Avodah Mailing List

Volume 34: Number 23

Mon, 29 Feb 2016

• 1. (R Chaim Palaggi) dealing with trans-gender (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: (R Chaim Palaggi) dealing with trans-gender (Zev Sero)
• 3. Re: dealing with trans-gender (Zev Sero)
• 4. Re: ad blockers (Akiva Miller)
• 5. Oberlander Ashkenaz Rebbe: Rav Yochanan Schreiber-Sofer of Erlau zt?l (Prof. Levine)
• 6. Halacha Yomis - Hafrashas challah, disposal (Prof. Levine)
• 7. Re: ad blockers (Zev Sero)
• 8. Re: dealing with trans-gender (Zev Sero)
• 9. Re: ad blockers (Isaac Balbin)
• 10. moshe broke the luchot (saul newman)
• 11. Re: What Do French Jews Do On Shabbath? ()
• 12. Re: dealing with trans-gender (Moshe Yehuda Gluck)
• 13. symbolic limits (David Riceman)

(I think "Palaji" is closer tohow the name was pronounced. For example
"Palache" is the 2nd most common transliteration.)

On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 07:54:25PM -0500, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
:> Does it refer to RYP's rebbe (the Bet Yitzchaq),

: I don't think he was his talmid.

According to the Jewish Ency (1906) he was
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11859-palaggi-hayyim

:-)BBii!
-Micha

On 02/26/2016 10:57 AM, Micha Berger wrote:
> (I think "Palaji" is closer tohow the name was pronounced. For example
> "Palache" is the 2nd most common transliteration.)

> On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 07:54:25PM -0500, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
> :> Does it refer to RYP's rebbe (the Bet Yitzchaq),

> : I don't think he was his talmid.

> According to the Jewish Ency (1906) he was
> http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11859-palaggi-hayyim

But we're not discussing R Chaim.  It seems unlikely that the father's
rebbe was also the son's.



-- 
Zev Sero               All around myself I will wave the green willow
z...@sero.name          The myrtle and the palm and the citron for a week
                And if anyone should ask me the reason why I'm doing that
                I'll say "It's a Jewish thing; if you have a few minutes
                I'll explain it to you".

On 02/26/2016 09:01 AM, T6...@aol.com wrote:
> From: Zev Sero via Avodah <avo...@lists.aishdas.org>
>> On 02/25/2016 02:32 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:

>> Moreinu R' Y.Tz.V. (?)
  
> Yishmereihu Tzuro Viychayeihu.

> Translation?  If it's a quote, I don't recognize it.

May his Rock guard him and keep him alive.   It's a standard abbreviation
to put after someone's name, just like NY (Nero Ya'ir), ShY (Sheyichyeh),
ShLITA (Sheyichyeh Le'orech Yamim Tovim Amen).  One appends these things
as a matter of course, without putting much thought into selecting one,
just as for deceased people one automatically appends one of AH (Alav
Hashalom, though it may originally have stood for Eved Hashem),
ZL (Zichrono Livracha), ZYA (Zechuto Yagen Alenu), etc.

                                 *****

Incidentally, there was just an appeals court decision that turned in
part on a document translated from Hebrew in which two terror victims
were named, followed by the phrase "May Their Memory Be a Blessing".
In English that's a mouthful, and draws attention to itself both by its
length and its not being a familiar phrase.

While the chief judge wrote that "In this case, the six-word blessing
was not inflammatory or unduly  prejudicial. Indeed, the blessing added
no information beyond that which was already contained in the statements",
a footnote says that "Neither Judge Batchelder nor Judge Moore joins in
this paragraph or the next. These two paragraphs thus represent only the
opinion of Judge Rogers and not the opinion of the court".

Judge Moore went to the trouble of writing a dissent, specifically to
note that "The victims? names and the  prayer have no probative value
?- they are wholly unnecessary. What is more, the danger of unfair
prejudice is significant.  The names and the prayer give color and
texture to the bombing, so that it becomes both more real and more
difficult to separate from the instant offense. They  provide exactly
the kind of detail likely to provoke a visceral reaction. This is too
much for a limiting instruction to overcome."

All this over something that in Hebrew is only two letters and an
apostrophe, and is such a standard appendage that the Israeli eye
passes over it without the brain even noticing.  What one judge
calls a "blessing", and the other two judges a "prayer", is to
Hebrew speakers simply part of the names, and all it indicates is
that the people are deceased, which in this case the reader already
knows.


-- 
Zev Sero               All around myself I will wave the green willow
z...@sero.name          The myrtle and the palm and the citron for a week
                And if anyone should ask me the reason why I'm doing that
                I'll say "It's a Jewish thing; if you have a few minutes
                I'll explain it to you".

R' Saul Newman asked:

> 3-- if there is an additional fee generated to the website if i
> click on the ad, would they claim that lechatchila i should be
> clicking on everything, or is that shev v'al taaseh?

Not even shev v'al taaseh. They are hoping to get the click fee, but
there's no requirement to do so, and all parties agree to that.

> 4-- in the parallel case of radio/TV commercials , is it muttar
> to turn down the volume/leave the room?  i assume they would
> argue this is different since they get paid whether i hear the
> ad or not

Exactly. The whole economics and pricing structure is determined by these
factors. Radio/tv ads are extremely inexpensive when calculated by how many
devices they show up on, precisely because everyone knows that the
overwhelming majority of appearances will be ignored. In contrast, if money
changes hand only when the viewer has shown an interest -- such as by
clicking in #3 above -- those ads are very valuable and expensive.

Even when there's no per-click fee (as in the radio/tv ads) many factors
are involved in the pricing structure. For example, if the ad appears at a
time of day when more people are likely to be watching, then it will be
more valuable and therefore more expensive. It is all a calculated gamble:
How likely is it that a consumer will see my advertisement and be
influenced to buy my product?

But when a consumer uses an ad-blocker, he changes the formula without the
advertiser's consent. The website provides free content, but it isn't
really totally free. One could argue that the consumer has to be willing to
give the advertiser at least an *opportunity* to grab his attention and
purchase the product. When the consumer uses an ad-blocker, he is not
merely ignoring the ad, he won't even let the advertiser have a chance.

I suspect that in the final analysis, the halachic permissibility of
ad-blockers will depend on one simple question: When the pricing for the
ads is decided, does it consider the likelihood that the target audience
will be using the ad-blockers? If it does, then the ad-blockers would be
allowed, just as I am allowed to walk out of the room when the ads appear.

Akiva Miller
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20160226/19fed372/attachment-0001.htm>

See http://tinyurl.com/gnp9tno

Note the second paragraph which states in part

" his kehillah faithfully kept the nusach hatefillah of the Chasam 
Sofer and Oberland, Nusach Ashkenaz. Even more so, Erlau even wears 
tefillin for morning davening on Chol Moed openly, b'farhesia , in 
Yerushalyim  at their Bais Medrash, as per their ancestral minhog (as 
is done in a number of other congregations in as well, contrary to 
popular belief)."

See the above URL for more.

Someone once asserted categorically to me that "No one puts on 
tefillin in EY during Chol Moed."  Clearly this is not true and I 
quickly pointed this out to him. Indeed,  I have been told that those 
who wear tefillin during Chol Moed should put them on in private if 
they are in EY for Yom Tov. Of course,  it might be even better if 
they sought out a minyan like that of Erlau during Chol Moed where 
they could wear their tefillin openly during davening when in EY for Chol Moed.

YL
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20160226/17e95481/attachment-0001.htm>

  How should I dispose of the challah that I separated?

OU Kosher


OU Kosher Halacha Yomis
This column is dedicated in memory of:
Rav Chaim Yisroel Belsky, zt'l
Senior OU Kosher Halachic Consultant (1987-2016)

Q. How should I dispose of the challah that I separated?

A. In the days of the Beis Hamikdash, challah was given to a Kohen 
who was required to eat it when he was tahor (ritually clean). Since 
today our challah is tamei (ritually unclean), it is not eaten by the 
Kohen. Instead, we have a mitzvah to burn it. Because challah may not 
be eaten, it is like all other non-kosher foods, and should not be 
placed directly on kosher pans or on the oven surface. If the oven is 
empty or is being used to bake dry items (such as bread), one may 
place the challah dough on a separate piece of aluminum foil. If 
there are foods in the oven that contain liquid, or that are oily, 
such as meat and poultry, one should wrap the challah dough in 
aluminum foil. Preferably it should be wrapped in a double layer of 
foil to prevent tears. The challah should be left in the oven until 
it is thoroughly burnt. One should flatten the dough as much as 
possible, so that it will burn more easily.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20160226/2c83be3f/attachment-0001.htm>

On 02/26/2016 07:53 AM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
>
> But when a consumer uses an ad-blocker, he changes the formula
> without the advertiser's consent. The website provides free content,
> but it isn't really totally free. One could argue that the consumer
> has to be willing to give the advertiser at least an *opportunity* to
> grab his attention and purchase the product. When the consumer uses
> an ad-blocker, he is not merely ignoring the ad, he won't even let
> the advertiser have a chance.
>
> I suspect that in the final analysis, the halachic permissibility of
> ad-blockers will depend on one simple question: When the pricing for
> the ads is decided, does it consider the likelihood that the target
> audience will be using the ad-blockers? If it does, then the
> ad-blockers would be allowed, just as I am allowed to walk out of the
> room when the ads appear.

It's not at all the same.  What you're missing is that web ads are paid
for per view, so when you block them it's not the advertiser who's losing
out, but the site owner.  On the contrary, advertisers *love* ad-blockers,
because people who block ads are the same ones who would ignore them if
they weren't blocked, and this way the advertiser doesn't have to pay for
them.  It's the site owner who objects to your blocking the ads.  He's
providing all this content so that you will visit the site and load the
ads.  He doesn't care if you actually look at them; he gets paid the same
even if you ignore them completely, but not if you block them.

On the other hand, though, and this is something too many site owners
don't take into account, the main reason people block ads is not visual
clutter but load time.  Some pages take so long to load that if not for
ad blockers many people would never visit them at all.   Even worse,
some ad servers are so unsafe that if you don't block their ads your
browser could crash, or you could even get infected with something nasty.
If you would not choose to visit a site with your ad blocker off,
then you don't deprive the owner of anything by visiting with it on.

-- 
Zev Sero               All around myself I will wave the green willow
z...@sero.name          The myrtle and the palm and the citron for a week
                And if anyone should ask me the reason why I'm doing that
                I'll say "It's a Jewish thing; if you have a few minutes
                I'll explain it to you".

On 02/26/2016 09:47 AM, Zev Sero wrote:
> Incidentally, there was just an appeals court decision that turned in
> part on a document translated from Hebrew in which two terror victims
> were named, followed by the phrase "May Their Memory Be a Blessing".
> In English that's a mouthful, and draws attention to itself both by its
> length and its not being a familiar phrase.

On reflection the translator should have rendered this idiomatically
rather than literally, as "the late".  In Hebrew as it is spoken and
understood, that is all Z"L means.

Torah connection: The Rambam's famous letter to his translator,
R Shmuel ibn Tibbon, in which he instructs him to translate idioms
into equivalent ones in the target language, without regard for their
literal meaning.

-- 
Zev Sero               All around myself I will wave the green willow
z...@sero.name          The myrtle and the palm and the citron for a week
                And if anyone should ask me the reason why I'm doing that
                I'll say "It's a Jewish thing; if you have a few minutes
                I'll explain it to you".

About 6+ months ago, I asked Mori V'Rabbi Rav Hershel Schachter about
this and he said they were completely muttar. Sadly, I don't recall the
reasons he gave me. I do remember his incredulity at the notion of an
issur dorayso.

[This was posted to Areivim. But I think the point being made about
Rashi, really his choice of quoting this Sifri, is worth discussing
here. -micha]

from the LSS shabbat bulletin---

Why did Rashi choose to end his commentary in this way?

I would like to try and answer this question with a personal story. I was a
seven year old second grader at the Ramaz Academy (that's what the Ramaz
School was called then). We started each day with the Shacharit morning
prayers. Our He-brew teacher was a new addition to the staff. Mr. Gottlieb
was a middle aged man, a recent immigrant from Germany. He spoke with a
very distinctive heavy German accent. We were not the best behaved students
during the service, and talking, passing notes and other such inappropriate
behavior was all too common. Mr. Gottlieb t on an almost daily basis
explained that proper decorum was expected of us. We were talking to the
Almighty and were not being respectful. As the weeks went by with little
improvement Mr. Gottlieb went from trying to reason with us, to ultimately
raising his voice, sending individuals out of the room and other such
actions in attempting to have us do the right thing. Then one day something
happened that be-came etched in my memory. How many things do any of us
remember from our early elementary school years? Well this one did.

The day began as all others with Shacharit. The buzzing started again and
got louder and louder with Mr. Gottlieb's face getting increasingly red.

Suddenly Mr. Gottlieb took his siddur, his prayer book, and flung it on the
floor across to the other side of the room. A large gasp was heard coming
from all of the class. Hands went up to our mouths. We were all shocked and
stunned. The teacher deliberately throwing his siddur, a book that we
kissed if we accidently dropped it? There was a deafening silence in the
room. Mr. Gottlieb then explained that if we could not respect the prayer
service, then the book in which we prayed had also been disrespected. He
then said he would give us one more chance. Each of us began to pray and
there was not a hint of any further disturbance or distraction. This
decorum continued day after day and almost all of us began to concentrate
on the prayers. And to this day, that incident has remained with me. As for
Mr. Gottlieb? He was fired soon thereafter for the action taken that day
that was unbecoming for a teacher, despite our protestations.

At least for me, I understand why Rashi chose to complete his commentary on
the Torah with the Almighty congratu-lating Moses for breaking the Tablets
in the heat of anger. Tablets on which God Himself had written the Ten
Commandments.

And Mr. Gottlieb, wherever you are, I just want you know that you had a
life-long effect at least on one little boy in your class. Yasher Koach!

In v34n20, R' Arie Folger wrote:

>
> R' Jay Shachter asked how French Jews deal with the increasing
> number of buildings with electronic codes for entering through two
> successive doors.
> 
> It depends. Many Shomer Shabbos Jews live in the heavily Jewish
> areas like the 19eme arrondissement. There, many buildings still
> have keys.
> 
> In other buildings, technological solutions are used, which I
> decline to mention here.
> 
> However, you are right that this is a massive problem.
> 

In case anyone is interested in how this worked out, I found a
non-Jew, an employee of my dry cleaner, who was willing to come to my
building at midnight Friday night, and open the outer door to my
courtyard, by tapping the electronic code.  I paid him 40 euros in
advance, but when the time came I also invited him up to my apartment
for a glass of wine.  Thus it was not even technically amira l'nokhri
-- although I am grateful to R' Arie Folger for giving me the psaq din
(later in v34n20, not quoted above) that amira l'nokhri would be
permitted -- since at that point the non-Jew was doing the mlakhoth
for himself, so he could come to my apartment and drink a glass of
wine, and not for me.

There was more that had to be done.  I had to make two copies of the
key to my building: I hid one in the courtyard, within 4 cubits of the
door to the building, so I could open the door from the outside, and I
hid another one inside the building, within 4 cubits of the door, so I
could open the door from the inside without pressing the button that
opens it electronically.  You cannot use the same key for both
purposes, because, even though the courtyard is a carmelith, and the
public areas of my apartment building are a carmelith (the apartments
are separately and privately owned), they are not the same carmelith,
they are jointly owned by different sets of people.  As for the door
to my own apartment, I just left that unlocked.  Getting into the
building next door was less difficult, because the hostess never had
to leave, she just came downstairs at a prearranged time and opened
the door for me.  Whether you can trust the kashruth of someone who
has no problem tapping an electronic code on Shabbath when she needs
to, and can give no advice to someone for whom that is a problem, is a
separate question worthy of its own Avodah discussion.  I believe that
you can, under certain circumstances, but I am willing to be convinced
otherwise.

What continues to astonish me is that the French Jews have found no
easier solution to these problems, or that (and perhaps this is saying
the same thing in different words) they continue to live in an area
where these problems have no easier solution.  In 2014, I spent 5
weeks in Paris, and I rented an apartment in the 19th arrondissement,
because that was where I heard the largest Jewish community was, at 28
Quai de la Loire.  In this building, there was no mechanical way at
all to open the door even from the inside.  Even from the inside of
the building, you could open the door only with a proximity sensor, or
by pressing a button that worked electronically.  This was before
synagog information had disappeared completely from godaven.com, so I
found a synagog in the neighborhood (Rabbi Guggenheim, if I recall
correctly -- but it is very possible that I do not -- although he was
personally not there for most of my stay), and for five weeks I prayed
there twice a day, six days a week, but not on Shabbath, because on
Shabbath I could not leave my building.  After I had been going there
for three or four weeks, some people invited me for Shabbath, but I
had to decline, telling them that as far as I could tell, it was
impossible to leave my apartment building on Shabbath.  Not a single
person there had any advice on how to solve that problem.  Residing in
a building where you can't leave the house on Shabbath is, apparently,
a normal and acceptable corollary, to being a French Jew.


>
> Finally, RJS accused French Jews of taking their synagogues off the
> web and the Consistoir of hiding its electronic mail address.  Well,
> I just did a search for a Paris synagogue I know, and it was
> definitely listed in many sites and also had its own publicly
> accessible site.  As to the electronic mail address, ever since teh
> advent of spam, many sites have used web forms instead of electronic
> mail addresses.  This is not a Jewish matter.  When I contact a
> company through its web site, the same mechanism is used. And
> whoever tries to contact me through my web site also has to pass
> that hoop.
> 

So, you were able to find the website of a Paris synagog that you
know.  Perhaps you do not recall that you were not born knowing the
name of that synagog, and that the only way you know it (and were thus
able to find its website), is that someone told you (or you stumbled
upon it while walking around in a Jewish neighborhood, but that is
unlikely, because Parisian synagogs have taken to removing nearly all
identifying marks from their outside, so that the only way you can
know that the building in front of you is a synagog, is from the
prominent cadre of French soldiers stationed in front of it, as there
are no soldiers stationed in front of churches or mosques), and that
otherwise, it would have been practically impossible for you to find
it.  Perhaps you also do not recall that you were not born knowing
what a "Consistoir" is, and that there is no way that a person seeking
to contact the "Beth Din de Paris" can know that the way to do so is
thru http://consistoire.org unless someone tells him.

That Jewish institutions in France have removed information from the
World Wide Web is not disputable by anyone who knows the facts.  I
spoke this past Friday night with a couple who send their daughter to
the Ecole Juive Moderne (accent aigue over the E deliberately omitted,
because the Avodah digest software chokes on it).  They told me that
it used to be that when you searched google.fr for "Ecole Juive Paris"
the E.J.M. website was the first result displayed.  Then there was an
attack on a Jewish school in Boulogne, and the EJM community was
terrified; they removed their information from search engines
(apparently, in the European Union you have the right to do this) and
they removed all mention of the school's physical location from the
school's website.  Unless the parents who told me this don't know what
they are talking about, which I think is unlikely, you cannot deny
that there has been an attempt on the part of French Jews to render
themselves invisible.  Unfortunately, the same measures that render
Jewish institution invisible to our enemies, also render them
invisible to Jews.

I just went to google.fr and did a search for Ecole Juive Paris, and I
see that EJM is back on the results page again, although it is far
from being in first place, so it is time for another purge.  The
school website still conceals the school's address.


>
> I think you may want to apologize to French Jews.  The majority
> disagrees with the president of the Marseille Jewish community.
> 

Respectfully, you are not in France, and I am.  As far as I can tell,
the only particular in which the majority of French Jews disagree with
the president of the Marseille Jewish community, is that the president
of the Marseille Jewish community was not discreet, speaking publicly
rather than privately.  They do not disagree with what was said, only
with how it was said.  It is believed by some that we do not render
ourselves more safe by announcing within earshot of our enemies that
we are afraid of them.  But that we should be afraid of them, that the
proper response to our enemies is to hide from them, rather than to
arm and defend ourselves -- that is the nearly undisputed consensus of
the Jews of France.


                Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter
                6424 N Whipple St
                Chicago IL  60645-4111
                ?tats-Unis
                        +1 773 7613784   ligne fixe
                        +1 410 9964737   GoogleVoice
                        j...@m5.chicago.il.us
                        http://m5.chicago.il.us

                ? le parapluie de la tante du jardinier est ? la maison ?

>> On 02/25/2016 02:32 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
>> Moreinu R' Y.Tz.V. (?)
R' ZS:  
> Yishmereihu Tzuro Viychayeihu.
R' MB:
> Translation?  If it's a quote, I don't recognize it.
R' ZS:
May his Rock guard him and keep him alive.   It's a standard abbreviation
to put after someone's name, just like NY (Nero Ya'ir),
<SNIP>
----------------


same thing (in Aramaic, though, not Hebrew). Just saying.

KT,
MYG

We often find Hazal saying A is a symbol of B, e.g., ein mayim ela 
Torah.  Do we ever find Hazal saying A can't be or isn't a symbol of B?

David Riceman


------------------------------



_______________________________________________
Avodah mailing list
Avo...@lists.aishdas.org
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah
http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org


------------------------------


**************************************

Send Avodah mailing list submissions to
	avodah@lists.aishdas.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
	http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
	avodah-request@lists.aishdas.org

You can reach the person managing the list at
	avodah-owner@lists.aishdas.org

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Avodah digest..."


A list of common acronyms is available at
        http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/acronyms.cgi
(They are also visible in the web archive copy of each digest.)