read my other writings)
when I returned to him a book on the laws of nidda that he had lent me
to read.  He told me a few things that he wanted to be sure I knew.
One of the things he said was "your wife will have to cover her hair
with a tikhl or a shaitl".  I challenged him on this halakha.  I did
not challenge him on the grounds that the law technically requires
this of a married woman only in the shuq (the marketplace, the public
square) and that it is permissible under the law, even for the mother
of a High Priest, for the four walls of her house to see her uncovered
hair, and that this is technically true even if she has guests in her
house.  That would have been a pedantic correction, since I had no
intention of violating the custom in this regard.  I challenged him on
other grounds.  "Rabbi _____", I said, "how can you find it acceptable
for a married woman to wear a wig in public?  She's covering her hair
with something that looks like hair."

Rabbi ______ did not attempt to give me an erudite reply (and it is
possible that he could not, because he is not an intellectual, even
though he is a prominent and influential poseq in Chicago).  He merely
said, "are you going to fault a woman for doing something permitted by
halakha?".

These wisely-spoken words made an impression on me.  I did not want to
be a condemnatory Jew, a Jew who finds fault with his fellow Jew as an
act of choice, a Jew who inculpates when he could as easily, or nearly
as easily, exculpate.  Our poor beleaguered nation is divided enough,
we do not need to fragment it any more, and if we do we are violating
Deuteronomy 14:1, we are cutting into our own flesh, v'eyn miqra yotse
miydey pshuto.  I discovered, that when I set out to find a limmud
zkhuth (justification, defense, apologia) for the women who cover
their hair with hair, I was able to fashion one, it was simply a
matter of making the effort, if someone tells you that he has labored
and has not found it, do not believe him.

The English poet D. H. Lawrence, in "New Heaven and Earth", wrote:

       It was the flank of my wife
       I touched with my hand, I clutched with my hand

These are powerful, stark, words, evocative of powerful feelings.  But
does a woman's leg feel all that different from a man's?  It does not.
Can you really tell the difference between a woman's leg and a man's?
You really cannot.  I am not talking about a woman who shaves her
legs, and I am not talking about a woman who sits on her tukhis all
day, so that her legs are flabby; I am talking about a woman who is
strong, healthy, and vigorous, a woman who spends her day running
after children, or carrying water from the well, or rambling over the
fields and gathering shells, and flowers, and medicinal weeds.

Let us perform a Gedankenexperiment, a thought-experiment.  First of
all, if you are a woman, imagine that you are a man.  Now imagine that
you are lying at night next to your beloved, the wife of your youth.
Imagine also that you are wearing noseplugs, or that garlic bread is
baking in your kitchen, or that for some other reason you lack the
olfactory information you would normally have in such a situation,
since a naked woman does smell different from a naked man.  You reach
out in the darkness and touch your wife's leg.  It is tremendously
erotic, and in an instant you are sexually aroused.  Then you find out
that the person next to you, the person whose leg you are caressing,
is not your wife, is, in fact, a man.  You are struck by a wave of
revulsion.  You immediately lose your erection -- you have never
before lost an erection so quickly, and you are surprised to discover
that it is physically possible -- and you may even be literally
nauseous, to the point of retching.  There is not a single reader on
this mailing list who doubts that that is exactly what would happen.
The erotic nature of our experience is not determined by our sense
impressions.  It is determined by the meaning we give to them.

Re-read those lines by D. H. Lawrence.  The point is not that it was a
flank; the point is that it was the flank of his wife, his beloved,
the woman for whom he left his father and his mother, to become one
flesh.  A few lines later, the poet writes:

    It was the flank of my wife
    whom I married years ago
    at whose side I have lain for over a thousand nights
    and all that previous while, she was I, she was I;
    I touched her, it was I who touched and I who was touched.

Their shared history, their shared life, is the context that gives
meaning to the sense impression.  In different contexts, the same
sense impression can be equally thrilling, or revolting.

At the end of the day, when your wife closes the door on the outside
world, lowers the windowshades, pulls shut the drapes, removes her
headscarf and undoes her long flowing hair, you are overwhelmed with
love for her.  Why?  It's only hair.  It doesn't look any different
from a man's hair.  Moreover, it is odd that hair should make you feel
loving toward her, because hair does not facilitate lovemaking.  Quite
the contrary, it impedes it.  The tickling and messy sensation of her
hair sticking to your lips and getting in your eyes will often cause
your concentration to be utterly broken, and your healthy lust turned
to towering rage.  If strands of her locks get into your nostrils, no
amount of willpower can prevent you from a fierce urge to grab her
head and rip the hair clean out of her skull.  Nevertheless, our Sages
have told us that a woman's hair is erotic, and they are right,
because when, at the end of the day, your wife lets down her hair, she
is making you special, she is showing you something that you know she
shows to no other man, and you love her for that.

Now we can find our limmud zkhuth for the married women who wear wigs
in public.  Yes, it's a wig, it looks like hair.  But that's
irrelevant.  The point is that you know that it is not her hair, you
know that it is a covering, that there is something underneath it that
you cannot see, because she is your neighbor's wife.  The sensory
impression means nothing in itself until it is given meaning by your
brain, and the meaning your brain gives to the married woman's wig is
entirely tsanua`.

It is the same with the woman who wears skintight skin-colored pants.
When a non-Jewish woman wears skintight skin-colored pants she is
signaling not only that she is sexually desirable, but also that she
is sexually available.  Not to everyone -- she is no harlot -- but to
Mr Right, who proves that he is Mr Right, she is sexually available,
and it is that signal that gives her clothing its erotic character.
When a daughter of Israel wears skintight skin-colored pants, the
message is different.  You know that she is not sexually available,
unless you marry her.  It is still erotic, but it is erotic in an
entirely different way, the message is one that a daughter of Israel
is permitted to give, she is saying "tnu `eyneykhem liyofi", and it is
completely proper for a daughter of Israel to say that.

If you are going to make a xilluq, a distinction, between the woman
who covers her hair with something that looks like hair, and the woman
who covers her skin with something that looks like skin, then you are
not thinking.  Instead of thinking, you are using your powers of
language to restate your prejudices -- literally prejudices,
conclusions that you have pre-judged, because you are accustomed to
them, or because they otherwise make you feel comfortable, instead of
subjecting them to the unbiased operation of your reason and your
intellect.

When women say "tnu `eyneykhem liyofi" they are reminding men of
something they need to be reminded about.  It is not just some wild
thing that our grandmothers used to do, it is a practice cited with
approval by the president of the Sanhedrin.  Jewish women have no
religious obligation to mate.  Jewish men have.  But there are many
Jewish men -- too many -- who are failing to fulfill their religious
obligation, who are discouraged, who are tired, who are not rousing
themselves to make the hundredth effort, and the hundred-and-first
effort, to get up and find the rib that they have lost.  Jewish women,
using articles every bit as holy as the brass basin in the Sanctuary,
are reminding those Jewish men what they are missing.

The unmarried men reading this may want to reply, "I don't need any
more reminders of what I am missing, my body gives me enough reminders
as it is, in fact, I would prefer to have the reminders be less
frequent, and less powerful".  But that is, empirically, untrue.  If
it were true, you would be married -- you would have paid the
opportunity costs, however high, of marrying now rather than later --
and you are not.  And that is why your future bride, together with the
other pure and holy daughters of Israel, goes to the vineyards, and
dances.  Her clothes are borrowed, but her person is her own, and can
be yours, if you want it enough.


                Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter
                6424 N Whipple St
                Chicago IL  60645-4111
                        (1-773)7613784
                        j...@m5.chicago.il.us
                        http://m5.chicago.il.us

                "The umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house"

From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
> Kategoros and sanegoros are Greek  terms. And in fact, we don't have
> lawyers in beis din. (In the  adversarial/advoacate sense of the word,
> although to'anim do serve as  representatives.)

> So why is the metaphor used on Yamim Noraim taken from  the Roman judicial
> system -- arkaos?

We may have borrowed Greek terms but we don't mean exactly the same
things by them. It has always been my impression that the kategor and
sanegor are not lawyers, but witnesses, for the prosecution and for the
defense. The deeds you do and even the words you say -- whether words of
tefillah and Torah, or words of loshon hara and so on -- create angels
that go up to Heaven and speak for you or against you. "The" kategor is
the Satan who seems to be in charge of a platoon of all the sins you've
committed -- all the accusing angels you've created with your sins.
"The" Sanegor is HKB'H who keeps finding ways to "discredit" the accusing
angels and give extra weight to the defending angels. (In a human court
a witness for the defense couldn't also be the judge, but in a divine
court it's different.) "Defending" angels isn't a 100% accurate way to
describe all of them because "defense" witnesses would be the ones who
testify about your crimes but in mitigation -- you didn't mean to do
it, you were forced by circumstances, you didn't know it was a crime,
etc etc -- whereas some of the angel-witnesses are more like character
witnesses who are bringing positive testimony of all the good things
you've done for which you deserve a reduction in your sentence or even
deserve a reward, more like witnesses to the Nobel Prize Committee.

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

_____________________  

>  It has always been my impression that the kategor and
> sanegor are not lawyers, but witnesses, for the prosecution and for the
> defense. The deeds you do and even the words you say -- whether words of
> tefillah and Torah, or words of loshon hara and so on -- create angels
> that go up to Heaven and speak for you or against you. "The" kategor is
> the Satan who seems to be in charge of a platoon of all the sins you've
> committed -- all the accusing angels you've created with your sins.
> "The" Sanegor is HKB'H who keeps finding ways to "discredit" the accusing
> angels and give extra weight to the defending angels. (In a human court
> a witness for the defense couldn't also be the judge, but in a divine
> court it's different.)...


What you wrote seems close to what I understand, but with a bit of a
different religion's hashkafa thrown in. I think it is more like that Hashem
is the True Judge and both the defending angels and the accusing angels come
in front of Hashem to testify about the person's deeds who is "on trial" at
that time. The defenders come with all of the mitzvot and good midot and
such to testify as character witnesses and the accusing angels come to
mention all of the less than stellar things that one has done that could
take away from the good. Then Hashem, the Only Judge and equal to none,
makes His decision.

Saying that Hashem is the sanegor [or even The Sanegor] against or across
from the Kategor is just too much like a different religion's ideas of two
equal powers [or even somehwat unequal powers on the same level] for my
taste.

*** Rena
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I don't know if RYBS ever applied this idea in the secular realm, but
WRT talmud Torah, he was aware of at times accidentally "borrowing"
earlier Torah.

RYBS started with Yaaqov's pledge to Lavan that in 20 years of working
for him, none of the flock had a stillborn, Yaaqov did not eat a single
ram, he didn't bring Lavan those killed by wild animals and instead
bore the cost himself, "genuvasi yom ugenuvasi laylah".

Why the keifel lashon? How does genuvasi yom differ from genuvasi laylah?

RYBS answered that sometimes someone says a devar Torah not besheim
amero, intentionally stealing credit for the chiddush for himself. That's
"genuvasi yom". Sometimes the theft is so in the dark even the thief
doesn't realize it. The devar Torah I might have heard once many years
ago and forgot. Then later, when I recall the idea I think it's something
I had discovered myself. Genuvasi laylah.

Here, though, I think these are simply ideas so common in various variants
among the neo-Kantian and Existentialist worldviews and thinkers of
those schools that RYBS simply didn't think it necessary to cite. IIUC,
that's what R' Prof Sholom Carmy already wrote, and if so, I'm happy
that was my instinctive answer as well.

Last, I'm reminded of my first attempt to learn Ish haHalakhah. I get
just a few pagest into the book, and I'm totally thrown by the words of
a footnote. What's all this about "the wheel" and how does that wheel
indicate to us philosophical concepts? Then I got a little further,
saw a long word that was obviously a borrowing -- Kierkegaard -- and
realized that "hagal" was supposed to be "Hegel".

GCT!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             With the "Echad" of the Shema, the Jew crowns
mi...@aishdas.org        G-d as King of the entire cosmos and all four
http://www.aishdas.org   corners of the world, but sometimes he forgets
Fax: (270) 514-1507      to include himself.     - Rav Yisrael Salanter

On Sun, Oct 02, 2011 at 02:10:37PM -0400, T6...@aol.com wrote:
: We may have borrowed Greek terms but we don't mean exactly the same
: things by them. It has always been my impression that the kategor and
: sanegor are not lawyers, but witnesses, for the prosecution and for the
: defense...

The kohein gadol doesn't do the avodah in the qodesh haqadashim
in the full 8 begadim because gold was used in the parah adumah, and
"ein qateigor naaseh saneigor". Similarly, this reasoning is one of
the problems with using a cow's horn for shofar. But WRT eidus, yes --
witnesses brought by one to'ein can bring testimony that helps the
other to'ein.

Do we have witnesses for the prosecution or for the defense, or just stam
people who were there? Even if the defense finds eidim that support his
side and pushes them to come, they still aren't "for the defense". I'm
inclined to think this concept isn't part of beis din's judicial process
either.

GCT!
-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

In a message dated 10/3/2011, harchi...@gmail.com writes:

>> Saying that Hashem is the sanegor [or even The Sanegor] against  or 
across from the Kategor is just too much like a different religion's ideas  of 
two equal powers [or even somehwat unequal powers on the same level] for my  
taste.<<

 
>>>>>
 
I had no such intention or thought of "two powers" in my mind  c'v and I am 
glad that you clarified that.  
 
Sefer Iyov (among other sources) makes it clear that the Satan cannot act  
on his own initiative, that he is just another malach with a mission to  
perform -- he is the yetzer hara, he is the prosecutor and he is the malach  
hamaves -- it is his mission to attempt to get people to sin and then to 
punish  them if they do -- but underneath it all, he doesn't /reallly/  want 
people to sin, he wants them to resist his wiles and to do  Hashem's will.  The 
Torah's picture of the Satan is quite, quite  different from the xian idea 
of an angel who "rebelled" and set himself up in  his own anti-G-d kingdom!
 
It may be that the sanegor (or The Sanegor) is not Hashem Himself but an  
angel appointed by Hashem to speak for the defense, but that does sound  more 
like an attorney than a witness. Or every person may have his own  sanegor 
(or even many) -- the angel[s] created by his own good deeds that  testify 
on his behalf.  In any case, I think we are in the land of  metaphors here 
and don't have a crystal clear idea of what goes on Up There  -- other than 
the knowledge that we are on trial and that our fate hangs in the  balance.
 

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




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The Gemara says that on R"H Sara, Rochel and Chana were "nifkedu".  Rashi
explains this to mean "bah zichronam letova venigzar aleihem herayon". Why
is this different than anyone else?  If someone becomes pregnant during the
year ,was that not nigzar on them on R"H?

Gershon
gershon.du...@juno.com
____________________________________________________________
Online Masters Degrees
AA, BA, BS, MA, MS, PhD Programs
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/4e8a0d03ba1129d0d44st01vuc
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On Mon, Oct 03, 2011 at 12:53:51PM -0400, T6...@aol.com wrote:
: Sefer Iyov (among other sources) makes it clear that the Satan cannot act  
: on his own initiative, that he is just another malach with a mission to  
: perform -- he is the yetzer hara, he is the prosecutor and he is the malach  
: hamaves -- it is his mission to attempt to get people to sin and then to 
: punish  them if they do...

Getting back to our point, so he is prosecutor in the sense of ketegoros
in Greek and Latin law? Or as a biased eid?

GCT!
-Micha

On 3/10/2011 1:49 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> Do we have witnesses for the prosecution or for the defense, or just stam
> people who were there? Even if the defense finds eidim that support his
> side and pushes them to come, they still aren't "for the defense". I'm
> inclined to think this concept isn't part of beis din's judicial process
> either.

But in the course of the debate, dayanim and talmidim take sides and
become kategorim or sanegorim.  Though in dinei nefashos the rule is
that kateigor naaseh saneigor, but ein saneigor naaseh kateigor.

-- 
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 Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 08:27:24AM -0400, Rich, Joel wrote:
: And the meta question (similar to one that really fascinates me -
: how do 2 rabbis, knowing the entire corpus of torah, come to different
: conclusions) is what drives different people to answer this question
: so differently?

The Maharal's position WRT machloqes in halakhah, which I've championed
here before, works for this question too.

Maaseh bereishis is simply beyond human ken. What we do is capture aspects
of a Truth to grand and complex to fit within this world. It's not that one
is wrong and one is right. Each are true, in their own way, modeling something
that we can't understand well enough to understand how the contradiction
is only apparent.

WRT halakhah, the Maharal continues this beyond thought and into deed, but
that's not necessary here.

GCT!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             I thank God for my handicaps, for, through them,
mi...@aishdas.org        I have found myself, my work, and my God.
http://www.aishdas.org                - Helen Keller
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 10:07:26AM -0500, Lisa Liel wrote:
> I've also heard, regarding the express "ein mazal l'Yisrael", that much  
> of the world *does* operate randomly (based on the starting values  
> defined by Hashem), and that "mazal", or chance, is how the world works.  

Is "mazal" chance? We know that belief in astrology and knowledge that
the stars move in predictable ways, and in particular, that the
mazalos move together, coexisted. I would therefore think that the concept
of "mazal" is more tied to fate and predestination, a mechanical and
deterministic view of the forces of the universe.
sister to te

Whereas Yisrael, who have no sar but are beni bekhori, are lemaalah
min hateva, and mimazal, and determinism in general.

...
> These are examples of how a mere human can do something relatively small  
> that has amazingly complex and intentional results...

Chaos Theory: the study of systems with feedback loops such that miniscule
changes in initial situation can have macroscopic effects on outcome.

GCT!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea
mi...@aishdas.org        of instincts.
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 01:01:27PM +1000, Meir Rabi wrote:
: 3. RaMBaM advises/instructs us to study nature in order to know Gd;
: surely that would be TT.

He lists it in Yesodei haTorah 2, in his discussion of ahavas H'. I
therefore would assume that it's not TT, but -- as he says -- the
maaseh mitzvah to get to the qiyum of ahavah itself.

:     a. However, I urge that we take note that RaMBaM does not
:        advise/instruct us to learn various Pessukim rhapsodising about
:        nature in order to gain this awareness.

:     b. Studying such matters is probably within the realm of TT

Miqra is listed as 1/3 (at least for non-masters) of the mitvah of
TT. Not probably TT, definitely.

I also am not sure whether the Rambam would make the distinction between
studying nature itself and pesuqim about nature, science and revalation,
that you are.

...
: 5. I am reminded of a discussion with a young fellow who insisted he
: had had a religious spiritual experience -- he had this remarkable
: experience at a concert of Guns and Roses. Is there any way to evaluate
: such an experience?

See RAEKaplan's Shetei Derakhim
<http://www.aishdas.org/raek/2derachim.pdf>, top of pg 22 (6th pg of
PDF). He asks this question about chassidim being moved by the music of
a tish. Does the experience penetrate to produce real Deveikus, or
is the person moved as we would by any good melody? And how does he
know, so as to avoid thelatter experience?

When RnTK recently pointed out on Areivim a problem with mussar -- that
the constant self-relection can reduce one's Yahadus to being overly
Me oriented -- I noted this as the flipside problem if one neglects
the self-reflection. (Ever derekh has its strengths and weaknesses;
part of why no one size fits all.)

...
: 8. Is every single word in the Gemara TT?
:     a. The talk about use of the bathroom
:     b. Healthy lifestyles?

Is the gemara actually going off topic? The Ramchal asserts that all of
these discussions, as well as the scientific ones, are actually aggadic
statements crouched in meshalim. (The meshalim themselves could have
been believed as fact, but that's irrelevent to us.)

Similarly, the Gra says (Even Sheleimah 1:11) that all of the gemara's
discussions about going to the bathroom is actually about pruning
destructive middos.

    Therefore one must cleanse one's heart every day before study and
    after it of impure attitudes and middos with a fear of sin and
    good deeds.

    This [process] is euphemistically called "going to the bathroom". They
    were was about this they hinted when they said "Going to the
    bathroom is greater than all of it." (Berakhos 8a) And when they said
    "Whomever spends a long time in the bathroom, it is lofty." (Ibid
    55a) Also when they said, "Get up early and go, in the evening go"
    (Ibid 62a) they intend to say that in his youth and in his old age
    he shouldn't distance himself a great distance from his Creator so
    that he couldn't be helped.

    One must inspect which evil middah is strong within him, and after
    that clean it out. Not like those men of desire who wallow in what
    they want, and the desire grows greater. It requires a lot of slyness,
    to be "sly in yir'ah" (Abayei, Ibid 17a) in opposition to the "snake
    was sly".

This position is actually closer to your original statement than
this latter post of yours is. I'm arguing that we should be showing
people how this over-focus on Torah-as-history is a distortion of
mesorah. While knowing peshat in the pasuq is useful, history or science
aren't the Torah's primary topic and shouldn't be a particularly central
concern. It's the kind of tangential thing about which one ought be able
to live with open questions.

GCT!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "I think, therefore I am." - Renne Descartes
mi...@aishdas.org        "I am thought about, therefore I am -
http://www.aishdas.org   my existence depends upon the thought of a
Fax: (270) 514-1507      Supreme Being Who thinks me." - R' SR Hirsch

On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 02:11:58PM -0700, Harvey Benton wrote:
: i was wondering what your opinion was of the us supreme (and 
: regular court system) re: 7bnoach

I once argued that rights-based law is the best model humanity has come
up with yet for implementing the 7th mitzvah benei Noach, but also that
it's not the correct model for understanding halakhah -- not even the
other 6 mitzvos.

Beris is about joining together, in this case with HQBH, to work together
toward a common dream. This is a more exact fit with the legal systems
designed to bring about redemption (both personal and global).

For law itself, one's choices are rights vs duties. The rights based
law can decay (in unhealth) to a culture of entitlement. The duty
based law can decay into totaletarianism and other forms of oppression.
The latter is a bigger threat to the 7MBN, IMHO.

GCT!
-Micha

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

On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 09:55:49AM +0100, Chana Luntz wrote:
: But, it seems to me, the more innovative bit about this kosher switch is the
: introduction of randomness.  The point being that, if you toss a coin, you
: have a 50% chance of not getting a head.  If you toss it again, then you
: only have a 25% chance of not getting a head on one of those two times.  If
: you toss your coin again and again and again, the chances of you not getting
: a head at least once gets smaller and smaller and smaller.  BUT the chance
: that you never get a head remains (and will remain until infinity).   So in
: theory this kosher switch might *never* work, it just means that the
: probability of it never working gets smaller and smaller and smaller the
: longer time goes on (and the more coin tosses are done)....

At some point, the probability gets to be a small enough miut that it's
ignorable. IOW, I don't think being goreim something that rov of the
time violates an issur is any more mutar than geramah of a vadai. And
even if there is a difference of which I'm unaware, how big of a rov
can one not treat the same as vadai?

I think that threashold of nearly-always would be crossed relatively soon
after flipping the switch if the manufacturer wants something reliable
enough that people would use it.

GCT!
-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 Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 10:06:54AM +0300, Liron Kopinsky wrote:
: > RJFS [on Areivim]:
: > If you arrive in a city on Shabbath, you do not have access to the
: > city's txum; your txum is 4 amoth around your body.  By stating the
: > above, you are apparently pasqening that every airport, together with
: > the runways that surround it, is a reshuth hayyaxid, and equivalent to
: > 4 amoth for the purposes of this halakha.  That may be the law, but if
: > it is, it is not so obvious a law that it is proper to present it
: > without any explanation or exposition, as you have done.

I don't know what we hold, but what I recall from Y-mi Eiruvin is that the
4 amos can be around any point, as long as it includes where you are. IOW,
you are tied to a 4 amah radius circle, but you can choose a circle that
gives you 8 amos in a chosen direction, and zero in the opposite.

RLK, in his post adds:
: The bigger issue is what do you do with your carry-on luggage which contains
: your laptop/wallet. I think he said you can directly ask a goy to carry it
: for you and put it in a safe place, but I'm not sure.

I had this situation on a bus. My LOR told me that I could ask the driver
to take it to the lost-and-found.

[Lemaaseh, the fellow behind me getting off took the briefcase (including
laptop, cell phone, PDA, and wallet) and followed me home, leaving it
on my porch without being asked. I thanked him with a 6 pack of beer.]

GCT!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Education is not the filling of a bucket,
mi...@aishdas.org        but the lighting of a fire.
http://www.aishdas.org                - W.B. Yeats
Fax: (270) 514-1507


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