Volume 30: Number 53
Fri, 01 Jun 2012
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Message: 1
From: cantorwolb...@cox.net
Date: Thu, 31 May 2012 16:22:56 -0400
Subject: [Avodah] SYMMETRY OF BIRKAT KOHANIM
Interestingly there is a numerical symmetry to the birkat kohanim which we all have learned
the progression of each of the three verses: 3 words, 5 words, 7 words. I noticed something
for the first time today and wonder if any of you have ever realized the symmetry in the
number of letters? Verse 1: 15 letters Verse 2: 20 letters Verse 3: 25 letters
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Message: 2
From: David Riceman <drice...@optimum.net>
Date: Thu, 31 May 2012 18:15:08 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Bene Israel of India
RAM:
<<But there was always a certain degree of communication, which allowed
the rough edges to get smoothened out. The works of the Raavad and Rama
are but two examples.>>
I don't want to nitpick (but somehow I end up doing it anyway). The
Ra'avad was Provencal, neither Sephardic nor Ashkenazic.
David Riceman
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Message: 3
From: "kennethgmil...@juno.com" <kennethgmil...@juno.com>
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2012 00:56:56 GMT
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Would Ruth's conversion be rejected today?
I wrote about two possibilities regarding when it was that Ruth converted.
One being in the latter part of the story, by "amech ami", and the other
being prior to marrying Machlon and Kilyon.
Regarding "amech ami", R' Zev Sero asked:
> Isn't that passage the source for most of hilchos giyur?
> Isn't that where she accepted the yoke of mitzvos, and went
> through a sampling of "some of the light and heavy mitzvos"
> as required in SA?
and regarding those who hold they converted at the beginning, he asked:
> I'm unfamiliar with these opinions. Who are they?
The two views are mentioned in ArtScroll's Overview to Ruth (and we've
mentioned in here on Avodah as well): Page 48 cites Rabbi Meir in Ruth
Rabba 1:4 that Machlon and Kilyon did *not* convert them, and page 49-50
cites Zohar Chadash Ruth 180-182 that they *did*.
I can't deny that "amech ami" *IS* the source for much of Hilchos Gerus,
but there are also big problems with saying that she was not Jewish until
that point: Would Elimelech have allowed his sons to marry non-Jewish
women? And if Ruth was still a non-Jew when Machlon died, then Boaz was not
a real relative, and not a real go'el.
I acknowledge that at that point in history, Yibum was not only a halacha,
but a social practice as well, and I've heard the argument that Boaz was
not halachically obligated to Ruth, but acted as her goel merely as a
chesed. But I'm very uneasy with that - I'd think that a tzadik like Boaz
would much sooner have sat shiva over Machlon's intermarriage, and not been
so quick to support his widow.
I have heard that a resolution to this conundrum can be found in the idea
of Gerei Arayos -- that's Arayos with an Aleph, meaning "lions". (ArtScroll
50-52 uses the term "eimas baaleihem" - the fear of their husbands.) They
say that both Ruth and Orpah did indeed convert prior to marrying, but
because of the social situation, their Kabalas Ol Mitzvos was tenuous and
tentative, so much so that when the family situation changed, they were
able to retract the conversion, much as a child can retract it on
adulthood. And while Orpah went back, Ruth used "amech ami" to confirm her
prior conversion. In this manner, Machlon married a Jew, and Boaz was a
real goel.
But I have big problems with this too. Regardless of how tentative that
original conversion was, it was enough to allow Elimelech's sons to marry
them. And if so, how could Naami ENCOURAGE them to go back to their Avoda
Zara? To tell the truth, this is what I had *thought* this thread was
about.
The Subject line is "Would Ruth's conversion be rejected today?" and it
seems to me that this third idea does not sit at all well with what I read
about how today's rabbis pasken in gerus. Consider: These two women were
living in a Jewish family for TEN YEARS, and then Naami gives them the
option of rejecting it retroactively? My Shulchan Aruch says that if a
convert does aveiros, even avoda zara, the Jewishness is never lost. I
simply do not understand how to fit that in to the story of Orpah.
"Would Ruth's conversion be rejected today?" is an important question. But it must be taken hand-in-hand with "Would Orpah's conversion be accepted today?"
Akiva Miller
____________________________________________________________
53 Year Old Mom Looks 33
The Stunning Results of Her Wrinkle Trick Has Botox Doctors Worried
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/4fc81384d82c71d86dc5st03vuc
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Message: 4
From: David Riceman <drice...@optimum.net>
Date: Thu, 31 May 2012 18:47:51 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Psak she'ein hatzibbur yecholin laamod bo
RJR:
<<Truth be told, I'm not sure that psak today is same - i.e. is its
force based on presumed neder/acceptance? If I ask a learned friend who
doesn't have smicha, is it binding? One who does but from an institution
I am unfamiliar with? What if I am a member of 2 shuls and the rabbis
come out with conflicting opinions....>>
These are all interesting questions and deserve detailed discussions.
I'll make some wild guesses:
1. " If I ask a learned friend who doesn't have smicha, is it binding?"
It depends on how learned, and on who else lives nearby, and on his
age. See YD 242:13-14. Cf. 242:4. So you may violate lifnei iver by
asking him.
2. "is its force based on presumed neder/acceptance?"
See 242:34 in the Rama. There are various opinions among aharonim about
why "hacham she'asar ain haveiro reshai l'hatir ...", and the answer
depends on that.
3. "One who does but from an institution I am unfamiliar with?"
I can think of two opposite answers. OTOneH it's hard to imagine anyone
with semicha who doesn't have a nodding acquaintance with the SA, and
certainly b'sha'as hadhak one can rely on the Mehaber and the Rama.
OTOtherH its precisely the person who was poorly educated who is less
likely to recognize his own incompetence. Just to make you feel worse,
either side has its own lifnei iver problem. See 242:13-14.
Maybe you should give him a test first?
4. "What if I am a member of 2 shuls and the rabbis come out with
conflicting opinions...."
The Rama uses the lashon of "ir", but he lived in an era where "ir" and
"kehillah" were coterminous. The model was that each kehillah had its
rav. In contemporary America its rare to find anything resembling a
kehillah, which has coercive authority. You should obviously follow
each Rabbi's psak in his own shul, but I have no idea how to decide
whose opinion to follow elsewhere.
David Riceman
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Message: 5
From: Zev Sero <z...@sero.name>
Date: Thu, 31 May 2012 22:06:12 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Bene Israel of India
On 31/05/2012 6:15 PM, David Riceman wrote:
> RAM:
>> But there was always a certain degree of communication, which allowed the
>> rough edges to get smoothened out. The works of the Raavad and Rama are
>> but two examples.
> I don't want to nitpick (but somehow I end up doing it anyway). The Ra'avad
> was Provencal, neither Sephardic nor Ashkenazic.
Provence counts as Ashkenaz (as opposed to Sefarad), just as France does.
The line between A and S seems to correspond to that between Christendom
and Dar-al-Islam. Communication within each empire was easier than with
each other. When Spain became Xian its Jews might eventually have merged
with Ashkenazim, but soon after there were no Jews there.
--
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
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Message: 6
From: Zev Sero <z...@sero.name>
Date: Thu, 31 May 2012 22:43:33 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Would Ruth's conversion be rejected today?
On 31/05/2012 8:56 PM, kennethgmil...@juno.com wrote:
> And if Ruth was still a non-Jew when Machlon died, then Boaz was not a
> real relative, and not a real go'el [...] I've heard the argument that
> Boaz was not halachically obligated to Ruth, but acted as her goel
> merely as a chesed.
Let's clear something up: Boaz did not act as Ruth's go'el, but as
Machlon's. His Torah obligation to Machlon was to buy back Machlon's
land -- the land was never Ruth's, and would never have been hers no
matter how Jewish she was. And that's what go'el means; the one who
must buy back the land. His ethical obligation was to settle Machlon's
debts as well, which included his moral debt to Ruth.
> at that point in history, Yibum was not only a halacha, but a social
> practice as well,
Yibum is irrelevant since he wasn't a brother anyway. And he'd probably
have felt obligated to marry her even if she had children. Perhaps
*especially* if she had children (who converted with her).
> I'd think that a tzadik like Boaz would much sooner have sat shiva over
> Machlon's intermarriage
He may well have done so at the time, and if Machlon were alive he might
have treated him as a rasha; but Machlon wasn't alive, and someone had to
wind up his affairs. One of his debts was to Ruth. Suppose someone
marries out and then does teshuvah; he must leave his wife, but does he
not have an ethical obligation to look after her? And suppose she
converts and demands that he make an honest woman of her, does he not
have an ethical obligation to do so?
> and not been so quick to support his widow.
After he discovered what a tzadekes she was, why not? Whatever she did
before her giyur had no bearing on her current status.
> My Shulchan Aruch says that if a convert does aveiros, even avoda zara,
> the Jewishness is never lost.
Nor is it, provided he was ever Jewish in the first place. If it turns
out that he never abandoned AZ in the first place, and his whole adherence
to halacha was a sham, then there was never any giyur and he remains what
he was before. Consider the Kuthim: for centuries (!) they were regarded
as bad Jews, but Jews nonetheless; then Chazal found out that they had
always been secretly worshipping AZ, so they retroactively annulled the
giyur of their distant ancestors, and thus all the current Kuthim turned
out to have always been goyim. Note that this would have included any
Kuthi who did teshuvah and had been living as an honest Jew; if his many-
times-great-grandmother's giyur was fake then he suddenly needed to be
megayer. Or the children and grandchildren of a Kuthit who had done
teshuvah many years earlier; same story. So one *could* say that Naomi
gave Orpah the opportunity to say whether her original conversion had ever
been sincere, and she revealed that it had been a charade she (and perhaps
Kilyon) had played for her in-laws' benefit.
> "Would Ruth's conversion be rejected today?" is an important question.
> But it must be taken hand-in-hand with "Would Orpah's conversion be
> accepted today?"
If she ever had one, it surely would not be accepted today. It probably
wasn't accepted then either.
--
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
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Message: 7
From: T6...@aol.com
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2012 00:07:32 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Would Ruth's conversion be rejected today?
[1] From: "kennethgmil...@juno.com" _kennethgmiller@juno.com_
(mailto:kennethgmil...@juno.com)
R' Gershon Dubin wrote:
> My recollection ... is that according to one man de'amar in
> the Gemara, Boaz collected the 10 zekenim to publicize the
> pesak of Moavi velo Moavis
R' Zev Sero responded:
> Which had nothing at all to do with the validity of Ruth's
> giyur; there is no indication that anybody ever doubted that,
> then or later.
Yet Naami certainly did see problems with Orpah's giyur. So much so, in
fact, that she not only allowed Orpah to return to avodah zara, but she
*encouraged* it. I suppose this is not a problem according to those who see
Ruth's giyur as taking place in the latter part of the story, by "amech ami".
But what about according to those who hold that they both converted prior
to marrying Machlon and Kilyon? Naami treated both Ruth and Orpah the same
way, did she not? So if there were problems with the validity of Orpah's
giyur, there must have been problems with the validity of Ruth's.
Akiva Miller
[2] From: Zev Sero <z...@sero.name>
On 30/05/2012 4:32 PM, kennethgmil...@juno.com wrote:
> I suppose this is not a problem according to those who see Ruth's giyur
> as taking place in the latter part of the story, by "amech ami".
Isn't that passage the source for most of hilchos giyur? Isn't that
where she accepted the yoke of mitzvos, and went through a sampling
of "some of the light and heavy mitzvos" as required in SA?
> But what about according to those who hold that they both converted
> prior to marrying Machlon and Kilyon?
I'm unfamiliar with these opinions. Who are they?
--
Zev Sero
z...@sero.name
>>>>
The opinion that Ruth and Orpah converted prior to marriage is common, I'm
surprised it's unfamiliar to RZS. I myself hardly know any sources, almost
all of the Torah Shebe'al Peh that I know, I only know Be'al Peh. But the
reason to assume that Ruth and Orpah converted prior to marriage is that
otherwise, where is there any kind of mitzva of yibum here? If a man is
married to a non-Jewish woman and he dies childless, there is no mitzva to
convert the widow in order to perform yibum with her. If they did /not/ convert
prior to marriage, and were non-Jews during their husbands' lifetimes,
then Ploni Almoni was quite right to refuse to marry Ruth, and how did Naomi
have the chutzpa to think that Ruth had any kind of claim on Boaz?!
RAM wrote that "Naami certainly did see problems with Orpah's giyur" and
that's why she sent Orpah back (and tried to send Ruth back as well). He
has a strong point but I would like to elaborate on it. It's possible that
Ruth and Orpah did not convert prior to marriage and that Ruth only
converted when she joined Naomi and went back to E'Y with her ("Amech ami" and all
that.) OTOH it's also possible, and seemingly more likely, that they did
convert prior to marriage but that Naomi was uncertain as to whether their
conversions were valid. There are two possible reasons for her uncertainty:
[a] She understood "lo yavo b'kehal Hashem" to mean that Moabites cannot
convert (not just that they can't marry into the Jewish people) and she
didn't know or wasn't sure if that included the women. Plus (Naomi may have
thought), the fact that her two sons died after marrying these women may have
indicated Divine displeasure with their marrying these Moabite women and a
Heavenly indication that their conversions and marriages were not kosher.
OR
[b] Maybe she was uncertain about the validity of their conversions for a
different reason. Maybe she did know that a Moabite woman's conversion
could be accepted and a Moabite giyores could marry a Jew, but she didn't know
if these two particular conversions were valid. She didn't know if there
was a genuine kabalas ohl mitzvos on the part of Ruth and Orpah when they
converted, or if they just converted for marriage and their conversions were
insincere and never "took." It may be that both Orpah and Ruth converted
but that Orpah's conversion was not "real" because there was no kabalas ohl
mitzvos on her part and no genuine intention to convert, while Ruth's
prior-to-marriage conversion /was/ a real one and did take. And her "amech
ami" statement may have just been a reiteration of what she had already said
and intended to keep even prior to her marriage.
--Toby Katz
=============
Romney -- good values, good family, good hair
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Message: 8
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2012 06:09:40 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Would Ruth's conversion be rejected today?
On Fri, Jun 01, 2012 at 12:07:32AM -0400, T6...@aol.com wrote:
: But what about according to those who hold that they both converted prior
: to marrying Machlon and Kilyon? Naami treated both Ruth and Orpah the same
: way, did she not? So if there were problems with the validity of Orpah's
: giyur, there must have been problems with the validity of Ruth's.
Not necessarily. Hypothetically speaking, what if Naami saw Orpah, the
day (or the hour) after tevillah, in front of her idols? That would
certainly cast doubt on her qabbalas ol mitzvos at the time of tevilah,
while still upholding Rus's geirus.
:-)BBii!
-Micha
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Message: 9
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2012 06:13:41 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Would Ruth's conversion be rejected today?
On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 10:43:33PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
>> at that point in history, Yibum was not only a halacha, but a social
>> practice as well,
> Yibum is irrelevant since he wasn't a brother anyway. And he'd probably
> have felt obligated to marry her even if she had children. Perhaps
> *especially* if she had children (who converted with her).
Well, if RAM is speaking of yibum as a societal practice, halachic
parameters aren't an issue.
As for a yibum-esque societal practice, Yehudah was Tamar's father-in-law.
And there the pasuq makes a point of telling us that both sons died
childless. It certainly seems as though it was the lack of children that
motivated Tamar.
:-)BBii!
-Micha
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Message: 10
From: "Daniel M. Israel" <dan...@kolberamah.org>
Date: Thu, 31 May 2012 23:10:16 -0600
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Would Ruth's conversion be rejected today?
On May 31, 2012, at 6:56 PM, kennethgmil...@juno.com wrote:
> I acknowledge that at that point in history, Yibum was not only a
> halacha, but a social practice as well, and I've heard the argument
> that Boaz was not halachically obligated to Ruth, but acted as her
> goel merely as a chesed. But I'm very uneasy with that - I'd think
> that a tzadik like Boaz would much sooner have sat shiva over
> Machlon's intermarriage, and not been so quick to support his widow.
Furthermore, Ramban apparently sees this as a real case of Yibum as far as the spiritual effects are concerned.
> I have heard that a resolution to this conundrum can be found in the
> idea of Gerei Arayos -- that's Arayos with an Aleph, meaning "lions".
> (ArtScroll 50-52 uses the term "eimas baaleihem" - the fear of their
> husbands.) They say that both Ruth and Orpah did indeed convert prior
> to marrying, but because of the social situation, their Kabalas Ol
> Mitzvos was tenuous and tentative, so much so that when the family
> situation changed, they were able to retract the conversion, much as a
> child can retract it on adulthood. And while Orpah went back, Ruth
> used "amech ami" to confirm her prior conversion. In this manner,
> Machlon married a Jew, and Boaz was a real goel.
>
> But I have big problems with this too. Regardless of how tentative
> that original conversion was, it was enough to allow Elimelech's sons
> to marry them. And if so, how could Naami ENCOURAGE them to go back to
> their Avoda Zara? To tell the truth, this is what I had *thought* this
> thread was about.
As far as your first point, who says that what Elimelech's sons did was
right? Perhaps they married after a sham conversion. We know this happens
today. Notice that they didn't marry until after their father died,
perhaps he kept them from stumbling to that extent. Certainly they are
criticized for the actions.
Regarding encouraging them to return to A"Z, this would be a problem
whether they converted or not; I suspect the A"Z of Moav was assur for
b'nei Noach as well.
--
Daniel M. Israel
President, Kol BeRamah Torah Learning Center
dan...@kolberamah.org
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Message: 11
From: "Prof. Levine" <llev...@stevens.edu>
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2012 07:00:03 -0400
Subject: [Avodah] West Hartford Doctor Challenges GE On `Sabbath Mode'
There has been some controversy regarding the use of Sabbath mode
ovens. See http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/article.php?p=19228 Does
the article below add more to this controversy? YL
From http://tinyurl.com/849nzd3
A two-year-old gas oven sits, like new, in the kitchen of a residence
retired pediatrician and neonatologist
<http://www.courant.com/topic/entertainment/robert-harris-PECLB002234
.topic>Robert
Harris of
<http://www.courant.com/topic/us/connecticu
t/hartford-county/west-hartford-PLGEO100100202260000.topic>West
Hartford uses only on Friday nights and Saturdays for the Jewish Sabbath.
It's not the oven he thought he was getting, nor is it one he wants.
Harris, who paid close to $600 for the oven, felt betrayed by
<http://www.courant.com/topic/economy-business-
finance/general-electric-company-ORCRP006396.topic>General
Electric for telling him the oven's Sabbath mode complied with the
needs of Jews observing the weekly Sabbath. Harris, like other
observant Jews, does not start or stop any electrical device, whether
a computer, phone or oven, on the Sabbath
<Snip>
Harris also cannot cook food on the Sabbath. He is allowed only to
reheat previously cooked food without starting or stopping an
electrical circuit. An oven with a Sabbath mode bypasses the
automatic 12-hour shut-off circuitry built into modern ovens for
safety. He also assumed the Sabbath-compliant oven he bought had a
time-bake feature that could be set before the weekend Sabbath to
turn on automatically to reheat the pre-cooked food.
"That assumption," he says, "ultimately proved wrong."
As Harris understood it, this was not a proper Sabbath mode. For the
past year-and-a-half, Harris has tried to make his point to General
Electric but says he could not find anyone knowledgeable about the
Sabbath mode.
<Snip>
"We believe we comply with what the Sabbath mode should accomplish,"
says GE spokeswoman Kim Freeman. "It may not meet his particular
needs, but as long as we comply with what Star-K recommends we have
done our job."
But GE did more than that. It consulted with its own engineer and,
finally, with Star-K. That's when Harris discovered the variations of
Sabbath mode.
A basic Sabbath-mode oven, certified by Star-K, bypasses the
automatic 12-hour shut-off system to allow Jewish owners to use the
stove continuously on holidays for two or three days. Harris' oven
did not have a time-bake feature that would turn on automatically and
reheat his food on the weekend Sabbath.
"We do not guarantee that an appliance will have a time-bake
feature," says Rivka Lea Goldman, the appliance liaison for Star-K.
"I was trying to explain that to the doctor. He felt he was misled. I
tried to explain that the words 'Sabbath mode' are perhaps
misleading. Our organization did not pick that terminology. Sabbath
mode is really for Jewish holidays. But the manufacturers are
obviously printing manuals for thousands of consumers, not just Jewish."
Because Harris assumed he was getting an all-purpose Sabbath mode
oven, he did not notice the qualifications on the Star-K website.
(For a list of appliances certified by Star-K, visit cour.at/JEq665.)
"Who is the culprit here?" says Harris. "I think there is plenty of
blame to go around. Star-K erroneously allowed GE to claim this range
as having the full Sabbath mode, which is a misnomer. Star-K does
admit this but told me I should have check with them or their
website. I do have some limited culpability in not doing so. At the
end of the day, I understand what went wrong."
See the above URL for more. YL
From http://tinyurl.com/849nzd3
A two-year-old gas oven sits, like new, in the kitchen of a residence
retired pediatrician and neonatologist
<http://www.courant.com/topic/entertainment/robert-harris-PECLB002234
.topic>Robert
Harris of
<http://www.courant.com/topic/us/connecticu
t/hartford-county/west-hartford-PLGEO100100202260000.topic>West
Hartford uses only on Friday nights and Saturdays for the Jewish Sabbath.
It's not the oven he thought he was getting, nor is it one he wants.
Harris, who paid close to $600 for the oven
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Message: 12
From: Zev Sero <z...@sero.name>
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2012 09:35:57 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Would Ruth's conversion be rejected today?
On 1/06/2012 6:13 AM, Micha Berger wrote:
> Well, if RAM is speaking of yibum as a societal practice, halachic
> parameters aren't an issue.
Then why would it matter whether the marriage was valid? There could
just as easily be the same idea about giving the deceased's mistress
a child in his name. But I'm suggesting that it really had less to do
with yibum than with looking after the widow, so if she had children
the obligation would be even greater. A brother *can't* marry her if
she has children, but another relative can, and I'm suggesting that
there was a feeling that he should.
> As for a yibum-esque societal practice, Yehudah was Tamar's father-in-law.
> And there the pasuq makes a point of telling us that both sons died
> childless. It certainly seems as though it was the lack of children that
> motivated Tamar.
That was what motivated *Tamar*; she wanted children from the holy family,
and would do whatever it took to get some. I don't see anything to indicate
that she cared about perpetuating Er's name. *Yehuda* is the one who cared
about that.
--
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
Go to top.
Message: 13
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2012 11:10:44 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Would Ruth's conversion be rejected today?
On Fri, Jun 01, 2012 at 09:35:57AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
> On 1/06/2012 6:13 AM, Micha Berger wrote:
>> Well, if RAM is speaking of yibum as a societal practice, halachic
>> parameters aren't an issue.
>
> Then why would it matter whether the marriage was valid? There could
> just as easily be the same idea about giving the deceased's mistress
> a child in his name...
Except that's not the societal norm. As far as we can tell. Why turn
this into a question instead of a data point?
>> As for a yibum-esque societal practice, Yehudah was Tamar's father-in-law.
>> And there the pasuq makes a point of telling us that both sons died
>> childless. It certainly seems as though it was the lack of children that
>> motivated Tamar.
> That was what motivated *Tamar*; she wanted children from the holy family,
> and would do whatever it took to get some. I don't see anything to indicate
> that she cared about perpetuating Er's name. *Yehuda* is the one who cared
> about that.
I don't see anything that limits her motive to one of the other.
Yehudah didn't know it was Tamar, which kind of rules out his planning
to perpetuate Er or Onan's lines.
:-)BBii!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger The waste of time is the most extravagant
mi...@aishdas.org of all expense.
http://www.aishdas.org -Theophrastus
Fax: (270) 514-1507
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Message: 14
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2012 11:24:51 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] West Hartford Doctor Challenges GE On `Sabbath
On Fri, Jun 01, 2012 at 07:00:03AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote:
> There has been some controversy regarding the use of Sabbath mode ovens.
> See http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/article.php?p=19228 Does the article
> below add more to this controversy? YL
I don't think so.
And I like the way TYW turn the quoted posqim's mention of Star-K relying on
qulah into an incorrect claim of "daas yachid".
> From http://tinyurl.com/849nzd3
> A two-year-old gas oven sits, like new, in the kitchen of a residence
> retired pediatrician and neonatologist
It looks like he's not complaining that GE sold a "Shabbos mode" oven
without saying it is only valid according to some posqim. (And if he were,
I don't see how that's legally worse than selling kosher food where the
hashgachah relies on kulos others don't. But that's an Areivim question)
The buyer simply didn't read what "Shabbos mode" meant:
.... An oven with a Sabbath mode bypasses the automatic 12-hour
shut-off circuitry built into modern ovens for safety. He also assumed
the Sabbath-compliant oven he bought had a time-bake feature that
could be set before the weekend Sabbath to turn on automatically to
reheat the pre-cooked food.
"That assumption," he says, "ultimately proved wrong."
No one claimed it had a timer allowing someone to passively perform
chazarah. He believes it was implied. I don't see it.
In any case, I don't see any new Torah material in this case.
As for "Shabbos mode", it provides two services, even though the news
story only discusses the first:
1- The oven stays on longer than 12 hours.
2- The pushing of buttons on the control panel is reduced to a gerama.
The question is whether or not gerama applies when the assur result is
the intended one, and whether pushing the button is maqeh bepatish even
when there is no visible result right away.
I should point out that most of the rabbanim signing on to the letter
saying that #2 doesn't help do sign on to a number of Machon Zomet
geramah-based inventions. I'm curious to know the difference between
the cases. Why is Zomet's delayed causation of a desired result gerama,
but this isn't?
:-)BBii!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are.
mi...@aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres Hakodesh, Ch. 5
http://www.aishdas.org
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