Avodah Mailing List

Volume 34: Number 42

Thu, 21 Apr 2016

• 1. Re: Rav Sharki on university students (David Riceman)
• 2. Re: Hagada's response to the rasha (Zev Sero)
• 3. cooking kitniyot in a peasdik pot (Eli Turkel)
• 4. Re: Hagada's response to the rasha (Akiva Miller)
• 5. Re: Hagada's response to the rasha (Zev Sero)
• 6. Re: minag avos (Rich, Joel)
• 7. minhag avos (Eli Turkel)
• 8. Pre-Pesach Special (Cantor Wolberg)
• 9. Re: Pre-Pesach Special (Micha Berger)
• 10. Re: minhag avos (Micha Berger)
• 11. Re: minhag avos (Eli Turkel)
• 12. FW: Fitbit on Shabbos (Moshe Yehuda Gluck)

RMB:

> 
> Simplest example, in https://youtu.be/9pRzyioUKp0 Dr Sally Haslanger
> (of MIT) "proves" that an Omniscient Omnipotent Omnibenevolent (OOO)
> G-d could not exist because an OOO Being could prevent all evil and
> tragedy.
> 
>    1. If God exists, then he/she/it would be OOO
>    2. If an OOO being exists, then there would be no evil
>    3. God exists
> 
> First proposal. Therefore
>    4. There is no evil
> 
> But observation will tell you:
>    5. There is evil
> 
> We can't have a contradiction, so one of our givens must be false.
> (1) is true by definition -- G-d is by definition OOO

This is wrong.	Omnipotence is an incoherent concept.  I actually once
started a thread here called ?What can?t God do??.  Some examples: Can God
break his own promises? Can God punish people for doing good?  Can God lie?

I suspect omnibenevolence is equally incoherent.  But Hazal certainly
reject it when they say that the world is a shituf of din and hesed. 
Omnibenevolence is analogous to pure hesed,

Furthermore it is presumptuous to define God.

> (2) is not really an assumption, but a logical conclusion. (It hides a
> prior formal proof.) A G-d who would know about any evil, doesn't want evil
> to exist and can do anything would have eliminated that evil.

Again, evil is a fuzzy concept.  But this is an example of a general problem with utility functions.  People, and possibly, for all I know, God,
have multidimensional vector valued preferences.  Two bundles of goods may exist without one being fully better or worse than another.
So, for example, excising evil would also excise free will.  Would God really want that?

David Riceman

On 04/18/2016 07:51 AM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
> The Hagada's section about the rasha can be divided into four sections:
>
> (1) what the rasha says/asks: Mah haavoda hazos lachem
> (2) a perush on what he really means: lachem v'lo lo, kafar b'ikar
> (3) the proper response: hak'heh es shinav, baavur zeh
> (4) a perush on the response: he would not have been saved
>
> (I am deliberately not translating "hak'heh", as it would distract us
> from my question.)

I will, however, point out that translating it "knock out", or as
any kind of blow, is completely ignorant. There is simply no way
that it can mean that.  So where does this stupid idea come from?
It *could* come from some amhoretz confusing it with "hakei", hei
kaf hei, meaning to hit.   But I think it's more likely to come
from Yiddish, a language the baal hagada never even heard of, and
the phrase "hack ois", or in English "hack out".


> My question is about the third of these. If the hagada would simply
> have said, "Hak'heh his teeth, and tell him, Baavur zeh...", that
> would fit ALL the various translations and explanations that I can
> remember.

What specific wording are you suggesting instead of the ones the baal
hagadah uses?


> What is being added by these words "v'af atah". "And even you should
> hak'heh his teeth". There seems to be some sort of logical argument
> being made, that there is someone else who would *obviously* hak'heh
> his teeth, but no, even you! You must do it too!
>
> Am I totally off track?

I think so.  How else should the baal hagada  transition from what your
wicked son says to how you, the father, should respond?  He explains
that your son is saying something harsh to you, so you should also say
something harsh to him.


-- 
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".

What is the status of cooking kitniyot in a pot on Pesach (for ashkenazim).
Outside of Israel this is relevant only for small children, sick etc.
In Israel it is relevant this year as to whether one can cook kitniyot on
the 7th day of Pesach for the immediate following shabbat.

All the seforim I have seen pasken that if one cooks kitniyot on Pesach in
a pot then one can either use the pot again for normal Pesach use either
that day or after waiting 24 hours.
I saw one newsletter that claimed that one needs to kasher the pot even for
use the following year !
He further claims that this is the standard custom. I have seen that RHS
allows use the same day. Does anyone know of others who require actually
kashering the pot even if it won't be used until Pesach next year.

-- 
Eli Turkel
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I asked why the Hagada uses the words "v'af atah" to introduce the answer
to the rasha. R' Zev Sero responded:

> How else should the baal hagada transition from what your wicked
> son says to how you, the father, should respond? He explains that
> your son is saying something harsh to you, so you should also say
> something harsh to him.

Interesting thought. But if so, then for the other

OOPS! I hadn't noticed that these exact same words introduce the Hagada's
answer to the chacham. And rightly so - Your child is asking a detailed
question, and you too should respond with a detailed answer. My bad. Thanks!

But now my question is about the Tam, who asks a very simple question, and
gets a very simple answer. So he too should get the "v'af atah [...] emar
lo" like the the chacham and rasha. But instead, the answer to the tam is
introduced with "v'amarta aylav". This brings three questions, where the
tam differs from both the chacham and rasha:

1) Why no "v'af" for the tam?
2) Why "amarta" instead of "atah [...] emar"?
3) Why "aylav" instead of "lo"?

(The She'eino Yodea Lish'ol never asks anything at all, so there is no
congruency to invoke RZS's suggestion.)

Akiva Miller
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On 04/18/2016 07:04 PM, Akiva Miller wrote:
>
> But now my question is about the Tam, who asks a very simple question,
> and gets a very simple answer. So he too should get the "v'af atah
> [...] emar lo" like the the chacham and rasha. But instead, the answer
> to the tam is introduced with "v'amarta aylav". This brings three
> questions, where the tam differs from both the chacham and rasha:
>
> 1) Why no "v'af" for the tam?
> 2) Why "amarta" instead of "atah [...] emar"?
> 3) Why "aylav" instead of "lo"?

Because he simply quotes the pasuk.  In the cases of the first two sons
he (for some reason) davka *doesn't* quote the pasuk's response (Avadim
Hayinu to the chacham and Zevach Pesach Hu to the rasha), but makes one
up for the chacham, and borrows the she'eino yodea lish'ol's answer for
the rasha.  For the second two sons he simply quotes the pesukim verbatim.



-- 
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".

Interesting article to read (I have the PDF) - Joseph Davis - "The
Reception of the Shulchan Arukh and the Formation of Ashkenazic Jewish
Identity".  Points to correlations between codifications in the "outside
world" and Halacha as well as moving from geographic minhag/identity to
others subunits (e.g. ethnic).

Any good actuary (or even a poor one) can tell you correlation doesn't
prove causation, but it does provide some thoughts on some interesting
questions (e.g. why the switch to ethnic minhagim from geographic ones?).

KT
Joel Rich
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a story from years ago

A friend of mine lived near RMF on the lower east side. One year RMF
invited him for seder.
However the friend didn't eat gebrochs but was too polite to tell RMF that
he couldn't come because he was more machmir and so made up some excuse.
Same thing happened the next year.

The third year RMF already realized that something was fishy and explicitly
asked my friend why he wouldn't eat by him. When the friend told him the
real reason RMF said why didn't you tell me right away. He called over 2
guys in the yeshiva and had my friend "matir neder" on the spot and said
now you can eat at my seder.
-- 
Eli Turkel
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Pesach is a Yom Tov of diverse moods. The tragic and heroic, the mournful and hopeful,
the somber and sentimental ? strangely commingled and reflected in the services and rituals. 

One thing that stands out in my mind is the symbol of the egg (l?zecher aveilut). It serves
as a reminder of Tisha b?Av. Interestingly, the first day of Pesach is always the same day as Tisha b?Av.

So as Pesach begins Friday evening this year (and last), so too, Tisha b?Av (actual date)
begins Friday evening this year (and last).

At our seder, we read about the Four Children (quite different from each other, but a portion of each
of the sons in all of us).

On Pesach we usher in the solemn days of Sefirah, which cast a spell upon the mirthful spirit of 
this Yom Tov and which recalls the ill-fated Bar Kochba rebellion with its gloomy aftermath; and
on the same night, we open the door for Eliyahu HaNavi, the harbinger of glad tidings. 

On the day we recite Yizkor (with sad overtones), we recite Hallel (quite the opposite).

On the day when we read the Haftorah of the ?Valley of the Dry Bones,? and we ask with the prophet:
?Son of man, can these bones live?? (Ezek. 37); this very same day, we read Shir Hashirim, the song
of youth and of hope.

When we think of all the trouble, travail, terrorism in the world and some of the trials and tribulations
in our own lives, we can drink four cups of wine and temporarily forget our troubles.

May your present be better than your past and not as good as your future!

On Wed, Apr 20, 2016 at 08:17:29AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote:
: One thing that stands out in my mind is the symbol of the egg (l'zecher
: aveilut). It serves as a reminder of Tisha b'Av. Interestingly, the
: first day of Pesach is always the same day as Tisha b'Av.

The iqar is to have two cooked foods. Egg and shankbone is a layer on
top of that. Judging from the Ari's lining up the items on the ke'arah
with the 10 sefiros, wre are using the egg as the cooked food in memory
of the chagigah, and the bone to regall the qorban pesach.

One could link that to mourning, that we are mourning the real seder,
complete with qorban, as we sit down to our best-we-can-do one. And
we did lose the ability to make a qorban pesach on 9 beAv.

But the egg isn't really about aveilus directly.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             For those with faith there are no questions.
mi...@aishdas.org        For those who lack faith there are no answers.
http://www.aishdas.org                     - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Wed, Apr 20, 2016 at 11:07:55AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
: The third year RMF already realized that something was fishy and explicitly
: asked my friend why he wouldn't eat by him. When the friend told him the
: real reason RMF said why didn't you tell me right away. He called over 2
: guys in the yeshiva and had my friend "matir neder" on the spot and said
: now you can eat at my seder.

I know also the IM permits Ashkenazim who daven "Sfard" to switch back to
Ashkenaz (even over 150 years after the family first switched to).

But I didn't think he was in general a believer in the idea that Litvisher
minhagim were superior to other East European ones. Just that davening was
differenct because it's a switch back to the earlier nusach.

So what's going on here? Why would he encourage someone to quit the
minhag of gebrochts? (For weaker grounds than usually argued against
qitnios.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "As long as the candle is still burning,
mi...@aishdas.org        it is still possible to accomplish and to
http://www.aishdas.org   mend."
Fax: (270) 514-1507          - Anonymous shoemaker to R' Yisrael Salanter

<<So what's going on here? Why would he encourage someone to quit the
minhag of gebrochts?>>

I can't answer for sure but my guess would be that RMF felt that one could
quit gebrochs for a sufficiently good reason and he felt that this was a
good reason.

-- 
Eli Turkel
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R? AM:
What about an ordinary old-fashioned film camera? Without a flash, there's
nothing electrical about it. In fact, when one presses the shutter, nothing
at all happens except that some chemical reactions occur in the film. Even
after Shabbos, there is no visible change to the film, until after it has
undergone some specific chemical treatment. Yet I've never seen a shomer
shabbos person use such a camera on Shabbos, nor have I ever hear it
suggested that it might only be d'rabanan.
<SNIP>
------------------ 
Old MYG:
That?s a great question, I think, about the film camera. I agree that it
makes sense that it should be only a d?rabanan, except for Polaroid. And
the d?rabanan may well be that since its entire purpose is to be in service
to that Kesivah, it?s a Kli She?melachto L?issur, and therefore muktzah.
But if that?s so, then the heteirim of muktzah would therefore apply, like
tiltul min hatzad, and shvus d?shvus, l?tzorech gufo, and so on?
<SNIP>
After reading through it, I still don?t see any reason to prohibit it besides for Muktzah? 
<SNIP>
Rabbi Bleich at this link (http://traditionarchive.org/news/originals/Volume%2035
/No.%203/Survey%20of%20Recent.pdf) quotes R? SZA that it?s ?mistaver?
that taking a film photo is assur m?drabanan. Rabbi Bleich himself is not
so impressed with that argument. 
----------------------------- 

New MYG:
I thought of another issur ? taking a photo with a film camera is Hachanah,
because you?re only taking it for the result that you will get in the Chol,
after you develop the film. But this is also a d?oraysa.

KT and CKVS,
MYG



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