Avodah Mailing List

Volume 28: Number 209

Sun, 23 Oct 2011

• 1. Re: Rav Elyashiv - Where To Light The Candles For (hankman)
• 2. Re: Rav Elyashiv - Where To Light The Candles For (Zev Sero)
• 3. The sukkah on Shemini Atzeret controversy (Prof. Levine)
• 4. More on Married Women Should Not Wear Wigs (Prof. Levine)
• 5. avelut on chol hamoed (Eli Turkel)
• 6. lights in the succah (Eli Turkel)
• 7. Re: Rav Elyashiv - Where To Light The Candles For Succos? (harchinam)
• 8. Re: Rav Elyashiv - Where To Light The Candles For Succos? (kennethgmiller@juno.com)
• 9. Re: Picnics, restaurants, shops, and desks (kennethgmiller@juno.com)
• 10. Re: more on schach (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 11. Heter Iska (shalomy...@comcast.net)
• 12. Day of the Week in Tanach (Micha Berger)
• 13. The White House Rubashkin Petition - A Halachic Analysis (Prof. Levine)
• 14. P'ru Ur'vu (cantorwolb...@cox.net)
• 15. Re: P'ru Ur'vu (Micha Berger)

RZS wrote:

I have a different situation: I have no sukkah, but I still have a
chiyuv of neirot yomtov. So I will light at home, and when I come home
I'll have a cup of tea by their light. (I don't eat outside the sukkah,
but I do drink if there isn't a sukkah within easy reach, and in any event
I have to balance the desirability of not drinking outside the sukkah with
the desirability of deriving hana'at achila from the neirot on which I made
a bracha. I make a similar cheshbon on Pesach, and when I come home from
the seder I have a drink by the light of my candles.)

CM comments:

This is not a ta?ane, I admire your zehirus, but nevertheless I find that
the idea (as exemplary as it may be), a bit inverted. The neros are to
increase oneg Shabbat and to enable activity by their light, rather than
invent an extra activity in order to give purpose and reason for the light.

Kol Tuv

Chaim Manaster
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On 16/10/2011 3:57 PM, hankman wrote:

> This is not a ta?ane, I admire your zehirus, but nevertheless I find
> that the idea (as exemplary as it may be), a bit inverted. The neros
> are to increase oneg Shabbat and to enable activity by their light,
> rather than invent an extra activity in order to give purpose and
> reason for the light.

There are two aspects to nerot shabbat: there is the general chiyuv to
light all rooms where one will be that night, "so as not to stumble
against wood or stone".  That chiyuv we fulfil with electric lights.
But there is a specific chiyuv that relates to hana'at achila, which is
why even though one must light in every room, the bracha is to be said
davka on the lights in the dining room, or wherever one will eat seudat
shabbat.  And even today most of us fulfil that chiyuv davka with fire
rather than electric lights, at least whenever possible.  So if one is
not eating at home, one should make a point of eating something by the
candles' light, in order to derive this special hana'ah from them.
(For this reason I also make sure that my lights will still be burning
when I get home.)

In any event, having a cup of tea on Shabbat isn't really "inventing an
activity".  Tea is something that one drinks even if one is not thirsty,
which is one reason it counts as chamar medinah; it's an oneg shabbat,
and it's enhanced by not doing it in the dark.


-- 
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

                    
                

 From http://tinyurl.com/6dpqu3g


Arguments about eating in the sukkah on Shemini Atzeret outside of 
Israel have a long and somewhat baffling history.[1] While not the 
only example of practice in opposition to the Shulchan Aruch, it 
appears to be among the most argued. The gemara, Rambam, the Tur and 
the Shulchan Aruch, written in many locales, all seem to be as 
unambiguous as possible in requiring one to eat in the sukkah. The 
Gaon, incensed by the spreading Chassidic custom to eat outside the 
sukkah, perhaps lemigdar miltah, went so far as to mandate sleeping 
in the sukkah on the night of shemini atzeret, in opposition to the 
Maharil, the Magen Avraham and normative custom.

See the above URL for the rest of this article. YL
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This week's Jewish Press contains a letter to the editor by Rabbi Gil 
Student in response to the woman who wrote that she felt it was not 
appropriate for a married woman to wear a wig that was more beautiful 
than her hair. See http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/49986/

In addition, the editor, Rachel,  of the column in which her letter 
appeared also write a response.  See 
http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/50008/

Rabbi Gil student writes in part

R. Moshe Feinstein responds to the maris ayin argument in multiple 
ways: (1) A woman covering her hair is not a prohibition but an 
obligation, for which we are more lenient; (2) someone, even if not 
everyone, can almost always tell when a woman is wearing a wig; and 
(3) people in our community know that women often cover their hair with wigs.

On the other hand, Rachel points out " ... it may be of interest to 
you and other young readers to know that many of us can still recall 
a time in the not-too-distant (relatively speaking) past when 
human-hair wigs were almost unheard of, when wigs were mostly made of 
a synthetic fiber and were easily recognized as - well, wigs. That 
would partially explain why renown and respected community leaders 
(some no longer with us) sanctioned the wearing of wigs for married women.

"It is highly unlikely that these rabbis, in their endorsement, 
envisioned the knockout versions that many of today's young brides 
find hard to resist.

<Snip>

"Though the trend doesn't show any signs of diminishing, plenty of 
rabbis have spoken out against it, with similar arguments to yours. 
To be fair, mention must be made of the communities where women have 
heeded their leader's call to dispense with the human hair wigs and 
wear only the synthetic kind, and of the many married women sporting 
stylish kerchiefs, hats or wide headbands on top of their wigs, meant 
to act as a constant reminder (to the wearer) of her married status."

I can only wonder what Rav Feinstein, zt"l, would say about 
permitting a married woman to wear a human hair wig that is virtually 
impossible to tell is a wig and that is more beautiful and attractive 
than the woman's natural hair.

YL

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We all know that there is no avelut on chag and chol hamoed. My question is
what does that mean?

Two examples
1. One's immediate relative dies on first day chag or chol hamoed and the
funeral is during chol hamoed
2. One is in the middle of 30 days or 12 months for a parent

Can one attend a brit milah?
Can one simply go to a concert and enjoy oneself (if in the mood) since
there is no avelut?

It would seem that no avelut still does not mean anything goes but I have
heard that some rabbis indeed pasken that way

-- 
Eli Turkel
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<<Last year, our Sukkah almost burned.  There's still a scorch mark.  I
think we'll light inside.>>

On Israeli radio there was an announcement that every year the fire
department attends to numerous fires of lights in the succah. They claimed
that they had piskei halacha from many rabbis that if the candles will be
left unattended then better to light inside.
If a fire does occur it not only ruins the chag for the participants but
forces the firemen to be mechallel yomtov

-- 
Eli Turkel
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>
> Rav Elyashiv (Halichos V'Hanhagos) holds that you must optimally light
> Shabbos and Yom Tov candles in the Succah. If you cannot, you must light it
> in a place where the light of the candles gives off light into the Succah.
>

We have an easy way to fulfill the mitzva without worrying about burning the
sukka. One of the long walls of our sukka is the wall of our house, which
has sliding glass doors to the yard. So I light on a little table that is
placed against the glass door right outside of the sukka. This way the
lights are not in the sukka and we see them as clearly as if they are inside
the sukka and their light shines into the sukka.

We also have bushes inside of our sukka, inside the other wall, which is a
fence. The bushes are cut short so they are not anywhere near the schach or
the pergola and the bushes help to make the wall less see-through and a much
more visually interesting wall.

*** Rena
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R' Y. Levine quoted:

> Rav Elyashiv (Halichos V'Hanhagos) holds that you must optimally
> light Shabbos and Yom Tov candles in the Succah. If you cannot,
> you must light it in a place where the light of the candles
> gives off light into the Succah. If that is not possible then
> you should light candles in the place where you prepare the meal
> or any other room that you will use. However the bracha should
> not be made when lighting those candles. What should be done is
> that immediately afterwards you should turn on the Succah lights
> and make the bracha then.

I wonder what he would suggest for those of us stuck in Chutz Laaretz, where operating the electric light is not an option on the second night.

Akiva Miller

____________________________________________________________
57-Year-Old Mom Looks 25
Mom Reveals $5 Wrinkle Trick That Has Angered Doctors!
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/4e9c27e59595ab44ccfst04vuc

R' Zev Sero wrote:

> Reviewing the halachot in siman 640, it occurred to me that it
> should be permitted to have picnics on sukkot, and even to eat
> in restaurants without a sukkah.

RZS continued at length, giving a compelling argument for this view.
However, Rav Moshe Feinstein, in Igros Moshe OC 3:93, says that one may
*not* do so, and that the heter for "holchei derachim" exists only for one
who has a real "l'tzorech" need, such as for business, but not for "tiyul
v'taanug b'alma" - a mere enjoyable outing.

If I understand his logic correctly (which I might not, so please see his
words in the original), it goes like this: Imagine a person who enjoys
sleeping outdoors, directly under the sky, and often does so for that very
reason. Could one argue that because the sukkah takes the place of his
house, he should therefore be allowed to do so on Sukkos as well? Such
logic would make sense only if Rava's dispensation ("mitzta'er patur min
hasukkah") extended to people who enjoy being away from home. But it did
not. Rava restricted the p'tur to a mitzta'er. One who is pained by being
in the sukkah/home may go elsewhere, but one who merely enjoys the
elsewhere more than the sukkah/home must go to the sukkah.

Rav Moshe explores this logic further in Igros Moshe EH 4:32:8, where he
discusses a person who has gone to Eretz Yisrael for Sukkos, and now finds
that he has only a limited number of days in which to see the sights. Must
he stay in places where a sukkah is accessible, or is this enough of a
tzorech to allow him to travel wherever he wants during Chol Hamoed?
Suppose he took his vacation to a destination other that to Eretz Yisrael;
can he spend Chol Hamoed seeing those sights as well? See what he writes
there, to help fine-tune his definition of "tzorech".

Akiva Miller

____________________________________________________________
57-Year-Old Mom Looks 25
Mom Reveals $5 Wrinkle Trick That Has Angered Doctors!
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/4e9c25fe12e05b445a2st05vuc

R' Saul Newman quoted from the "Guide to Star-K Certified Schach":

> According to the opinion of Rashi (as brought in Shaar Hatziyun
> 629:20) spun or woven threads (e.g. string, yarn) are mekabel
> tumah. Rav Moshe Feinstein states (Igros Moshe, O.C. 1:177) based
> on a Mishna, if something which is mekabel tumah is used to hold
> wooden slats together, the slats themselves are also mekabel
> tumah and are no longer kosher for schach use. Therefore, Rav
> Moshe Feinstein explains that wooden venetian blinds held
> together with cloth tape or string are not kosher for schach.
> It follows that according to Rashi bamboo slats held together by
> multi-filament cord (i.e. it is braided or twisted) are also not
> kosher for schach (even if they are not made to sit or walk on).
>
> However, monofilament (commonly used for fishing line) is not
> woven or spun material. Therefore, it is not mekabel tumah and
> may be used to hold bamboo slats together. All Star-K certified
> bamboo schach is held together with monofilament cord.

At first, I was very confused by the references to "monofilament" and
"multi-filament". I had thought that the advantage of fishing line is that
it is made of nylon, and plastic is not mekabel tumah. Thus, since the
slats are being held together by a plastic string - which is not mekabel
tumah - the mat is okay.

If one had a multi-filament cord made of nylon threads, would that be
mekabel tumah? I'm still confused by the references to filaments, and I
suspect that I'm missing some very basic concepts. Can someone please fill
me in?

Akiva Miller

____________________________________________________________
57-Year-Old Mom Looks 25
Mom Reveals $5 Wrinkle Trick That Has Angered Doctors!
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/4e9c26f1682e57b05fdst03vuc

Rn CL: 

>This is if the correct analysis is to look at the device as a whole, then I would agree. 
>But the question becomes, at what point do you look at "the device 
>as a whole"? Because, if you look at a bank as a whole, one that makes a billion loans - 
>then, even with a reasonable (eg well above 5%) risk on every 
>single one of these loans, according to this analysis, the bank as a whole will still 
>"work" and is "virtually guaranteed to make a profit" because spread 
>over that number of loans at a reasonable level of interest, even having a 
>significant number of loans going bad would still leave it with a tidy profit. So if 
>you look at a bank as a whole, then you can say that in fact the bank takes 
>virtually no risk whatsoever, or has only a one in billion chance of not working. 
> Thus if your overall "one in a billion chance of not working" is applied to a bank, 
>whatever heter iska you attempt to write for any individual loan is completely irrelevant, 
>the bank takes virtually no risk, and hence cannot charge interest. 


I don't know about the broader issue under question, but I want to point out that Rn Luntz's analogy 
doesn't really work. Even though the many successful loans cover for the loans that fail, that doesn't 
mean the bank doesn't lose. If the loans that failed hadn't failed, the bank would make even more profit 
than they do. So, the bank has a loss. 

The confusion seems to come from the attempt to compare the bank loans to the 'Shabbos switch' that began 
this discussion (and, similarly, to a coin toss). But, with the switch, you either have a success (the light comes on) 
or a failure (it doesn't). But a bank's outcomes aren't dichotomous like that: Sure, the bank doesn't fail because of 
one failed loan. But, it has less success than it would otherwise... 

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The Y-mi, RH 1:1 (vilna 1a), brings a proof that Jewish kings' years are
counted from Nissan from DhY 2:3:2, which says that Shelomo hamelekh
started building the BHMQ "bechodesh hasheini, basheini, bishnas arba
lemalkhuso." The Y-mi reads it as saying "the 2nd month [of the year,
which was also] the second [month] of the 4th year of his rule".

Then it asks whether it is "the 2nd month, the 2nd" day of that month,
and answers that day of the month is always specified "sheini bachodesh".

And maybe it means Monday, the 2nd day of the week?
It never mentions of the day of the week of an event.

Ah, but what about "Vayhi erev vayhi boqer, yom sheini"?

Answer: Ein lemeidim miberiyaso shel olam.

The yom sheini of creation can't be compared to the usual concept
of yom sheini.

Let your imaginations take you where mine did.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy,
mi...@aishdas.org        if only because it offers us the opportunity of
http://www.aishdas.org   self-fulfilling prophecy.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                              - Arthur C. Clarke

 From http://tinyurl.com/3nho9s7

By now most everyone has heard of the White House 
Online Petition for Sholom Rubashkin.   The 
question is whether or not there is a Mitzvah of 
Pidyon Shvuyim in signing the petition, and the 
nature of the Mitzvah.  Rav Yechiel Michel 
Epstein (1829-1908) deals with the Mitzvah of 
Pidyon Shvuyim in his comments to the 252nd 
chapter of Yore Deah, in the laws of Tzedaka.

He writes (252:1), ?And all this was in earlier 
times, and even nowadays in far flung 
wildernesses such as Asia and Africa, where 
bandits fall upon travelers and take them into 
captivity to the point where it is necessary to 
redeem them with large sums of money, as is known 
from the caravans that travel in the western wilderness.??

It seems that the Aruch haShulchan is suggesting 
that the full blown Pidyon Shvuyim and all its 
associated Halachos are a thing of the past and 
no longer applicable in the Aruch haShulchan?s 
time.  It is a controversial Aruch HaShulchan ? 
one that has engendered three types of readings:

See the above URL for the rest of this article.  YL
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We are taught that the first mitzvah given us comes from the command given first to Adam and Chava and then in the next
parsha, to Noach. My question is: Neither were Jewish. How then, can we say that the first mitzvah is incumbent on us since
it was not given to Avraham Avinu or anyone afterward?  If you say that the mitzvah was for all mankind, we know that it is not
so, since it is not one of the sheva mitzvot b'nai Noach. So how do you explain the mitzvah given to two non Jews?

On Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 08:21:49PM -0400, cantorwolb...@cox.net wrote:
: We are taught that the first mitzvah given us comes from the command
: given first to Adam and Chava and then in the next
: parsha, to Noach. My question is: Neither were Jewish. How then,
: can we say that the first mitzvah is incumbent on us since
: it was not given to Avraham Avinu...

The same is asked of milah and gid hanasheh, since Avraham and Yaaqov
also weren't Jewish. Judaism was born at Sinai.

In Peirush haMishnayos (Chulin 7, nr the end), and in his Igeros (Shilat
ed vol I pg 410) the Rambam writes that these mitzvos are not obligatory
from the original command, but from when the command was repeated in
Sinai. (I say "in Sinai" rather than "at Sinai". Apparently the Rambam
holds that Rosh Chodesh, given in Marah, didn't need to be repeated. So,
"Sinai" apparently refers to the midbar, not Har Choreiv.)

Only Mosaic Prophecy can create a mitzvah. Normal prophecy only "creates"
a devar nevu'ah.

There is a difference between those mitzvos explicitly repeated as part
of the covenent in later books, and those only re-given in Sinai when
Moshe was given sefer Bereishis. Those repeated twice in the chumash
(such as the issur AZ) are both universal and included in the beris
Sinai. Those which only appear in bereishis (milah, peru urvu, and since
we don't hold like R' Yehudah, gid hanasheh) were limited to Jews once
the concept existed.

R' Noach Witty (former list member) asked me in shul on Simchas Torah
why, according to this, is the berakhah we make at a beris "lehakhniso
bivriso shel Avraham avinu", if the Abrahamic covenant was *replaced*
(rather than enhanced) by a later one at Sinai and not currently in force?

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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