Avodah Mailing List

Volume 31: Number 174

Fri, 11 Oct 2013

• 1. Re: Change and Tradition in Halachah (Allan Engel)
• 2. aliyat neshama (Sholom Simon)
• 3. Re: aliyat neshama (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: aliyat neshama (Micha Berger)
• 5. change and tradition in Halacha (Eli Turkel)
• 6. Re: change and tradition in Halacha (Micha Berger)
• 7. Concerning the rulings of R. Ovadiah Yosef pertaining to the thanksgiving prayer, the settlement of the land of Israel, and Middle East peace (Ben Waxman)
• 8. Article by Marc Shapiro about Chacham Ovadia Yosef (Prof. Levine)
• 9. Lech L'cha (cantorwolb...@cox.net)
• 10. Re: Lech L'cha (Micha Berger)

On 8 October 2013 20:25, Ben Waxman <ben1...@zahav.net.il> wrote:
> On 10/8/2013 12:49 PM, Allan Engel wrote:
>> Why is that a change? If the rule is that a sheliach tsibbur should wear
>> smart and respectable clothing, the only thing that has changed is what is
>> considered smart and respectable, not the rule. In the Rambam's day, he
>> considered it necessary for women to wear a burka.

> So then how is women holding a Sefer Torah a change? There is no halacha
> that they can't and in many places it is considered respectable.

It wasn't I that made the comparison.

>: 
>http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2013/10/what-is-best-
>aliyah-for-neshamah.html
>: what is best to benefit the departed neshama?
>: according to this, ancient sources list only charity, but in the 19th
>: century they began to emphasize tora study
>
>Maaseh beRabbi Aqiva is the famous origin of mourner's Qaddish. There are
>actually two versions, some have R Aqiva teaching the ghost's son Qaddish,
>others, Borkhu. The Qaddish version might even be construed as promoting
>the son's talmud Torah, since Qaddish deRabbanan is the original use
>of Qaddish. Promoting Qaddish meant promoting attending shiur. But even
>Borkhu and Qaddeishim in davening are about tefillah, not tzedaqah.

I would take it _slightly_ further.  Am I right that Kaddish Yosom 
didn't exist back then?  The version of the ma'aseh I have has, 
speficially, "call out (either Barchu or Yisgadel) to a tzibbur so 
they will respond (either "baruch sheim kavod" or "y'hey sh'mei 
rabbah...").   If so, then we must be talking someone becoming a 
shaliach tzibbur.

Then, what's being promoted are three of the great areas in Judaism: 
(i) tefilla; and/or (ii) learning (at least enough to be a sh"tz); 
and/or (iii) getting others to praise H" -- i.e., directly causing 
the tzibbur to say "baruch sheim kavod..." or "y'hei sh'mei 
rabba..."  It's hard to imagine that any of those three would not 
accrue serious s'char to the departed neshama (since, in fact, the 
mourner is davka doing i, ii, and/or iii because of the niftar(es).)

-- Sholom

On Tue, Oct 08, 2013 at 08:40:21PM -0400, Sholom Simon wrote:
>> Maaseh beRabbi Aqiva is the famous origin of mourner's Qaddish. There are
>> actually two versions, some have R Aqiva teaching the ghost's son Qaddish,
>> others, Borkhu. The Qaddish version might even be construed as promoting
>> the son's talmud Torah, since Qaddish deRabbanan is the original use
>> of Qaddish. Promoting Qaddish meant promoting attending shiur. But even
>> Borkhu and Qaddeishim in davening are about tefillah, not tzedaqah.
>
> I would take it _slightly_ further.  Am I right that Kaddish Yosom  
> didn't exist back then?  The version of the ma'aseh I have has,  
> speficially, "call out (either Barchu or Yisgadel) to a tzibbur so they 
> will respond (either "baruch sheim kavod" or "y'hey sh'mei rabbah...").   
> If so, then we must be talking someone becoming a shaliach tzibbur.

The original use of Qaddish was Qaddish deRabbanan. An ancestor to the
habit of some rabbanim to end their speeches with something like "ad
bi'as go'el tzedeq, bb"a!" Tosafos (Berakhos 3a "ve'onim yehei shemo
hagadol mvorakh") say this is the real reason why it's in Aramaic,
rather than the jelous mal'akhim explanation given by Machzor Vitry.

See also R' David de Sola Pool's Kaddish, pg 8, for a list of indicative
sources. Project Guttenburg copy at http://j.mp/1bX771p

So I took the two girsa'os to be about whether the essence was for the
orphan to be a sheliach tzibur, and say Barekhu, or to attend shiurim
and say Qaddish after them.

And, as I noted, the Gesher haChaim argues that the Qaddish version is
the correct one. So I would go with:
> Then, what's being promoted are three of the great areas in Judaism: (i) 
> tefilla; and/or (ii) learning (at least enough to be a sh"tz); and/or 
> (iii) getting others to praise H" -- i.e., directly causing the tzibbur 
> to say ... "y'hei sh'mei rabba..."

1- Avodah -- the Qaddish itself
2- Torah -- before the Qaddish
3- Gema"ch -- getting others to answer Yehei shemei rabba...

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Friendship is like stone. A stone has no value,
mi...@aishdas.org        but by rubbing one stone against another,
http://www.aishdas.org   sparks of fire emerge. 
Fax: (270) 514-1507                  - Rav Mordechai of Lechovitz

On Tue, Oct 08, 2013 at 08:40:21PM -0400, Sholom Simon wrote:
>> Maaseh beRabbi Aqiva is the famous origin of mourner's Qaddish. There are
>> actually two versions, some have R Aqiva teaching the ghost's son Qaddish,
>> others, Borkhu. The Qaddish version might even be construed as promoting
>> the son's talmud Torah, since Qaddish deRabbanan is the original use
>> of Qaddish. Promoting Qaddish meant promoting attending shiur. But even
>> Borkhu and Qaddeishim in davening are about tefillah, not tzedaqah.
>
> I would take it _slightly_ further.  Am I right that Kaddish Yosom  
> didn't exist back then?  The version of the ma'aseh I have has,  
> speficially, "call out (either Barchu or Yisgadel) to a tzibbur so they 
> will respond (either "baruch sheim kavod" or "y'hey sh'mei rabbah...").   
> If so, then we must be talking someone becoming a shaliach tzibbur.

The original use of Qaddish was Qaddish deRabbanan. An ancestor to the
habit of some rabbanim to end their speeches with something like "ad
bi'as go'el tzedeq, bb"a!" Tosafos (Berakhos 3a "ve'onim yehei shemo
hagadol mvorakh") say this is the real reason why it's in Aramaic,
rather than the jelous mal'akhim explanation given by Machzor Vitry.

See also R' David de Sola Pool's Kaddish, pg 8, for a list of indicative
sources. Project Guttenburg copy at http://j.mp/1bX771p

So I took the two girsa'os to be about whether the essence was for the
orphan to be a sheliach tzibur, and say Barekhu, or to attend shiurim
and say Qaddish after them.

And, as I noted, the Gesher haChaim argues that the Qaddish version is
the correct one. So I would go with:
> Then, what's being promoted are three of the great areas in Judaism: (i) 
> tefilla; and/or (ii) learning (at least enough to be a sh"tz); and/or 
> (iii) getting others to praise H" -- i.e., directly causing the tzibbur 
> to say ... "y'hei sh'mei rabba..."

1- Avodah -- the Qaddish itself
2- Torah -- before the Qaddish
3- Gema"ch -- getting others to answer Yehei shemei rabba...

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Friendship is like stone. A stone has no value,
mi...@aishdas.org        but by rubbing one stone against another,
http://www.aishdas.org   sparks of fire emerge. 
Fax: (270) 514-1507                  - Rav Mordechai of Lechovitz

> That begs the question.  Do you have a source that says "minhag avoteinu
> b'yadeinu" is a halakhic stricture?

I must not be understanding your question. How else do you understand
2 days of Yom Tov in Chutz La'aretz?  >>

There obviously is a difference between the gemara stating "minhag avoteinu
b'yadeinu"
and between applying that to every minhag that existed at some time.
Besides
"eino rainu eino raayah"

-- 
Eli Turkel
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On Wed, Oct 09, 2013 at 03:01:15PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote:
: There obviously is a difference between the gemara stating "minhag avoteinu
: b'yadeinu"
: and between applying that to every minhag that existed at some time.

Not every custom or hanhagah tovah is a minhag.

I wrote <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol26/v26n237.shtml#10> on
the thread Minhag Avos and Sephardim <http://j.mp/16RJ7ON> in response
to the claim:
: My contention is, however, that until a new minhag ha-maqom forms, we
: cannot create the unprecedented concept of minhag avot in the
: meantime...

I replied:
> What do you think the Ashkenazim did back when there was no single norm?
> My point was that AFAIK, this isn't "unprecedented". Rather, relying on
> zeidi's minhag hamaqom is the normal way of managing until your current
> setting has a minhag.

> Your assertion that "there is no such thing as 'minhag avot'" (to quote
> your blog) would require you going through every instance of the idiom
> and proving that it only refers to the taqanah of YT sheini. However,
> see AhS OC 150:9 (on the subject of where to put the bimah and which
> way people should face in shul), who sources minhag avos in "she'al
> avikha veyagedkha".

> Note that in your assertion you are also presuming to know how halakhah
> works better than did RMF, eg in his teshuvah about someone who davens
> Nusach "Sfard" being allowed to switch to Ashkenaz, or teshuvos about how
> to run a minyan where some people wear tefillin on ch"m and some not.
> See the Rashba (the newer one from kesav yad) #346 who invokes minhag
> avos (the topic is miqva'os). The Roqiach (310). The Mei'ir Sukkah 26a
> "Shomerei haIr" who says that sitting in the sukkah on the first night
> in the rain is minhag avos. Or Chasam Shofer EhE 2 (vol 4) teshuva
> 67. Or Yabia Omer V, OC #41, "venahagu hakol shelo liqaneis lebeis
> hamerchatz" during the sevah'ua shechil bo 9 beAv "ve'asur leshanos minhag
> avos". Which I think (now that I see Yechaveh Daas 1:38) is actually
> a quote of the Ramban's Toras haAdam 81a. Mishpetei Uziel YD (vol 1)
> #6 who quotes the Rivash about accepting a peshat in the gemara that
> fits minhag avos over the peshat of the ge'onim. Or MU YD (vol 2) #22,
> where he cites "lo titosh toras imekha" as the source for minhag avos.
> Etc, etc, etc...

> What we do find is that minhag hamaqom trumps minhag avos. But here

[in the post-Shoah era until at least the present, with a few rare exceptions]

> there is no minhag hamaqom. Therefore, what we are doing is what was
> done in early Ashekanaz, among Sepharadim in the early 1500s, etc...

But check out the rest of the thread.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             With the "Echad" of the Shema, the Jew crowns
mi...@aishdas.org        G-d as King of the entire cosmos and all four
http://www.aishdas.org   corners of the world, but sometimes he forgets
Fax: (270) 514-1507      to include himself.     - Rav Yisrael Salanter

Arye Edrei's paper Law Interpretation and Ideology, deals with three 
different approaches to dealing with the lacuna in Jewish law regarding 
the perception and functioning of a Jewish sovereign state. Edrei's 
paper focuses on the laws of war to exemplify how Yeshayahu Leibowitz, 
Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli and Rabbi Shlomo Goren each provide a different way 
of dealing with the challenge in light of their disparate ideologies and 
understandings of the significance and import of the Zionist enterprise 
in Jewish law. This paper offers a fourth angle: that of R. Ovadiah 
Yosef, and focuses on another facet of the same problem: that of 
returning territory, once conquered by Israel, to neighboring Arab 
states or to the Palestinians in the context of peace negotiations.

Coming from a different ideology and a Sepharadic background, R. Ovadiah 
Yosef rejects the creation of a legal construct used to understand the 
religious implications of the existence of the State of Israel on a 
national-collective plane. As Edrei demonstrates, such an understanding 
would require special treatment and elaboration of laws to deal with the 
phenomenon collectively, such as those R. Shlomo Goren endeavored to 
develop. Instead, R. Yosef approaches Israel's existence from an 
individualist perspective as has been the traditional emphasis of Jewish 
law in the Diaspora.

http://cardozolawreview.com/Joomla1.5/content/28-1/FISCHER.WEBSITE.pdf

Ben
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See 
<http://www.yctorah.org/component/option,com_docman/task,doc_view/gid,
303/>http://www.yctorah.org/component/option,com_docman/task,doc_view/gid,
303/


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Two questions have always bothered me:
1) Why did God choose Avraham to be the father of our people?
In His interaction with Noah, the Torah praises Noah as a righteous man
who walked with God. There is absolutely NOTHING said about Abraham
other than God telling him to "GO." Noah, the drunkard, is praised and told
to get ready for Armageddon and Abraham is given an immediate eviction notice!

2) Chazal?s words in the Sifrei: ?Hashem came from Sinai (and shone on them
from Sa?ir, etc.)? ? When Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu revealed Himself to give the
Torah to Yisrael, 
He did not reveal Himself to Yisrael alone, but rather to all of the
nations. First He went to the descendants of Esav. He said to them: Do you
accept the Torah? They said to Him: 
What is written in it? He said: ?Do not murder? (Shemot 20:13). They said
that their entire essence and the essence of their father was murder, as it
says, ?And the hands are the hands of Esav? (Bereishit 27:22) 
and ?You shall live by your sword? (27:40). He went to the descendants of
Ammon and Moav. He said to them: Do you accept the Torah? They said to Him:
What is written in it? He said: ?Do not commit adultery? (Shemot 20:13). 
They said that their entire essence was immorality? He went to the
descendants of Yishmael. He said to them? ?Do not steal? (ibid.) They said
that the entire essence of their father was thievery. And so to every
nation ? He asked if they would accept the Torah? 

So here's the bewilderment: A nation of murderers would need the Torah even
more than the Jews. A nation of adulterers would require the Torah more
than the Jews.
A nation of thieves would be compelled to have a Torah more than the Jews.
A God of justice, righteousness and morality would be obliged to address
murderers, adulterers
and thieves rather than gloss over them. The Torah speaks of Abraham
pleading for a city of evil people. How much more so would one expect the
Creator of all to compel
evil people to follow laws of morality! A parent doesn't ask a child if he
or she wants to obey the rules. A child is compelled to follow the rules.
In addition the gemara (Shabbos 88A)
says that God held the mountain over the head of the Jews and said 'If you
accept the Torah, good; if not, here shall be your burial.' So what sense
does it make that God gave the 
other nation a choice but the Jews, not?
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On Fri, Oct 11, 2013 at 10:05:04AM -0400, cantorwolb...@cox.net wrote:
: So here's the bewilderment: A nation of murderers would need the Torah
: even more than the Jews. A nation of adulterers would require the Torah
: more than the Jews.
: A nation of thieves would be compelled to have a Torah more than the Jews...

This medrash is odd for two reasons:

1- It's bad kiruv to start with the person's hardest challenge. Change
requires small incremental steps.

2- All three examples don't require the Torah -- murder, adultery and
theft are among the 7 mitzvos benei Noach! So Hashem's examples had
nothing to do with whether or not they took His offer.

I therefore would contrast that medrash with the opening of this week's
parashah. Avraham was told to "Lekh Lekha", leave the influences you
were born with, and did. These nations are described as being unable to
accept that idea. Edom was a thief, so being a thief is who we are. To
quote Popeye, "I yam what I yam!"

But someone who doesn't think they are capable of remaking themselves,
of coming ever closer to the image of the Divine they were made to be,
has little use for the Torah. They might have needed it more than us,
but they weren't ready to pick up the covenant they were already given
and use it as intended; giving them a heavier burden would be beyond
just pointless, it would be cruel.

This was going to be the thesis of a speech at my grandson Akiva's beris
yesterday, but I saw the audience had had enough speaches without mine.
I was also going to invoke the discussion between Turnus Rufus and R'
Aqiva about whether Hashem's products or man's products are superior.
Turnus Rufus argued against beris by asking of the temerity of people who
think they can do better than what G-d Himself made. R' Aqiva responded
by having TR's servants bring wheat and bread.

TR lived in a culture where time was perceived as basically circular.
Everything has its repeating rhythms -- the days, the seasons, the
generations of man, and there is no real progress. R Aqiva, more than most
members of Chazal, knew the power of being able to become something better
than he was. There were thus the perfect protagonists for the dialog.

(Between the two, I was able to tie the idea that Hashem gives us
a lifetime so that we can engage in a process of growth to both the
parashah and the simchah.)

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It's nice to be smart,
mi...@aishdas.org        but it's smarter to be nice.
http://www.aishdas.org                   - R' Lazer Brody
Fax: (270) 514-1507


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