Avodah Mailing List

Volume 31: Number 113

Tue, 11 Jun 2013

• 1. Re: Shelach Gems (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: electricity on Shabbos - R. Asher Weiss (T6...@aol.com)
• 3. Re: electricity on Shabbos - R. Asher Weiss (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: Shelach Gems (Zev Sero)
• 5. non-Jewish housekeeper (Eli Turkel)
• 6. Re: nonJewish housekeeper (Kenneth Miller)
• 7. Re: electricity on Shabbos - R. Asher Weiss (Kenneth Miller)
• 8. Re: Kaddish for Yoram Kaniuk (Chesky Salomon)
• 9. Re: Kaddish for Yoram Kaniuk (Zev Sero)
• 10. Re: Kaddish for Yoram Kaniuk (Micha Berger)
• 11. Re: nonJewish housekeeper (Micha Berger)
• 12. Re: non-Jewish housekeeper (Micha Berger)
• 13. Re: ascribing motives (Micha Berger)
• 14. Re: Kaddish for Yoram Kaniuk (Rich, Joel)
• 15. Re: electricity on Shabbos - R. Asher Weiss (Ben Waxman)
• 16. Re: Kaddish for Yoram Kaniuk (Daniel M. Israel)

On Sun, Jun 09, 2013 at 03:07:18PM -0400, T6...@aol.com wrote:
:> Anyone  who believes in Daas Torah want to address the obvious question
:> posed by the  meraglim? ...

: Rashi answers the question...

Rashi answers why Hashem agreed to sending them. Not why 10 of 12 meraglim
gave the wrong report, despite the notion that the gedolim have daas
Torah, nor why the hamon am would be held accountable for following their
daas Torah. Aren't they supposed to follow the gedolim, even on such
non-halachic advice?

I don't think the problem would have bothered Rashi, because I don't
think the concept of daas Torah existed yet in his day.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Nearly all men can stand adversity,
mi...@aishdas.org        but if you want to test a man's character,
http://www.aishdas.org   give him power.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                      -Abraham Lincoln

From: David Riceman _driceman@optimum.net_ (mailto:drice...@optimum.net) 


<<But 
the idea of being able to (passively) read your  scroll on a Friday 
night, is, to my mind, programmed into the original idea  (fabric) of 
shabbas.>> [--R'n CL]

So when Hazal decreed "lo  yikra l'or haner" they were violating "the 
original fabric of  shabbos"?


David Riceman




>>>>>
 
 
My impression was that the issur of reading by candle-light is only if  you 
are alone.  If someone else is there with you, they'll warn you and  stop 
you if you start to move the candle closer or adjust the wick.  Am I  
mistaken?  
 
And PS the issur /is/ still relevant, there have been times when the  
Shabbos clock went off and the only available light for reading was a candle on  
the table and everyone else was asleep and I said to myself, "OK lady you're 
out  of luck, if you want to keep reading now you will have to go to sleep 
and dream  that you are reading."  Well the other option is to read a 
secular  magazine in the small throne room.  Spirit of Shabbos?  I don't  know.  
Sometimes I go to sleep and dream that I am writing to  Avodah, do you have 
to do teshuva for doing a melacha in your dreams on  Shabbos?
 

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


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On Sun, Jun 09, 2013 at 03:37:38PM -0400, T6...@aol.com wrote:
: At least here where I live in the North Miami Beach section of chu'l, the
: motion detector lights on people's houses are put there by non-Jews for
: their own convenience, not for the convenience of passing Jews walking home
: from shul. The home-owners want lights to come on for the same reason they
: want their dogs to bark: to scare away the bad guys, who prefer to work in
: darkness. Also to be able to see the bad guys and to know that someone is
: there.

And not to be sued by people who might trip on a crack in their sidewalk
in the dark.

But why does this matter? It's not the nakhri's action in setting up the
detector that's the melakhah, it's your entering its field and triggering
it.

: But for those who think there /is/ a problem, I have another question for
: you: Suppose you walk past a house where you didn't know a motion
: detector was present, and a light comes on? Do you have to stand there (making
: sure NOT to stand perfectly still) until Shabbos is over, so that your
: walking away (or standing perfectly still) won't make the light go OFF?

If you leave, a timer eventually runs down, and the light goes off. Your
leaving the range of the sensor doesn't turn off the light as much as
allow it to go off when originally scheduled by your first entering
its range.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
mi...@aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter

On 9/06/2013 3:52 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
>   Not why 10 of 12 meraglim
> gave the wrong report, despite the notion that the gedolim have daas
> Torah, nor why the hamon am would be held accountable for following their
> daas Torah. Aren't they supposed to follow the gedolim, even on such
> non-halachic advice?

That one's easy.  Moshe was Daas Torah.  They contradicted Moshe, therefore
they were not Daas Torah, despite their numbers.

-- 
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

<<I am inclined to agree with RBW. From what I've seen of YD and EhE,
it's actually pretty common. Not so much in OC or CM but in EhE and YD
cases of hefseid meruba or the like.>>

Agreed that for agunot poskim try and find kulot and in certain other
soecific areas.
For YD in general areas of kashrut, I dont agree. Look at teshuvot like
Dayan Weiss, Rav Elyashiv, Rav Wosner etc. how often do they use sfek sfeka
in YD questions?

I frequently return to kitniyot which is only a minhag and nevertheless
many poskim are machmir even when there are several machlokot. However,
there are many other such situations

-- 
Eli Turkel
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R' Micha Berger wrote about agunah cases:

> R YE Spektor was meiqil in cases of mayim she'ein lahem sof,
> because if the couple were happily married (shalom lo veshalom
> lah) he certainly would have contacted her by telegraph or
> postal service.

I am bothered by the use of the word "certainly" here, and I suspect that the intention was "probably".

Perhaps we can believe the wife that *she* was happily married, but who
knows what the husband felt? Is it so far-fetched to consider the
possibility that he was very unhappy, but kept the appearances up; and now
that his long-awaited opportunity arrived, he's taking it?

Akiva Miller
____________________________________________________________
BlackBerry&#174 10
Find out more about the new BlackBerry 10 smartphone.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/51b5d38869eb553887054st02vuc

I wrote:

> THIS is an important question to consider. As for me, yes, I do
> believe that Shabbos would still be Shabbos.
> It's not a new question. My understanding is that Chazal were
> already grappling with it, and they instituted specific
> d'rabanans to insure that Shabbos >would still be Shabbos.
> One of these was business. Say what you will about electricity,
> but you still can't take your money and go to the store to buy
> a candy bar. ...

R"n Chana Luntz replied:

> Today I do probably 95% of my shopping on line. ...
> ... probably about the only thing I still buy in a store on a
> regular basis is bread and meat (and I could use Just Kosher for
> that too, we just don't).   I don't need to take money, nor my
> wallet - Paypal and these various sites know who I am, and all I
> need to authorise a sale is a few keystrokes, not really
> different to those used in texting or emailing ...

All these things will work only for bo bayom. If your store will make
same-day deliveries (or next day, if you order it Friday night) AND the
product is something that you'll be using ON SHABBOS, then go right ahead.

So for example, purchasing raw foods would still be assur on Shabbos, but
would be okay on Yom Tov with same-day delivery. Purchasing an on-line
subscription to Bar Ilan would be okay on both. One could also use free
services - and believe me, how many times there have been when a question
arose on Shabbos, and Google would have helped immensely!

Would this change the nature of Shabbos as we know it? Maybe, and possibly
for the better. Who knows? It could also well be that we might not use this
permission to its full extent, if at all. How many of us live near a
grocery or restaurant which is open on Shabbos to those customers who have
pre-purchased coupons? The market for this exists, but it is much smaller
than we might think. (When I was at Ohr Somayach in Yerushalayim, I ran the
canteen for a while, and we had such a system for the guys, but it only
lasted a few weeks, for lack of interest.)

I wrote:

> One might use the phone for texting, but I'm not so sure about
> voice calls - making sounds could still be a problem. Ditto
> for one's radio or television.

and R"N CL asked:

> Why, what makes the sound of the human voice any more
> problematic than the view of flashing LEDs that enable texts?

The specific issur d'rabanan of Hashma'as Kol. As I recall, the Aruch
Hashulchan cites this as a reason NOT to set up one's record player
immediately before Shabbos, so that it could play nice Shabbosdik chazzanus
while Shabbos begins.

RCL also wrote:

> And while culturally I imagine there will be resistance to the
> driverless car that can be programmed before shabbas to drive
> itself out of the garage, open the door and ... ... ...
> And yet we know some of the socio-economic consequences of a
> psak that allows driving on shabbas from the Conservatives.
> Totally leaving aside the whole question of issurei d'orisa,
> we know from that experiment that allowing driving means that
> people no longer are pushed to live within walking distances
> of a shul, leading to breakdown in community.  You are
> seriously playing with the fabric of shabbas in a way that you
> don't know where you are going.  And these changes are very
> difficult to roll back.

I see a big difference: They were looking for a specific leniency for a
specific purpose, and may not have foreseen the unintended consequences. In
contrast, we are NOT out to find leniencies. Our goals (or, mine, at least)
are to learn Torah, to understand what it is that HaShem wants of us, to
avoid permitting what is assur, to avoid forbidding what is mutar, and to
let the chips fall where they may.

Has anyone suggested tzove'a (coloring) as a basis to forbid these devices?

Akiva Miller
____________________________________________________________
BlackBerry&#174 10
Get the latest details on the new BlackBerry 10 smartphone.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/51b5dc4094aec5c4072f3st03vuc

On Sun, Jun 9, 2013, R' Saul Newman <newman...@gmail.com> posted this
link to Areivim:
> <http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2013/06/should
> -kaddish-be-said-for-yoram-kaniuk.html>

This excerpt from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoram_Kaniuk> should
suffice to illustrate the issue at hand:
> In May 2011, Kaniuk petitioned the Israeli Interior Ministry to change
> his religion status from "Jewish" to "no religion." He cited the fact
> that his child and infant grandson, because they are descended from a
> mixed Jewish/Christian marriage, are legally of "no religion", and his
> desire not to belong to a "Jewish Iran" or "what is today called the
> religion of Israel." In October 2011, a district court judge approved
> his petition, meaning that Kaniuk was then considered a Jew by
> nationality, but not by religion.

Prior to the question being asked in the Life in Israel blog, "Should
kaddish be said for Kaniuk?", I ask, "*Can* kaddish be said for him?"

However Kaddish works (on Areivim, RAE suggests purely Bera Mezakeh Abbah;
RZS points out minhag kol yisroel that non-descendants also say kaddish),
does someone who deliberately cut himself off from elokei yisroel and klal
yisroel (though not am yisroel) have any part of his neshama surviving
to be able to use any zechusim?

--Chesky

On 10/06/2013 2:06 PM, Chesky Salomon wrote:
> Prior to the question being asked in the Life in Israel blog, "Should
> kaddish be said for Kaniuk?", I ask, "*Can*  kaddish be said for him?"
>
> However Kaddish works (on Areivim, RAE suggests purely Bera Mezakeh Abbah;
> RZS points out minhag kol yisroel that non-descendants also say kaddish),
> does someone who deliberately cut himself off from elokei yisroel and klal
> yisroel (though not am yisroel) have any part of his neshama surviving
> to be able to use any zechusim?

A neshama is a chelek Eloak mima'al mamash, and can't disappear.  Even Yerav'am
ben Nevat, whom the mishna singles out to tell us that one who behaves like him
has no chelek, nevertheless eventually did receive a chelek, so he had to exist
in some form in order to do so.  Even Acher, who was denied entry into Gehenom
so that he could not be cleaned and eventually make it to Gan Eden, eventually
was allowed in, so he too must still have existed.   In general the idea that a
neshama, however damaged, can die, appears strange to me, and seems to require
a source that says so explicitly.

-- 
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 Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 02:06:30PM -0400, Chesky Salomon wrote:
: However Kaddish works (on Areivim, RAE suggests purely Bera Mezakeh Abbah;
: RZS points out minhag kol yisroel that non-descendants also say kaddish),
: does someone who deliberately cut himself off from elokei yisroel and klal
: yisroel (though not am yisroel) have any part of his neshama surviving
: to be able to use any zechusim?

I think it depends on
(1) whether the person in question deserved kareis,
(2) the machloqes over the definition of kareis.

According to the Rambam (Teshuvah 8:1, haqdamah to Peirush haMishnayos --
Pereq Cheileq) a person who merits kareis ceases to exist upon death. Hil'
Teshuvah:
    hu hameis she'eino choyeh le'olam
    ela nikhras berish'o
    ve'oveid habeheimah.
In 8:5 he seems to identify gehenom as a metaphor for kareis, and that
too reverse to non-existence. (I got the same impression from PhM.)

The Ramban (Vayiqra 18:29) writes of two kinds of kareis -- spiritual
and physical. But in his view, even getting spiritual kareis does NOT
mean cessation of all existence, because someone who got kareis could
still merit techiyas hameisim.

Rabbeinu Yonah (Shaarei Tesuvah 3:120-121) differentiates between kareis
from olam hazeh and from olam hazah AND olam haba. In 3:143, Rabbeinu
Yonah writes that "vehanefesh asher taaaseh beyad ramah" qualify as the
madreigah ha'asiris, sin ts that deprive one of their cheileq le'olam
haba. And he invokes "venehkhresah hanafesh hahi". But I didn't see
how Rabbeinu Yonah defines kareis mei'olam haba.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The purely righteous do not complain about evil,
mi...@aishdas.org        but add justice, don't complain about heresy,
http://www.aishdas.org   but add faith, don't complain about ignorance,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      but add wisdom.     - R AY Kook, Arpilei Tohar

On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 01:23:33PM +0000, Kenneth Miller wrote:
: R' Micha Berger wrote about agunah cases:
:> R YE Spektor was meiqil in cases of mayim she'ein lahem sof,
:> because if the couple were happily married (shalom lo veshalom
:> lah) he certainly would have contacted her by telegraph or
:> postal service.

: I am bothered by the use of the word "certainly" here, and I suspect
: that the intention was "probably".

I meant something beyond probably, more like "safe to assume". Maybe
any mi'ut is eino nikar.

: Perhaps we can believe the wife that *she* was happily married,
: but who knows what the husband felt? Is it so far-fetched to consider
:the possibility that he was very unhappy, but kept the appearances up;
: and now that his long-awaited opportunity arrived, he's taking it?

RIES, RMF and numerous other recent posqim say yes, it is far-fetched. If
friends and family all say they were happily married, we can ignore the
long short that he was faking his happiness.

This is just to reduce the issur to a derabbanan. DeOraisa, your cheshash
may be ignored. But we stilll need other senifilm lehaqeil; no one is
arguing this line of reasoning alone produces certainty.

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 Sun, Jun 09, 2013 at 11:24:30PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote:
: For YD in general areas of kashrut, I dont agree. Look at teshuvot like
: Dayan Weiss, Rav Elyashiv, Rav Wosner etc. how often do they use sfek sfeka
: in YD questions?

Whenever there is a hefsed meruba.

This also goes back to the Shakh's qunterus on how to pasqen that I
recommended looking over a few months back. (Right after RARakeffetR's
shiur pointed me to it. This observation about EvE and YD is also his,
as is the hefsed meruba issue.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             What you get by achieving your goals
mi...@aishdas.org        is not as important as
http://www.aishdas.org   what you become by achieving your goals.
Fax: (270) 514-1507              - Henry David Thoreau

On Thu, Jun 06, 2013 at 09:37:59PM -0700, saul newman wrote:
: http://torahmusings.com/2013/06/rav-soloveitchik-and-tradition-bearers/
: RYBS  on the concept of ascribing bad motives to torah leaders= heresy

RGS doesn't emphasize this, but I believe RYBS is only talking about
pesaq. We believe that true pesaq comes from halachic process and not
from manipulating Torah to fit the zeitgeist or to fit one's political
goals. (Contra, say, Graetz's version of Chazal, or the C movements
approach to Jewish law in general.)

But not that if someone says that some 20th cent rabbi sinned and acted
in bad faith that person is a heretic.

Thus his application to R' Rackman's pesaqim on hafka'as qiddshin.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             You cannot propel yourself forward
mi...@aishdas.org        by patting yourself on the back.
http://www.aishdas.org                   -Anonymous
Fax: (270) 514-1507

However Kaddish works (on Areivim, RAE suggests purely Bera Mezakeh Abbah;
RZS points out minhag kol yisroel that non-descendants also say kaddish),
does someone who deliberately cut himself off from elokei yisroel and klal
yisroel (though not am yisroel) have any part of his neshama surviving
to be able to use any zechusim?

--Chesky

_______________________________________________
While it is minhag kol yisrael, R' H Schachter points out that there is no
real source that indicates any efficacy (e.g. the original R' Akiva
"medrash" - why did he teach the son, why didn't r' akiva just say
kaddish/daven?)

KT
Joel Rich
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Thank you.

IIRC the gezira isn't relevant even in the situation described. Someone 
who is used to reading by  light every day won't be tempted to tilt the 
candle. Only someone who only has a candle on Friday nights will be 
tempted to "squeeze out every drop".

So you, being a resident of the First World (I believe that Miami 
qualifies as First World) could still read.

Ben

On 6/9/2013 10:48 PM, T6...@aol.com wrote:
> >>>>>
> My impression was that the issur of reading by candle-light is only if 
> you are alone.  If someone else is there with you, they'll warn you 
> and stop you if you start to move the candle closer or adjust the 
> wick.  Am I mistaken?
> And PS the issur /is/ still relevant, there have been times when the 
> Shabbos clock went off and the only available light for reading was a 
> candle on the table and everyone else was asleep and I said to myself, 
> "OK lady you're out of luck, if you want to keep reading now you will 
> have to go to sleep and dream that you are reading."

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On Jun 11, 2013, at 8:42 AM, "Rich, Joel" <JR...@sibson.com> wrote:
> While it is minhag kol yisrael, R' H Schachter points out that there
> is no real source that indicates any efficacy (e.g. the original R'
> Akiva "medrash" - why did he teach the son, why didn't r' akiva just
> say kaddish/daven?)


Perhaps the son saying is a significantly greater zechus?

--
Daniel M. Israel
d...@cornell.edu

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