Avodah Mailing List

Volume 30: Number 93

Sun, 15 Jul 2012

• 1. Re: LED "tealights" for Shabbos candles (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: LED "tealights" for Shabbos candles (Akiva Miller)
• 3. Re: The Main Idea of Judaism (David Riceman)
• 4. Re: LED "tealights" for Shabbos candles (hankman)
• 5. Re: LED "tealights" for Shabbos candles (T6...@aol.com)
• 6. Binyamin's sons (Liron Kopinsky)
• 7. Purim Torah (Liron Kopinsky)
• 8. Re: Binyamin's sons (Zev Sero)
• 9. Re: Binyamin's sons (Lisa Liel)
• 10. Re: LED "tealights" for Shabbos candles (Marty Bluke)
• 11. Re: David Cohen : algorithm for matrix multiplication (Avodah Digest, Vol 30, Issue 91) (Ezra Chwat)
• 12. Re: LED "tealights" for Shabbos candles (T6...@aol.com)
• 13. Re: Medrashim [was: Egel Zahav] (T6...@aol.com)

On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 11:15:17AM -0400, RCM wrote:
: off enough light so you would not trip in a dark room. In my experience
: perhaps in the immediate vicinity (say 5-6 inches) from the LED there is
: some illumination but this falls off very rapidly. I would ask if in fact
: the level of illumination is discussed by the poskim wrt ner Shabbos,
: whether extremely low and very local (within a few inches) levels of
: illumination suffice for Oneg Shabbos (and therefore for ner Shabbos)?

I hope I'm not belaboring the point, but...

The LEDs RnTK is asking about are designed to replace tea lights. To be
put into tea light holders and look as close to the original as they can
approximate. (Many even flicker, to further the illusion.) You don't
need to extapolate from your experience with other LEDs about how well
they radiate that light. The whole idea behind their design is that the
light they give is comparable in brightness and color to that of a candle.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It's never too late
mi...@aishdas.org        to become the person
http://www.aishdas.org   you might have been.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                      - George Elliot

Back in 2006 (Avodah 17:93), in a discussion about telephones and
microphones on Shabbos, I cited Rav Moshe Heinemann (of the Star-K;
in "Guide to Halachos" by Nachman Schachter, published by Feldheim,
pp 29-30):
> Activating any electrical device to generate either heat or
> light or increasing the setting on an electrical device to
> generate more heat or light is prohibited because of the
> Melacha D'oraisa of Mav'ir. Examples include intentionally
> 1) activating a heating pad, 2) activating a light, 3)
> increasing the setting on a dimmer switch and 4) increasing
> the setting on an electric blanket.

> However, activating a device that provides unnecessary heat
> or light, e.g. a phone with a lighted dial in an illuminated
> room, is prohibited as a Melachah D'rabbanan.

I am now wondering how LED light fit into that. In the current thread,
R' Micha Berger wrote:
> Incandescent light bulbs provide the light of a hot metal
> filament....

> An LED is a semiconductor where atoms in it emit light when
> their energy level drops due to electrons jumping across a
> transmission in how the semiconductor is "doped". There is no
> heating. Nothing remotely similar to the concept of aish as
> per havarah, mechabeh or bishul. I have even a harder time
> picturing the appropriateness of "me'orei ha'eish" on them.

So here's my question: If an LED light, as RMB has explained it, does
*not* constitute "aish", does that mean that using one on Shabbos would be
"only" a Melacha D'Rabanan (according to Rav Heinemann)?

Did we once discuss those tubes which are filled with chemicals which emit
light (but NO heat) when the chemicals are mixed? Are those "aish" or not?

(See examples at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glow_stick)

Akiva Miller

I actually want to respond to RMB, but I think that a point I've been 
making has gotten erased, so I'll start by citing myself and RAM.

Me:
<<What I tell my son is that there are minimum standards that everyone 
must strive to perform, but beyond that one has quite a bit of 
flexibility about how much of an oveid hashem one desires to be, and how 
one [imminentizes] that desire.>>

RAM:
<<I am a very lazy person, but in my *desires*, I cannot imagine 
striving to be anything less than a *total* oveid Hashem. And I try to 
tell my kids that this should be their desire too. I hope to hear that 
"how much of an oveid hashem one desires to be" was an accidentally poor 
choice of words.>>

RAM again:
<<I'm not sure if I used the word "only" in this context. I'll tell you 
what: Even if I did use that word, I'll retract it now and say this: I 
am willing to concede that there are many legitimate aspirations, and my 
point is that being a "*total* oveid Hashem" is the most ideal 
aspiration among them.>>

I know and admire people who try to be "total* ovdei Hashem" (see H. 
Tshuva 10:3); unlike RAM, I don't want to be one of them.

In this post I don't want to address RAM, I want to address the people 
who claim that we don't disagree.  RMB's post is a good example:

<<If so, then perhaps we can just create a new parent ideal which 
combines those hierarchies into one. Starting with something like: 
Hashem made us to be autonomous creative beings who...

If you believe Hashem made us so that we should value other pursuits as 
ends in themselves (and I'm not asserting that, just paraphrasing my 
understanding of your point), then that too is part of the ideal of 
being what He made me to be.>>

This is a different ideal than being an oveid hashem.  Part of being an 
oveid hashem is precisely to abandon those aspects of one's personality 
which don't fit into the mold.  In fact, as I tried to point out in 
earlier posts, this ideal is so general as to raise the question of how 
one can fail to meet this particular aspiration.

I do think one can whittle it down.  I would, for example, like to have 
a really good vibrato on the violin some day, but that wouldn't be on my 
list of what RAM calls "ideal aspirations".  But how one can whittle 
RMB's criterion down to something acceptable is not an easy question.

That's the main point I wanted to make, but RMB's post was so long that 
it deserves some nitpicking:

<<There is a central message to Yahadus, and we should be able to figure 
out what it is from the Torah. Presumably this is about including Hashem 
in our plans, actions, and perspective on what happens to us.>>

I cited a Rambam ("ha'ikkar hagadol shehakol talui bo") paraphrasing a 
Mishna in Berachos to support this, but I think it needs better 
evidence.  Why should there be a central message? The Abarbanel (in Rosh 
Amana IIRC) denies that Judaism has ikkarim, and I think one can argue 
plausibly that Western ethical theorists have gone wrong partly because 
they spend too much effort looking for single unifying principles.

In fact multiplicity is an inherent feature of humanity and of the world 
we live in.  Shouldn't it equally well be an inherent feature of the 
Torah? It certainly seems to be.

<<Issur and chiyuv are categorical. If they covered every possibility, 
there would be no variety, no human component to avodas Hashem after the 
poseiq does his job.>>

This is the opinion of the Hovos HaLevavos, that Torah, when fully 
individuated, has no reshus, everything is either obligatory or 
forbidden.  He argues that the options are to leave room for individual 
variation.  I find his opinion scarily totalitarian.

<<Tangent: Where does the Rambam say this?>>

Shmonah Perakim, Perek 8.  In Kafih's translation it's on p. 262. 
Arguably either he changed his mind before writing the MT or he was 
polemicizing.

<<Actually, RSS says qedoshim tihyu is *it*, not just /a/ mitzvah. Which 
can make sense, "qedhshah" isn't as specific as "akhilas matzah", after 
all. Here's the relevent quote, right after discussing the Toras Kohanim 
and the Ramban on "Qedoshim Tihyu": And so, it appears to my limited 
thought that this mitzvah includes the entire foundation and root of the 
purpose of our lives.>>

I think this deserves a new thread.  There's a mahlokes between the 
Rambam and Ibn Ezra (in Sefer Yesod Mora).  Ibn Ezra argues that mitzvos 
are hierarchical; some include others as special cases.  The Rambam (and 
as far as I know all contemporary halachists agree with him) flattens 
out the hierarchy and argues that each mitzvah has an independent 
domain.  You seem to be construing RSS as following IE.

I don't think that's what he means.  There is a long exegetical 
tradition of playing up the significance of particular mitzvos.  In 
Hazal it takes the form mitzvah X shakul k'neged kol hamitzos. There's 
an essay attributed to the Ramban (printed in Chavel's Kisvei Ramban) 
which derives Taryag Mitzvos from asseres hadibros.

I think RSS is doing that with Kedoshim Tihyu.  I think he could have 
done something similar with many other mitzvos.

<<Picture if one Elul (or maybe even on a Hebrew birthday -- vedai 
lachakima beramiza <grin>) we did this for our Avodas Hashem...>>

I've used a version of this as a Yom Kippur derasha.  It's not enough to 
do tshuva for sins or even for dispositions: picture who you are now, 
who you wish to be next year (or in a Shemita or Yovel), and how you 
expect to make the transition.  The mechanism of transition is the most 
important part, and, as you hint, you need to break it down into small 
steps.

IIRC the Gaon in Kol HaTor alludes to this, as does Rabbi Kook in Orot 
HaTeshuvah.  I construed the midrash about Ya'akov Avinu sleeping at the 
bottom of the sulam and his picture at the top of the sulam as alluding 
to this.

<< Picture being able to tie why you're going to the store to what it is 
you plan on accomplishing in your life's avodah. I think it would be 
very powerful in making all of life, even recreation or side interests, 
holy -- however it is you define holiness.>>

Why doesn't it work just as well for just a little time every day? Not 
everything you do at work ties directly into the Master Plan.

David Riceman
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RMB wrote:
You don't need to extapolate from your experience with other LEDs about how well
they radiate that light. The whole idea behind their design is that the
light they give is comparable in brightness and color to that of a candle.
CM responds:
That was the point of my last post. I accepted that the LEDs R?nTK asked
about were bright. I was asking what about my case with the dim LEDs that
are just visible as ?on? / ?off? indicators. That was the diff between your
response and RLK. He seemed to think that even the tiny bit of illumination
they provide is adequate for ner Shabbos ? I was asking for some authority
on this issue in the poskim. My own gut feeling was that they were not
adequate so I was asking if there was discussion of this matter in the
poskim as to the difference of opinion between RLK and myself.

Kol tuv

Chaim Manaster
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But is there agreement that if the light IS as bright as a candle, you  can 
use them for Shabbos?  And make a bracha on them lehadlik ner shel  Shabbos?
 

--Toby Katz
=============
Romney -- good  values, good family, good  hair


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In a message dated 7/13/2012 3:40:07 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
hank...@bell.net writes:

 
RMB wrote:
You don't need to extapolate from your  experience with other LEDs about 
how well
they radiate that light. The  whole idea behind their design is that the
light they give is comparable in  brightness and color to that of a candle.
CM responds:
That was the point of my last post. I accepted that the LEDs R?nTK asked  
about were bright. I was asking what about my case with the dim LEDs that are 
 just visible as ?on? / ?off? indicators. That was the diff between your  
response and RLK. He seemed to think that even the tiny bit of illumination 
 they provide is adequate for ner Shabbos ? I was asking for some authority 
on  this issue in the poskim. My own gut feeling was that they were not 
adequate  so I was asking if there was discussion of this matter in the poskim 
as to the  difference of opinion between RLK and myself.
 
Kol tuv
 
Chaim Manaster
 



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We know that Binyamin had 10 sons, but when the chumash lists the families
of Shevet Binyamin, there are only 5. What happened to his other 5 sons?

-- 
Liron Kopinsky
liron.kopin...@gmail.com
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I am learning Gemarrah Rosh Hashana (19b) where it discusses sending out
messengers to let people know about Purim and Pesach.

I have not seen the following scenario discussed though.

Let's say there is a town which is 20 days away from Yerushalaim. In a
regular year, they would be forced to keep 2 days of Pesach, because there
is no way for them to find out what day Rosh Chodesh Nissan is before
Pesach comes in. That much I'm fine with.

But what if this year is yet not a leap-year, but might be (BD have not yet
made it an ibur shana, but they have until the last day of Adar 1 to do
so)? Do they have to be choshesh for both Adar 2 and Pesach at the same
time?

If they are living in a non-walled city, they would then have to do Megilla
reading on Erev Pesach as well as Bedikat Chametz. Which one would they do
first? The next day they would either give chametz shalach manot which
would have to be destroyed very shortly, or KLP ones. And I have no idea
what they would do about the purim seuda. Presumably do it early in the day
I guess. And if they are in a walled city (say Prague) would they read
Megilla on seder night? Presumably they would do the seder first since
that's d'Oraita?

Or are they allowed to rely on Rov and say that most years are not leap
years, so therefore they would only keep Pesach and not Purim?

In either case, presumably they would be keeping Pesach in what they assume
is Nissan, and if they were to then find out that BD made the year a leap
year (say 1/2 way through Chol Hamoed) then they would just immediately
return to their regularly scheduled lives and have to redo Pesach in
another month? If they relied on Rov, would they have to do anything to
make up their missed Purim?

Kol Tuv,

-- 
Liron Kopinsky
liron.kopin...@gmail.com
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On 15/07/2012 2:43 AM, Liron Kopinsky wrote:
> We know that Binyamin had 10 sons, but when the chumash lists the families of Shevet Binyamin, there are only 5. What happened to his other 5 sons?

Rashi says they were lost in a civil war against the Leviyim.

Malbim suggests that Binyamin only had 8 children, because "Bela
vaVecher" just means Bela was the bechor, and "Echi Varosh" was one
name, referring to Yosef being "my brother and head".  Then, pointing
out that Bela had sons called Ard and Naaman, he suggests that the
original Ard and Naaman died childless, and Bela married their wives
and named sons after them.  That leaves only one missing son, and he
says they must have lost so many people in one of the various plagues
and punishments that the survivors got folded into one of the more
numerous clans.


-- 
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 7/15/2012 1:43 AM, Liron Kopinsky wrote:
> We know that Binyamin had 10 sons, but when the chumash lists the 
> families of Shevet Binyamin, there are only 5. What happened to his 
> other 5 sons?

Some of them are listed as grandsons.

See http://www.yutorah.com/_materials/Candle%20Lighting%20Part%20II.pdf for
a discussion of whether you can make a Beracha or not on electric lights
and specifically fluorescent bulbs (the same would apply to LEDs). He
quotes poskim with a variety of reasons why you would not make a beracha on
electric lights.
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David Cohen: Thu, 12 Jul 2012 13:22:53 +0300:
"Yishuvo shel olam aside, I also see inherent value in learning math: it is
truth.  We learn Torah because it is revealed truth, and some of us study
science because it is another reflection of the ways of Hashem, who is
truth"

In Rav Qapah's understanding of Rambam's Hashkafah, precise critical scientific study is to be considered obligatory Limudey Kodesh. 
See MaharY Qapeh z"l, Tchumim 2 (1981) pp.242-251; English translation in
Crossroads- halacha and the Modern World (1987), pp.109-116; on above- Z.
Langermann Aleph I (2001) pp. 338.
This opinion may not be popular, but it cannot be ignored. 

Ezra Chwat
**********************

 

From: "Akiva Miller" <kennethgmil...@juno.com>

R' Zev  Sero wrote:

> But we're not discussing "borei me'orei ha'esh";  we're
> discussing "lehadlik ner shel shabbos kodesh" or "shel
> yom  tov", etc.  And there the mitzvah is the provision
> of practical  light by which one may walk around
> without hurting oneself, and see what  one is eating.
> A LED provides this just as well as a candle.

(I  would add that we're also not talking about Chanukah, where Pirsumei 
Nisa  demands fuel that burns on a wick.)

I've long felt exactly as RZS  explained. Which is why I'm indebted to this 
posters in this thread for pointing  out the problems posed by the wording 
of the bracha.

I'm now of the  opinion (not that my opinion counts for anything, of 
course) that there should  be no problem whatsoever as regards fulfilling the 
mitzvah of light in one's  home on Shabbos by use of an LED or other electric 
light. But at the same time,  I can also see that one might not be able to use 
the words "l'hadlik" or "ner"  when doing that mitzvah, depending on how 
one defines those words. 

Akiva Miller

 
 
>>>>>
 
Can we not translate "lehadlik ner" as "to turn on a light"?
 
 

--Toby  Katz
=============
Romney -- good  values, good family, good  hair


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From: Daas Books _info@daasbooks.com_ (mailto:i...@daasbooks.com) 

I'm confused by  this thread.

The original question, and the replies to it, are based on  this premise:

> hence Bnai Yisroel insisted upon the golden  calf


This premise seems to be that the Bnai Yisroel people _chose_ to  construct 
a
cow to replace Moshe.

I had thought that the pashut pshat  of Ex 32:24 was that the cow was either
completely _not_ the specific  intention of the people or at the most the
intention of _one_ person (Micha  according to the Midrash), and that these
people, upon seeing this miraculous  cow, were able to embrace it as a
familiar symbol that they could  party -- er, rally -- around.

....The cow gave them something  physical that they
could relate to. And moreover, the "they" we're talking  about is the Eruv
Rav, not the Bnai Yisroel.

What the participants in  this thread seem to be saying is that they -- the
Bnai Yisroel -- were  looking for a leader and made a conscious choice to
create and follow an  aigel.

There you have it  I've exposed my ignorance. Will someone  please set me
straight.

- Alexander  Seinfeld


>>>>>


 
 
 
 
 
 
My own policy is not to ask questions about one medrash based on a  
different medrash or on contradictory divrei Chazal, but to keep them  separate.  I 
will give you an example of what I mean from P' Pinchas.  
 
According to one interpretation (I think Rashi says this), the "bris  
sholom" that Hashem gave Pinchas was that He made him a kohen.  When Aharon  and 
his sons were anointed as kohanim, no already-existing children of the sons  
were included in that anointing (only subsequently born children were  
automatically kohanim).  So Pinchas, who was already born when his father  was 
anointed, was not a kohen -- until he killed the sinners in P' Pinchas,  
whereupon he was separately anointed as a kohen as a reward (and  thereafter all 
his descendants were kohanim like the children of any  kohen).
 
OK but there's an obscure medrash that when Pinchas stabbed Zimri and  
Kosbi, a miracle happened and they did not die until after he left the tent --  
because otherwise he, being a kohen, would not have even been allowed to 
kill  them!  A kohen can't purposely make himself tamei meis.  
 
But that medrash depends on the assumption that Pinchas was /already/ a  
kohen when he stabbed Zimri and Kosbi -- because, if he wasn't already a 
kohen,  what did he need this miracle for?!
 
You can't combine those two medrashim -- that he was already a kohen when  
he killed Zimri and Kosbi, or that he was only made a kohen afterwards as a  
reward for doing this deed.
 
Well you could find a way to combine them if you were really determined --  
you could say something like, he prophetically knew that he was /going/ to 
be a  kohen so he conducted himself as a kohen and avoided acts that are  
forbidden to kohanim.
 
But as I started by saying, my policy is not to combine medrashim when they 
 contradict each other, but to take each on its own merits and use each one 
 separately to draw whatever lesson is to be drawn.  The very existence of  
contradictory medrashim BTW implies what to me seems obvious, that not  
every medrash is meant to be taken literally.
 
So, to be practical about it, one year the rabbi can give a drasha about  
how the Jews wanted an eigel because that's the god they were familiar with 
from  their stay in Egypt, and he can wind it up by saying that in every 
generation,  Jews are drawn to various idols, be it JC, Marx, Freud, Gaia or 
whatnot.
 
The next year the rabbi can give another drasha about how Aharon threw a  
lump of gold into the fire, hoping the Jews would say, "No, don't take our  
gold!" and delay things until Moshe returned -- but to his shock it came up 
as a  golden calf, due to black magic -- and the rabbi can talk about the  
unintended consequences of well-intended deeds.
 
He just can't mix up all the opinions into one tzimmes.  

--Toby Katz
=============
Romney -- good  values, good family, good  hair


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