Avodah Mailing List

Volume 31: Number 45

Fri, 15 Mar 2013

• 1. Who Brings the Chatos? Who may argue with BD? (Meir Rabi)
• 2. Re: ADHD and Havinenu (David Wacholder)
• 3. HKB"H doesn't give anyone a test they can't pass (Prof. Aryeh A. Frimer)
• 4. Re: kitniyot (Yonatan Kaganoff)
• 5. Re: Lecithin in Chocolate KLP (Kenneth Miller)
• 6. Re: Lecithin in Chocolate KLP (Zev Sero)
• 7. Re: Lecithin in Chocolate KLP (Micha Berger)
• 8. Re: Lecithin in Chocolate KLP (Zev Sero)
• 9. re Lecithin (martin brody)
• 10. Re: Gebrochts SheRuYa, Origins and the ShTeshuvah (Zev Sero)
• 11. Re: HKB"H doesn't give anyone a test they can't pass (Liron Kopinsky)
• 12. Re: carrying an ID card on shabbat (Chana Luntz)
• 13. Women Without Names (Jay F Shachter)

R Zvi references ther Maharatz Chayos, who suggests that a Dayan may have
been absent from the BD deliberations. He accordingly explains "Rav tanna
hu u-Pallig." Rav reserved the right to continue disagreeing with the
majority of Rebbi Yehuda HaNassi's Beis Din when he was absent and felt his
arguments would have been persuasive.

The KesefM explains that the notion of AmoRaIm not arguig against TaNaIm is
just a convention, a non binding convention. He is compelled to say this
because of the Halacha that a Dayan and a BD must not bow to their
predecessors who were without doubt greater than they, if this BD's
analysis of the Halacha leads them to a different conclusion. That being
the case the KMishneh explains that AmoRaIm can certainly disagree with
TaNaIm and the RULE is not a RULE but a non-binding convention. Its not a
Chiddush that Rav may argue, the Chiddush is that the others did NOT.

The problem with this is that this is not an option it is a DUTY. THEY MUST
NOT AGREE just because of who they are disagreeing with. So how can such a
convention be introduced?

Perhaps the KM means that they did not explore the Sugya but just accepted
the ruling of the TaNaIm. Had they exlored the Halacha and concluded with a
decided conclusion, they would not be entitled to bow to senior authority.

Anyway, the Mharatz Chayos offers an explanation that is a little difficult
to accept. After all, if R Yehuda HaNasi is confident that his arguments
are persuasive, let them be taken to BD for debate.


Best,

Meir G. Rabi
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20130314/3bd877ee/attachment-0001.htm>

I can certainly plead guilty to praying in ;many strange places with little
detectable  Kavana. I wonder if the abbreviated shortened siddur - as it is
I skipped chunks - would have solved the problem.

[Old joke] Why did our fathers put the Tephillin Shel Rosh onto their head,
despite lacking mirrors,to find the central axis of the top of their head,
whereas even Bar Mitzva boys today are given mirrors to find it?
Answer: People's heads  became smaller. As a result, they can no longer
locate the center of their heads without a GPS device.

Our prayers were written with great inspiration, and have not  lost the
potential for profound uplift. Harnessing that power is very tricky.   I am
confident that every school principal has wrestled with this question.

There is an illusion that because the Shulchan Aruch devotes only say 1% of
its space to the meaning of prayer,  therefore what little information is
mentioned, must be the entire amount Recommended Daily Allowance of depth
of understanding the text.

SIDDUR OTZAR HATEFILLOT is a good place to start. It needs some reworking
to catch up to our standards as it is almost a century old.  There were no
I-Phones in Ozharov, my father's "heimishe" Shtedtl, but there were
functioning wells.

Replying directly, Rav Abbadi printed in his Tshuvot - name not coming to
me - a shortened Birkat Hamazon - so those who make Mezonot for lack of
time can say just the very minimum.  As far as I have heard there was
little enthusiasm for it. Perhaps we fear the "slippery slope" and any
buffet or change of routine may lead to abandonment of all.

Taking the Frankel Rambam, or even Rav Saadya Gaon's siddur, and praying
from it, is that even more radical? Our Al Hamichya is competitive in
length with their entire Birkat Hamazon.

;What about a Teimani Baladi Tichlal? Or long Kiddush at Leil Haseder with
Prisumei Nissa at length in the Bracha - which elicited a vehement
name-calling from a Gaon 1200 years ago? I have a Hagada which contains it.


Praying from the wrong Siddur worked for me, at times, short term. Perhaps
it even had some effect long term.

The classic print of Machazor Vitri (Halacha and Nusach, centered around
Rashi's students. Hebrewbooks.org makes it  freely available. Pages 148-154
- at the havdala end of the Shabbos prayers - makes almost a dissection of
every word of the Nishmas Kol Chai prayer. I am convinced that the main
narrator, unnamed except "Rebbe" - is Rashi himself.  The "scribe" is the
Rabeinu Eliezer Ben Nathan, the RAAVAN.
I took a combined amalgamated text of Nishmas, and added the pieces I
copied form the Machzor Vitri.
Seeing Rashi 1100 years ago criticize mindless reading of the words of the
Siddur  is just amazing.

Nishmas with color coding is a far more inspiring prayer.

Integration of  Tana"ch with Tefilah, and allowing the students to interact
with it, may be a tremendous potential uplift in our educational systems.


-- 

David Wacholder

Email: dwachol...@gmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20130314/467195c9/attachment-0001.htm>

        This idea has always troubled me since the facts are otherwise: 
the insane asylums are full of people who couldn't cope with their nisayyon; 
unfortunately, the same is true for many suicides.
--------------------------------
Dr. Aryeh A. Frimer
Chemistry Dept., Bar-Ilan University
Ramat Gan 52900, ISRAEL
E-mail (office): Aryeh.Fri...@biu.ac.il

FYI David Hartman also said that his grandparents did not eat tomatoes on
Pesach. He said that was because their ancestors never had tomatoes on
Pesach or year round.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20130314/788e273b/attachment-0001.htm>

R' Meir Rabi asked:

> Can anyone explain why chocolate with lecithin is a problem
> during Pesach?
> Even if lecithin is Kitniyos, it is not a majority of the
> chocolate, it is not visible to the naked eye and it is not
> added for the express purpose of making a KLP product?

I do not understand what you mean by "for the express purpose of making a
KLP product". Is the sugar or the cocoa added "for the express purpose of
making a KLP product"?

It seems to me that that sugar is added for the express purpose of making a
sweet product, and the cocoa is added for the express purpose of making a
chocolate-flavored product. My understanding is that lecithin is an
emulsifier, and is added for the express purpose of keeping the cocoa and
the cocoa butter mixed well, which results in a smoother tasting (or
smoother feeling?) product. If one would concede that lecithin is kitniyos,
then wouldn't this purpose be enough to say that it was added lechatchila
and that it should not be batel?

Akiva Miller
____________________________________________________________
Woman is 53 But Looks 25
Mom reveals 1 simple wrinkle trick that has angered doctors...
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5141d41c1f102541b7db4st01vuc

On 13/03/2013 8:35 PM, Meir Rabi wrote:
> Can anyone explain why chocolate with lecithin is a problem during Pesach?
>
> Even if lecithin is Kitniyos, it is not a majority of the chocolate, it is
> not visible to the naked eye and it is not added for the express purpose
> of making a KLP product?
>
> Same goes for drinks that use corn syrup or other Kitniyos derived products,
> as sweeteners.

The problem is that it was added deliberately.  There are of course those
(e.g. R Yitzchok Elchonon) who permit bitul issur lechatchila with kitniyos,
but the Maharil forbids wine into which mustard was added before Pesach.
See Chok Yaakov 464:3.


-- 
Zev Sero               A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and
z...@sero.name          substantial reason' why he should be permitted to
                        exercise his rights. The right's existence is all
                        the reason he needs.
                            - Judge Benson E. Legg, Woollard v. Sheridan

On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 01:42:51PM +0000, Kenneth Miller wrote:
: R' Meir Rabi asked:
: > Even if lecithin is Kitniyos, it is not a majority of the
: > chocolate, it is not visible to the naked eye and it is not
: > added for the express purpose of making a KLP product?
: 
: I do not understand what you mean by "for the express purpose of making
: a KLP product". Is the sugar or the cocoa added "for the express purpose
: of making a KLP product"?

And at 10:48:56AM EDT Zev wrote:
> The problem is that it was added deliberately....

If non-Jews make a product for reasons other than the Jewish market,
it's not attempting bitul "issur" lekhat-chilah. It's not considered
deliberate.

I took this to be RMR's intent... Since it's not being added for the
sake of the KLP market, and it's a mi'ut, it should be bateil.

Elite and other Israeli brands, though, aren't necessarily subject to
this line of reasoning.

I do not know what the din would be if a non-Jew was making the product
for Jews, but not for Pesach.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik,
mi...@aishdas.org        but to become a tzaddik.
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On 14/03/2013 12:26 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> And at 10:48:56AM EDT Zev wrote:
>> The problem is that it was added deliberately....
>
> If non-Jews make a product for reasons other than the Jewish market,
> it's not attempting bitul "issur" lekhat-chilah. It's not considered
> deliberate. [...] I do not know what the din would be if a non-Jew was
> making the product for Jews, but not for Pesach.

This is a well-known machlokes between the Rashba and the Noda Biyhuda
(or rather, the Rambam as understood by the NB, since as an Achron he
couldn't argue against the Rashba without finding a rishon to agree with).



-- 
Zev Sero               A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and
z...@sero.name          substantial reason' why he should be permitted to
                        exercise his rights. The right's existence is all
                        the reason he needs.
                            - Judge Benson E. Legg, Woollard v. Sheridan

"Can anyone explain why chocolate with lecithin is a problem during Pesach?

Even if lecithin is Kitniyos, it is not a majority of the chocolate, it is
not visible to the naked eye and it is not added for the express purpose of
making a KLP product?

Same goes for drinks that use corn syrup or other Kitniyos derived
products, as sweeteners."

I presume it's there as a stabilizer and it wouldn't be a chocolate bar
without it. But I'm not sure that as kitnyot is batel b'rov if it applies
to an "essential" ingredient.
I suppose the same argument for corn syrup (to those that won't use corn
syrup, which is odd anyway) in sodas.
What I really don't understand is those that won't have corn syrup, when
there is sugar as well. Jam's/preserves are a good example of that.
Why use common sense when you can unnecessarily strict?

-- 
Martin Brody
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20130314/58e05599/attachment-0001.htm>

On 13/03/2013 8:23 PM, Meir Rabi wrote:
> The ShaArey Teshuvah 460 makes some surprising comments about the origins
> of Gebrochts.  
> Firstly, the risk is restricted to those batches of dough to which flour
> has been added after kneading has already started.

You are misquoting him.  He says that is the opinion of those who are
lenient and *do* eat gebrochts.  He doesn't adopt this opinion, he just
explains why it is that they are lenient.  His own position seems to be
neutral.

> Secondly, he outlines the origin of this stringency:

The practise of avoiding gebrochts today, and for the past two centuries
or so, is more or less one of chassidim, and is based on the instructions
of the Mezritcher Maggid, and on the teshuvah of the Alter Rebbe (#6, in
the ShuT that are printed at the back of vol 6 of his SA).  Therefore in
order to discuss it intelligently one has to first learn that teshuvah.
If you're just working off the Shaarei Teshuvah then you haven't got all
the pieces.  Another source that you have to read in order to have the
full picture is Machtzis Hashekel 458:1.

In particular, the AR distinguishes between the old days, when they would
take their time kneading the dough thoroughly, and therefore the only
concern discussed by the poskim was about flour pockets inside the dough.
But nowadays, he writes, a new and wonderful hiddur has taken hold, of
making the matzos very quickly; but the down side of this is that there
is no longer time to knead the dough as well as it used to be, and so we
see that there is flour on the surface of the matzos, and we can't deny
what our eyes see.  Now according to Rashi and the Rambam this flour is
not a problem, because it's been baked and therefore will no longer cause
chimutz, and the halacha is like them, but according to the SMK, Rabbenu
Yerucham, and the Pri Chadash it can still become chametz, so one should
be machmir.

(I assume the new hiddur he discusses refers to our current practise of
processing each batch within 18-minutes.  However from the way he writes
this it seems that flour on the surface was common and easily seen, which
doesn't seem to be the case today.  So it could be that further improvements
since his day have made the teshuvah moot.)

He also distinguishes between crumbling matzoh into the soup, which he
says is (now that there is flour on the surface) a real cheshash de'oraisa,
because there's no mixture -- the flour just sits there and becomes chametz
-- and kneidlach made from ground matzoh, in which any speck of flour is
dispersed and therefore it depends on the machlokes about a mixture of
solid and liquid, so it's OK to be lenient, especially since according Rashi and the.

-- 
Zev Sero               A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and
z...@sero.name          substantial reason' why he should be permitted to
                        exercise his rights. The right's existence is all
                        the reason he needs.
                            - Judge Benson E. Legg, Woollard v. Sheridan

On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 2:44 PM, Prof. Aryeh A. Frimer <fri...@biu.ac.il>wrote:

>        This idea has always troubled me since the facts are otherwise: the
> insane asylums are full of people who couldn't cope with their nisayyon;
> unfortunately, the same is true for many suicides.
>

I don't really have any answer here, but I want to at least pose, the
question. How many of those people didn't vs. couldn't cope with their
nisayyon. Just because there are people who have failed to pass their tests
doesn't mean that they were entirely unable to. Maybe a different decision
or 2 along the way would have made all the difference. But I still think
it's still hard to say that that is true for everyone Prof. Frimmer
referred to.

Kol Tuv,
-- 
Liron Kopinsky
liron.kopin...@gmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20130314/ac2d8b5c/attachment-0001.htm>

I wrote:

>> I am not going to deal with the issue in detail regarding a shvus 
>> d'shvus letzorech mitzvah - because I note that there is a teshuva 
>> directly on point from the Kol Mevasser chelek 1 siman 79.

>Who is the author of this sefer?

>Rabbi Meshulam Rath (1875-1963).


>> He doesn't mention war or any emergency, rather the question is about
carrying some sort of identity 
>> card (teudat hamishtara) in one's hat purely due to a "gezera hamalchus".

>When and where did he live, and what were the circumstances at the time?
What were the consequences at the time for defying a "gezeras hamalchus"?

Born in 1875 in Poland, was a Rav in Romania for a while. Immigrated to
Israel in 1949. Died in Bnei Brak in 1963.  Possibly a bit too Zionist for
your taste - but the halachic point that a shvus d'shvus b'mkom mitzvah
would seem to be pretty standard, plus the additional shvus if it can be
deemed to be a Carmalis.


Earlier I wrote:

>> If you are a slightly anti-semitic police officer (or even just a
stickler for law 
>> enforcement), you have just been handed a piece of knowledge that 
>> could enable you to  have lot of fun harassing Orthodox Jews - all 
>> perfectly legally.  [...] After all, if I was a purely mercenary 
>> minded member of the local authority, I might rather appreciate having 
>> found a way of generating yet more money for my budget by way of an 
>> "Orthodox Jew Tax" - and quite happy to authorise my police officers to
go on a collection mission every shabbas.

And RZS replied:

>This is precisely why I think it's important for the Dutch community to
resist this, and *not* to find any heterim to comply.  A deliberate campaign
to
 >harass and mulct shomrei shabbos comes pretty close to "she'as hashmad".
An individual may be able to find a heter for himself, but in doing so he
only >makes it worse >for the community.


Tricky - because while individuals (including police officers) may well be
motivated by anti-semitism, the overall law is not, and in theory at least,
any group who decided to disobey the law would be subject to the same
harassment.  Indeed, I believe the real purpose of the law is to catch
illegal immigrants, many of whom are Muslim, and it is those communities
which have traditionally been harassed.  If the Orthodox Jewish community
fights this, and indeed does get the authorities to back down, which again
will need to happen publically, the same "heter" will then be available to
the Muslim communities.  And given the unfortunate reality that some
elements in the Muslim communities in Europe do pose a real pikuach nefesh
threat to the Jewish community, I am not sure that the Jewish community
would not prefer, overall, to find a halachic solution involving k'l'acher
yad and a shvus to shvus than to fight in order to have Al Qaeda operatives
able to more easily move around the country.


Zev Sero               A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and

Regards

Chana

[RYS writes me that he is trying to launch a serious discussion of a
sociological question. This makes this post a test case for where the
line between Avodah and Areivim ought to be. On the one hand "serious
discussion" indicates Avodah; OTOH, it's not actual Torah discussion. I
am therefore complying with his request to post it here, and will keep
an eye our while moderating.

-micha]



Recently, on our sister mailing list Areivim, a would-be wit posted an
article stating that, in the spirit of the recent trend among frum Jews
to omit the names of married women on wedding invitations, the Scroll
of Esther would from now on be referred to as the "Scroll of Mordechai's
niece" (I am not making this up; that is what he wrote), or the "Scroll
of Mordechai's wife".

His intent was to point out, with as much wit as he could summon for the
occasion, that the subpopulation among us whom we call the "frum" (and
spare us the rejoinders that that isn't really what the word means; the
choice of name doesn't matter) is crazy, and that they are getting more
crazy all the time, and that if present trends continue, soon they won't
even be able to bear calling the scroll of Esther the scroll of Esther.

I do not think his point is well made, for two reasons.

First of all, I agree that Jews are crazy, but I am not sure -- and, in
fact, am inclined to disagree -- that Jews this year are more crazy-frum
than they were last year, or a generation ago. They are crazy in different
ways. When things change, often you notice some changes, and do not notice
others, and then you think you discern a pattern, when in fact you are
looking at random data, and there is no pattern. Unquestionably there
are some frum things that Jews are doing today that they never used to
do before, xadashim miqqarov ba'u, lo s`arum avotham. But the reverse
is also true. Since the would-be wit who started this discussion has
posted numerous other articles not only defending, but also extolling,
the authentic customs of the German Jews, let us point out that there
are certain frum things that German Jews used to do, like washing their
hands before every course in a meal, that even have a basis in halakha,
that no one does any more, but you don't notice that nobody is doing
them any more. Come to think of it, maybe there is systematic error in
the trends that people misperceive in random data, in that people are
more likely to notice a presence (e.g., when people do something they
never used to do) than an absence (e.g., when people don't do something
they used to do). It takes a rare mind to observe the curious incident
of the dog in the nighttime.
And if you go back several hundred years before that, you will find
among the German Jews really bizarre practices of self-mortification,
asceticism, affliction of the flesh, that were recommended by several
of their rabbis as a necessary component of the teshuvah process,
and which have disappeared totally from Judaism. Disappeared totally,
and good riddance, because, you know, my horse also sleeps only two
hours in every twenty-four, standing up, and eats nothing but oats,
and rolls around naked in the snow, and still, er bleibt a ferd.

Some things sound better in Yiddish.

Second of all, even if, arguendo, frum Jews are crazier this year than
they were last year, I do not think that the example chosen to illustrate
this phenomenon -- i.e., the practice of rendering married women nameless
-- is a good example. We all agree that the crazy-frum are the ones
among us who are the most vigilant about not being influenced by the
goyim, whereas epikursim like us are the least vigilant about not being
influenced by the goyim. (Anyone who knows the correct pronunciation
of "epikuros" is ipso facto an epikuros, since one of the defining
criteria of not being an epikuros is that you do not know the correct
pronunciation of epikuros. Question: does that mean that if you know
the correct pronunciation of epitropos, you are one? Tzarikh `iyyun.)
Not only are we the least vigilant about not being influenced by the
goyim, but also, there are some goyishe influences that we actively
embrace; there are things in our lives -- like, e.g., indoor plumbing --
that we have learned to value, not from our holy ancestors in the old
country, but from the goyim who surround us (true fact: Maimonides had to
write a responsum -- I've read it -- defending his recommendation of how
often a Jew should bathe, in response to Ashkenazi criticism that he had
assimilated the pro-bathing values of the Arab goyim among whom he lived).

It is for this reason that, if Jews have started to disappear the names
of married women, it is not something that can, with any intellectual
honesty, be attributed to a growing hegemony of the crazy-frum, because
disappearing the names of married women is what the goyim do.

For over a decade, I have been an editor of the Likutei Pshatim, which is
produced weekly by the yeshiva in Skokie, Illinois. It is an unpaid job,
and (except once a year on Rosh HaShana) an uncredited one, but that is
okay, honest poverty and a conscience torpid through virtuous inaction are
more to me than corner lots and praise. Before my arrival, the articles
in the weekly Likutei Pshatim appeared to be written by people who studied
the Torah with no commentary other than Rashi, and were also ignorant of
vast areas of general scientific knowledge. Over the years, disciplined
by the tradition of my blood to accept what is conceded, without undue
haste to press for more, through the stored force of a patience that
might subdue the strongest will, I have made steady progress. Today,
the weekly articles no longer revile scientists for believing that
carbon dating proves that the world is 4 billion years old, since no
scientist believes that carbon dating proves that anything is more than
50,000 years old, and they no longer assert that every man executed by
stoning is subsequently hanged in public, because that is a da`ath yaxid
and is not the halakha, despite what Rashi wrongly says in his comment to
Deuteronomy 21:22, and they no longer cite verses to Sefer Bamidbar, since
that is moronic, as we do not speak of Sefer Sheymos, or Sefer Mshalim,
or Parashas Axarey Mavves, and they no longer assert that Eliezer was the
unnamed servant of Avraham who went to get a wife for Yitzxaq (although --
hold your fire -- they do state that the Midrash identifies the two).

The Likutei Pshatim brings in money to the Skokie yeshiva by means of
paid advertisements in the back, and there, too, I am gratified to report
that steady progress has been made. Not counting mistakes that still
occasionally slip through, synagogs that advertise in the Likutei Pshatim
no longer state that there will be three meals after Minxa on Saturday
afternoon, since that is idiotic, and they no longer announce events
that will coincide with the sun's hawk, since that is equally idiotic.
They no longer announce events for "Shabbos" HaGadol, because that is
ignorant, and bar-mitzva boys and newly-married couples are no longer
wished "mazel" tov.

But one thing that I have been utterly unable to do, one change that
I have been utterly unable to effect, is to get the editor-in-chief
of the Likutei Pshatim to realize that the title "Mrs" is never
properly followed by a woman's first name, but that, rather, it can
only be properly followed by the name of her current or former husband.
Over and over again, I say it in vain (that one sounds better in French:
j'ai beau dire). It makes no difference. Lately I have stopped saying
it, I have stopped trying, because it is like banging your head against
a brick wall.

(Parenthetically, has anyone other than myself noticed that the commonest
arguments in the popular literature in favor of the laws of nidda can
also be applied with equal logic in favor of banging your head against
a brick wall? When you bang your head against a brick wall, it feels
really good when you stop. You will always remember, and think fondly
of, that special moment, when you stopped banging your head against the
brick wall. The relevant question, of course, is whether the hedonic
value of ceasing to bang your head against a brick wall exceeds the
anhedonic value of banging your head against a brick wall, but that
question is never answered, or even raised. This is not apropos of
anything we have been discussing, it's just something that came to me,
as I was writing. We now return to the previous topic.)

Here is a paid advertisement that appeared in last week's Likutei Pshatim:

    This Sunday evening, March 3rd! You may have been lucky enough
    to hear her at a convention and now you can hear her in Chicago!
    The Women's Division of Chicago Community Kollel invites you to a
    lecture entitled "Eishes Chayil: Fact or Fiction" by renowned speaker,
    Mrs. Chani Juravel, at 8:00 P.M., at the home of Mrs. Elana Davis,
    6250 North St. Louis. Hope to see you there!

When, the Wednesday before publication, I came across this advertisement,
I didn't even try to correct it. To try to convince these Orthodox Jews
that the use of "Mrs" with a woman's first name is ignorant and improper,
is utterly futile. It is like banging your head against a brick wall
(sorry for that parenthesized digression, a little earlier). It cannot
be done.

But if they were Gentiles, they would have known that. Goyim know that
you can be Emily Post, or you can be Mrs Edwin Post, but you can never,
never, be Mrs Emily Post. "Mrs" means "the mistress of" and you can be
the mistress of Edwin Post, but you cannot be the mistress of Emily Post,
not in Illinois anyway, at least not yet. It is a title conferred on
you by your husband, whom you acknowledge if you choose to use it.

So it is absolutely false to say that the disappearing of married women's
names is characteristic solely of the crazy frum. On the contrary: it is
more characteristic of the assimilated Jews, than of the nonassimilated
Jews. When I was in 7th grade, the one bat-mitzva invitation from the
girl who was going to celebrate her bat-mitzva in a Conservative synagog,
and read the Torah herself, was the one that purported to come from "Mr
and Mrs Mervin James Hartman". After all these years, I still remember
it, because, at the time, it stuck in my mind, because it looked so weird.
Among us Wynnefield Jews, children of Yiddish-speaking immigrants, who
knew about such things? Only the ones who went to college in the United
States, who spoke English without an accent, the ones who were the best
integrated and most absorbed into the larger society around us -- i.e.,
the ones who did things the way the goyim do.

Having said all the above, we must nevertheless also point out that
failing to give women names is not just an imitation of the goyim.
It is also imitatio Dei. In the Bible -- and especially in the Torah
-- there are many, many more men's names than women's names. But let's
first make a more fundamental observation, on the reason why people need
names at all. It is the same reason why memory locations or data types
need names in a computer program: because you want to refer to them in
more than one place. If you want to refer to them only in one place,
they can be anonymous.

Consider the following narrative:

    I have a neighbor, who lives 3 houses North of me. He has two sons
    and three daughters, and he owns a bakery. His name is Shlomo Pippik.
    I have another neighbor, who lives 2 houses South of me. He has four
    sons and five daughters, and he spends his days collecting jewels,
    chiefly rubies, hunting big game, and painting. His name is Humphrey
    Chimpden Earwicker. One day last week, Shlomo Pippik smeared his
    body with chives and jumped into the reservoir. He was heroically
    rescued by Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker.

If the above narrative had ended with the word "bakery", no names would
have been necessary. Pronouns would have been sufficient to establish
identity. It is only because of the intervening sentences that Shlomo
Pippik's name is necessary in the 2nd-to-last sentence. Moreover, if the
above narrative had ended with the 2nd-to-last sentence, after the word
"reservoir", then the name Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker would have been
unnecessary, and you would wonder why it is there.

There are many names in the Bible that are apparently unnecessary.
Why do we need to be told the names of Moshe's children? They never
amounted to anything. Well, you can say that we need to know the older
son's name to prepare us for the drash on Judges 18:30, involving that
weird nun that is raised above the baseline. But why do we need to know
the name of the younger son? He is mentioned once, and never mentioned
again. We can look for a reason -- indeed, presumably there is a reason,
because this is Torah, it is not an Areivim post, so we assume that it
was written with some thought. For example, in the case of Exodus 18:4,
you can say that God wanted to show us Moshe's state of mind when he
named him, (assuming that Moshe was the one who named him, which the
Torah implies but does not explicitly state, and there is an interesting
Midrash Leqax Tov on that). There are many names, however, not only
in the Torah but throughout the Bible, that appear to be unnecessary,
and for which our Sages do not even seek an explanation.

But only men's names are treated this way. Women's names are rare to
begin with, and whenever Scripture contains a woman's name that appears
to be unnecessary, there is always a midrash that attempts to give the
reason why -- e.g., Genesis 4:22 (she must have been Noax's wife), Genesis
11:29 (she must have been Sarai -- which is, by the way, preposterous,
if Avram was older than Haran). It is as if the default state of women
is to be nameless, and when a woman is named without a clear reason why,
the Sages must explain it. Men's names are not so treated, because
they're men, and men, you know, have names.


                Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter
                        j...@m5.chicago.il.us
                        http://m5.chicago.il.us

                "The umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house"



------------------------------


Avodah mailing list
Avo...@lists.aishdas.org
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah
http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org


End of Avodah Digest, Vol 31, Issue 45
**************************************

Send Avodah mailing list submissions to
	avodah@lists.aishdas.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
	http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
	avodah-request@lists.aishdas.org

You can reach the person managing the list at
	avodah-owner@lists.aishdas.org

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Avodah digest..."


A list of common acronyms is available at at
        http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/acronyms.cgi
(They are also visible in the web archive copy of each digest.)