Avodah Mailing List

Volume 33: Number 46

Thu, 19 Mar 2015

• 1. Re: Muktze / Hachana during bein hashmashos (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: Rav Elchanan Wasserman (Eli Turkel)
• 3. Re: Eating before davening (Kenneth Miller)
• 4. Re: Rav Elchanan Wasserman (Micha Berger)
• 5. Rav Elchanan Wasserman (Eli Turkel)
• 6. Re: Rav Elchanan Wasserman (Micha Berger)
• 7. Paradigm Changes in Halacha (Rich, Joel)
• 8. Re: Paradigm Changes in Halacha (Micha Berger)
• 9. Re: Paradigm Changes in Halacha (Rich, Joel)
• 10. Re: Paradigm Changes in Halacha (Kenneth Miller)
• 11. Re: Rav Elchanan Wasserman (Eli Turkel)
• 12. Re: Rav Elchanan Wasserman (Micha Berger)
• 13. Re: Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin (Kaganoff)

On Wed, Mar 18, 2015 at 05:36:00PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
: On 03/18/2015 08:59 AM, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote:
:> How far does Ain Shvusim b'Bein Hashmashos go these days?

: I have never heard of such a rule.  AFAIK all shvusim *do* apply bein
: hashmoshos, except for a mitzvah or something that is vitally necessary
: for Shabbos.

Shevus bemaqom mitzvah in general. And this would qualify. MB 261:28
generalizes from the SA's letzorekh Shabbos (se'if 1) to all tzorekh
mitzvah. See also the MB s"q 30.

The AhS (se'if 11) is even meiqil -- "lidevar mitzvah o tzorekh harbei".
In se'if 13 he dicusses amira le'aqum and has "letzorekh mitzvah o
shehu tarud venechpaz aleha", giving tzorekh gadol and hefsed meruba
as matitrim. (Not sure what hefsed meruba isn't tzorekh gadol that it
warrants separate listing; maybe the wording is only idiomatic.)

See also the Rambam (Shabbos 24:10), "vehu sheyihyeh sham devar mitzvah
o dochaq". More authoritative in theory, but I thought the MB and AhS
would be more indicative of what we hold lemaaseh.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is our choices...that show what we truly are,
mi...@aishdas.org        far more than our abilities.
http://www.aishdas.org                           - J. K. Rowling
Fax: (270) 514-1507

<<But lemasqana, we are assuming that nearly all, if not
all suicides did not involve free will. >>

I don't think that is the basis. RYSE is reported to "pasken" that we don't
hold like REED
nevertheless holds the same psak for suicides. It has nothing to do with
free will.
The psak is merely that a person who commits suicide from depression is not
doing as
a rebellion against hashem and there are extenuating circumstances.

Someone who acts under depression is still acting under (partial) free will
i.e. not detrminsim
but he is not punishable for his actions
At the extreme someone who is halachically a "shoteh" is not punishmed for
his actions
that doesnt mean that a shoteh acts deterministically it only means that
his actions are irrational but still his free will actions

On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 11:53 AM, Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:

> Yesterday I replied to RET:
> :> 1) Tosafot (and Rambam) on ketubot 30 in discussing what man can choose
> :> (bidei adam o bidei shamayim) take it for granted that a person can
> :> choose to commit suicide. REW disagrees (kovetz haarot biuerei agadot
> :> 7-4) claims that a person can commit suicide only if it is previously
> :> decreed from Heaven.
>
> :> What happened to free choice - sounds like determinism to me)
>
> : REED famously limits free will in a different way, saying it only
> involves
> : decisions that force themselves to consciousness.
>
> I am adding now to address a new issue that came up off-list: assuming
> guilt. If suicide isn't a decision, why would we blame the person who
> commits it hand bury them outside the main cemetery?
>
> In REED's explanation of limited bechirah, there aren't such problems. A
> person who is blamed for a sin "decided" upon subconsciously does so
> because he made himself into a kind of person whose yeitzer hatov wouldn't
> even wake up when the issue arises. And if someone sins that way because
> of nature or nurture (tinoq shenishba) who knows how they are judged?
>
> But the truth is, REW's position dovetails with contemporary norms in
> pesaq. Nowadays we usually assume insanity is involved in every suicide.
> (Barring a Masadah situation, lo aleinu.) Which is why we no longer
> bury suicides outside the main cemetery. Perhaps it's just hunting for
> a tzad heter to help the aveilim through what is already a very hard
> time for them. But lemasqana, we are assuming that nearly all, if not
> all suicides did not involve free will.
>
> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha
>
> --
> Micha Berger             "The worst thing that can happen to a
> mi...@aishdas.org        person is to remain asleep and untamed."
> http://www.aishdas.org          - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm
> Fax: (270) 514-1507
>



-- 
Eli Turkel
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R' Zev Sero wrote:

> ... the arrogance consists of throwing this obligation over in
> order to satisfy your own needs.  If there's no obligation there's
> no arrogance in neglecting or postponing it.
>
> Thus also, one who wakes up before `alos hashachar is allowed to
> eat, although he has not yet davened that day.  Since there is no
> tefilah that he *should* have davened, it's not arrogant to eat.
> The only chiyuv he has is to say a brocha.  ...
>
> Now when does the chiyuv of the three tefilos attach?  See Eshel
> Avraham ... mincha does not attach until the *end* of the afternoon.
> One *can* daven mincha earlier, but doesn't have to. ...
>
> On the same principle, since your chiyuv of mincha had not yet
> attached, you were entitled to eat.

I have difficulty understanding this idea that "One *can* daven mincha
earlier, but doesn't have to". And I've had that difficulty for a very long
time -- it comes up not only in my case, but also in the halachos which
prohibit time-consuming activities before mincha; at which point do those
activities become assur? At mincha gedolah, mincha ketana, or some other
point.

In any case, regardless of when the "chiyuv" of mincha begins, we certainly
CAN daven mincha earlier, from mincha gedolah onwards, and in fact we often
actually do so. With this in mind, I cannot imagine why "lo sochlu al
hadam" would not apply in this case. He can gather a minyan for mincha
gedolah, or daven on his own.

I think a better analogy would not be to one who wakes before alos
hashachar, but one who sleeps a bit longer, yet wakes before hanetz. The
prohibition of eating already applies, because the *ability* to daven
shacharis is already present the lechatchila/bdieved status of that
shacharis is irrelevant; since he *can* daven, he may not eat. (This is
intrinsic in the problem of davening vs eating, and has nothing to do with
the separate issur of eating in the half-hour prior to davening time.)

Akiva Miller

____________________________________________________________
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On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 03:39:36PM +0200, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
:>        Nowadays we usually assume insanity is involved in every suicide.
...
:>              ... [L]emasqana, we are assuming that nearly all, if not
:> all suicides did not involve free will.

: I don't think that is the basis. RYSE is reported to "pasken" that we don't
: hold like REED
: nevertheless holds the same psak for suicides. It has nothing to do with
: free will.
: The psak is merely that a person who commits suicide from depression is not
: doing as
: a rebellion against hashem and there are extenuating circumstances.

I don't know whose basis you're questioning. For REW, you reported:
:>:> (bidei adam o bidei shamayim) take it for granted that a person can
:>:> choose to commit suicide. REW disagrees (kovetz haarot biuerei agadot
:>:> 7-4) claims that a person can commit suicide only if it is previously
:>:> decreed from Heaven.

And not having looked at the Qoveitz haAros myself, I was just taking
your word for it.

For what we do today, I don't know why you're bringing in issues of
kefirah (rebellion) when the issur is retzichah. I don't really have as
much time as usual to do research (working in a way to mention on list
my daughter's recent wedding by using 7 berakhos week as an excuse), but
see AhS YD 345:4, shiga'on is considered me'abed atzmo *shelo* mida'as,
and we invoke "shema beshiga'on".

More clear is the Qitzur 201:3, assuming "ru'ach ra'ah o shiga'on"
includes depression.

Which is why I argued that insanity is being counted as a kind of
non-bemeizid in a way very similar to decisions far from REED's nequdas
habechirah, and yet also with the same results as REW's that we just
assume it of all suicides.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Brains to the lazy
mi...@aishdas.org        are like a torch to the blind --
http://www.aishdas.org   a useless burden.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                 - Bechinas haOlam

<<IIRC R'EW was "forced" into this position (or actually IIRC that it is
natural to believe in HKB"H from a very young age) in order to answer the
question of can one be held accountable at age 13  for not believing.  One
who disagrees with R'EW would have to have some explanation.>>

R Michael Avraham holds that one who does not believe in G-d (he disagrees
with REW and says there certainly are many such people in modern society)
indeed do not get either reward or punishment for their deeds. They are
outside the system.
All discussions in the gemara or rishonim are irrelevant because in those
days indeed everyone accepted the existence of a G-d

-- 
Eli Turkel
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On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 04:04:56PM +0200, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
: R Michael Avraham holds that one who does not believe in G-d (he disagrees
: with REW and says there certainly are many such people in modern society)
: indeed do not get either reward or punishment for their deeds. They are
: outside the system.
: All discussions in the gemara or rishonim are irrelevant because in those
: days indeed everyone accepted the existence of a G-d

Again, I don't see where REW says these people are rare. He just says
that deep down everyone knows there's a G-d, they just have negi'os that
motivates the distortion of reason.

As for discussions in rishonim, I think the Moreh 3:17 is spot on.
According to the Rambam, HP is a consequence of and proportional to
Knowing the Creator. Which would lead to REW's conclusion.

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

In some off-line  correspondence a chaver responded to my question
concerning "when did minhag become a family rather than a geographical
community centered concept?"  He made the  claim  that some 20th century
poskim, recognizing the facts on the ground (mass diverse communal
dislocations) in essence established a new paradigm. Unclear to me whether
the claim is that this was a conscious process or not.
 I think R'Asher Weiss, from time to time, consciously sees a similar
 approach to halacha in changing circumstances, there are others I'm not so
 sure about. Any thoughts appreciated, especially on the topic of what
 specific historical halachic process/source supports such a conscious
 approach to a paradigm change.(I sometimes refer to them as "libi omer
 li's"
KT
Joel Rich

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On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 02:17:11PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
: In some off-line correspondence a chaver responded to my question
: concerning "when did minhag become a family rather than a geographical
: community centered concept?" He made the claim that some 20th century
: poskim, recognizing the facts on the ground (mass diverse communal
: dislocations) in essence established a new paradigm. Unclear to me
: whether the claim is that this was a conscious process or not.

I don't thin the paradigm is new. I think we did this in the past
in other periods of post-rupture reconstruction. (R/Dr Haym Soloveitchik
reference intentional.)

What was minhag like when refugees from Italy and from the Sassanid
Empire converge on Ashkenaz?

I also found hints in "Maqom sheNahagu", in both talmuds, for saying
that minhag avos is the proper fall-back when moving to a location
that has no established minhag hamaqom.

I agree with your thesis, except for the word "new".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight,
mi...@aishdas.org        and he wants to sleep well that night too."
http://www.aishdas.org         - Rav Yosef Yozel Horwitz, Alter of Novarodok
Fax: (270) 514-1507

What was minhag like when refugees from Italy and from the Sassanid
Empire converge on Ashkenaz?
----------------------------------
The example I have pondered were the first ashkenazi arrivals to NY where
there was already a sfardic community established.  What gave them the
right, when enough of them showed up, to maintain (or go back) to an
ashkenazi practice?  Is it like chozer v'niur in kashrut and why does that
apply in minhag case which was geographical and supposedly a function of
earlier generations taking a communal neder (I'm not sure I know what that
means)?
KT
Joel Rich
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Thank you.

I think very little of this is new. It probably happened anytime a group of
people moved to a new location en masse, willingly or not. When an
individual moves, it is relatively easy to assimilate, but when so many
immigrants arrive together, they naturally want to continue doing things
just like back home. The history mavens can confirm whether or not I am
correct,  regarding migrations as far back as the Spanish exile, or the
Olei  Bavel.

The only thing that new, as I see it, is that there are very few cities or towns left that haven't been overrun by immigrants. 

Akiva Miller

____________________________________________________________
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<<As for discussions in rishonim, I think the Moreh 3:17 is spot on.
According to the Rambam, HP is a consequence of and proportional to
Knowing the Creator. Which would lead to REW's conclusion.>>

Again R Avraham argues this applies to the days of the Rambam and is
irrelevant to todays society.
As to a suicide my argument is that it has nothing to do with free will.
It is not intentional murder
because the vast majority of suicides (murder if you prefer) are done under
depression and so
they can be buried inside a Jewish cemetery

<<He just says that deep down everyone knows there's a G-d, they just have
negi'os that
motivates the distortion of reason.>>

That is exactly the point that R Avraham disputes.  Speak to
atheists/agnostics and those that
hate religion as a backward ideology that denies modern science.
We are putting words in their mouth because it fits our ideology. To assume
that Dawkins
deep down bwlieves in G-d is quite farfetched.
It is equivalent to stating that those on theis list oppose kameas and
other similar segulot
really believe in them but oppose the idea for ulterior motives.

Most important: Mazal tov on the wedding

Eli

On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 4:24 PM, Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 04:04:56PM +0200, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
> : R Michael Avraham holds that one who does not believe in G-d (he
> disagrees
> : with REW and says there certainly are many such people in modern society)
> : indeed do not get either reward or punishment for their deeds. They are
> : outside the system.
> : All discussions in the gemara or rishonim are irrelevant because in those
> : days indeed everyone accepted the existence of a G-d
>
> Again, I don't see where REW says these people are rare. He just says
> that deep down everyone knows there's a G-d, they just have negi'os that
> motivates the distortion of reason.
>
> As for discussions in rishonim, I think the Moreh 3:17 is spot on.
> According to the Rambam, HP is a consequence of and proportional to
> Knowing the Creator. Which would lead to REW's conclusion.
>
> 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
>



-- 
Eli Turkel
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On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 04:41:54PM +0200, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
:> As for discussions in rishonim, I think the Moreh 3:17 is spot on.
:> According to the Rambam, HP is a consequence of and proportional to
:> Knowing the Creator. Which would lead to REW's conclusion.

: Again R Avraham argues this applies to the days of the Rambam and is
: irrelevant to todays society.

1- But you sayid that RMA disagrees with REW. So when you focused on REW's
position, I ignored him, and looked just as what you restated besheim REW.

Sekhar va'onesh is a subset of hashgachah.
The Rambam says there is no hashgachah without yedi'ah, so he would say
there is no sv"o. (His notion of being abandoned to teva necessarily
precludes sv"o.
REW says there is no sekhar va'onesh for apiqursim. Which is consistent
with this idea in the Moreh.

2- The Rambam's logic has nothing to do with era and commonality
of belief. Rather that the conduit for hashgachah is the connection
of yedi'ah. If one doesn't know G-d, there is no way to receive the
influence. Redardless of the reason for lacking such knowledge.

So I don't see how RMA could make a distinction between societies.

3- Moving from HP to bechirah in the context of suicide:
: As to a suicide my argument is that it has nothing to do with free will.
: It is not intentional murder
: because the vast majority of suicides (murder if you prefer) are done under
: depression and so
: they can be buried inside a Jewish cemetery

Which is what I said. So we end up holding like REW -- suicide doesn't
involve bechirah. At least the vast majority.

4- On bechirah and emunah:
:> He just says that deep down everyone knows there's a G-d, they just have
:> negi'os that motivates the distortion of reason.
: 
: That is exactly the point that R Avraham disputes...

Again, since I was explaining REW as you presented him (which was
consistent with my recollection), I ignored RMA. You wrote:
: R Michael Avraham holds that one who does not believe in G-d (he disagrees
: with REW and says there certainly are many such people in modern society)
: indeed do not get either reward or punishment for their deeds. They are
: outside the system.

I was objecting to the implication of parenthetic remark that REW days
such people are few or non-existent. REW does accept that there are many
non-believers. But they are all people whose negi'os and ta'avos drove
them to reason themselves out of the default position of being ma'aminim.

...
: We are putting words in their mouth because it fits our ideology. To assume
: that Dawkins deep down believes in G-d is quite farfetched.

That's the reason RME and you disagree with REW. But he wrote otherwise.

To say that REW meant something else would be putting words in *his*
mouth. Although I would say that more precisely than I did last time:
It's quite possible REW would assume a man like Dawkins didn't just
bury the inborn emunah but broke it. But his atheism was a choice awy
from emunah.

How REW would apply concepts of tinoq shenishba to this discussion and
the cupability for such choices when they started even before being a
full bar daas is beyond me.

But for us, REW says we have a choice to preserve our belief in what we
would naturally find obvious, or to justify one's desire to live without
His ol and even to suppress/eliminate the guilt of knowing there is an
ol to ignore.

I don't see here any problems of REW denying bekhirah or of telling others
what they really believe. Rather, there is a questionable insistance
on a specific kind of psychological route to how those beliefs could
be reached.

: Most important: Mazal tov on the wedding

Yehi Ratzon that your future hold many occasions for people to say the
same to you!

A tangent back toward Avodah topicality: Given that the expression
"mazal tov" either post-dates or at least survive chazal's awareness
that the stars move in concert and in predictable paths (whether on
the Persian hemispherical shell raqi'ah or the Copernican model), it's
not realy representative of luck. "Good luck" doesn't exactly fit the
original meaning of the idiom.

Perhaps better would be "May you be en route to a good fate!"

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is our choices...that show what we truly are,
mi...@aishdas.org        far more than our abilities.
http://www.aishdas.org                           - J. K. Rowling
Fax: (270) 514-1507

R. Shalom Carmy (who i believe is on this list) in class (and probably in
writing somewhere) contrasts R. Y.B. Soloveitchik's approach to why people
do not believe vs. R. Elchanan Wasserman position. It helps shed light upon
this important discussion.



The argument of R. Elchanan Wasserman as to why people do not believe is
widely accepted in the Hareidi world, both in and out of the Yeshivos. It
also informs much of Hareidi kiruv.



For many years i had extreme difficulty with R. Elchanan Wasserman
understanding
as it conflicted with my belief that Judaism (and other religions) was not
logically provable (contra to Moshe Mendelssohn and his contemporaries) and
therefore required a ?leap of faith? and that a disbeliever could not be
faulted for failing to take such a jump.



Additionally, I accept the postmodern notion that beliefs and ideas are
subject to social and cultural context and that a disbelief in Judaism or
God could be the result of being in a context which encouraged disbelief.



However, my wife helped me see the value of R. Elchanan?s position in the
aftermath of Noah Feldman?s *New York Times Magazine* article.



It is a *midda* (trait) of arrogance that everything must make sense to me
at this point in my life and that if something does not make sense to me
right now, then it must be wrong. The *midda* of *anavah* (humility)
includes saying that I do not understand something or that something does
not make sense to me for specific reasons. Even so that I do not understand
something, I will humbly go on. The idea that something must make sense **to
me** and therefore it is wrong is contrary to the *midda* of *anavah*.



Of course, if someone is challenged by a particular aspect or tenet of
Judaism, then I believe that they should come up with a personally
compelling understanding of that tenet. It?s possible, of course, that they
will find an answer that is personally satisfying. It?s also possible that,
at first (or even after an extensive investigation) that they will not find
any answer completely satisfying. However, I think that it is highly
unlikely that they will not no approaches or answers to their issue at all.



There are many *yetzer harahs* and *tayvas* (desire) in the world. Some
people desire food, sex or money . Others want respect, honor or power.
Others want the world to function as they want or make sense to them rather
than to submit humbly.



Perhaps this is one was that we can understand R. Elchanan Wasserman.
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