Volume 31: Number 109
Tue, 04 Jun 2013
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Message: 1
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2013 10:11:06 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] hotel doors on Yom Tov (And Shabbat!)
On Mon, Jun 03, 2013 at 10:52:03PM -0700, martin brody wrote:
: Because you didn't put it there. No different to motion detectors that turn
: on lights walking home from shul friday night.
... which I was told to avoid doing. Pesiq reishei denicha lei. Less
so for indicator lights, where it isn't nicha lei. (Which gets you into
whether "lo nicha lei" includes outcomes you don't care about, or only
those that are bad for you in ways other than it violating the issur.)
I was told that R' Ribiat writes in 39 Melachos to close your eyes,
so that the light going on is not nicha lei. Because this info is 2nd
hand, I don't know if he spoke bedi'eved after passing a house you didn't
know had automatic outdoor lighting, or for a tenant who knows in advance
they will be turning on the staircase lighting trying to get to shul.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to
mi...@aishdas.org suffering, but only to one's own suffering.
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Fax: (270) 514-1507
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Message: 2
From: martin brody <martinlbrody@_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2013 04:37:15 -0700
Subject: Re: [Avodah] hotel doors on Yom Tov (And Shabbat!)
On Tue, Jun 4, 2013 at 4:25 AM, Marty Bluke <marty.bl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I fail to see how that is relevant. Why should it matter who put the
> sensor there? How does that make it Gerama? The fact is that your movement
> is directly causing something to happen namely the light going on. Why
> would that not be considered a pesik reisha?
Of course it matters who put the sensor there.
You didn't and whether it's there or not is not your business.
Also isn't it a bit like a refrigerator door? Won't the air conditioning
turn on only if the temperature rises to a certain point?
--
Martin Brody
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Message: 3
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2013 10:41:01 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] hotel doors on Yom Tov (And Shabbat!)
On Tue, Jun 04, 2013 at 04:37:15AM -0700, martin brody wrote:
: Also isn't it a bit like a refrigerator door? Won't the air conditioning
: turn on only if the temperature rises to a certain point?
Opening the door and turning on the light, yes -- knowingly walking in
front of an automatic light is similar. Both are pesiq reishei and assur.
But the "only if" is what distinguishes the light from the refrigerator's
cooling unit. There is both a delay and a maybe-ness.
In Camp Munk (so I'm sharing a memory from when I was young enough to be a
CIT or a JC, caveat lector!), R' Dovid Cohen banned the refrigerated water
fountains on Shabbos because experimentation found that the refrigerator
goes on with the little usage SO frequently that he held it was pesiq
reishei. I do not believe that's the more common pesaq. (Assuming the
water fountains have mechanical faucets; I think if it has a button it's
simply an electric switch.)
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors,
mi...@aishdas.org but only some of us have the script.
http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel
Fax: (270) 514-1507
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Message: 4
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2013 10:48:31 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Why did Moshe present logical arguments to
On Sun, Jun 02, 2013 at 03:31:53PM +0300, Marty Bluke wrote:
: Why does Moshe make a logical argument to hashem? Did he think he would
: persuade Hashem with his logic?
: There is a general question as to why we daven....
: Rishonim/Acharonim give various answers such as, Tefilla is for us to
: become closer to Hashem and/or to become better/different people or that
: Hashem set up the world (for whatever reason) that we need to daven for
: things. In any case, none of these explain why a person would make logical
: arguments with Hashem. They don't seem to serve any person when davening to
: Hashem.
Unless Hashem was trying to lead MRAH to a particular way of thinking,
in which case responding to Moshe's argument fits the "better/different
people" model of prayer. Even if the argument itself doesn't.
Which is also true of tefillah in general. We make baqashos, because the
betterment of the person includes turning to G-d in times of need. But
the text isn't necessarily vidui or qabbalah al haasid or some other
teshuvah-like declaration of change. It's shevach, hoda'ah, baqashah.
You can't accept this argument WRT the content of the prayer, only
addressing its efficacy.
Which I think is a consequent of a basic paradox WRT sekhar -- the way
to maximize sekhar for doing a mitzvah is not to do it al menas leqabel
peras. The act of the mitzvah, or in our case the vast majority of words
of tefillah, isn't directly aimed at the positive outcome.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger I long to accomplish a great and noble task,
mi...@aishdas.org but it is my chief duty to accomplish small
http://www.aishdas.org tasks as if they were great and noble.
Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Helen Keller
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Message: 5
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2013 11:26:34 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Their Way and Non-halachic Movements Amongst
On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 07:11:11AM -0400, Prof. Levine quotes the
then-current Jewish Page Magazine Inbox:
> The reason why there never was a need for non-halachic movements
> (Haftorah Happenings, 4-19) among the Sepharadim is quite simple: our
> societies developed a horizontal approach to religious life, as opposed
> to a vertical one. Sephardic Judaism is Judaism of the sacred book;
> learning for
> us entails a straight reading of the entire Torah (including the Tanach,
> which has fallen out of favor in Ashkenaz yeshivot), with an emphasis on
> bekiyut.
As was Ashkenaz at the time. Look at the limudei qodesh curriculum of
Volozhin under the Netziv:
First Year:
Tanakh: chumash and nevi'im rishonim according to Rashi and
[Mendelsohn's] Biur
Mishnah: [the orders of] Zera'im, Moed and Nashim
Gemara: Mesechtos Berakhos, Shabbos, Pesachim and Eiruvin with
the [commentary of the] Rosh
Laws: Shulchan Arukh Orach Chaim
Hebrew Grammar... Languages... Arithmetic...
Second Year:
Tanakh: Nevi'im acharonim and Kesuvim according to Rashi and the Biur
Mishnah: Neziqim and Qodshim, with Biur
Gemara: Mesechtos Chulin, Niddah, Yevamos, Kesuvos, Gitin,
Qiddushin with the Rosh
Laws: Shulchan Arukh Yoreh Dei'ah and Even haEizer
Hebrew Grammar... Languages... Arithmetic...
In two years: all of Tanakh, 3/4 of SA, 5/6 of mishnah, 9 mesechtos.
The commonly accepted differentiation is the obvious one: Seph didn't
go through the suddent decompression from ghetto to Enlightenment.
They didn't develop a culture based on poverty and oppression and then
not know how to apply their Jewish Lifestyle to the new conditions.
So they had no reason to reinvent Judaism.
> While our chachamim are respected and revered, the doctrine of "daas
> Torah" was never part of our experience....
> Jacob Katz tells us that the doctrine of daas Torah later became
> cemented in the 1870s, when the
> Church developed a doctrine of papal infallibility...
Except that Katz is wrong on both sides. Papal infallibility became
a doctrine in 1870, but that was because it was accepted as truth
for centuries by that time. And daas Torah is 20th cent, an inter-war
invention that has nothing to do with 1870. Nor is is about infallibility
-- that strawman has been clobbered on this list repeatedly.
The closest I could think of to 1870 was that it's about when R' Yisrael
Salanter coined the usage of daas Torah in the sense of what quality a
moreh derekh offers that can help his talmid live a life of religious
growth. Why one should come to a rebbe for mussar issues. Nothing to
do with turning to rabbis for civil leadership, or for personal advice
in pragmatic matters.
ALSO, DT is an East European invention, and Reform started in Germany.
Even if we were to accept the 1870 date, it's almost a century too
late anyway. It was a counter-reformation, not a cause.
> authoritarian asceticism developed
> among the Chasidei Ashkenaz, who were notorious for extreme forms of
> mortification of the flesh (not unlike German Martin Luther)...
Martin Luther (1483-1546) was centuries after Chasidei Ashkenaz (12th-13th
cent CE) became history. It's like saying that the founding fathers of
the US share a common culture with Chassidim in 2013 W-burg.
> This
> proclivity towards stringency also
> manifests itself in halachic rulings, lending the Ashkenazic approach
> closer to that of Shammai....
1- Shammai and Hillel didn't disagree much, their students did. And
their students did because "lo shimshu es rabosam". Had they been better
apprentices, Hillel's and Shammai's students also wouldn't have ended
up so far apart.
2- Shammai was among the holiest of tannaim, whose name shouldn't be
made a short-hand for "doing halakhah wrong".
3- The biggest influence of Chasidei Ashekenaz on halakhah is the Tur,
and thus impacts Seph as much as Ashk. CA was such a small community,
some more cynical historians question whether they even existed as
a community altogether. I wouldn't go that far, but contrast that to
the size and influence of the Baalei Tosafos. It's the Tosafists who
shaped consequent Ashkenaz.
> In Andalus and other Sephardic environs, there was always an openness
> and a realization that
> there is a religious imperative to know about God's world...
Only a subset of al Andalus was rationalistic. This is about as honest
as his portraying Ashk using Chassidei Ashkenaz to the exclusion of the
dominant stream of Ashkenazi rishonim.
The Zohar was brought to light in Catalonia. Which means that Maran
Bet Yosef, himself a mequbal, is not quite writing from the Rambam's
worldview.
...
> Scholars like ... Chacham Yosef Faur...
> and others best represent this worldview. Instead of minimalizing
> and rejecting, we seek to accommodate and make sense of the world, and
> how modernity can magnify our lives while staying planted in our
> principles....
Jose Faur is of the cadre of JTS teaching staff who left over the issue
of ordaining women. He is trying to present sa counter-foil to an Ashk O
that was so extremist it pushed the creation of C and R. And yet includes
a C-affiliated (albeit fully observant) rabbi to do so? Why not cite
Halivni-Weiss, Yuter or anyone else Ashk of that same group? Aren't they
also sufficiently accomodationist?
BTW, he believes that Qabbalah was made up in response to the Rambam,
because allegedly the only way the anti-Maimonidians could claim authority
is by inventing an entire topic the Rambam doesn't discuss (and thus
didn't know better than they). What he says and implies about Rabbeinu
Yonah, the Ramban, and indeed the majority of rishonim explain why Prof
Faur found his home in JTS. And yet he isn't personally vindictive on
the topic; he famously had a close friendship with Heschel whose
philosophy was very definitely derived from the other side of the fence.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger "I think, therefore I am." - Renne Descartes
mi...@aishdas.org "I am thought about, therefore I am -
http://www.aishdas.org my existence depends upon the thought of a
Fax: (270) 514-1507 Supreme Being Who thinks me." - R' SR Hirsch
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Message: 6
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2013 12:51:21 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Shelach Gems
On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 08:23:05PM -0400, cantorwolb...@cox.net wrote:
: I came across a remarkable explanation by the Sfas Emes regarding how the
: 10 spies -- prominent, eminent and learned men -- could lose their
: faith in God by bringing back an evil report...
Anyone who believes in Daas Torah want to address the obvious question
posed by the meraglim? Unlike the question posed by those who said to
stay in Europe rather than flee before the Nazis, it is difficult to
say Hashem wanted us to be misled, given His spoken response to our
accepting the report.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
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Message: 7
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2013 12:53:04 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Why did Moshe only daven for Yehoshua?
On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 09:09:11AM -0700, saul newman wrote:
: moshe worried about his anivus---- he will be too anav to speak up [
: and knowing moshe dies before entry in land , yehoshua would rather
: push off election to lead/ prolong the life of his rebbe ]
Yeshoshua was also the talmid who didn't think cleaning, setting up and
taking down the "classroom" was beneath him.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
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Message: 8
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2013 12:57:58 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Bishul Akum question
On Mon, Jun 03, 2013 at 10:34:15AM +0000, Kenneth Miller wrote:
: R' Martin Brody asked how the heterim of
: > a) needs to be food fit for a king
: > b) allowed if it can be eaten raw
:
: lessens the problem of
: > a) Rabbenu Tam (and others) - leads to marriage
:
: My guess has always been that these limit the prohibition to formal
: dinners, and they exempt light snacks...
Variant on RAM's theme:
I think there are a number of "harchaqos" which aren't designed to prevent
the problem, but to remind people that there is a problem so that they can
avoid it themselves. E.g. stam yeinam doesn't stop someone from hanging
out over a few beers. Mechitzah, at least according to most the iqar hadin
of mechitzah, doesn't require blocking the view. WRT cooking on Shabbos,
"ad sheyigareif" (Shabbos 3:1) prevents the possibility of issur, but
"ad sheyitein es ha'eifer" and today's blech serve to remind people not
to err -- but sinning is still possible.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger We are great, and our foibles are great,
mi...@aishdas.org and therefore our troubles are great --
http://www.aishdas.org but our consolations will also be great.
Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook
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Message: 9
From: "Rich, Joel" <JR...@sibson.com>
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2013 12:59:18 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Why did Moshe only daven for Yehoshua?
Yeshoshua was also the talmid who didn't think cleaning, setting up and
taking down the "classroom" was beneath him.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
_______________________________________________
I love that medrash but it also possibly implies a deeper message - One
would assume there were others who could (and gladly would have given the
high level of the earlier generations)have set up the classroom ("al ydei
acheirim") so Yehoshua could have used that time to learn more. Perhaps
Yehoshua insisted on doing it himself because he understood that your
actions impact you no matter how much will you have to not allow them to?
KT
Joel Rich
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Message: 10
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2013 13:06:04 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Why did Moshe only daven for Yehoshua?
On Tue, Jun 04, 2013 at 12:59:18PM -0400, Rich, Joel wrote:
:> Yeshoshua was also the talmid who didn't think cleaning, setting up and
:> taking down the "classroom" was beneath him.
: I love that medrash but it also possibly implies a deeper message - One
: would assume there were others who could (and gladly would have given the
: high level of the earlier generations)have set up the classroom ("al ydei
: acheirim") so Yehoshua could have used that time to learn more. Perhaps
: Yehoshua insisted on doing it himself because he understood that your
: actions impact you no matter how much will you have to not allow them to?
I see this description of Yehoshua as a sibling of another aggadita I
mentioned today on "Their Way and Non-halachic Movements Amongst
Sephardim" sent at 11:26am EDT:
> 1- Shammai and Hillel didn't disagree much, their students did. And
> their students did because "lo shimshu es rabosam". Had they been better
> apprentices, Hillel's and Shammai's students also wouldn't have ended
> up so far apart.
There are inarticulable things Yehoshua learned through shimush that he
wouldn't have gotten had he spent the time learning textually. Exposure
to the rebbe in this fashion imparts behavioral patterns, unconscious
attitudes and inclinations, etc...
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger A sick person never rejects a healing procedure
mi...@aishdas.org as "unbefitting." Why, then, do we care what
http://www.aishdas.org other people think when dealing with spiritual
Fax: (270) 514-1507 matters? - Rav Yisrael Salanter
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Message: 11
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2013 13:51:32 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] kefir kashrus
On Sun, Jun 02, 2013 at 11:18:35AM -0700, saul newman wrote:
: http://www.israelikitchen.com/dairy/how-to-culture-kefir-at-home/
: someone kindly explain to me how the 4th generation product becomes kosher.
To explain to people who weren't motivated to chase the link:
Kefir is a special kind of yoghurt. (And it can be consumed by lactose
intolerant people, because it comes with the right flora they're
missing. Many other health claims are associated with it.) Kefir culture
comes in "grains" which look like cauliflower, which are obtained as a
side product of making kefir. (How the first batch was made is an open
research question.)
Now for my guesswork:
So... the question becomes the unknown history of your grains.
YD 87:10 discusses how much change is required before something is
no longer meat, but rather a chemical (that happens to have a meat
origin). I guess kefir processed far enough is like the Rama's case
of salting and drying the rennet to the point of being like wood.
(Although the Shakh is matir the product, but tells you not to use
such rennet lekhat-chilah.)
: and would it then be cholov yisroel?
We're talking about the "grains" of kefir culture, used to ferment the
milk, not the milk itself. By the time you get a kosher grain, there
isn't be any milk in it from prior usage. So, nir'eh if you want CY,
all you would need to do is add the 4th generation grains to CY milk.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
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Message: 12
From: "Rich, Joel" <JR...@sibson.com>
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2013 10:18:50 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] The golden rule in Kibud Av V'Eim
From today's Hakhel email bulletin.
The golden rule in Kibud Av V?Eim is: The way in which one would want his
children to treat him, and what he would like them to do for him--is the
way he should treat his parents and the acts he should undertake on their
behalf!
================================================
WADR that's not what I was taught. IIUC One should treat their parents the
way their parents want to be treated (e.g. if I were very sociable and
would want to be in a activity focused communal facility, I shouldn't
project that on a parent who prefers to stay home and read)
KT
Joel Rich
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Message: 13
From: "Harry Weiss" <hjwe...@panix.com>
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2013 07:58:28 -0700
Subject: Re: [Avodah] hotel doors on Yom Tov (And Shabbat!)
> From: Zev Sero <z...@sero.name>
>
> Tape.
We took a cruise run by Kosherica. They gave out bookmark size magnets
that kept the door open. The advantage of that is that you can remove it
when you are in the room. Of course in a ship you don't have to worry
about a thief coming in from the street.
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Message: 14
From: Lisa Liel <l...@starways.net>
Date: Tue, 04 Jun 2013 14:53:57 -0500
Subject: Re: [Avodah] The golden rule in Kibud Av V'Eim
On 6/4/2013 9:18 AM, Rich, Joel wrote:
>
> From today's Hakhel email bulletin.
>
> The golden rule in Kibud Av V?Eim is: The way in which one would want
> his children to treat him, and what he would like them to do for
> him--is the way he should treat his parents and the acts he should
> undertake on their behalf!
>
> ================================================
>
> WADR that's not what I was taught. IIUC One should treat their
> parents the way their parents want to be treated (e.g. if I were very
> sociable and would want to be in a activity focused communal facility,
> I shouldn't project that on a parent who prefers to stay home and read)
> KT
> Joel Rich
>
Amen v'amen. It doesn't matter whether it's parent and child or
otherwise. If Reuven treats Shimon the way Reuven would want to be
treated as opposed to the way Shimon wants to be treated, Reuven is
wrong. It's the treyfer sefer that says "Do unto others as you would
want them to do unto you." Hillel says to avoid doing to others what
you'd dislike, but that's a far cry from doing *to* them what you like.
Lisa
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Message: 15
From: Lisa Liel <l...@starways.net>
Date: Tue, 04 Jun 2013 14:55:01 -0500
Subject: Re: [Avodah] kefir kashrus
On 6/4/2013 12:51 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 02, 2013 at 11:18:35AM -0700, saul newman wrote:
> : http://www.israelikitchen.com/dairy/how-to-culture-kefir-at-home/
> : someone kindly explain to me how the 4th generation product becomes kosher.
>
> To explain to people who weren't motivated to chase the link:
>
> Kefir is a special kind of yoghurt. (And it can be consumed by lactose
> intolerant people, because it comes with the right flora they're
> missing. Many other health claims are associated with it.) Kefir culture
> comes in "grains" which look like cauliflower, which are obtained as a
> side product of making kefir. (How the first batch was made is an open
> research question.)
I assume, like tongs, they were made during sheshet yemei bereishit.
Lisa
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Message: 16
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2013 14:38:05 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Women [was:] More on Rabbi Riskin Permits Women
On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 03:51:18PM -0400, T6...@aol.com wrote:
: It is far from clear that it is halachically permissible for women to read
: Megillas Ruth for men...
There is no chiyuv to hear megillas Rus. Mes' Soferim (14:16) gives two
practices of when to read Rus:
1- Half at night, ohr leyom tov sheini, half on motza'ei YT;
2- On the motza"sh before Shavu'os.
So, our version post-dates the learly geonim. And Mes Soferim (ibid)
calls it a minhag.
The Ramah (shu"t #35) says Rus is read to oneself, quietly, not in
shul. Which is what Sepharadim and many Chassidim do. Other chassidim
also read themselves quietly, but in shul at the time you or I would
hear a baal qeri'ah.
So, I'm not sure what the halachic problem is. Can't be related to
fulfilling a non-existent chiyuv. It's one minhag among many different
versions of the practice. Not a problem of using an einah metzuvah
ve'osah to fulfil your obligation, and if
Perhaps trop is a problem of qol ishah, if you hold (AFAIK most do)
that qol ishah applies to liturgical singing. OTOH, I also know RSR
doesn't hold qol ishah applies to liturgical singing. From a famous
story told by Rn Blau, we know that R EM Preil and R BB Leibowitz
also held this way. Learn Torah Love Torah Live Torah pg 72-73
<http://books.google.com/books?id=H7K4LIotquUC&;pg=PA72&lpg=PA72>,
final paragraph.
...
: Had the Rebbe wished to allow women to read Megillas Ruth for men, he would
: have promulgated that ruling by some other means than by telling Rabbi
: Riskin, in a private conversation, how important it is to make women feel
: included, and leaving it to R' Riskin to deduce what was therefore to be done.
The LR's position was more nuanced than this implies. E.g. he allowed
teaching gemara to BTs, but not to Lub products. He believed in
situational pesaqim when balancing black-letter mutar but non-mesoretic
in feel against the religious needs of the sho'el/es.
So it is very possible that his line of reasoning would allow RSR to have
a woman lein Rus when dealing with his population, while not commending
such a practice for women who have no or little desire to assume such
roles. I wasn't there to hear the exact wording of the conversation. But
it certainly is possible.
: Furthermore, the premise behind this ruling of R' Riskin's is fundamentally
: flawed. That is the premise that the way to make women feel included is
: to let them play at being men. When you "let" them do what the men are
: doing you play into the false notion that women were until now excluded, that
: women's historic role in Judaism is inferior, that men get to do all the fun
: stuff, that men have all the power, and that only now are centuries' old
: injustices to women finally, finally being addressed -- in the holy city of
: Efrat.
I have to object to the tone here. A city in Yehudah is certainly holy,
and we living in the US shouldn't be compounding our secularity by
speaking of it sarcastically.
But this too comes from the assumption that right-vs-wrong doesn't
take into account the sho'eles, that there is one right way for
everyone. Perhaps the LR's approach was that religious needs should
be addressed -- like allowing women to do semichah on their qorbanos
(despite negi'ah issues between their hands and the kohein's?). Or pehraps
he believed it is suboptimal even given the attitudes of the sho'eles,
but not problematic enough to risk a stream of departure from O to people
who won't limit themselves to that which black-letter halakhah permits.
For all my personal disagreement with many of the positions taken by
my former Rosh Yeshiva, a man who turned hundreds of families frum
in Manhattan followed by turning a bunch of sand dunes into a city in
EY is not to be trifled with. He has zekhuyos I wouldn't want to pit
my fate against.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are.
mi...@aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5
http://www.aishdas.org
Fax: (270) 514-1507
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End of Avodah Digest, Vol 31, Issue 109
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