Volume 32: Number 102
Fri, 04 Jul 2014
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Message: 1
From: Ben Waxman
Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2014 06:19:37 +0200
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Achdus
On 7/1/2014 6:24 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> Now that we are united, we cannot risk letting it go.
IMO the unity was/is skin deep. I don't think that people changed their
personalities, that they internalized the lessons. There aren't any
burning political topics raging at the moment, so it was easy for folks
to keep quiet. If the draft bill were to have been on the table a week
ago, would the arguments have been less vilifying? Maybe they would have
been - for that week.
Tragedy or death does this, it brings us together for a moment. But then
life comes back and we find ourselves back where we were.
[Email #2]
In contrast to what I wrote before:
I have wondered what it is about this tragedy that brought so many of
us together. One factor was the mothers, who are made of steel. We live
in world of segulot, people promising salvation for a check, of simple
solutions and answers. Comes along these families, these women and they
demonstrated incredible, almost unheard of religious maturity. God does
not work us, when praying for the boys also pray for the soldiers, we
will not be broken. No easy answers, no tricks, no yelling, no demands.
I hope that their models sticks with us.
Ben
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Message: 2
From: Kenneth Miller
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2014 14:36:28 GMT
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Shabbat in Alaska
R' Zev Sero wrote:
> As RMF writes, the European minhag of adding a flat 72 minutes
> to shkia is *not* RT, was never intended to be RT, and those
> who call it RT do so out of ignorance. Rather, it was meant
> to represent the longest bein hashmoshos of the year, *leshitas
> hage'onim*, in those latitudes.
I'm intrigued. Where does he write that? I read it very differently. In many places (see below) he equated 50 minutes with 4 mil, and that's RT, no?
> RMF says that in the NE USA, with its lower latitude, the maximum
> bein hashmoshos (leshitas hageonim) is not 72 min but closer to
> 50, so that should be used.
From what I've seen, he never wrote "maximum", and he never wrote "should".
Rather, he held it to be a fixed and exact amount, both l'chumra and
l'kula. My evidence is from Igros Moshe, Orach Chaim 4, Siman 62, where he
calculates Bein Hashmashos: Starting with 50 minutes as equivalent to four
mil, he says that 12.5 minutes are equivalent to one mil, and so 9 3/8
minutes are 3/4 of a mil.
Therefore, he writes, under certain circumstances, one can consider the
first 9 3/8 minutes after shkia to still be daytime, and the last 9 3/8
minutes (I.e., from 40 5/8 onwards) to already be nighttime. It is
inconceivable to me, that he could have said such things without intending
the "50" to mean "EXACTLY 50".
That said, I would to know how he would have responded to RZS' s post. RMF
never suggested modifying the 50 minutes to differ with the seasons, yet
the darkness certainly does descend at different speeds at different times
of the year. And he explicitly said the the 50 minute shiur applied to both
New York City and also the Catskill Mountain area.
After writing the above, I found a post I wrote (almost 16 years ago, in
the very first volume of the Avodah Digest) where I quoted from that Igros
Moshe and wrote about it in greater detail. You can see it here: http://www.aish
das.org/avodah/vol01/v01n027.shtml#04
A discussion followed that in Avodah, which you can find in the index,
under the subject line "In defense of Rav Moshe's calculations". Please see
there for my notes on a conversation I personally had with Rav Reuven
Feinstein; it seems that in addition to the 50 minute view, he had
occasionally mentioned holding by 40 or 45 minutes. However, this was only
orally, and not in print, except for one case where he said that the zman
for Krias Sh'ma is "about" 45 minutes. But the zman for KS can not
necessarily be generalized to other halachos of tzeis hakochavim.
> ... neither RT nor anybody else ever held that the length of
> bein hashmoshos is ever a fixed number of minutes. That would a
> ridiculous position to hold; it's obvious that the length of
> twilight varies by the time of year and the latitude.
I totally agree that it is obvious that twilight varies. But at least one
acharon DID hold that bein hashmoshos is a fixed number of minutes, namely
the Machatzis Hashekel. I had totally forgotten this, until I saw the
following in the posts I mentioned above:
> I believe one source for this might be the Machtzis Hashekel
> 235:3. First he explains how to use shaos zmanios to calculate
> the time of Plag Hamincha. Then <<< add on the shiur of 4 mil
> from the beginning of shkia until tzeis, which is 1 1/5 hours...
> and this is definitely *equal* hours, not zmanios hours, because
> it is based on the equal travel and regular movement of the
> spheres, whether the day is long or short...
We have mentioned in the past that Chazal sometimes opt for simplicity over
accuracy. One glaring example of this was the choice of EXACTLY 365.25 days
as the year for Birkas Hachama, even though they KNEW this to be slightly
inaccurate. Perhaps similar motivations are behind those who prescribe a
fixed number of minutes for Tzeis.
By the way, according to my calculations, on today's date (July 3) in the
Lower East Side of New York, it takes 50 minutes and 2 seconds for the sun
to reach 8.5 degrees below the horizon. But in the Catskill Mountains, it
takes 51 minutes and 41 seconds. And in Vilna, 89 minutes and 20 seconds
(almost 1.5 hours). On March 21, those durations are 40:39, 41:29, and
53:39 respectively. The significance of these numbers is up to you.
(Calculation formulas available on request. It's a pretty cool Excel
spreadsheet, if you're familiar with programming in Excel.)
Akiva Miller
____________________________________________________________
The End of the "Made-In-China" Era
The impossible (but real) technology that could make you impossibly rich.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/53b56ac6daf746ac64c5fst03vuc
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Message: 3
From: Alexander Seinfeld
Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2014 14:43:39 +0300
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Hashem said no
> On Wed, Jul 02, 2014 at 01:03:10PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote:
>: rabbi billett
>:> We have prayed every day for those boys. HASHEM in his
>:> mysterious and incomprehensible ways, has said' "no"
>: couldn't we say that, given that the boys were murdered moments after
>: their abduction, and since tefillot didnt commence until later, that for
>: the RBSO to have fully listened to the tefillot would have required
>: techiyat hameitim, and since we are not yet even zoche to mashiach, His
>: hands were effectively tied?
[Micha:]
> The mishnah on Berakhos 54a...
> So yes.
> But I am bothered by the level of discourse. We shouldn't be davening
> in order to get our requests met. Hashem will do what is best for our
> souls and His world. Not what we beg Him to do. Sometimes, the fact of
> davening changes what that "best" is. Often not. But even so, the main
> point of davening isn't to get what you want.
In a general sense I think you are right. Yet (agreeing with Akiva Miller
here) there are some things that we should know are always OK to ask for:
life, safety, parnasa, happiness. We don't say, "please give Ploni a
longer life _if_ it's good for him, we say, please give him a longer life.
That said, it seems to me we were not davvening in vain because we were
not davvening for the boys to be returned safely. We were davvening for
them to be returned safely _if_ they were still alive. That condition
was implicit in everyone's mind, I am certain.
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Message: 4
From: Eli Turkel
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2014 20:30:45 +0300
Subject: [Avodah] Agudah and Zionism
> Please remind me in which world does anyone think a godol "can't err"?
> Not Planet Earth. Maybe the world whose Chumash lacks the pesukim about
> Moshe Rabeinu hitting the rock...
see
http://www
.rabbimanning.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Daat-Torah-and-Rabbinic-Author
ity-Shiur-1-Modern-Approaches-to-Daat-Torah.pdf
[or <http://j.mp/TFwWhV> -micha]
for various definidions of daat Torah
see especially A2 by Rav Elchanan Wasserman
On the contrary in an article by RAL on daat Torah he stresses that one
quality of a true gadol is the ability to say "I don't know" this is
not within my area of expertise.
One of RAL's main objection to daat Torah is that many of todays gedolim
withdraw from society.
As the above article stresses the essence of a true gadol is that he
knows only Jewish sources and knows nothing of the secular world. But
then we expect the gadol to make decisions about the external world,
Todays gedolim are expected to give advice about matters from making a
living to making a shidduch without any knowledge of the bride and groom
or any knowledge of professions.
The problem is the opposite of what Rbn Katz writes. In the middle of
WWII no one knew what was the best choice to escape, Many who chose
some logical way were killed and those who did something stupid were
saved. However the gedolim instead of saying "we dont know - make your
own choice" gave advice based on no knowledge.
Based on no knowledge of politics rabbanim made decisions on going to
Roosevelt when that was exactly what the anti-semites were waiting for.
OTOH the campaign to save Soviet Jewry was done without rabbinic backing.
If gedolim would more often say that they have no knowledge of the topic
it would generate more appreciation when they indeed say something.
Tp quote RAL if all gedolim would be like Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach he
would be a fan of daas Torah
--
Eli Turkel
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Message: 5
From: Micha Berger
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2014 14:28:51 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Agudah and Zionism
On Thu, Jul 03, 2014 at 08:30:45PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
: On the contrary in an article by RAL on daat Torah he stresses that one
: quality of a true gadol is the ability to say "I don't know" this is
: not within my area of expertise.
Although he does seem to say that in principle, daas Torah does exist,
which is what I found surprising. Specifically, he seems to say RSZA
qualified.
RAL's position appears to be that DT is a real thing, but it only gives
special reasoning ability given knowledge of the facts on the ground to
reason about.
As implied by RET's post, this is a break from RYBS's position.
I was going to point to the essay, but it seems that read permissions
were taken off. Well, in case the issue is temporary:
http://etzion.org.il/vbm/archive/17-sichot/RAL-im-ein-daat-manh
igut-minayan.pdf
There is a recording of the talk of which the essay was notes at
http://torah.libsyn.com/-09-4
and an unauthorized translation at
http://www.zootorah.com/RationalistJudaism/DaatTorahLichtenstein.pdf
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea
mi...@aishdas.org of instincts.
http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507
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Message: 6
From: Eli Turkel
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2014 22:01:21 +0300
Subject: [Avodah] Agudah and Zionism
<<RAL's position appears to be that DT is a real thing, but it only gives
special reasoning ability given knowledge of the facts on the ground to
reason about.>>
RHS has a talk on YUtorah where he says similar things, ie Daas Torah is
real but quite limited because it assumes that the gadol has complete
knowledge
of the facts.
He is particularly upset about those who go to the rebbe (or these days to
the
Livitsche gadol) to ask about a shidduch. RHS states that one can give
advice about
a shidduch only if one is quite familar with both the chatan and kallah
which is quite rare.
Similarly if a gadol is to give an opinion about any political matter be it
the Holocaust
or Soviet Jewry or modern day Israeli political/military matter then it is
Daas Torah (which he says does exist) only if the gadol has invested the
time to get all the facts and opinions from various experts (not just
listening to what his gabbai feeds him). The gadol who cant spare 5 minutes
from his learning schedule should not be making psak on complex public
issues
--
Eli Turkel
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Message: 7
From: Micha Berger
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2014 15:20:41 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Agudah and Zionism
On Thu, Jul 03, 2014 at 10:01:21PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
: RHS has a talk on YUtorah where he says similar things, ie Daas Torah is
: real but quite limited because it assumes that the gadol has complete
: knowledge of the facts.
I didn't understand RHS that way. We discussed it in Feb. RAM provided
transcripts of some telling portions of his shiur at
http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/807758
The impression I get is that RHS denies any special rabbinic insight
outside of the realm of Torah. To the extent that it even impacts his
ability to answer halachic questions or questions about which is better
for hashkafic reasons. For questions like who to marry, whether to go
to war, how to treat a medical conditions, the rav has to limits himself
to pointing out the Torah's desiderata rather than giving final answers
as though they know how to apply them to the situation at hand.
The kashrus of a chicken, where the facts are more clear-cut, OTOH,
it's his job to say "kosher" or "treif".
The thread was at
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex
.cgi?section=R#RHS%20ON%20DAAS%20TORAH%20ON%20NONHALACHIC%20ISSUES
or <http://j.mp/1o5buLm>.
To save you time hitting the archive, here are RAM's transcripts:
1:09:39 - 1:10:12
> People ask me eitzas about shiduchim, I can't tell him yes or no. I
> just bring out points - keep this in mind, keep this in mind. I
> can't make the decision. I don't know him that well, I certainly
> don't know the girl at all. ... Rabanim should refrain from
> expressing positions on issues where they're not [garbled] with all
> the facts. ... If you're not looking at the chicken, you can't
> pasken the shailah. We don't believe in daas Torah like an oracle.
1:11:17 - 1:11:53
> Rav Soloveitchik said after the '67 war, you have to consult the
> generals, and after they tell you the information, then the rabanim
> have to make a decision what the halacha has to say about this. The
> generals are going to make the decisions based on their information
> and their hashkafa. But their hashkafa doesn't necessarily
> correspond to what the Torah has to say. The rabanim *have* what to
> pasken, but they can't pasken without first listening to the facts
> that the generals know. After they get their information, then the
> generals are giving their suggestion what they think is more
> important for Medinas Yisroel> But the rabanim have a *different*
> opinion what's more important for Medinas Yisroel.
1:23:54 - 1:24:53
> It would be a smart idea if they'd stop giving psakim, and they
> should give eitzos. They should bring ideas to the shoel: Keep this
> in mind, keep this in mind. How can they give a psak if they don't
> know all the details of the case? A lot of times *nobody* knows!
> The doctors don't know all the facts either. The doctors have to
> tell the rabbi all the information, and the rabbi gives a psak.
> ... He should give a recommendation. He should say: Keep this in
> mind, keep this in mind. If this comes up, so it's more important
> this than that. How can he give a psak if you're not looking at the
> facts of the case? It's not right, it's k'neged hadin, it's like an
> oracle from the ovdei avoda zara. We don't believe in oracles.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger Good decisions come from experience;
mi...@aishdas.org Experience comes from bad decisions.
http://www.aishdas.org - Djoha, from a Sepharadi fable
Fax: (270) 514-1507
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Message: 8
From: Eli Turkel
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2014 22:26:36 +0300
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Agudah and Zionism
As Micha brings RHS said
> People ask me eitzas about shiduchim, I can't tell him yes or no. I
> just bring out points - keep this in mind, keep this in mind. I
> can't make the decision. I don't know him that well, I certainly
> don't know the girl at all. ... Rabanim should refrain from
> expressing positions on issues where they're not [garbled] with all
> the facts. ... If you're not looking at the chicken, you can't
> pasken the shailah. We don't believe in daas Torah like an oracle.
I read this as stating that the main problem is rabbis should not give a
> psak where they dont know all the facts.
>
> --
Eli Turkel
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Message: 9
From: Micha Berger
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2014 15:29:38 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Agudah and Zionism
On Thu, Jul 03, 2014 at 10:26:36PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote:
: I read this as stating that the main problem is rabbis should not give a
: psak where they dont know all the facts.
And to rephrase in parallel terms, for clarity:
I took RHS as saying that in cases where no one could know all the facts
(eg some of them lay in the future, require mindreading, or the like),
a rabbi shouldn't trust his own instincts about how to act in a world
of uncertainty over the subject matter's expert's opinion.
A pretty exact denial of daas Torah.
Tir'u baTov!
-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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Message: 10
From: Zev Sero
Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2014 15:43:16 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Agudah and Zionism
On 3/07/2014 3:20 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> The impression I get is that RHS denies any special rabbinic insight
> outside of the realm of Torah. To the extent that it even impacts his
> ability to answer halachic questions or questions about which is better
> for hashkafic reasons. For questions like who to marry, whether to go
> to war, how to treat a medical conditions, the rav has to limits himself
> to pointing out the Torah's desiderata rather than giving final answers
> as though they know how to apply them to the situation at hand.
>
> The kashrus of a chicken, where the facts are more clear-cut, OTOH,
> it's his job to say "kosher" or "treif".
Even with a chicken, he has to know the facts! As in the famous joke about
a student being tested for smicha, who is shown a piece of a chicken and
asked how he would pasken, and says "if this is a heart, then it's treif,
if it's a spleen then it's kosher, if it's an intestine then it's treif,
if a crop then it's kosher, etc." In order to pasken on a chicken it's
not enough to be expert in the Shulchan Aruch, one must also be expert in
gallinaceous anatomy.
--
Zev Sero Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable
z...@sero.name from malice.
- Eric Raymond
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Message: 11
From: Micha Berger
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2014 16:52:05 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Achdus
On Thu, Jul 03, 2014 at 06:19:37AM +0200, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote:
: On 7/1/2014 6:24 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
:> Now that we are united, we cannot risk letting it go.
:
: IMO the unity was/is skin deep. I don't think that people changed their
: personalities, that they internalized the lessons...
...
: In contrast to what I wrote before:
:
: I have wondered what it is about this tragedy that brought so many of
: us together...
I think we could view RBW's first point as an example of the eigel
effect. Real change happens from within. An inspirtational event --
even on the scale of Maamud Har Sinai -- will not change someone from
without. Although there is a small chance of effecting change indirectly,
as the person's response during the event could itself start the process
of change from within.
But here I think it's a question of what keeps our feelings of achdus
latent. How deep of a change is actually necessery? The whole fact that
the boys were tremping is because we really do think of each other in
those terms at a deep level. Of course you would give your brother or
sister a lift if you saw them wairing by the road. Unlike, e.g. American
culture. (Although the temporary change of 9/11 gave it a similar feel
for a season as Israel has on a usual day.) It's just that in many forms
of expression, other things get in the way.
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
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Message: 12
From: Marty Bluke
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2014 23:44:23 +0300
Subject: Re: [Avodah] How many people can a Para Aduma be metaher?
The Rambam at the end of the 3rd perek of Hilchos Parah Adumah writes that
were 9 Parah Adumahs so far in history and the melech hamashiach will make
a tenth. It sounds like the Ramabam holds that 1 Parah Aduma will be enough
to be metaher everyone. There are more then 12 million Jews today and each
person needs 2 "doses" which means to be metaher everyone will take at
least 25 million "doses". There is no way that all of those can come from 1
parah aduma, yet that is the implication of the Rambam.
In general, it seems that many things related to the Beis Hamikdash have a
scaling problem. While the Beis Hamikdash in it's day may have been
considered to be a big building,, today it is woefully small for the amount
of people that need to enter. As I pointed out a while back, it is very
hard to see how it is possible for everyone to bring a Korban Pesach in the
time allotted erev Pesach, there simply is not enough time to bring that
many korbanos. With regards to the Parah Aduma, it seems to difficult to
see how that scales as well. Additionally, consider how long it would take
to be metaher everyone (12+ million people), probably months if not years.
How would that work? Who would go first?
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Message: 13
From: Zev Sero
Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2014 17:50:19 -0400
Subject: [Avodah] Hefsed Merubeh
This week I heard a story about my great-great-uncle, R Mendel Gluskin,
who was the rov of Paritch, then of Minsk, and then of Leningrad.
One day a woman came to ask a shayla about a chicken, but he had just
stepped out for a few minutes, leaving in his office a young rov who was
doing shimush with him, and an older rov who was visiting for some reason.
The visiting rov offered to look at the chicken, and paskened that it was
kosher, but the woman decided to wait for R Gluskin to return, since she
always asked him her shaylos. When he returned, he and his assistant
looked at the chicken, and he thought a bit, looked at it again, thought
some more, and finally said "Nu, it's hefsed merubah, we can be meikil",
and ruled it kosher. Later, when they were alone, the assistant asked
him why he had relied on hefsed merubeh to permit something he was clearly
reluctant to permit otherwise. This woman was far from poor, and could
easily afford the loss of one chicken. He replied, "Embarrassing a rov
is also a hefsed merubeh".
--
Zev Sero Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable
z...@sero.name from malice.
- Eric Raymond
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Message: 14
From: Akiva Blum
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2014 08:35:11 +0300
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Review Essay: Torah, Chazal and Science
From: "Prof. Levine via Avodah" <avo...@lists.aishdas.org>
>>The most recent volume of the journal Hakirah has been just
been released. It contains what I consider to be a most important
article by Prof. Nathan Aviezer with the above title. This article is
a review of Rabbi Dr. Moshe Meiselman's book Torah, Chazal and Science
and may be downloaded from
<http://www.hakirah.org/Vol17Aviezer.pdf> Review <<
From Toby Katz
Sent: Monday, 30 June, 2014 5:07 PM
>>>>>
Nevertheless, R' Meiselman's book is unworthy and does not at all
accomplish what he means to accomplish. It can only be convincing to people
who are already convinced before they crack open the book.
I have a mesorah from a great Torah leader to whom I was very close that
anyone who insists on taking every word of Chazal literally is actually
treating Chazal disrespectfully and causing others to disrespect Chazal. I
also have a mesorah that one of the takeaway lessons from Chazal is "chachma
bagoyim ta'amin." They taught us to follow their example, and to take the
findings of modern science and modern medicine seriously, and not to assume
that all necessary medical and scientific knowledge are already contained in
Torah miSinai.
<<<<<
I was disappointed with Nathan Aviezer's review. It does not appear that he
actually read the whole book.
For example, he repeatedly questions the books premise that very word that
Chazal say about the natural world is literally true. However, the book
clearly limits such certainty to cases where Chazal make a definitive
statement derived from Torah sources.
I was going to list more problems with this review when I saw someone did an
excellent job:
http://slifkinchallenge.blogspot.com/2014/07/my-job-made-easier-pa
rt-iv-deep
ly.html or http://tinyurl.com/m7k6ac5
Akiva
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