Avodah Mailing List

Volume 28: Number 215

Sun, 30 Oct 2011

• 1. Re: pushing for moshiach/shiduchim, etc (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: More Tzaar (David Riceman)
• 3. Re: More Tzaar (Micha Berger)
• 4. maleh (Harvey Benton)
• 5. Re: maleh (Zev Sero)
• 6. Questions on Parshat Noach (Liron Kopinsky)
• 7. Re: Questions on Parshat Noach (Zev Sero)
• 8. Is there any issur here al pi halacha? - New York man pleads guilty to selling Israeli human organs (hankman)
• 9. Re: Questions on Parshat Noach (Yisroel)
• 10. Re: Is there any issur here al pi halacha? - New York man pleads guilty to selling Israeli human organs (Zev Sero)
• 11. Re: purpose of creation?? varous opinions?? (kennethgmiller@juno.com)

On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 08:43:39AM -0700, Harvey Benton wrote:
: if ever anyone pushes for something, the natural reaction
: is to push back or to say "no thank you";
...
: in the spiritual worlds, do you? think it is? the same??

How does pushing someone make it more likely that they would say "no"?
Can you think of a psychological linkage that doesn't display the kind
of pettiness Hashem wouldn't illustrate in His actions to us?

:-)BBii!
-Micha

RMB:

<<However, lemaaseh, he did wake up his son. So, along the way we have 
enough information to deduce something other than RMS's point. The 
future RYBS was wrong -- being asleep and requiring waking isn't the 
kind of tza'ar included by mitzta'er patur min hasukkah.

  If it were patur min hasukkah, RMS wouldn't have had to force his son 
to show up, even if the booth while being a rained upon isn't a halachic 
sukkah.>>

There's no p'tur of mitztaer on the first night! How is this a proof of 
anything?

David Riceman

On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 02:42:01PM -0400, David Riceman wrote:
> There's no p'tur of mitztaer on the first night! How is this a proof of  
> anything?

I believe you're taking two sides of the same machloqes. If you hold that
mitzta'er renders the booth a non-sukkah, then you hold that mitzta'er
is a petur on the first night -- you have no Sukkah to go to!

This is the very nafqa mina lemaaseh of the chiluq RMS refers to in
the story.

BTW, I since found in Reshimos Shi'urim, Sukkah pg 92, that RYBS draws
the conclusion I did from the story. He makes a chiluq between where the
sukkah and the space within it causes the tza'ar, and when the tza'ar
is getting to the Sukkah.

RMS woke him up in case the rain made the Sukkah pasul when they had
the qiddush and kezayis bread. In which case, they either held like or
were being chosheshim for the shitah that the sukkah was pasul because
it was uncomfortable. His tza'ar at waking up isn't because the sukkah
is what's uncomfortable, therefore the sukkah itself is kosher and they
would be yotzei.

And if the petur is not because the Sukkah is invalid, then they were
yotzei when they followed the Rama before going to bed.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             People were created to be loved.
mi...@aishdas.org        Things were created to be used.
http://www.aishdas.org   The reason why the world is in chaos is that
Fax: (270) 514-1507      things are being loved, people are being used.

maleh and chaser months don't always corres pond every year, 

why doe s this not affect yahrtzeits??
[tircha d'tziburah??

?
hz
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On 28/10/2011 4:24 PM, Harvey Benton wrote:
> maleh and chaser months don't always corres pond every year,
> why doe s this not affect yahrtzeits??
> [tircha d'tziburah??

Huh?  How do you mean?  In what way does it not affect them?  What
exactly would you expect to happen that doesn't?

-- 
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

                    
                

2 questions I had on Parshat Noach:

Question 1:
The Gemarrah in Brachot 61A says that adam was created last in creation but
first for puranot, as it says (Gen 7:23)

???????? ???-????-???????? ?????? ???-?????? ?????????, ???????
???-???????? ???-?????? ?????-???? ???????????...
And He blotted out every living substance which was upon the face of the
ground, both man, and cattle, and creeping thing, and fowl of the heaven...

We see from the fact that it mentioned man first, that man therefore was
punished first.

Just 2 pesukim earlier it says:

?????????? ????-??????? ???????? ???-???????, ??????? ????????????
??????????, ???????-?????????, ????????? ???-???????--?????, ???????.
And all flesh perished that moved upon the earth, both fowl, and cattle,
and beast, and every swarming thing that swarmeth upon the earth, and every
man;

Here, man is quoted last.

1a) Why is the order switched in these 2 pesukim?
1b) Why does the gemarrah seem to ignore the first pasuk when drawing its
lesson about who was first in receiving punishment?

Question 2:
The standard answer to the question "Why was the dor hamabul punished so
much more than the dor hapalaga, even though the dor hamabul were (only)
sinning bein adam l'chaveiro but the dor hapalaga were waging war against
Hashem?" is that the dor hapalaga were all united together, and even though
they had bad motives, that unity was a big positive in their favor.

If this is true, then why was the sin of the meraglim - where all of Bnei
Yisrael were united in their sin - punished worse than the sin of the egel
hazahav - where there was opposition and most people were not involved?
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On 30/10/2011 3:13 AM, Liron Kopinsky wrote:
> 1a) Why is the order switched in these 2 pesukim?

Malbim explains that the first list is the order in which they died,
and people, with all their ingenuity, were the last to go.  Some people
would surely have managed to climb high mountains, build towers, ships,
sealed chambers, etc., and survive for quite a while after even the last
insect had died, but eventually they succumbed too.  The second list is
the order in which their bodies were wiped off the face of the earth,
and man's constitution is more delicate than those of other creatures,
so his remains disappeared first.

Unfortunately this does not answer your second question.

-- 
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

                    
                

New York man pleads guilty to selling Israeli human organs
Levy Izhak Rosenbaum tells federal court that he brokered three illegal
kidney transplants for New Jersey-based customers in exchange for payments
of $120,000 or more.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/inter
national/new-york-man-pleads-guilty-to-selling-israeli-human-organs-1.39246
2 
Qouting from the article:
His attorneys, Ronald Kleinberg and Richard Finkel, said in a statement
that their client had performed a life-saving service for desperately ill
people who had been languishing on official transplant waiting lists. ....
"In fact, because of the transplants and for the first time in many years,
the recipients are no longer burdened by the medical and substantial health
dangers associated with dialysis and kidney failure." ....
The lawyers added that Rosenbaum had never solicited clients, but that
recipients had sought him out, and that the donors he arranged to give up
kidneys were fully aware of what they were doing. The money involved, they
argued, was for expenses associated with the procedures, which they claim
were performed in prestigious American hospitals by experienced surgeons
and transplant experts.
My comments:
I would ask whether there is any issur here al pi halacha?
I understand that the modern western world perceives this as a major crime
of the rich preying on the poor for the sale of bodily parts, the powerful
preying on the weak and powerless, and the greed of the broker who
organizes the deal. The harvesting of the organ is often pictured as
occurring in unsanitary, makeshift ORs endangering the poor donor whose
consent is sometimes questionable, uninformed or totally lacking.
If the reality of these cases is not as the popular media chooses to
portray, and are safe, sanitary and with full consent of the donor, would
halacha allow such a procedure (dina demalchusa excepted [if it applies
here]}. Presumably, you are saving someone?s life, providing significant
funds to a poor person who desperately needs it, probably jumping a Jew in
the waiting line ahead of many non-Jews to save his life first ( this may
also include jumping him ahead of other Jews as well? Is this a problem?).
The main down side I can see under these assumed circumstances is whether
one is permitted to risk one?s life to save another (one might consider the
imminence of the risk to life and in fact if there is any at all in some
cases) which is an issue well elaborated upon in the halachic literature.
What would your attitude be towards this frum Brooklyn man who did this
knowing he was involved in actions deemed illegal by the State. (I am of
course giving him the benefit of the
  doubt that his lawyer?s defenses (rationales ? as they are probably not
  valid legal defenses) are in fact true and that greed was not the
  motivator until shown otherwise ? but even if greed was the motivator,
  does that change anything?).
Kol Tuv
Chaim Manaster
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1a. The first pusuk refers to Hashem's act of punishing - "vayimach" - in
this man was wholly responsible and is therefore listed first. The second
pasuk refers to the actual death - "vayigvah" - and the death of man is
deemed here to be of least significance.  
1b. See 1a

2. Why do you say most were not involved in the egel? The pasuk says the entire nation was involved. 
I doubt Hashem considers unity in sin to be meritorious. It was the general
communal unity that protected the dor haflaga, as opposed to the lack of
bein Adam l'Chaveiro of the dor hamabul. In this sense there was no
difference between the state of nation at the time of the egel or the
meraglim. 

On Oct 30, 2011, at 12:13 AM, Liron Kopinsky <liron.kopin...@gmail.com> wrote:

> 2 questions I had on Parshat Noach:
> 
> Question 1:
> The Gemarrah in Brachot 61A says that adam was created last in creation but first for puranot, as it says (Gen 7:23) 
> ???????? ???-????-???????? ?????? ???-?????? ?????????, ??????? ???-???????? ???-?????? ?????-???? ???????????...
> And He blotted out every living substance which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and creeping thing, and fowl of the heaven...
> We see from the fact that it mentioned man first, that man therefore was punished first.
> 
> Just 2 pesukim earlier it says:
> ?????????? ????-??????? ???????? ???-???????, ??????? ???????????? ??????????, ???????-?????????, ????????? ???-???????--?????, ???????.
> And all flesh perished that moved upon the earth, both fowl, and cattle, and beast, and every swarming thing that swarmeth upon the earth, and every man;
> Here, man is quoted last.
> 
> 1a) Why is the order switched in these 2 pesukim?
> 1b) Why does the gemarrah seem to ignore the first pasuk when drawing its lesson about who was first in receiving punishment?
> 
> Question 2:
> The standard answer to the question "Why was the dor hamabul punished
> so much more than the dor hapalaga, even though the dor hamabul were
> (only) sinning bein adam l'chaveiro but the dor hapalaga were waging
> war against Hashem?" is that the dor hapalaga were all united
> together, and even though they had bad motives, that unity was a big
> positive in their favor.
> 
> If this is true, then why was the sin of the meraglim - where all of
> Bnei Yisrael were united in their sin - punished worse than the sin of
> the egel hazahav - where there was opposition and most people were not
> involved?
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On 30/10/2011 10:47 AM, hankman wrote:
> I would ask whether there is any issur here al pi halacha?

On the contrary, this is a huge mitzvah, and the fact that he was taking
a risk of arrest and imprisonment makes it an even greater mitzvah.
If he were breaking shabbos in order to save lives everyone would be
applauding him, and anyone who would suggest that there was something
wrong with it would be booed down; so how can anyone have the chutzpah
to suggest that breaking USA law is a problem?  Is Congress now higher
than Hashem?!  If the circumstances justify chilul shabbos then kol
shekein that they justify and require breaking every law in the US Code.

Those who condemn this man would probably also condemn my great-uncle
Mendel Futerfas a"h, who also had quite the criminal career in order
to save yidden.

PS: The fact that he made money is irrelevant.  Doctors make much more
money, and nobody looks down on them for that.

-- 
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' Harvey Benton quoted from another forum:

> The big difference between Torah and [...] is that she believes
> we are literally the hands of god, amplifying the universe,
> while Torah tells us that God does not need any part of His
> creation to do His work.

I really don't understand what is meant by "we are literally the hands of god", by "amplifying the universe", or by "His work". But I *do* know these things:

1) God does not need us for anything.

2) God has told us to do certain things. (Some might say that He "wants" us
to do those things, and others might say that "want" is an inaccurate
anthropomorphism.)

3) Included among the things He has told us to do, are some which can be
construed as completing an unfinished work. One notable example was cited
by Rabbi Akiva. Following is from Yeshivat Har Etzion, at
vbm-torah.org/archive/sichot/vayikra/27-59tazria.doc

> Once the evil [Roman governor] Turnus Rufus asked Rabbi Akiva,
> 'Whose deeds are greater - God's or man's?'
>
> He replied, 'Man's deeds are greater.'
>
> Turnus Rufus asked him, 'Is man then capable of creating heaven
> and earth, or anything like them?'
>
> Rabbi Akiva replied, 'I was not referring to the sphere beyond
> man's ability, over which he has no control. I refer to those
> creations of which man is capable.'
>
> He then asked, 'Why do you circumcise yourselves?'
>
> Rabbi Akiva replied, 'I knew that that was the point of your
> question, and therefore I answered in the first place that man's
> deeds are greater than God's.' Rabbi Akiva brought him grains of
> wheat and some bread, and said: 'These grains of wheat are God's
> handiwork, and the bread is the handiwork of man. Is the latter
> not greater than the former?'
>
> ...

Akiva Miller


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