Avodah Mailing List

Volume 30: Number 102

Tue, 24 Jul 2012

• 1. magnets (Eli Turkel)
• 2. Re: tehillin (Arie Folger)
• 3. Re: Why is north above? (T6...@aol.com)
• 4. Re: Netillat Yadayim with no towel (Harry Weiss)
• 5. Re: tehillin (Lisa Liel)
• 6. Re: tehillin (Arie Folger)
• 7. Re: Netillat Yadayim with no towel (Micha Berger)
• 8. Re: tehillin (Zev Sero)
• 9. Re: Netillat Yadayim with no towel (Zev Sero)
• 10. Re: Netillat Yadayim with no towel (Micha Berger)
• 11. Re: magnets on shabbat (Akiva Miller)
• 12. Re: Netillat Yadayim with no towel (Zev Sero)
• 13. Re: Netillat Yadayim with no towel (Micha Berger)
• 14. Re: Holier Than Thou (Ezra Chwat)
• 15. Re: Showering During the Nine Days (Joel Schnur)
• 16. zamzumim etc (saul newman)

Doron wrote

<< I don't see how it fits in with either definition of Tofer in Igros
Moshe (Orach Chaim II:84) - either it has to become one unit, or you have
to do an act that people would view as "keri'ah" to separate the two items.
Also, Terumas Hadeshen 296 says that if it separates easily it is not
considered a Chibbur vis-a-vis Tofer. >>

Thanks, the idea that it easily separates occurred to me also. I looked
again at the latest revision of SSK 23:46 where he states that one cannot
put on or remove a magnet from a fridge if it stays on a long time (he
doesnt seem to mean stuck on - simply many people leave magnets on fridges
for long times).
In the notes(138)  he refers to a CI that says anything that is permament
(for a long time) is "boneh". Sorry in the shiur I attend the topic was
tofer

-- 
Eli Turkel
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RET asked:
> Another question is tehillim 79 which begins "mizmor le-asaf"
> and talks about the destruction of the Temple. The midrash
> asks why start with mizmor which indicates a song and answers
> that G-d spent his wrath on stones rather than destroying the nation.
>
> The question is why or how is Asaf writing a chapter in tehillin
> about the future destruction of the temple


Could it be that it was really about churban Shilo in the first place?

-- 
Arie Folger,
Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/
* Toleranz aber ohne Respekt ? zwei Artikel zur Brit Mil?
* Ein Volk, eine Gemeinde ? R?ckblick auf dem Freitagabend-Anlass
* Die Beschneidung ist im Judentum unentbehrlich
* Joe the Pumber, Guns Control and the Lethal Oppression of the Masses
* Offene Brief an die Redaktion von ?Die Zeit?
* Alle sind gleich vor dem Schabbat, dem hochmodernen Ruhetag
* Thoughts on a Polarizing Society
* Do we Owe Respect to Old Bones?

 
 
From: "lreich" <lre...@tiscali.co.uk>

>>   Rashi on Bamidbar 34:11 and Devarim 3:1 says that North is  upwards.

Nowadays the prevailing convention is for maps to be printed  with north on 
top.

In earlier times this was not so; often east was so  favored.

So what is the origin of Rashi's assumption.

Is there any  connection with the Pole star being nearly overhead?   <<

Leslie Reich 






>>>>>
 
 
You are making a simple but common mistake.  You are assuming that  "up" 
means "at the top of the map, i.e., north."  But in fact "up" in the  Chumash 
and in Rashi means up in altitude, going towards higher  ground.
 
 
You mention Rashi in Bamidbar 34:11.  Look at Bamidbar 34:11 -  12.  The 
pesukim there say that the eastern boundary of E'Y went down from  Shefam to 
Rivlah, then further down to the Yam Kineres, then down the Jordan  River, 
down down down to the Yam Hamelach (the lowest point on earth, I believe  -- 
but not the furthest south!)  
 
Rashi merely points out that as you go from north to south ALONG THIS  
EASTERN BOUNDARY OF E'Y, you are going lower, lower and lower.   His exact words 
are, "as the boundary goes from north to south, it keeps  going down."
 
Just a couple of pesukim later, Bamidbar 34:15, on the words "kedmah  
mizracha" ("to the front, to the east"), Rashi spells out that FRONT = east,  
BACK or behind = west, RIGHT = south and LEFT = north. 
 
When Rashi says that north is up and south is down, he is talking about  
altitude in a specific geographic area.   All the time you are  going from 
north to south along the Jordan River, you are going down, down, down  in 
altitude, from mountains in the north to a low plain, even lower than sea  level 
-- where the Dead Sea is.
 
In fact I am pretty sure that the Yarden is called the Yarden -- "that  
which goes down" -- because it starts up high and goes down, down, down.  
 
But you must not think it is going from up at the top of a map to down at  
the bottom of a map!  Rather, Tanachically speaking, the Yarden is  flowing 
from left to right as you face front/east with the Mediterranean sea  behind 
you.  Whenever you orient yourselves in Tanach in terms of  direction, you 
have to face east. 
 
The Torah (and Rashi) never uses the words "up" and "down" for direction as 
 we Westerners do when we look at a  Western map.  The Torah uses  "front" 
and "back" for directions.  The Torah only uses up and down  for height, 
altitude.
 
In Devarim 3:1 it says, "vana'al derech haBashan" -- "we went up the way of 
 the Bashan."  I think the Bashan is somewhere around the Golan  Heights.  
In any case, it is a place with a high altitude, and it  is somewhere to the 
northeast of E'Y.  When Rashi comments over there, "kol  tzad tzafon hu 
aliyah" he is NOT saying that the north everywhere in the world  is "up."  He 
is saying that the further north you go from the Sinai Desert  to the Bashan, 
the further up you go.  You are going up in  altitude.
 
The ArtScroll translation does not clarify this but in the  Silverman 
Chumash, the translation of this Rashi on Devarim 3:1 is  explicit:  "Every 
journey towards the north (from the wilderness towards  Canaan) is 'uphill.' "
 

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


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> From: Liron Kopinsky <liron.kopin...@gmail.com>
> I was at a restaurant today and they had a washing station, but no towels.
> They only had an electric hand dryer.
>
> Does anyone know what one should do in such a situation?

What about using a napkin.   If the only one is the one at your seat and
you cannot get another, get you hand partially dry with the blower and
finish with the napkin

On 7/23/2012 2:49 PM, Arie Folger wrote:
> RET asked:
>> Another question is tehillim 79 which begins "mizmor le-asaf"
>> and talks about the destruction of the Temple. The midrash
>> asks why start with mizmor which indicates a song and answers
>> that G-d spent his wrath on stones rather than destroying the nation.

>> The question is why or how is Asaf writing a chapter in tehillin
>> about the future destruction of the temple

> Could it be that it was really about churban Shilo in the first place?

Depends.  Was Shilo in Yerushalayim?

1 A Psalm of Asaph.
O God, the heathen are come into Thine inheritance; they have defiled 
Thy holy temple;
they have made Jerusalem into heaps.

Lisa

On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 10:44 PM, Lisa Liel <l...@starways.net> wrote:
>
> Depends.  Was Shilo in Yerushalayim?
>
> 1 A Psalm of Asaph.
> O God, the heathen are come into Thine inheritance; they have defiled Thy
> holy temple;
> they have made Jerusalem into heaps.

Good point. ... Except that some would say that Mizmorei Tehillim were
at times edited by later generations of Ba'alei Tehillim.

Radak says exactly that about the psalms attributed to Moshe: they
were originally written by Moshe, and David edited them.

If we accept Rav and Rabbi Yochanan's view in Kohelet Rabba (and ShS
Rabba) that Ezra was the final editor of Psalms, then there is no
reason not to have him transpose Asaf's original psalm of elegy on the
destruction of Shilo onto the destruction of Yerushalayim.

-- 
Arie Folger,
Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/
* Toleranz aber ohne Respekt ? zwei Artikel zur Brit Mil?
* Ein Volk, eine Gemeinde ? R?ckblick auf dem Freitagabend-Anlass
* Die Beschneidung ist im Judentum unentbehrlich
* Joe the Pumber, Guns Control and the Lethal Oppression of the Masses
* Offene Brief an die Redaktion von ?Die Zeit?
* Alle sind gleich vor dem Schabbat, dem hochmodernen Ruhetag
* Thoughts on a Polarizing Society
* Do we Owe Respect to Old Bones?

On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 06:33:51PM +0300, Liron Kopinsky wrote:
: I was at a restaurant today and they had a washing station, but no towels.
: They only had an electric hand dryer.
: Does anyone know what one should do in such a situation?

I know that when no towel is available, you can wave your hands dry.
I can't see why an air blower is worse.

A nearby shul recently installed air blowers, and there are only paper
towels at the lobby sinks on Shabbos. Washing before davening lacks the
gravitas as before hamotzi, but I was wondering if they were pushing
those who do wash regularly before davening to go with a bedi'eved.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Zion will be redeemed through justice,
mi...@aishdas.org        and her returnees, through righteousness.
http://www.aishdas.org
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On 23/07/2012 4:51 PM, Arie Folger wrote:
> Good point. ... Except that some would say that Mizmorei Tehillim were
> at times edited by later generations of Ba'alei Tehillim.
>
> Radak says exactly that about the psalms attributed to Moshe: they
> were originally written by Moshe, and David edited them.

I just learned the Malbim on the beginning of Devarim, where he addresses
the question of the nature of Sefer Devarim: it's written in the first
person, and Chazal refer to it as Moshe's words, and yet it's part of
the Torah, which means it's heresy to claim that Moshe made up even one
word in it, and it contains many mitzvos that were not even hinted at in
the first four Sefarim, so it must be from Hashem.  He explains that the
answer is in the first five pesukim, which serve as an introduction to
the whole Sefer: These are the mussar sermons that Moshe had spoken to
Yisrael (the whole nation considered as a single person) on eleven previous
occasions ("achad asar yom"); those eleven drashos were his own words,
spoken in his capacity as their leader, and had he written them down they
would not have been Torah but one of the Ketuvim.  Now in the 40th year
on the 1st day of the 11th month, Hashem edited those 11 sermons into one,
and commanded Moshe to deliver this one long sermon to Benei Yisrael
(i.e. to each individual, as all Hashem's words are directed), and also
to explain to them the remaining mitzvos that he had been given at Sinai
but had not yet relayed to the people.

So Moshe is the author of Devarim, but Hashem is the editor.  That sounds
similar to what you just quoted about Tehillim.


-- 
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 23/07/2012 5:08 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 06:33:51PM +0300, Liron Kopinsky wrote:
> : I was at a restaurant today and they had a washing station, but no towels.
> : They only had an electric hand dryer.
> : Does anyone know what one should do in such a situation?
>
> I know that when no towel is available, you can wave your hands dry.
> I can't see why an air blower is worse.
>
> A nearby shul recently installed air blowers, and there are only paper
> towels at the lobby sinks on Shabbos. Washing before davening lacks the
> gravitas as before hamotzi, but I was wondering if they were pushing
> those who do wash regularly before davening to go with a bedi'eved.

I don't understand the question.  Since when is drying the hands part
of the mitzvah?  AFAIK drying is merely a practical requirement, since
eating bread with wet hands is disgusting, so it makes no difference
how they got dry, and there's not even a lechatchila preference for a
towel.  (Unless you're talking about using a towel to hold the keli,
so as not to make the just-washed right hand tamei with the water that's
on the handle from the previous user.  In the absence of a towel one
can fix that by running water over the handle before transferring it
to the right hand.)


-- 
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 Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 07:07:33PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
> I don't understand the question.  Since when is drying the hands part
> of the mitzvah? ...

The Rama says so -- OC 158:11.

The MB (s"q 42) says this is another reason why we make the berakhah
before drying. Because that's the most oveir la'asiyasan, right before
completing the qiyum hamitzvah. (The primary reason is given by the
Mechaber, that it's better to make the berakhah with clean hands.)

-Micha

R' Eli Turkel asked:

> Shmirat Shabbat prohibits putting or removing magnets from
> a refrigerator (if they will be there for a long time) on
> shabbat
>
> I don't really understand the connection to sewing (tofer)
> and in my experience people are not careful. Any opinions?

From what I can tell, the Shmirat Shabbat says this halacha in 23:46 of the 5770 edition. I cannot find it in the 5739 edition.

It is important to note that he forbids this *only* if the magnet will be
there for a long time. Also note that in footnote 145, he refers to
footnote 143, and the main text there refers to the stricter of two
opinions cited in 24:30, which focuses on binyan and ohel - building and
tents.

In other words, he does *not* relate magnets to the melacha of tofer, but to the melacha of boneh.

(Some people might find it difficult to see this a an act of binyan, given
that there are no screws or nails involved, so I'd just like to mention
another somewhat surprising case which the Shmirat Shabbat considers to be
a problem of binyan: An electric light bulb may be removed from its socket
on Shabbos provided that three conditions are met: (1) that the electricity
to the bulb is currently off, obviously; (2) that he does it with a shinui,
because the bulb is muktzeh; and (3) that the bulb is one which is removed
from and replaced in its socket from time to time, because if the bulb
normally stays there for long periods of time, then removing it or
replacing it would be a problem of binyan and stirah. This is found in the
5739 edition at 13:29, but in the 5770 edition (13:34) he simply says not
to remove the bulb, "because in general it does remain in the lamp for a
long time" and is therefore a problem of binyan and stirah.)

Akiva Miller


____________________________________________________________
Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it.
http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2

On 23/07/2012 11:00 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> The MB (s"q 42) says this is another reason why we make the berakhah
> before drying.

Don't we make the bracha before rubbing the hands together (shifshuf)?
Maybe that's what the Rama means by "niguv".

-- 
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 Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 12:22:58AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
> On 23/07/2012 11:00 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
>> The MB (s"q 42) says this is another reason why we make the berakhah
>> before drying.

> Don't we make the bracha before rubbing the hands together (shifshuf)?
> Maybe that's what the Rama means by "niguv".

Actually, everyone I know who follows the MB makes the berakhah before
toweling off. The MB (s"q 45) explains that eating the bread without
niguv is like eating tamei bread because your hands are still wet with
tamei water. And (s"q 46) niguv isn't necessary after tevilas yadayim
because the water on them isn't tamei.

-Micha

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 From: cantorwolb...@cox.net:
> ... What often lacks in topics such as these is common sense. Why is it
> that nobody raises the question of bittul Torah regarding other mitzvot,
> such as hachnosess orchim, bikur cholim and hachnosess kallah?

Bittul Torah and Hachnasat Kallah conflicting with Levayat HaMet are
the two cases dealt with in Talmud Bavli Ketuvot 17a.

The 'Dilma' needed to be pondered is: Do the Halakhic conflicts that
appear in the Talmud gain more of our attention because they're in the
Talmud, or perhaps the conflicts dealt with in the Talmud are truly
more actual over Halakhic history? Or perhaps these are the cases which
most enable Poskim to deduce subsequent conflicts. I would surmise all
are true.
 
Dr. Ezra Chwat
The Department of Manuscripts/ National Library of Israel
E.J. Safra Campus, Givat Ram POB 39105,
blog: Giluy Milta B'Alma: http://imhm.blogspot.com
 




  

Thanks. That was refreshing. BTW, Rav Moshe allowed laundered shirts to be
worn during the nine days. He held that ONLY starched shirts were forbidden
for first time use, see R, Yosef grossman's "Mourning during the Nine Days"
where he cites this as an oral psak. I spoke with Rav Aron Felder, currently
of Philadelphia and a talmid muvhawk of Rav Moshe who verified this psak. In
his words, it was the "snap" of a starched shirt that Rav Moshe said was the
issur. When I asked about No-Iron shirts, he reiterated "starched shirts
because of their snap, that's all."

 

From: Prof. Levine [mailto:llev...@stevens.edu] 
Sent: Sunday, July 22, 2012 8:23 AM
To: avo...@aishdas.org
Subject: Showering During the Nine Days

 

Here is a link to this article: " Showering During the 9 Days?!
<http://ohr.edu/holidays/tisha_bav/law_and_ritual/5228> "  (
http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/4851
<http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/4851> ) by Rabbi Yehuda
Spitz.

For any questions, comments or for the full Mareh Mekomos / sources, please
email me at ysp...@ohr.edu.


YL

 

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any pshatim on the  discussions of  who called  the land  by what name,
other than to say  RBSO can give the land to whomever He wants  whenever He
wants?
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