Avodah Mailing List

Volume 30: Number 152

Tue, 06 Nov 2012

• 1. Re: Halloween (Lisa Liel)
• 2. Re: Geshem or Gashem (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: Eivah (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: Geshem or Gashem (Zev Sero)
• 5. Re: Eivah (Joseph Kaplan)
• 6. Re: pesticides vs bugs (T6...@aol.com)
• 7. Re: pesticides vs bugs (Micha Berger)
• 8. Re: Tinok Shenishbeh (Micha Berger)
• 9. Re: Eivah (Micha Berger)
• 10. Re: Eivah (Joseph Kaplan)
• 11. eivah (Eli Turkel)
• 12. BELIEF (Joseph Kaplan)

On 11/6/2012 9:37 AM, Micha Berger wrote:
> If it is derekh Emori, given that kim'at no one relates to the original
> AZ, then perhaps it's still assur to give to those kids you know are
> Jewish.
>    
I don't know if it's the same in other cities, but in Chicago, the 
custom of "Sukkah hops", where kids bring bags and collect candy, has 
become almost a trick-or-treat kind of thing.  It's gross, but true.  
And while I don't like it, it does seem that the candy-collecting part 
of Halloween might be separate from the Jack O'Lantern and other stuff.

Lisa

On Tue, Nov 06, 2012 at 08:58:00AM +0200, MOS...@MM.HUJI.AC.IL wrote:
: My question is: Why is this discussion limited to "GEshem/GAshem"?
: Shouldn't the same resonings apply to "TAl"? At least for Ashkenazim
: who differentiate between "kamatz" and "patach".

Many say it does. Eg the Gra.

One reason to distinguish between "geshem" and "tal" is that "tal" is not
part of the berakhah as originally written. (See Shaar haKolel at the end
of SA haRav.) We are ending a separate insertion.

Another reason to do so because tal not only means dew, but also the tal
shel techiyah. Therefore, "mechayei meisim atah rav lehoshiah [mashiv
haruach u]morid hatal" would be one phrase in a way that wouldn't be with
morid hageshem. Morid hageshem is more obviously part of the general list.

More prosaically, it could be that the rules of diqduq differ, requiring
less of a stop to convert hatal to hatul than to convert hageshem
to hagashem. Tal becomes tul with a zaqeif qatan (eg Shemor 16:14),
wheras a segol would require a full esnachta or sof-pasuq.

I still think the original issue wasn't pausal form vs non-pausal,
and thus whether there is a comma, semicolon or period after the words
"hageshem" or "hatal". But rather, originally we weren't davening in a
dialect of Hebrew that even had pausal forms. There are no manuscripts
before the 18th cent CE that had "hagashem", but the phrase still might
have had a pause after it.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Rescue me from the desire to win every
mi...@aishdas.org        argument and to always be right.
http://www.aishdas.org              - Rav Nassan of Breslav
Fax: (270) 514-1507                   Likutei Tefilos 94:964

On Tue, Nov 06, 2012 at 10:11:40AM -0600, Lisa Liel wrote:
> I noticed that when I was writing.  I left it that way deliberately.   
> Don't you think the Torah's moral sense conflicts with the Akeda?  If  
> not, I'm not sure what the Torah's moral sense is, or how it can be  
> defined in any objective way.  Halakha *is* the Torah.  Lo bashamayim 
> hee.

Obviously the Torah's moral sense conflicts with the Aqeida. Otherwise,
why would Avraham have been stopped?! But it's hard to buttress lo
bashamayim hi with an example of Avraham listening to nevu'ah. Perhaps we
should take the Aqeida out of a discussion of halakhah and Torah ethics,
because the commands to slaughter and then to not slaughter Yitzchaq
operated by overly different rules than does halakhah.

Lo bashamayim hi has nothing to do with law vs ethics. Both halakhah
and aggadita are here with us on earth.

"Halachah *is* the Torah" is to my mind a very damaging statement. It
means that we're to obey rules and have no meaning, no ideals, no passion,
in our avodas Hashem. Aggadita can't be minimized; without it we have no
ideals. And what happens to "Rachmanah liba ba'i"?

And, as I mentioned in my first post on this thread (and repeated since),
there are halakhos that presume we know values beyond the black letter law
and pursue them. How is this possible if we don't have such values miSinai?

"Qadeish es atzmekha bemah shemutar lakh" presumes that qedushah isn't
limited to obeying chiyuvim and avoiding issurim. How can one be a menuval
birshus haTorah without a value-based definition of a menuval? Or how
could one violate bal teshaqtzu without a similar definition of sheqetz?

"Ve'asisa hayashar vehatov" presumes we know the right way to treat
other people even beyond the laws of CM.

And thus the issue isn't how nomian the Torah expects us to be -- how
to balance law vs ethics. Because there are laws about not only obeying
black letter law. (Even the the porters break your barrel and lose all
your wine.) Rather, we might frame it by saying that eating the human
corpse is the bigger issur than eating pork. Even though one is hilkhos
dei'os and the other is an issur ma'asis of ma'akhalos asuros.

>> Actually, I think their error is more subtle than implied here.

> Saying, "We aren't going to turn away tinokot she'nishbe'u if they show  
> up in an assur way" isn't in any way saying, "It's okay if they do that  
> issur"...

Which is why I said there is still an error in halachic process, albeit
one more subtle than allowing those who are undermotivated to live near a
shul or go to shul on chol days to drive. There are cases where a poseiq
may validly conclude it is allowed.

You also understate the scope of some of these heterim. People are invited
for dinner after they turn down a whole-Shabbos invitation even though
you know they aren't going to walk the 3 mi.

>> It would seem the C movement's error was not in allowing driving to shul
>> on Shabbos and YT for those who otherwise would never go to shul, but
>> in making it sound like this was a lakht-chilah rather than permitting
>> one sin for the sake of many -- a halakhah ve'ein morin kein situation.

> But they didn't.  The way they put it was b'dieved as well...

Which is why I said "sound like".

By promulgating a public ruling rather than a quiet halakhah ve'ein morin
kein, the distinction you made was guaranteed to be lost on the masses.
Particularly their masses.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Weeds are flowers too
mi...@aishdas.org        once you get to know them.
http://www.aishdas.org          - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne)
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On 6 November 2012 01:58,  <MOS...@mm.huji.ac.il> wrote:
> Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2012 13:45:22 -0400
> From: "Prof. Levine" <llev...@stevens.edu>
>> See http://tinyurl.com/bt99r6q for a discussion of this issue.  YL
>
> Thanks.
>
> My question is: Why is this discussion limited to "GEshem/GAshem"?
> Shouldn't the same resonings apply to "TAl"? At least for Ashkenazim
> who differentiate between "kamatz" and "patach".


Shaar Hakolel addresses this, and says that "mashiv haruach" is part
of the original nusach, and since it comes in the middle of the list
of attributes it doesn't end a phrase.  "morid hatol" is a later
addition, stuck in for kabbala-related reasons, and thus is an
independent phrase and keeps its pausal form to show that it's not an
organic part of the list into which it has been inserted.

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

Rn' LL wrote (in part): 
> I think it should go without saying that if your moral sense conflicts with
> the Torah, you need to adjust your moral sense.  
...
> I'm honestly at a loss, here.  I don't get how anyone can argue that moral
> sense should override halakha.

It doesn't go without saying. I cannot imagine adjusting my moral sense
that it is immoral to kill babies intentionally if there is no immediate
harm from them (which almost by definition is the case). So what to do?
Again, I'm speaking about the extreme cases that started this discussion
(not driving on Shabbat or the like). And in these extreme cases I argue
that I would, and I believe many others would, follow their moral sense
and that doesn't bother me. What about halacha? Well, my consideration
is that halacha is very subtle and in many cases there are disagreements
among halachic authorities. So I would assume that I could find some
halachic authority who would permit my action while fully understanding
that if I'm wrong I will suffer the consequences when the ultimate judge
renders the final judgment. That's a risk I would take.

RMB's distinction between Torah and halacha plays some role in this.
Take Amalek. That certainly offends, or should offend, one's moral sense.
So if confronted by such a situation where it is absolutely clear that
God commanded this act, I can't make the assumption that I make in the
previous paragraph. But I believe that that is one reason why Amalek
and ihr hanidachat and ben sorer umoreh were, effectively, written out
of halacha in any practical way. I know that technical reasons are given
for this (e.g., Sancheriv mingled all the nations), but I believe that the
rabbis were searching for ways to make sure that halacha does not conflict
with the deepest moral senses that most civilized people have and they
were successful in doing so. Do I have any sources for this belief? Nope.

Joseph

 

From: saul newman  <newman...@gmail.com>

http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4300133,00.html

a  psak that kosher  veggies  are not, as  pesticide ingestion is  also 
assur

 
>>>>
 
Pesticide ingestion is not assur, unless you are eating the poison straight 
 out of the package with the intention of committing suicide.  The 
extremely  tiny amounts of trace poisons in our food and water supply are not enough 
to  cause harm to human beings.  And if you think we would be safer without 
 them, try living for a while in a country where malaria, typhoid and 
cholera are  endemic and then come back and say "it's assur to eat fruits and 
vegetables in a  civilized country."
 
BTW toxicology research has proven that exposure to trace amounts of  
certain poisons can paradoxically make a person stronger and healthier in  
certain cases.  For example, the extremely tiny amounts of arsenic that  naturally 
occur in some bodies of water statistically provide some  protection 
against cancer.  See this article about "hormesis" in Discover  Magazine (a 
secular science magazine):
 
 
_http://discovermagazine.com/2002/dec/featradiation_ 
(http://discovermagazine.com/2002/dec/featradiation) 
 
"Hormesis is a term used by toxicologists to refer to a biphasic dose  
response to an environmental agent characterized by a low dose stimulation or  
beneficial effect and a high dose inhibitory or toxic effect." --i.e., the 
same  agent that can poison living creatures in high doses, can at much lower 
doses  actually have a salutary effect.
 
Not that it's necessarily davka a mitzva to consume poison, but I would say 
 that we Jews should have bitachon -- that as long as you are eating 
reasonable  quantities of nutritious food, you will not come to harm.
 

--Toby  Katz
=============

In 2008, President Obama proclaimed  that his election was "the moment when 
the rise of the oceans began to slow and  our planet began to heal." With 
the storm surges caused by Hurricane Sandy, yet  another campaign promise has 
been broken. -- Ron Hart

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On Tue, Nov 06, 2012 at 12:29:23PM -0500, T6...@aol.com wrote:
: Pesticide ingestion is not assur, unless you are eating the poison straight 
: out of the package with the intention of committing suicide.  The 
: extremely  tiny amounts of trace poisons in our food and water supply are not enough 
: to  cause harm to human beings...

This is far from clear, I can cite studies either way, but also off
topic for this list.

R' Amar didn't really focus on this issue. It gets short shrift in
a teshuvah that runs 10s of pages. What he really focused on was the
argument that if ancestors ate fruit and egetables that didn't have
insecticides and were cleaned up after picking, we can't insist today that
a higher standard is mandatory. Leafy vegetables can not only be cleaned
of all kashrus-relevent bugs, they can be so cleaned without a lightbox.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             If you're going through hell
mi...@aishdas.org        keep going.
http://www.aishdas.org                   - Winston Churchill
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 01:32:47AM +0100, Chana Luntz wrote in reply
to Zev:
:> But we both missed another point (or at least I missed it, and I *think*
:> you did too). A korban chatas is only brought for chilul shabbos (or AZ)
:> *beshogeg*. The premise of the gemara is that a TSN is shogeg, and the
:> question is only how many shgagos he committed, and the answer is one.

: No I didn't miss it - that is precisely the point, clearly the gemora
: considers him a shogeg.

The machloqes in the gemara discusses whether he is a shogeig (Munvaz,
Rav uShemuel) or even less than a shogeig (R' Aqiva, R' Yochanan and RL)
and not requiring a qorban. I don't know where you see that the gemara's
masqanah is like the former, but the Rambam does too (Shegagos 2:6).

...
:> No, if *that's* what he thinks, that it's just a minhag that very
:> religious people keep, rather than Jewish law that all Jews are meant to
:> keep, then he's still a TSN lechol hade'os. The question arises when
:> he knows that Jewish law requires it of all Jews, but he thinks Jewish
:> law is itself a myth, something that isn't binding or relevant to him.

: That is probably a better formulation than I provided for the reasons you
: provide.

On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 02:03:08AM +0100, Chana Luntz replied to my post:
:> Wouldn't the person who knows that there is a tradition not to write two
:> letters on Shabbos, but thinks that the whole concept isn't real be an
:> omer mutar, an oneis, not even on the shogeig spectrum?

: But, as I said in my previous post to RZS, if you take this too far, it
: becomes virtually impossible to have genuine minus...

A mumar would be someone who had an opportunity to chose the other
way. Bottom line is that we're still talking about a TSN, someone who was
prejudiced against belief before mature, and his nequdas habechirah (or
some non-Desslerian equivalent, if you prefer) never reached reconsidering
his attitude toward halakhah.

:          ... If Paul had a vision which said that it was now mutar to eat
: treif, and he went around preaching it, according to you then based on
: Makkos 9a as an omer mutar he is acting b'oneis - and is therefore a shogeg
: or maybe not even on the shogeg spectrum....

Paul had a reasonable choice between the teachings of R' Gamliel (assuming
we believe that part of his story) and the dream. He can be held accountable
for making the wrong choice.


Returning to RnCL's reply to Zev:
: As a matter of pure fact, that is not true. My knowledge of the Xtian
: Testament is rather rusty, but I think it is Acts in which Paul (I think, or
: was it Peter?) is supposedly shown a vision which stated that Jewish law is
: now abrogated. That Jews no longer have to keep Jewish law was very much
: part of the Xtian message from Paul onwards. Of course this was bone fide
: minus.

Paul. Galatians 3. I know this because 3:38 reads
    Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision
    of the law... There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor freeman,
    male nor female...

I suggested that the 3 "shelo asani" blessings were actually composed in
rebuttal to Paul's attempt to do away with the law. Someone else on scjm
pointed out that R' Meir was a contemporary R' Gamliel, who allegedly
was Paul's rebbe. (Before he went OTD, of course.) So any rebuttal is
more likley to have gone the other way. (R Dr David Berger thought
it was a cute idea, but too big of a leap to take without more proof.)
In either case, we see that the fact that halachah divides mankind into
these categories was on people's minds at the time. Thus justifying the
number of mitzvos explanation for people who r"l trust external sources
more than mesoretic ones.

Getting back to the point... Second generation Jewish-Xians of Paul's
church would be TSN of the same sense as the Qaraim, C or R, and an
instance contemporary to chazal. (Repeating RnCL's point just to return
the conversation from my tangent.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             If you won't be better tomorrow
mi...@aishdas.org        than you were today,
http://www.aishdas.org   then what need do you have for tomorrow?
Fax: (270) 514-1507              - Rebbe Nachman of Breslov

On Tue, Nov 06, 2012 at 12:10:16PM -0500, Joseph Kaplan wrote:
: RMB's distinction between Torah and halacha plays some role in this.
: Take Amalek. That certainly offends, or should offend, one's moral sense.
: So if confronted by such a situation where it is absolutely clear that
: God commanded this act, I can't make the assumption that I make in the
: previous paragraph. But I believe that that is one reason why Amalek
: and ihr hanidachat and ben sorer umoreh were, effectively, written out
: of halacha in any practical way...

For different reasons, your examples bother me.

Yes, mechiyas Amaleiq was written out of halakhah. But can anyone argue
that Amaleiq themeselves didn't assumilate out of existence? Does someone
need to seek an ulterior motive for this mitzvah's unapplicability?

OTOH, WRT ir hanidachas and ben soreir umoreh, claiming they were written
out of halakhah (with any list of disclaimers) is not what Chazal claimed
they were doing. Instead, we believe these halakhos were never applicable,
and thus can never be in the halakhah vs moral sense conflict.

And yet, we're supposed to learn these topics as Torah. They, in their
limited definitions, are Torah values, guideposts for hilkhos dei'os,
more than mitzvos ma'asiyos. Closer to the other side of the halakhah
vs Torah morality conflict.

:                                                     but I believe that the
: rabbis were searching for ways to make sure that halacha does not conflict
: with the deepest moral senses that most civilized people have and they
: were successful in doing so. Do I have any sources for this belief? Nope.

There are plenty of sources for this belief, that Chazal changed
halakhah to fit the zeitgeist. But I don't know any that are accepted
as O, mesorah-true, or however you want to put it. To me the idea feels
heterodoxic.

To assert that we modify the Torah to catch up to morality would imply
that G-d gave us an inferior message. I would instead say that morality
itself is part of the message, and halakhah is pasqened in sync with
the pursuit of qedushah, tov and yashar ab initio.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Rescue me from the desire to win every
mi...@aishdas.org        argument and to always be right.
http://www.aishdas.org              - Rav Nassan of Breslav
Fax: (270) 514-1507                   Likutei Tefilos 94:964

RMB wrote:
"Obviously the Torah's moral sense conflicts with the Aqeida. Otherwise, why
would Avraham have been stopped?! But it's hard to buttress lo bashamayim hi
with an example of Avraham listening to nevu'ah. Perhaps we should take the
Aqeida out of a discussion of halakhah and Torah ethics, because the
commands to slaughter and then to not slaughter Yitzchaq operated by overly
different rules than does halakhah."

I think we should take out of the discussion anything that was a direct
command from God or one of God's prophets.  The conflict between those
commands and one's moral sense and between what the rabbis say and one's
moral sense is, IMO, different.

Joseph

<<As I recall it, a rav wanted to build a mikveh for the town, but the only
available location had previously been a shul, and although the shul was no
longer in use, the halacha is that one may not take down a shul to build a
mikvah. He consulted a well-known posek, who told him to do it anyway:
"Yes, this aveirah will go on your account, but the zechus that you'll be
giving to the community will make it worth it."

I don't remember who the posek in the story was, but I do remember that it
was a universally-respected one. And I turned the page shaking my head,
wondering where he got the "broad shoulders" with which to second-guess the
Ribono Shel Olam in this manner. I fear to imagine what might have happened
if Avraham Avinu had applied such "common sense" at the Akeidah.>>

There is a concept of doing a small aveirah to save someone from a bigger
aveirah. (there seem to be contradictions in shas and it is discussed when
it applies)

A question I hinted at is what to do when there is a disagreement among
poskim.
2 examples:
Your close relative (or yourself) needs a heart transplant to live. RYSE
among others forbid it while others allow it. Assume you usually accept
RYSE . How many peoplewould be machmir at the expense of the life of their
child etc.

Second case is similar but with using IVF for a child. Again RYSE (daas
yachid) forbids it while most poskim allow it. Living in a charedi
neighborhood where others have many children and you are childless is
terrible. Again how many kollelnikim would really refuse to use IVF.

It is well known that some families who have a child who has a
"problem" abandon the infant because of
the problems such a child causes for the shidduch of the older children.
All rabbonim condemn such actions but it still happens. Saving your
children's marriage prospects trumps.

-- 
Eli Turkel
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"> I have a question which has always troubled me.

> One of the quintessential mitzvot is belief in G-d.

> How can you legislate belief if you don't believe?

 

I've seen several answers to this. My personal favorite it that this mitzvah
is not really any different than any other positive mitzvah in this regard.
You can't simply decide to do a mitzva, and then expect it to happen by
magic; there is almost always some sort of preparation required.

 

You can't do the mitzvah of matzah on Pesach unless you purchase some, or
bake it yourself. You can't sit alone at home and do tzedaka; you have to
find someone who you can help. If there's no shofar in town, you need to
resolve that somehow.

 

And if one doesn't believe, he needs to work on that. Exactly how one does
that will vary with the individual and the situation. Again, that's no
different than the mitzvos I listed above: One person will spend Rosh
Hashana in another town where he can go to shul and hear the shofar, and
another will make his own shofar and learn to blow it properly himself. So
too, there are different ways of coming to belief: One will work through the
intellectual "proofs", and another will simply spend time among believers
and allow them to make an impression on him.

 

*    *             *             *             *

This answer doesn't work for me; belief is very different from the other
mitzvoth because there is something practical you can do to observe them.
As you point out, you can go to another house, make the shofar yourself etc.
But with belief, you can study all you want, listen to as many shiurim from
gedolim that you can and do anything else you would suggest and still not
"believe"; belief is something that we cannot control.  I would agree that
we have to take these steps to try to arrive at belief, but if we do so in
good faith and still do not believe, I would think it would be a case of
ones where rachmana partei.

 

Joseph

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