Avodah Mailing List

Volume 30: Number 65

Mon, 18 Jun 2012

• 1. Re: Why Not: Yehoshua BEN Nun? (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 2. Re: A question of Yichus (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 3. Re: yaarog v' al.....how many? and why? (Simon Montagu)
• 4. Re: Why Not: Yehoshua BEN Nun? (Zev Sero)
• 5. kohen/levi (saul newman)
• 6. Re: Why not: Yehoshua BEN Nun (Doron Beckerman)
• 7. Re: Why Not: Yehoshua BEN Nun? (hankman)
• 8. Re: Why Not: Yehoshua BEN Nun? (Micha Berger)
• 9. 2 queries Shelach, Kivrey Avos and Tochacha (Meir Rabi)
• 10. Re: distilled fruit juice (Micha Berger)
• 11. Re: 2 queries Shelach, Kivrey Avos and Tochacha (Ben Waxman)
• 12. parshat shlach (Eli Turkel)
• 13. loss of infants (Eli Turkel)
• 14. Re: loss of infants (Akiva Blum)
• 15. Re: loss of infants (Micha Berger)

R' Zev Sero wrote:

> The nekudot merely document the existing pronunciation; they
> don't dictate it.  So they're not halachot.  But in any case
> the whole concept of "progressive relevation" is irrelevant,
> because for the answer we're discussing to work the nekudot had
> to be known to Moshe Rabbenu.  Which used to be universally
> believed, but isn't much any more.

If you are using the word "nekudot" to refer to the written representation
of sounds, then I tend to agree. Any given sound may be represented by this
artistic diagram or by that one, and halacha doesn't really care.

But if you are using the word "nekudot" to refer to the sounds themselves,
then I don't understand what you mean. Surely you realize that changing a
sound can change the meaning of a word, and that there are cases where the
meaning is changed so much that the halacha requires one to repeat it with
the correct sound.

So, am I correct that you are referring to the written representation? For
example, that in the word between "Yehoshua" and "Nun", you are referring
to whether the vowel in that word has one dot or three? And that you are
NOT questioning the sound made by that vowel?

Akiva Miller

____________________________________________________________
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R"n Chana Luntz quoted R"n Shoshana Boublil's original post, which stated:

> A man discovers a letter his wife wrote her lover (it was
> open, in plain view) in which she states that she's quite
> sure the kid is his [the lover's] b/c the husband was in
> the army when she became pregnant.

and RCL asked:

> There seems to be an assumption, which I find rather
> extraordinary, that what this woman wrote is true.
> Now it seems pretty clear, given that the letter was left
> in plain view, that the woman wanted out from the marriage.
> And clearly this letter was an extremely effective way of
> achieving what she wanted. ...

RCL seems to presume that the letter was left in plain view *deliberately*.
I would not presume that, or I would at least entertain the possibility
that it wa an accident. It could well be that the woman wants to get out of
the marriage, and that leaving the letter out will help accomplish that,
yet it is still possible that it was not done deliberately.

> But how do you even know there is a lover around?  Only from
> the wife's letter which was left for the husband to find.
> Maybe there isn't even a lover.

Well, we know there is a lover because of the mathematics: "she's quite
sure the kid is his [the lover's] b/c the husband was in the army when she
became pregnant."

But I can't help but wonder -- Does the husband know when the child was
born? Has the husband asked the doctors whether the baby was premature or
late? Does the husband know when the child was likely conceived? Does the
husband know when he himself was in the army?

I find it odd that "she's quite sure the kid is his [the lover's] b/c the
husband was in the army when she became pregnant", yet the husband himself
is incapable of making the same calculation. It sounds to me like the
numbers don't add up as neatly as the wife wishes, and there is indeed a
real chance that the husband IS the father.

Akiva Miller


____________________________________________________________
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http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2

On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 12:48 AM, Harvey Benton <harvw...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> i read that
> the rambam holds certain
> groups (sadducees??/apikorsim,) etc,
> to be chayav mitah??

Is this perhaps a reference to "those who are in the country, but have
their backs turned towards the king's palace" in the Rambam's mashal
in Moreh Nevuchim 3.51?

In Friedlander's translation:
"Those who are in the country, but have their backs turned towards the
king's palace, are those who possess religion, belief, and thought,
but happen to hold false doctrines, which they either adopted in
consequence of great mistakes made in their own speculations, or
received from others who misled them. Because of these doctrines they
recede more and more from the royal palace the more they seem to
proceed. These are worse than the first class, and under certain
circumstances it may become necessary to slay them, and to extirpate
their doctrines, in order that others should not be misled."

From http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/gfp/gfp187.htm with an obvious
OCR typo (day for slay) corrected.

Prof. Michael Schwarz' Hebrew translation at
http://press.tau.ac.il/perplexed/chapters/chap_3_51.htm

On 15/06/2012 3:01 PM, hankman wrote:
> I knew you would respond with this generality which is why I asked
> you to be specific and to tell us how you know that MR didn't have
> this revealed to him. So once again, please restrict your answer to one
> specific nevuah in Nach that is mechadesh Torah secrets to which MR was
> not privy and how you know that is the case.

Just open a Tanach. I see no reason to believe that MR knew anything
you will read there. Of course it's *possible*, anything is possible,
but I don't see any reason why it would be so. MR was taught many Torah
secrets, but not necessarily everything. He was taught the midot through
which all future chidushei torah can be derived, so *in principle* all
of R Akiva's chidushim were contained in what he was taught, even if he
didn't realise it; but nevi'im don't derive things through the midot,
so what Yeshaya or Yechezkel was told wasn't even potentially derivable
by Moshe. And certainly a system of using certain arrangements of dots to
represent certain vowel sounds, *even if* they were revealed from Above,
wouldn't have been told to him; if it had been, why wouldn't he teach it
to Yehoshua and have it passed down? Of course it's possible that he did
and it was forgotten and then subsequently re-revealed to the Tiberians
(through Eliyahu or some other non-nevuah method), but there's no basis
for such a supposition.


On 15/06/2012 3:21 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 02:32:39PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
>> Well, all of Nach.  And every nevuah that didn't make it into Nach
>> because it had no lesson for klal yisrael.  None of them were known
>> before they were given.  So they're all new.  But none of them change
>> the halacha.

> I thought Lurianic Qabbalah are thoughts the Ari learned from Eliyahu
> hanavi in a small house near the Nile. Eliyahu never dies, and even after
> translation is still considered alive enough to qualify for reviving
> semichah, and for teaching halakhah -- lo baShamayim hi. Lo kol shekein
> for teaching aggadita.

Yes, but RCM's question was about nevi'im.

As far as Eliyahu is concerned, he can teach forgotten halachot that he
remembers from earthly rabbonim and poskim, or he can give a posek the
information which would lead him to pasken a new way, but he can't just
say "this is how Hashem wants things done, this is the new halacha".

And what of Achiyah Hashiloni, who taught the Baal Shem Tov?  He was
certainly dead.   Some of what he taught may have been what he remembered
learning in his lifetime, but most of it would surely have been what he
learned in Yeshivah Shel Maalah.  That is certainly Bashamayim, and thus
he could not have taught anything that changed halacha.


> I have bigger problems with the Torah the Ramchal ascribes to maggidim.
>
> The mechabeir less so. I'm convinced he sets out to pasqen following
> the majority of his triumverate in part to exclude the maggid's Torah
> from his results.

Because it's halacha.


> The question I have is more about the possibility of receipt of new
> information after the end of nevu'ah, not the quality or Torah-ness of
> that information. The entire concept of speaking to maggidim. Even what we
> call Ruach haqodesh since the nevi'im is more bas qol. (Tosafta Sotah
> 13:2, Sanhedrin 11a) So how do we have these speaking to mal'akhim,
> the embodiments of ideas or sefarim, and so on?

Nevu'ah is not just about receiving information.  It's a brush with
Hashem.  There is always (except for MR) a "mal'ach hadover bi" whose
function is to help the Navi *interpret* the experience, but it is not
part of the experience, and that can happen even today.  For instance
Manoach and his wife were not nevi'im, but they did get information
from a mal'ach.

-- 
Zev Sero
z...@sero.name

if the mishmeret of kohanim and leviim was delineated in bemidbar/naso, why
need it be revisited in korach? why does the kahal have fear here of death
risk when the designation already took place? or did it all happen at the
korach time and the latter was chronologically earlier? if so, it becomes
like nissan 1, whose events are divided into the 3 parshas
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RZS writes:

>> Just open a Tanach. I see no reason to believe that MR knew anything
you will read there... so what Yeshaya or Yechezkel was told wasn't even
potentially derivable
by Moshe <<

Berachos 5a. Nach was given to Moshe at Sinai.

According to RY Kamenetzky, it means that everything in Nach is alluded to
in Chumash, as per Taanis 9a - "Is there anything in the Kesuvim not hinted
to in the Torah?" The process isn't anything too esoteric either - R'
Yochanan there was baffled that he couldn't figure out where a concept in
Kesuvim was hinted to in the Torah. The Mefaresh in Taanis says that
everything in Nach has some Smach in the Chumash.
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On 15/06/2012 2:07 PM, hankman wrote:
> So just which ?nevuah is decidedly new? and unknown or not revealed to 
> Moshe Rabbeinu? Is it the ma?assei merkovo (but ma sheroaso shifcha al 
> hayam ...) or the nevuas Yeshai?ahu on Gog uMogog or kibbutz Golios etc. 
> Just what would you point to as decicedly new and unknown to MR or that 
> adds new revelations unknown to MR the av hanevi?im? Don?t give me a 
> generality, but point to a specific nevuah in Nach of the type of which 
> you speak and also tell me how you know MR did not know it.

RZS responded:
Well, all of Nach. And every nevuah that didn't make it into Nach
because it had no lesson for klal yisrael. None of them were known
before they were given. So they're all new. But none of them change
the halacha.

CM responds:
I knew you would respond with this generality which is why I asked you to be 
specific and to tell us how you know that MR didn't have this revealed to 
him. So once again, please restrict your answer to one specific nevuah in 
Nach that is mechadesh Torah secrets to which MR was not privy and how you 
know that is the case.

Kol tuv
Chaim Manaster

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On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 04:06:35AM +0000, kennethgmil...@juno.com wrote:
: If you are using the word "nekudot" to refer to the written
: representation of sounds, then I tend to agree. Any given sound may be
: represented by this artistic diagram or by that one, and halacha doesn't
: really care.

As I mentioned, the grouping of sounds into symbols was once subject to
machloqes. The example I gave: what we call segol and patach would be
grouped as one vowel in Bavli niqud. What if Bavli niqud had won out,
rather than Tiverani? Would we be yotzei the mitzvah if we would have
started it "Sheme' Yire'eil"?

I think the symbols do reflect decisions that have halachic impact.

On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 03:34:22PM +0300, Doron Beckerman wrote:
: According to RY Kamenetzky, it means that everything in Nach is alluded to
: in Chumash, as per Taanis 9a - "Is there anything in the Kesuvim not hinted
: to in the Torah?"...

Well, LAD (not that RYK needs my approval, of course), it makes a lot
of sense. If it were meant more literally, there would be no problem
learning halakhah from Nakh. Nakh's halachic status reflects its being
relayed in a manner less precise than nevu'as Moshe.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             I always give much away,
mi...@aishdas.org        and so gather happiness instead of pleasure.
http://www.aishdas.org           -  Rachel Levin Varnhagen
Fax: (270) 514-1507

why were the spies not keen to visit Kivrey Avos?

why does the Gemara not bring proof from Yehoshua and Kaleb who were
reprimanding the Jews until they feared for their lives, that the duty to
offer Tochacha applies until one's life is endangered?

-- 

Best,

Meir G. Rabi
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On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 10:20:49AM -0400, David Riceman wrote:
> RMB:
> <<I think it's of the same worldview as that which lists mayim and tal  
> as different liquids. We care about where water comes from.>>
>
> I don't think that's right.  The issue is the name.  See the Sifra on  
> "v'chol mashkeh asher yishaseh ..." cited by the AhSHhA Tohoros 158:4.

And what is the significance of shinui sheim if not basing the din on
how we think of something over the physics of how it actually is?

Tir'u baTov!
-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

I saw a Mei Shiloach this Shabbat where he says that for these guys, no 
prayer in the world would have helped. That is why Moshe didn't bother 
praying for them (and maybe why they didn't bother going to Hebron).  
Calev could have been helped through prayer, so he went. Yehoshua, 
having received a bracha from Moshe, didn't need to pray.

Ben

On 6/17/2012 11:43 PM, Meir Rabi wrote:
> why were the spies not keen to visit Kivrey Avos?
>
> why does the Gemara not bring proof from Yehoshua and Kaleb who were 
> reprimanding the Jews until they feared for their lives, that the duty 
> to offer Tochacha applies until one's life is endangered?
>
> -- 
\

some words from Rabbi Greenberg - RY of Kerem BeYavneh
From Em Habanomn Semechah: Rav Sonnenfeld would scold (mochiach) someone
would speak against the chalutzim and claimed that the land would bring
them back to religion. The 16th of Elul is Taanait Tzaddikim because that
is when the spies died. Magan Avraham asks that we should celebrate the
death of reshaim. The Shlah answers that the spies were tzaddikim and so we
see that even the righteous can be spies (others explain that the spies
didn't want to go to EY because they felt that the miraculous life in the
desert was better than normal life in EY)
Rav Yitzchak Elchanan advocated buying of land in EY and working the land.
He writes that thank G-d that new groups appear in our nation that advance
the yishuv through working the land and young people who are want to
benefit from the work of their hands and it should bring our return to the
holy land that was taken from us 2000 years ago. He further writes in
another letter about the group in Kovna established to buy land and settle
in EY and pushes that everyone should participate.
The Admor from Pilov writes that EY is described as "eretz chemda" and so
one who leaves this out from birchat hamazon is not yotzeh. So anyone who
denigrates EY and doesnt realize its benefits doesnt consider it "chemds"
and is not yotze birchat hamazon.

-- 
Eli Turkel
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A while back there was a discussion about attitudes towards the death of young
children with some claiming that in olden days it was taken for granted
while others claimed that it was still painful.

I just saw a halachic discussion of this on a recent daf yomi (Nidah 23) from
Rav Stav of Har Etzion. He brings a contradiction between two gemarot about
whether parents have pain (tzaar) on the death of a "nefel" (under 30
days). He gives two answers which might be relevant to the discussion
1) there is pain at the time of burial but it subsides over time in contrast
to the loss of an older son/daughter whose pain never diminishes.

Obviously this is relative and some people may weep over the loss of an
infant for many years. Nevertheless I unfortunately know of several
families that lost a son or daughter in their teens and twenties. They
never really get over the loss. The secretary of our department lost a son
in a flash flood and changed her family naes to include the name of her
son. A member of my shul lost a son in a battle in Jenin and has said
kaddish for him for years. I don't think the loss of a nefel is felt to the
same degree. I have a relative that lost an infant due to crib death.
Baruch Hashem he now has 11 children with several grandchildren. I assume
the parents think of the loss of their infant but it isn't to the same
degree I just presented for a 20 year old.

2) there is a difference between a father who is pained less by the loss of a
"nefel" and the pain of the mother who is more effected

BTW  Rabbi Stav quotes a recent book he recently  wrote "ka-chalom yauf"
dealing with the loss of a pregnancy. Does anyone know anything about this
sefer?

Slightly different I went to a shiur last night from Ezra Bick from Har
Etzion on surrogate motherhood. Bottom line he feels that this is one of
the few cases where there are no sources in Chazal for the basis of a psak
(he brought the few that are mentioned by poskim and rejected them) .
Hence, he felt that a psak should be done on general grounds rather than a
specific precedent. Similarly to (2) above he took it for granted that
there is a difference between the father and the mother based on their
connections to the fetus. So he would have fatherhood determined by
genetics but motherhood determined by the carrier during prebnancy, i.e.
the birth mother.

-- 
Eli Turkel
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From: avodah-boun...@lists.aishdas.org [mailto:avodah-boun...@lists.aishdas.org] On Behalf Of Eli Turkel
Sent: Monday, 18 June, 2012 8:29 AM
To: Avodah
Subject: [Avodah] loss of infants

 

Obviously this is relative and some people may weep over the loss of an
infant for many years. Nevertheless I unfortunately know of several
families that lost a son or daughter in their teens and twenties. They
never really get over the loss. The secretary of our department lost a son
in a flash flood and changed her family naes to include the name of her
son. A member of my shul lost a son in a battle in Jenin and has said
kaddish for him for years. I don't think the loss of a nefel is felt to the
same degree. I have a relative that lost an infant due to crib death.
Baruch Hashem he now has 11 children with several grandchildren. I assume
the parents think of the loss of their infant but it isn't to the same
degree I just presented for a 20 year old.

 

Several years ago, I attended the levaya of a young women who in childbirth
had gone into a coma, and died several weeks later. The couple was barely
through shana rishona. As you can imagine, the attendees were crying away.
A very emotional levaya. However, I notices that the young husband had no
tears. I fact, he seemed very calm about the whole thing.

 

Shortly afterwards, I attended a levaya of and elderly women, with many
children and grandchildren. The attendees were very solemn, but the husband
and children were inconsolable. 

 

I realized that people cry for a person?s death for two reasons. One is for
the tragedy, the loss of a great potential or future. This was true in the
first case but not in the second. The second reason is the loss of the
relationship. This was true solely for the family in the second case, but
in the first, the husband had only known his wife for less than a year, and
the last part allowed him to become independent.

 

Akiva 

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On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 02:36:46PM +0300, Akiva Blum wrote:
: Obviously this is relative and some people may weep over the loss of
: an infant for many years...

I raised this possibility based on my personal experience having lost
a daughter who was almost 3 months old (she lived from ch"m Sukkos to
a couple of days after Chanukah, 21 yrs ago). For me, the overwhelming
feelings were loss of the dreams, the potential as RAB put it, and "why
me?" So much of what I felt was because I was overwhelmed and unprepared,
that projecting backward to a day when people lost babies, toddlers, even
young children with regularity, I thought they would be able to manage
better than we today would picture.

The question isn't how "some people" feel, but what is the normal
or common result, the result for which chazal would write dinim of
aveilus over. And of course I could well be atypical.

FWIW, speaking personally for another moment.... I no longer feel like
the same person as the guy who lost a child in 1991. I often feel sad
for that guy, empathy. With the sole (wakeful) exception of some moments
during Birkhas Gevurah on Yamim Nora'im.

In any case, I was just trying to diffuse the question that hilkhos
aveilus for children should be more extreme because the emotions
chazal were trying to channel would be more extreme. LAD, I think the
assymetry of aveilus for parents and for children has more to do with
kibud av va'eim than emotions. Otherwise, one could ask about children
vs siblings, etc... It seems clear to me, therefore, that aveilus is 30
days nearly across the board, with parents being a special case because
of a separate chiyuv.

Tir'u baTov!
-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


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