Avodah Mailing List

Volume 29: Number 15

Fri, 10 Feb 2012

• 1. Re: Tu BiShvat today (Akiva Blum)
• 2. Re: Tu BiShvat today (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: Tu BiShvat today (Akiva Blum)
• 4. Tu Bshvat (Eli Turkel)
• 5. Re: why stop learning? (David Riceman)
• 6. Re: why stop learning? (Zev Sero)
• 7. Re: Tu Bshvat (Liron Kopinsky)
• 8. Re: why stop learning? (Allan Engel)
• 9. Re: why stop learning? (David Riceman)
• 10. Re: Tu Bshvat (Moshe Y. Gluck)
• 11. Re: Tu BiShvat today (Ilana Elzufon)
• 12. A Mamzer Marrying a Shifchah (Micha Berger)
• 13. Re: A Mamzer Marrying a Shifchah (Zev Sero)
• 14. Re: A Mamzer Marrying a Shifchah (Micha Berger)
• 15. Re: A Mamzer Marrying a Shifchah (Zev Sero)
• 16. Re: A Mamzer Marrying a Shifchah (Micha Berger)
• 17. Re: A Mamzer Marrying a Shifchah (Zev Sero)
• 18. Re: A Mamzer Marrying a Shifchah (Micha Berger)
• 19. Re: A Mamzer Marrying a Shifchah (Zev Sero)
• 20. Re: A Mamzer Marrying a Shifchah (Micha Berger)
• 21. Re: why stop learning? (Ben Waxman)

> From: avodah-boun...@lists.aishdas.org On Behalf Of Micha Berger
> Sent: Wednesday 08 February 2012 8:06 PM
...
> All qabbalah aside, just talking nafqa mina lemaaseh, what is Tu biShvat
> today?

> All we could come up with was orlah and not saying tachanun. Did we
> miss anything?

Trumos and maasros (in EY).

Akiva

On Wed, Feb 08, 2012 at 08:48:06PM +0200, Akiva Blum wrote:
:> All we could come up with was orlah and not saying tachanun. Did we
:> miss anything?

: Trumos and maasros (in EY).

We don't actually take 10%, so the Tu biShvat to Tu biShvat accounting
doesn't matter.

Besides, individuals only make the terumos umaaseros declaration on the
food before them. Do the big fruit growers lump produce season by season
and therefore need to separate the years?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Nearly all men can stand adversity,
mi...@aishdas.org        but if you want to test a man's character,
http://www.aishdas.org   give him power.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                      -Abraham Lincoln

> -----Original Message-----
> From: avodah-boun...@lists.aishdas.org [mailto:avodah-
> boun...@lists.aishdas.org] On Behalf Of Micha Berger
> 
> : Trumos and maasros (in EY).
> 
> We don't actually take 10%, so the Tu biShvat to Tu biShvat accounting
> doesn't matter.
> 

For trumah gedolah. But you still can't mix up years, taking from new year
for the old, and vice versa.

> Besides, individuals only make the terumos umaaseros declaration on the
> food before them. Do the big fruit growers lump produce season by
> season
> and therefore need to separate the years?
> 

The individual needs to know if to take maser sheini or maser oni.

Akiva

It is brought in the name of Chasidei Ashkenaz that on Tu Beshvat one
should pray to have a good etrog the following succot.
Of course there is the "seder tu beshvat" and some read portions of the
Mishna and Zohar connected to Tu Beshvat.
There is a sefer "Pri Etz Hadar" of things to say on the evening of Tu
BeShvat.
Of course the main halachot affect Terumot, Maaserot and Orlah/Neta Revai

I saw in the name of the Chortikov Rebbe that man is compared to a tree. Tu
Beshvat is the time that the barren trees start coming back to life. This
reminds us that men too can return after being "barren" spirituality. In
particular that after many years of exile there can still be a return to EY
and Moshiach.

-- 
Eli Turkel
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<<R' SZN: so then the sentiment is that davening for a person , is a 
bigger zchus than learning for that person? and certainly more than 
doing a chessed for the zchus of that person? <SNIP>>>

I'm entering this in the middle of the discussion, so I don't know if 
its already been dealt with.

While I'm unsure of the mechanism by which davening for a person works, 
it has both Biblical and Mishnaic warrant.

Where is the evidence that learning or doing chessed "for the zchus" of 
a person has any effect? What mechanism induces that effect?

David Riceman

On 8/02/2012 3:36 PM, David Riceman wrote:
> Where is the evidence that learning or doing chessed "for the zchus" of a person has any effect? What mechanism induces that effect?

1. The story of Rabbi Akiva having a rasha's son say kaddish for his
zechus.

2. Yissachar/Zevulun

3. The gemara in Rosh Hashana 4a about giving tzedaka "so that my son
should live"



-- 
Zev Sero        "Natural resources are not finite in any meaningful
z...@sero.name    economic sense, mind-boggling though this assertion
                  may be. The stocks of them are not fixed but rather
                 are expanding through human ingenuity."
                                            - Julian Simon

On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 11:26 AM, Eli Turkel <elitur...@gmail.com> wrote:

> It is brought in the name of Chasidei Ashkenaz that on Tu Beshvat one
> should pray to have a good etrog the following succot.
>

Since there are shittot in the Gemarra who hold that an Etrog's kviut
maaser goes after Rosh Hashana like a vegetable, even though we pasken
l'maaseh that an etrog *does* follow Tu B'shvat, it still seems that the
etrog is the least relevant fruit of the holiday. Do you know what the
original source of this idea is?

Kol Tuv,
Liron
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Your first example is due to the principle of Bera Mezake Abba, (the
good deeds of a child are a zechus for a parent) rather than a general
klal.

This is why many poskim hold that only the Kaddish of a child or
grandchild provides merit for the deceased.

ADE

On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 9:47 PM, Zev Sero <z...@sero.name> wrote:
> On 8/02/2012 3:36 PM, David Riceman wrote:
>>
>> Where is the evidence that learning or doing chessed "for the zchus" of a
>> person has any effect? What mechanism induces that effect?
>
>
> 1. The story of Rabbi Akiva having a rasha's son say kaddish for his
> zechus.

Me:
>> Where is the evidence that learning or doing chessed "for the zchus" 
>> of a person has any effect? What mechanism induces that effect?
RZS:
>
> 1. The story of Rabbi Akiva having a rasha's son say kaddish for his
> zechus.
>
> 2. Yissachar/Zevulun
>
> 3. The gemara in Rosh Hashana 4a about giving tzedaka "so that my son
> should live"
>
This is why I regret having missed the beginning of the discussion.  In 
all three of these cases the zchus is causally related to the reward:

1.  The son would not have been able to say kaddish without his father 
having sired him.

2.  Yissachar would not have had so much time to study had Zevulun not 
supported him.

3.  The father would not have given tzedakah had his son not been ill.

But when I was in yeshiva sometimes someone would ask us to dedicate 
today's learning for someone we'd never heard of, when we would have 
done the same learning regardless.  How does that work?

David Riceman

R' Eli Turkel:
It is brought in the name of Chasidei Ashkenaz that on Tu Beshvat one should pray to have a good etrog the following succot.
Of course there is the "seder tu beshvat" and some read portions of the Mishna and Zohar connected to Tu Beshvat.
---------------------



:-)

KT,
MYG

Also - whether the fruit has kedushat shevi'it.

- Ilana
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The topic came up on Areivim about the possibility of a mamzer
"marrying" a shifchah, in which case the children are acadim, and
when freed, wouldn't be mamzeirim.

RAZZ asked me to put up on the archive "The Mamzer and the Shifcha"
by R' David Katz <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/faxes/mamzerShifcha.pdf>.


The discussion there appears to be hanging on the problem of dina
demalkhusa. Which can mean one or both of the following:

1- We live in countries where slavery is illegal. Therefore, one can't
suggest lekhat-chilah that one buy a slave in the US, it's assur.

I presume this could be avoided by:

a- moving to Israel, so that if one holds like the Ran's understanding
of Tosafos, and not like RAYK that Medinat Yisrael has at least some of
the laws of malkhus DDD doesn't apply (to a non-melekh in EY).

b- making a chiluq between a shifchah as defined in halakhah and a
slave as defined in civil law, and thus find a way to have a shifchah
who isn't a slave.


2- There is a rule in CM that by default, the norms of your host society
are fiscally binding. Therefore one could argue that it is impossible to
buy a shifchah in a country where buying people is illegal.

Possible ways out:

a- Is DDD in this sense the law on the books, or the de facto reality?
And does your country have enough vilators (eg in the prostitution trade)
that we can say buying people qualifies as de facto effective (even if
illegal)?

b- A variant of the same idea as 1b. We would presumably be looking a
way in which halakhah recognizes the qinyan of a shifchah in a way that
the laws about buying people doesn't apply.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The trick is learning to be passionate in one's
mi...@aishdas.org        ideals, but compassionate to one's peers.
http://www.aishdas.org
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On 9/02/2012 12:57 PM, Micha Berger wrote:

> 1- We live in countries where slavery is illegal. Therefore, one can't
> suggest lekhat-chilah that one buy a slave in the US, it's assur.

As I have written many times before, there is no issur on violating
the law.  You will not find such an issur anywhere in the gemara or
the Shulchan Aruch or the Rambam, or any other accepted code of
Jewish law.  The problem here is not that it is *illegal* to buy a slave
(if indeed it is, which is not at all clear to me), but that in some
countries it may be *impossible*.

Let's get one thing out of the way first: the thirteenth amendment
to the USA constitution isn't relevant, because it refers only to
involuntary servitude.  As far as it's concerned there is no barrier
to voluntary servitude, which is what we're discussing.  The question
is how the laws that implement it are worded, and the history of how
the slaves who existed at the time of its adoption were legally freed.

But let's consider the case of England (and Wales), where the law is
clear: "one may be a villein in England, but not a slave".  Mere
presence in England is enough to be mafkia any kinyan haguf that one
person has over another.  Thus, if we hold that DdMD applies in England,
the shifcha solution won't work.   And the same would apply wherever
the law is similarly phrased.

Unless.  It occurs to me that since "kol tnai shebemamon kayam" is
enough to override both Choshen Mishpat and Minhag Hatagarim, why isn't
it enough to override Dina Demalchusa as well?  If the woman stipulates
that she is aware that DdM decrees such a thing to be impossible, and
nevertheless agrees to become the mamzer's property, why should this
not be valid?  Is she not sovereign over her own body, and thus capable
of assigning it to whomever she likes?  I don't know.

Here's another DdM conundrum: It is at least popularly believed that
until the mid-19th century the common law did not recognise the ability
of a married woman to own property.  She had no yad, and everything she
owned was automatically her husband's.  I don't know whether and to what
extent this really was the law, but never mind.  Suppose it to be true.
Or rather, suppose a country where such a rule is true of single women
as well; a woman is always under the authority of some man, whether her
father, her husband, her older brother, her son, etc., and has no yad
to own property.  In such a country, how can kiddushin of an adult woman
possibly happen?  Once the Torah says that she is no longer birshus
aviha, and must receive the kesef kiddushin herself, if DdM prevents such
a transaction it would seem to follow that there can be no kiddushin at
all!

Cf the Chassam Sofer's answer about mechiras chametz and stamp duty,
but I've gone on too long already.


> a- Is DDD in this sense the law on the books, or the de facto reality?
> And does your country have enough vilators (eg in the prostitution trade)
> that we can say buying people qualifies as de facto effective (even if
> illegal)?

This is surely irrelevant.  Nobody claims or imagines that the pimps
have a kinyan of any kind over the prostitutes.  The prostitutes are
not slaves at all, but prisoners.  There is no pretense of ownership
or right.  If one escapes she is not returned to her captors.  And if
the captors are caught they are arrested.

-- 
Zev Sero        "Natural resources are not finite in any meaningful
z...@sero.name    economic sense, mind-boggling though this assertion
                  may be. The stocks of them are not fixed but rather
                 are expanding through human ingenuity."
                                            - Julian Simon

On Thu, Feb 09, 2012 at 02:06:55PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> As I have written many times before, there is no issur on violating
> the law.  You will not find such an issur anywhere in the gemara or
> the Shulchan Aruch or the Rambam, or any other accepted code of
> Jewish law....

You can write the same thing many times, it doesn't make it more
right.

http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol27/v27n155.shtml#10

Rashi, Maharshal, Rashbam, Ran, the SA, the Rama and the Shakh all hold
that such an issur exists, and argue over its basis and consequently
its scope. Arguably the Ran's sevara may not apply outside a monarchy.
And the SA may limit the scope to cheating on laws that finance the
gov't.

I agree with the rest of your analysis.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             If a person does not recognize one's own worth,
mi...@aishdas.org        how can he appreciate the worth of another?
http://www.aishdas.org             - Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye,
Fax: (270) 514-1507                  author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef

On 9/02/2012 3:59 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> Rashi, Maharshal, Rashbam, Ran, the SA, the Rama and the Shakh all hold
> that such an issur exists,

You have yet to show where they say so.

-- 
Zev Sero        "Natural resources are not finite in any meaningful
z...@sero.name    economic sense, mind-boggling though this assertion
                  may be. The stocks of them are not fixed but rather
                 are expanding through human ingenuity."
                                            - Julian Simon

On Thu, Feb 09, 2012 at 04:38:29PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> On 9/02/2012 3:59 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
>> Rashi, Maharshal, Rashbam, Ran, the SA, the Rama and the Shakh all hold
>> that such an issur exists,

> You have yet to show where they say so.

No, I just sent a link to a summary of an article by RMJBroyde, including
a link to the article, which has mar'eh meqomos. See RMJB at
<http://www.shmadigital.com/shma/200912?pg=3#pg2>.

You made a similar denial back then, and you replied:
> I got sick of beating my head against a wall.  None of the sources
> were on topic...

To which I wrote:
> Let's see, in the post to which you're replying, I mention Rashi's
> obligation to follow all secular laws that are legislated in fulfillment
> of the 7 mitzvos, the Maharshal's obligation to follow those that make
> for an ordered society, the Rashbam saying DDD means following any
> gov't that rules by the concent of the governed, the Rashba (and the
> BY who cites him) that DDD includes conducting a Jewish investigation
> of a crime on behalf of the civil authorities -- who are responsible
> for any punishment, and the Maharam Shick saying that DDD obligates
> one to turn in a woman suspected of killing her husband even if halakhah
> doesn't call for her death and her guilt hasn't even been determined
> yet.

In addition, in the past we discussed RHSchachter's article (URL in
following quote). And that ran me to frustation as well:
>>            Rashi doesn't mention the idea of turning them in; the only
>> options R Tarfon considered were hiding them or not hiding them.  Rashi
>> merely explains why, if they were guilty, he would not want to save them,
>> and Tosfos explains that he was afraid that if he hid them and they
>> turned out to be guilty he'd be putting himself in danger.

> That's Tosafos, not Rashi. Rashi doesn't give a pragmatic reason, he
> gives a halachic one. RHS points out that this indicates a machloqes
> between them.

> And it's RHS who says that Rashi would consider it an obligation,
> not I. See <http://download.yutorah.org/1981/1053/735655.pdf> pg 120
> (18th pg in the pdf) - 122. You take on R' Uzziel, RHS and R' Broyde
> without any fear of being wrong. As I said above, it strikes me that
> you're wiggling a peshat into Rashi that was neither ever given before
> nor fits the words. Perhaps the reason why debating this feels like
> you're banging your head against the wall is because indeed, you're
> trying to support the unsupportable.

The bottom line is that what many poseqim, including RMJB and RHS,
consider obvious, you simply deny without argument. We drilled down
into Rashi in particular (since both RHS and RMJB discuss it), and you
simply presented an idiosyncratic interpretation that I do not see in
the Rashi. But more importantly since you're denying the existence of
an issur, not making a historical claim, lemaaseh isn't used by anyone
I know who actually pasqens halakhah lemaaseh.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Strength does not come from winning. Your
mi...@aishdas.org        struggles develop your strength When you go
http://www.aishdas.org   through hardship and decide not to surrender,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      that is strength.        - Arnold Schwarzenegger

On 9/02/2012 4:57 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> You made a similar denial back then, and you replied:
>> >  I got sick of beating my head against a wall.  None of the sources
>> >  were on topic...

And they're still not on topic.  *None* of the sources quoted give
any support to your position, they are simply red herrings.  Your reliance
on the authority of modern English articles does not impress me or anyone
else.  You can torture the Rashi all you like but it still won't say what
you would like it to.  The fact remains that there is no mention of any
such halacha in any source of halacha lemaaseh, which is *not* English
articles by modern rabbis.  If an issur or a chiyuv exists, it must be
mentioned somewhere, and the plain fact is that it isn't.  You admit that
it isn't, because you try to extract it from strange diyukim.  Imagine
if I claimed that an issur shabbos that nobody had ever heard of rested
on such diyukim.  Your basic tactic remains that of begging the question.
You mistranslate the words "dina demalchusa dina", giving them a meaning
that the Aramaic language will not support, and which has no support in
any of the examples the gemara gives, and then every time those words
appear you point to them as support for your position.

-- 
Zev Sero        "Natural resources are not finite in any meaningful
z...@sero.name    economic sense, mind-boggling though this assertion
                  may be. The stocks of them are not fixed but rather
                 are expanding through human ingenuity."
                                            - Julian Simon

On Thu, Feb 09, 2012 at 05:08:58PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> On 9/02/2012 4:57 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
>> You made a similar denial back then, and you replied:
>>> >  I got sick of beating my head against a wall.  None of the sources
>>> >  were on topic...
>
> And they're still not on topic.  *None* of the sources quoted give
> any support to your position, they are simply red herrings...

It's not my positions. It is those of every poseiq actually quoted on
list. That's how halakhah is done, right? If you want to say there is no
rishon giving such an issur, that's interesting theory. I wouldn't buy
into it given that it assumes believing RZS knows how to read rishonim
better than a large number of rashei yeshiva. But okay. But if you are
making a claim about a pesaq, that no such issur actually exists, and
others quote posqim who do give such a pesaq, don't you too need a bar
pelugta, a poseiq who actually posits the shitah you're advocating?

You fail to do so. You even fail to argue your theoretical (non-lemaaseh)
claim. Just positing it repeatedly. I quote Rashi saying X, you say Rashi
doesn't say X, and ignore the quote. Not interpret it differently than
RMJB and RHS did, just positing your conclusion. You give me nothing
to debate.

So lemasseh, the two PDF articles on line are typical of contemporary
pesaqim who say it's prohibited to violate some subset of civil law.
Whether it's financial law, any law made by a non-Israeli or non-Jewish
gov't, any law that fulfils their 7 mitzvos benei noach duties, or that
provides peace, or any law that doesn't violate halakhah... That's the
space of the machloqes, not whether or not the issur altogether exists.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Here is the test to find whether your mission
mi...@aishdas.org        on Earth is finished:
http://www.aishdas.org   if you're alive, it isn't.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Richard Bach

On 9/02/2012 7:05 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> It's not my positions. It is those of every poseiq actually quoted on
> list. That's how halakhah is done, right?

No, I don't believe it is.

-- 
Zev Sero        "Natural resources are not finite in any meaningful
z...@sero.name    economic sense, mind-boggling though this assertion
                  may be. The stocks of them are not fixed but rather
                 are expanding through human ingenuity."
                                            - Julian Simon

On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 01:37:59AM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> On 9/02/2012 7:05 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
>> It's not my positions. It is those of every poseiq actually quoted on
>> list. That's how halakhah is done, right?

> No, I don't believe it is.

My "that" was vague. Are you denying that halakhah is a matter of going
to a poseiq rather than going with whichever sevara you personally find
compelling, no matter whether anyone agrees?

:-)BBii!
-Micha

I heard a Gra story once in which someone who had the only lulav in town 
allowed the Gra to use it on condition that the owner get the tzchut. 
The Gra agreed but later said that there is no such thing as giving away 
a tzchut. How he agreed to the deal if it was worthless wasn't explained.

Ben
On 2/9/2012 2:58 AM, David Riceman wrote:
>
>
> But when I was in yeshiva sometimes someone would ask us to dedicate 
> today's learning for someone we'd never heard of, when we would have 
> done the same learning regardless.  How does that work?



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