Avodah Mailing List

Volume 33: Number 90

Tue, 16 Jun 2015

• 1. Why Chassidut (Ben Waxman)
• 2. Re: Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed (Ysoscher)
• 3. Re: If and When (Kenneth Miller)
• 4. Re: If and When (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed (Ysoscher)
• 6. Re: [Areivim] 100% Vegetable oils etc. (Walker Crisps) (Zev Sero)
• 7. Re: Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed (Micha Berger)
• 8. Re: What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies (Ken Bloom)
• 9. Safeik and Multivalent Logic (Micha Berger)
• 10. Re: Worker or Craftsman (Micha Berger)
• 11. Re: 100% Vegetable oils etc. (Micha Berger)
• 12. Re: Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed (Micha Berger)

 From Rav Yehoshua Shapira (my quick translation)

The idea that Chassidut?s positive atmosphere isn?t obligatory is a 
serious mistake. Not only is it obligatory, but it brings with it more 
obligations. Without emphasis on the Mitzvot of ahava and yirah, simcha 
and deveikut (which are the soul of the 613 mitzvot) the mitzvot remain 
external actions, technical, something which doesn?t affect or uplift 
the heart and soul.

Those doreitta mitzvot, which are the pinimiot of all mitzvoth, demand 
from a person and from us to give their entire being when doing a 
mitzvah. . . .. In the performance of mitzvoth, God wants our hearts. 
Therefore, Chassidut definitely demands deep dedication.

Chana, 

Three quick points: 

1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating
chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with
original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological
movement which appealed to a small elitist group. As time went by
more people started joining. As the masses joined, the theology became
diluted. The theologically influenced practices reminded but the ethos
became stagnant.

Therefore, your attempt to disprove my thesis from the way Chassidim
behave today is wrong. I'm advocating for chassidic theology which
was prevalent during the first and second generation of the chassidic
movement, people like the Besht, the Magid, the Toldos Yakov Yosef,
Reb Nachaman, the Ba'al Hatanye and others.

I have no doubt that their philosophy informed Rav Kook and Lubavitcher
Rebbe when dealing with tensions between Halacha and modernity. And,
their philosophy can help us today as well. Incorporating a chassidic
ethos would allow us to infuse our encounters with modernity with kedusha
and meaning.

Which brings me to my second point.

2) Kabbakah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly
sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative
to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach.

While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational.

However, more to the point, the warmth and sense of community is a
byproduct of this theology, not its primary focus.

3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The
Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the
masses. That to me is highly problematic.


Rabbi Ysoscher Katz
Chair, Department of Talmud,
Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School; Director of the Lindenbaum
Center for Halakhic Studies; Educational Director of Judaic Studies,
Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.; Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul.
E-mail: ysosc...@gmail.com

R' Micha Berger wrote:

> R' Yishmael famously (Mechilta BaChodesh-Yisro 11, Mishpatim 182
> or <http://j.mp/1SbnwEg>) says that "im" usually means that the
> decision is up to you, but three times it's a chiyuv:
>    - "Im mizbach avanim ta'aseh Li" (Shemos 20:21)
>    - "Im kesef talveh es ami" (Shemos 22:24)
>    - "Im taqriv minchas bikurim" (Vayiqra 2:14)
...
> LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y.
...
> When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always
> obligated, but the "always" is because X is.

If I'm understanding you correctly, your logic will work only if there is
another pasuk somewhere which *already* obligates us to build a mizbe'ach
of stone, to lend money without interest, and to bring bikkurim in this
manner. If so, then a fuller translation can be written with the word "if",
and without the word "when", like this:

: (You are already obligated to build a stone mizbe'ach, and)
: if (today is the day that) you will build a stone mizbe'ach,
: you will not build it from cut stones...

But I thought that R' Yishmael's whole point is that THESE ARE the source
pesukim for those mitzvos, and that there are NO other pesukim which
obligate you to do these things. That's why R' Yishmael made the whole
point of stressing that these "im"s really mean "when". His fear was that
if we translate "im" as "if", then someone might think these pesukim are
like Hilchos Gittin: "IF you get divorced, here is the right way to do it,
and IF you make a stone mizbe'ach, here is the right way." R' Yishmael's
point is that there is no "if" - you MUST do these things, and WHEN you do
it, this is how.

So over Shabbos, I tried to verify my idea. Thanks to RMB, who quoted not
only the 3 pesukim, but identified their location, it was pretty simple to
look them up in the Torah Temimah. But what I found was rather odd.

Torah Temimah Shmos 20:127 quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, pretty much
the same way that RMB did, and points out that this is NOT the source for
the obligation for build a stone mizbe'ach - that is in Ki Savo. This RMB's
logic fits: "If (today is the day that) you build a stone mizbe'ach, don't
build it of cut stones."

Please note: In the excerpt of the Mechilta which the Torah Temimah quotes
regarding the mizbe'ach, R' Yishmael says that there are 3 cases where "im"
is not optional, but the other two are not specified. This is very
different than the Torah Temimah about lending money.

Torah Temimah Shmos 22:198 does quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, but it
doesn't mention the word "im" explicitly, nor is there any reference to two
other cases. He simply asks whether it is a reshus or a chovah to lend
money, and he answers that the obligation appears in Parshas Re'eh. I find
it curious that this Mechilta is worded so differently than the previous
one, but the message is clearly the same.

Finally, we have the pasuk about bikkurim. It turns out that the Torah
Temimah on this pasuk doesn't mention R' Yishmael at all. It does mention
R' Yehudah, but from the Toras Kohanim, and not from the Mechilta. Further,
my unlearned reading of R' Yehudah had little or nothing to do with the
reshus/chovah question, but Torah Temimah Vayikra 2:80 DID see a
reshus/chovah question that troubled R' Yehudah.

I am left with several questions, the main one being whether or not
Bikkurim really was R' Yishmael's third "im". And that's where I'll leave
this thread, for more skilled minds to investigate should they be so
inclined.

Akiva Miller
KennethGMil...@juno.com


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On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 02:00:32PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote:
: > LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y.
: ...
: > When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always
: > obligated, but the "always" is because X is.
: 
: If I'm understanding you correctly, your logic will work only if
: there is another pasuk somewhere which *already* obligates us to build a
: mizbe'ach of stone, to lend money without interest, and to bring bikkurim
: in this manner. If so, then a fuller translation can be written with
: the word "if", and without the word "when"...

In reality, the cited Mechilta actually provides derahos to prove that
there is nothing optional about the antecedants.

But my point was to suggest that "im" has nothing to do with the
maybe-ness of "if". Just the implication bit --
    if X then Y, or
    whenever X then Y, or
    since X then Y,
regardless of whether not-X is a possibility or option.

Which would reduce what looks like two definitions for "im" into a single
common meaning.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Time flies...
mi...@aishdas.org                    ... but you're the pilot.
http://www.aishdas.org                       - R' Zelig Pliskin
Fax: (270) 514-1507

R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle
applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word
in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think
"he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad."

This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam
shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate
untruths for the greater good of society. Once he believes that, we are
left to wonder about everything he wrote: did he really believe that or
was there a political (in the Aristotelian sense) agenda behind it. To
then preference the yad over the moreh is a personal bias.

You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every
word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes
contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater
good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant
philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the
Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad.

Ultimately there's no objective measure to determine who's right.

R. Isidore Twersky in his book on the Rambam tried to argue that there
is no stira, that the moreh and the yad compliment each other. I don't
find his arguments compelling. These two sefarim are incompatible and,
ultimately, we are left in the dark, never able to objectively determine
which of the two Rambam's sefarim were written with ulterior motives.

You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy
for rationalism."

I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense. Rambam believed
in an evidence based religiosity, that we believe in God because His
existence can be proven. That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof
proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely
why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better
option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be
confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because
they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced."

Their mehalach is more appealing to our post/modern generation where
few people believe in absolute truths, and, it's also truer to our
tradition. We were always a a-rational tradition until Maimonides came
along and changed that.

Which brings me to my next point.

You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific
claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying
that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim.

[Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should
make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different.

We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A
faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim. Two
things distinguish the chasid's experience of reading Torah from the
philosopher's experience. When the chasid reads those stories he or
she a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth"
isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In
the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach
is a-rational and unscientific. The truth question, for him or her, is
internal to the system as is the solution. It truthfully and absolutely
happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring
the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens
exclusively in the religious realm.

I also think there's a lot of confusion between what I'm arguing and
what you're responding to.

Briefly:

1) As I wrote to Chana: Chassidim and chassidut is not same. Chassidim
today have little to do with chassidut. Contemporary chassidic philosophy
is a complete deviation from original chassidut.

2) A-rationalism isn't one iota less sophisticated than rationalism. These
are two parallel philosophies each with their own set of nuanced
assumptions, postulates, and assumptions.

3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist
movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a
theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications.

Rabbi Ysoscher Katz
Chair, Department of Talmud, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School;
Director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies;
Educational Director of Judaic Studies, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.;
Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul.
E-mail: ysosc...@gmail.com

On Areivim, Kaganoff wrote:
> Zev Sero wrote:
>> Kaganoff wrote:
>>> Zev Sero wrote:
>>>> Kaganoff wrote:

>>>>> I would be rather surprised if there was a genuine kashrus concern
>>>>> from with the Walker Crisps from any meat contamination.
>>>>> Any meat would be batel.

>>>> It's flavouring.

>>> We hold of bittul b'shishim.

>> Only as a general assumption that at that dilution it can't be tasted.
>> Not applicable to concentrated flavourings which are designed to be tasted
>> at high dilution.

> That is a chumrah that you could adopt, but should not force on others.

Why do you call it a chumra?  Do you deny that the din is about ta`am, not
percentage, and bitul beshishim is merely a general assumption that at that
level of dilution there is no ta`am?



>>> And it's a not a flavoring for this particular product. So it is not
>>> avida l'ta'amei, even at less than 60.

>> Since when does the fact that it wasn't intended to be in this product make it
>> not intended for its taste?


> That is why companies spend thousands of dollars perfecting formulas
> for what is and is not used in a product. If it is not used as an
> ingredient, then it was not meant to flavor this product.

Once again, so what?  Where did you get this idea that it matters whether it
was intended to be in this product?

Perhaps you're thinking of nosen ta'am lifgam, and saying that even a
pleasant flavour, if it was not intended to be in a particular dish, may be
considered a pegam in that dish.  But that doesn't work.  Suppose a chef created
a dish flavoured with lard, but made a mistake; he put in too much, or too little,
or didn't cook it long enough, or cooked it too long, or at the wrong temperature,
and the final flavour of the dish isn't what he was aiming for.  It's pleasant,
and the diners eat it up and compliment him, but he knows that it wasn't meant to
taste like that, and his recipe needs work. Can you imagine calling that dish
pagum, and allowing it to be eaten?!  That's obviously not tenable.   So how is
this case any different?   A pleasant and desirable flavour has made its way into
a product that wasn't intended to have that flavour.  Does that make it pagum?!!
No.  It's a good product, it's just not the product that's on the label.    The
product that's on the label is kosher, but the product that's inside the packet
is treif, exactly as if a labelling error had occurred.




>>>>> Stam Keilim Ain ben Yomo.

>>>> Are you joking?  That klal is clearly not true in any commercial setting.

>>> Why do you assume that it is clearly not true. Or rather you are
>>> assuming that in a majority of cases, meat is used the same day as
>>> the kosher product. That strikes me as a bit extreme.

>> It's not at all extreme.  Everyone knows that commercial equipment is almost
>> *never* idle for 24 hours at a time.  And since the meat flavouring is a
>> regular product it stands to reason that it's processed every day.

> Do you know this for a fact about this particular plant? Otherwise,
> it's an assumption that you can make, as per Chazal.

Everyone knows that it's true about *all* commercial equipment.  And we have
no right to "assume" something we know not to be true.  Stam keilim einom
bnei yomam is simply not a valid rule in the context of commercial equipment
today.


>> In any case, the issue here isn't keilim, since the flavouring is cold, and
>> sprayed on cold chips.  If it were keilim then there would be no bittul
>> beshishim, since stam keilim are more than 1/60 of their contents.   No,
>> the issue here is the residue of actual flavouring that remains in the
>> equipment after the meat flavours are run, until it is cleaned.

> Which again would be batel within the first few products of the new run.

It might be, if we knew the order in which the flavours are run.  But they
refuse to disclose that information.   What we do know is that the plain
chips are run first, so they're acceptable.  After that all bets are off.
There is no way to be sure that the packet of non-meat-flavoured chips
you are eating was not the first one off the rank immediately after a meat run.


>>>>> It's not Avida L'Ta'amei, etc.

>>>> It's precisely avida letaama -- it's a flavouring!

-- 
Zev Sero               I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you
z...@sero.name          intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in
                        the street and commands me to surrender my purse,
                        I have a right to kill him without asking questions
                                               -- John Adams

On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 01:30:46AM -0400, Ysoscher via Avodah wrote:
: R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle
: applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word
: in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think
: "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad."
: 
: This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam
: shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate
: untruths for the greater good of society....

Yes, but he says it in an introduction explaining a particular kind of
book -- which the Moreh is, and the Yad isn't. Whereas the Yad self-describes
as being Mishneh Torah, explanation, not obfuscation. So why look to
the intro to the Moreh to muddle what the Rambam himself says was the
point of the Yad?

In either case, the Rambam describes Yad and the Peirush haMishnayos
a explanations  written to be comprehensible to the masses. Moreh
2:35 (el-Qafih ["Kapach"]):

    Kevar bi'arti likhlal benei adam ... veheivesi ra'ayos al kakh
    ubirartav bePeirush haMishnah ubeMishneh Torah...

: You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every
: word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes
: contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater
: good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant
: philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the
: Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad.

Actually, I tend to side with the anti-Mamonidians. Mostly because his
model of redemption leaves people like my son Shuby (who has Downs)
wandering around the palace with no hope of getting in. (To paraphrase
3:51.)

: You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy
: for rationalism."
: 
: I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense...

Which is so loose as to be meaningless. The Rambam predated science,
and followed the secular authority. Rationalism today refers to
emprical and other objective proof.

:                          That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof
: proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely
: why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better
: option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be
: confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because
: they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced."

Yeah, but so does the Gra's Qabbalah or Mussar.

Mussar in particular replaces the Rambam's akrasia based on knowlege /
wisdom, and therefore redemption through getting the right knowledge,
with talk of first-hand experience, emotions, subconscious, etc...

: You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific
: claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying
: that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim.
: 
: [Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should
: make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different.

Well, I wouldn't lump the two together. The Rambam is far from alone
in considering aggadic stories to be meshalim repeated with not concern
about historicity. Much like you wrote -- an authentic attitude toward
such things would be to not care about what really happened. Not to
assert they are or aren't historical. (Although the Rambam would tell
you to assume the wilder ones aren't historical, lest you make a joke
out of the Torah -- the first two of the three katim described in his
haqdamah to mishnah Cheileq.)

: We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A
: faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim...

Agreed. BUT... the kind of problem I thought you were trying to address
was the person who felt the Torah and academia conflict. To invoke
this dichotomy to resolve the issue would be to allow people to assert
ahistoricity, rather than avoiding a position altogether.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The true measure of a man
mi...@aishdas.org        is how he treats someone
http://www.aishdas.org   who can do him absolutely no good.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                   - Samuel Johnson

>
> > Actually it sounds to me that one very much can rely on the
> > label (from this example). The trace amounts [the LBD are] talking
> > about are much, much less than 1/60. Completely bateil,
> > totally parve, but enough to elicit an allergic reaction.
> I remember learning about a machlokes concerning whether we hold dairy
> can be batel to pareve, or whether we say that since there is no loss (at
> least, not the total loss that we have when something becomes nonkosher)
> we should simply consider it dairy. But I don't remember how we hold on
> this issue. Anyone else?
> And shouldn't these questions be on Avodah?
> Akiva Miller


What's the machloket? Doesn't the Rema YD 99:6 clearly hold that that milk
is batel in parve?
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Back on Fri, 14 May 2004 10:45am EST (yes, 11 years ago) I wrote
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol13/v13n023.shtml#31> on the thread
"Valid halachic change" I wrote:
> I was at a yarchei (yarei'ach? shavu'ah -- since it was only a
> week?) kallah during Elul in Boston where RYBS explicitly said is wasn't.
> He also speaks about multivalent logic in halakhah in numorous places
> in Ish haHalakhah. From the [yarchei kallah]:

> An esrog that was used for the mitzvah is qadosh and assur behana'ah
> that entire day. And since it's qadosh bein hashemashos, it's gadosh
> part of the next day and therefore assur behan'ah the entire next day.

> RYBS asked (as do many) mimanafshach: Either BhS is part of the first
> day, and there's an isur hana'ah BhS. But in that case BhS isn't part
> of the next day, and on that day han'ah should be mutar. Or, BhS is part
> of the 2nd day, and the issur would end BhS!

> Rather, for certain sefeiqos both chalosim apply. It's only when the
> chalos turns into a pe'ulah that we are forced to choose.

> Therefore, one can daven either minchah or ma'ariv BhS. Even switch off
> between days. But not both in the same BhS.

> This is why a woman who is from safeiq chalal history (Rashi and Tosafos
> disagree on details of the case) is called an "almanas issah", the widow
> of a dough, a mixture.

> This shtims with the teshuvas RAEiger distinguishing kol deparish meiruba
> parish and kol kavu'ah kemechtzah al mechtzah. When the question is one
> of pasqening on an unknown situation, we follow rov. When one is trying
> to resolve a question that arose after the pesaq, rov doesn't apply.

> Rov is a non-boolean state, something between yes and no. Therefore,
> it does not apply after we've taken the question from the realm of
> machshavah to that of ma'aseh.

> Also, Rav Tzadoq (Resisei Laylah 17) distringuishes between the logic of
> machshavah and that of pe'ulah, saying that when it comes to machshavah,
> it's impossible to consider one thing without also considering its
> opposite. RThK then develops this idea to explain eilu va'eilu as being
> about real plurality. (More on this when I summarize the articles whose
> URLs have been posted to the list.)

I'm repeating all this because, once again, AhS Yomi showed me that
something I thought I understood was more complicated than I realized.

AhS OC 638:5 <http://j.mp/1dGKX9s> distinguishes between muqtza machmas
mitzvah and other forms of muqtza when it comes to migo de'isqatzei bein
hashemashos, isqatza'ei lekhulei yoma.

And so, sukkah and its decorations (the topic of OC 688) are muqtzah the
following day. But beitzah shenoledah beYT rishon is not muqtzah on the
next day.

So the example RYBS brings of esrog fits this pattern too -- muqtzah
machmas mitzvah is muqtzah the day after it's used for the mitzvah.

However, RYBS used it to make a general point about the nature of BhS,
and I surmized safeiq in general. I don't understand how we can, if
even withint the topic of mutqzah we find BhS acting both like a mixture
of states and being in one of the two states -- although we don't know
which -- depending on the kind of muqtzah we're talking about.

Thoughts, anyone?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and
mi...@aishdas.org        this was a great wonder. But it is much more
http://www.aishdas.org   wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a
Fax: (270) 514-1507      "mensch"!     -Rav Yisrael Salanter

On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 12:34:36PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
: Eruvin 65a: Anan po`alei diy'mamei anan.

The context is talmud Torah, and speaks to the fact that when it comes
to Torah, it's the amount of learning, not the success at comprehension,
that matters most.

See also the Me'iri ad loc, who says simply that R' Nachman bar Yitzchaq
is saying we should learn the whole day, because that's the only way we'll
fully understand. Which alines with R' Zeira's statement, when he was
complemented "Mechadedan shema'iskha!" and he replied "diyemama ninhu."

I do not think it can be applied to my question -- whether life is a job
of "be good as long as you're here", or if we each have a specific task
we were put here to accomplish.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Take time,
mi...@aishdas.org        be exact,
http://www.aishdas.org   unclutter the mind.
Fax: (270) 514-1507            - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm

On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 01:52:34AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote:
: ... I would think that non-kosher flavorings cannot be batel. Bitul
: is a mathematical procedure by which we can presume that the non-kosher
: ingredient is not noticeable...

In fact, the only time the mishnah invokes bitul beshishim is with min
bemino, so that you can't tell which of two identically tasting substances
one is tasting. (Chullin 7:4-5, Zevachim 8:6)

Rava (Chullin 97a-b) says that if a non-Jew can be asked to taste a
substance, we rely on their statement, but if not (eg min bemino),
then we use batel beshishim.

In contrast, Bar Kaparah holds kol issurin shebiTorah is beshishim.
Ta'am is just a derabbaanan that doesn't allow us to use the fundamental
1/60 bitul.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             If you're going through hell
mi...@aishdas.org        keep going.
http://www.aishdas.org                   - Winston Churchill
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 6:34pm EDT, RYK wrote:
: 1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating
: chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with
: original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological
: movement which appealed to a small elitist group...

I thought Chassidus started out a kiruv movement, designed to bring
Judaism to the kind of people Litta's focus on learning left without
religion.

Like the story of the boy who played his prayers on his flute, or the
one who recited the alef beis over and over and begged HQBH to weave
them into the right words.

But in any case, to get closer to the point I intended to make...

...
: 2) Kabbalah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly
: sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative
: to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach.

: While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational.

I am not sure how you're using "a-rational". Even after your consequent
explanation (posted Sun Jun 14, 1:30am EDT):
:         They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be
: confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because
: they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced."

What is this a-rational stance that is also highly philosophical and yet
not the experiential chassidus of the nostalgic memories with which you
opened your blog post?

I cannot figure out what you're getting at.

Contining the first post:
: 3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The
: Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the
: masses. That to me is highly problematic.

And in the follow-up post he elaborated:
: R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle
: applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word
: in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think
: "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad."

In an introduction to a philosophical book he thought was a bad idea
to write that he produced as a necessary evil. Thus the title of
the Moreh Nevuchim.

It's a tactic he had to reveal the esoteric to those ready for it while
keeping it esoteric. Recall, that while we think of Pardes's "sod"
as Qabbalah, to him it was more like the Moreh. In the Pesichah the
Rambam limits the need of obfuscation to the topics of Maaseh haMerkavah
and Maaseh Bereishis.

So, after the first 5 chapters of the Yad, the whole discussion in
the pesichah and haqdamah of the Moreh wouldn't apply.

...
: We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims...

Just like I loathe using the word rationalism because it's so vague in
meaning as to just add to the confusion, let me add the word "fact".

We use it to mean (a) a truth, (b) an empirical/physical truth, (c)
a truth established by evidence, (d) an empirical truth established by
evidence, and in legal settings: (e) the empirical evidence itself
("let me present the facts of this case").

: We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A
: faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim...

... and therefore there is a gap between religious beliefs and scientific
claims.

Belief is yet another dangerous word. Knowledge is classically (Plato)
defined as a justified true belief. In that sense, anything you accept
as true is a belief. Other times we use belief in contrast to knowledge.
A usage that ends up undermining confidence in something we seem to
overtly be claiming is true. After all, if you think it's true, and
you think you have real reason to think it's true, why say "believe"
rather than "know"?

Which gets me back to the point, I hope. You talk about belief in
chassidus being an act of will.

Personally, I agree with Rihal when he has the chaver note that anything
one philosopher can prove, another can prove the opposite. (Kuzari 1:13)
Religion isn't amenable to proof, and that's why Scholasticism, the idea
of giving religion a philosophical underpinning, lost momentum centuries
ago.

The reasons why are two-fold:

First, negi'os. People cannot really objetively think about these topics.
They end up liking proofs of disliking proofs based on where they already
decided things should end up.

Like one of the truisms in my signature file generator says:
    The mind is a wonderful organ
    for justifying decisions
    the heart already reached.

So, whether or not you agree that some postulate is self-evident (Kant:
synthetic a priori) and therefore the proof works will depend more on
whether you want to believe than actual obviousness.

Second, the experiences upon which religious belief gets justified are
internal. Questions of whether Shabbos, kashrus, or some of the more
elegant outcomes of lomdus statisfy my Search For Meaning (Frankl)
is quite a bit more difficult (usually impossible) to duplicate for
someone else. Unlike a getting someone else to experience something
empirical that you did by repeating a science experiment.

But I think chassidic belief, even as per your description of it, is
rational rather than an act of will.  It's not Scholastic, expecting
the kind of proof that would have make R' Saadia Gaon or the Rambam
happy, but it is based on deriving a conclusion that fits one's
evidence (ie experiences).

I would say "rational" but not "rationalist", except that just highlights
how many problems we get into throwing around the word "rationalism".

This is true about how emunah works whether speaking about why people
become BT, go OTD, or even if we're speaking of the Rambam. The Rambam
lived in a world that didn't value non-philosophical justification, so
he felt that real emunah required Scholasticism.

(There was a time, not that long ago, when most people's emunah was
backed by Reliabilism. My parents and community have a track record of
being reliable sources of truth, so I trust them on this too.)

To my mind, the difference is whether someone values the chizuq emunah of
affirming that conclusions with that half of the philosophical proofs that
end up in the right place. The rationalist does so, thinking that's *why*
he believes (despite the Kuzari). Some of us simply enjoy philoosphy or
consider such explorations to be part of talmud Torah. And others simply
don't need the exercise.

:     a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth"
: isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In
: the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach
: is a-rational and unscientific...

Again, if it's taken for granted as being true, truth is still at
issue. Moreso, they really don't discuss truth because trueh is a given.
It's like water not being the primary orientation of fish.

:                                            It truthfully and absolutely
: happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring
: the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens
: exclusively in the religious realm.

Lets plow through the words and just ask outright: A chassid would take
it for granted that a time traveler would find the Yam Suf divided into
13 tunnels with everything you might want available to be plucked from
the walls. No?

You may deprecate the importance of that historical claim to the
belief system of Chassidic Judaism. I would agree that chassidim do not
consider the historicity important. But the belief is there, and for
reasons that speak volumes about the gap between chassidus and MO as a
potential target audience.

Chassidim have to accept the historicity of this midrashic elaboration of
Qerias Yam Suf because maximalism and acceptance of rabbinic authority
run much stronger in comparison to confidence in one's own truthometer
in chassidus. Part of the value of having a rebbe is to believe he has
access to truths I don't. And similarly one's rebbe's rebbes, and so
on through Chazal and whomever repeated that medrash.

To a community that teaches the value of other sources of knowledge,
such as secular historians or other professionals, such maximalism
is impossible, and therefore bitul to a rebbe will always be limited.

Yes, it would be of value to realize that historical claims are
non-central to religion. It makes it much easier to table any questions
one might have in those areas as not being important, therefore not very
pressing. Things that can wait for an answer rather than being responded
to now, with what I know now, or taken as an upshlug.

...
: 3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist
: movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a
: theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications.

I understood this. However, NC is an indication of what elements of
chassidus actually were found useful by MO Jews. You're theorizing
which elements you thought would in theory be more useful. I am
asking about the difference between the two. If your theory were
correct about what MO could use, wouldn't the Neo-Chassidim have
locked on to those three points?

IOW, I know they are different, and some idea as to how -- but why?

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


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