Avodah Mailing List

Volume 34: Number 43

Fri, 22 Apr 2016

• 1. RMF Mattir Neder Gebrochts (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi)
• 2. your son speaks harshly to you, so you (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi, its Kosher!)
• 3. Re: FW: Fitbit on Shabbos (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: RMF Mattir Neder Gebrochts (Micha Berger)
• 5. minhag avos (saul newman)
• 6. Re: cooking kitniyot in a peasdik pot (Akiva Miller)
• 7. Re: RMF Mattir Neder Gebrochts (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi)
• 8. Re: minhag avos (Micha Berger)
• 9. Re: RMF Mattir Neder Gebrochts (Micha Berger)

Is it inconceivable that Reb Moshe arranged being Mattir the Neder just to
make the guest feel good? When in fact he really considered that it was not
a Minhag at all and does not require Hatarah.

RMF called over 2 guys in the yeshiva and had my friend "matir neder" on
the spot and said now you can eat Gebrochts and you may eat at my seder.
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Re the son the Rasha - your son is saying something harsh to you, so you
should also say something harsh to him

This is not in line with our tradition that a soft response demolishes the
harsh attack.
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On Wed, Apr 20, 2016 at 11:17:10PM -0400, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah wrote:
: 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.

Return back to nidon didan (from the subject line)...

A fitbit really has no function until after Shabbos, so the same
reasoning would apply.

But many other such devices can be used as a digital watch on Shabbos.
So carrying it around -- even if you want the step tracking -- is not
ONLY for the tracking.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             You are not a human being in search
mi...@aishdas.org        of a spiritual experience. You are a
http://www.aishdas.org   spiritual being immersed in a human
Fax: (270) 514-1507      experience. - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

On Thu, Apr 21, 2016 at 10:50:56PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote:
: Is it inconceivable that Reb Moshe arranged being Mattir the Neder just to
: make the guest feel good? When in fact he really considered that it was not
: a Minhag at all and does not require Hatarah.

Actually, for RMF in particular, I find that hard to imagine.

The minhag is as old as the Raavan (12th cent), although he thinks they
were in error, he does advocate a more limited form -- cooking dishes
from boiled matzah because the result may be confused with recipes
that produce chameitz. The Keneses haGedolah (17th cent) confirms the
Raavan's fears with a story of it actually happening. Someone made fish
"breaded" with matzah meal, and the neighbor mistakenly learned from it
that it was okay to fry fish in actual flour.

Gebrochts in its full form doesn't come to pass until a generation after
the Besh"t -- there are stories about the Baal Shem Tov eating keneidelach
on Pesach, the Magid of Mezritch did not eat gebrochts. The SA haRav
(discussed here annually) says that the change was due to a change in how
we make matzah. This is the same generation in which kneading time was
counted toward the mil, and therefore the whole process got more rushed.
Until then, the chance of umixed flour remaining on/in the dough was
unrealistic.

I cannot picture RMF simply rejecting an SA haRav as not even a shitah.

Interestingly, a contemporary of the SAhR, the Shaarei Teshuvah, says that
gebrochts only made sense back before our more recent thing cracker matzos;
it would only apply to the Rama's only less than a tefach matzah.

So here you have two people writing at close to the same time, one
explaing why the minhag recently started, the other assuming the minhag
is old and no longer applicable to the current umdena.

But it is possible RMF agreed with the ST, and that the SAhR's world
used thicker (although still cracker-like) matzos than we do. In which
case, he could have held the minhag -- while once real -- is no longer
applicable.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             You cannot propel yourself forward
mi...@aishdas.org        by patting yourself on the back.
http://www.aishdas.org                   -Anonymous
Fax: (270) 514-1507

between gebroks and kitniyos,  with our modern eye could we say one is more
justified or were both products of the time.   eg  gebroks was invented in
altererebe's time as a reaction to the nexus of thick matzos with
incompetent bakers.  kitniyos a reaction to legume-flour nexus .

today , almost all matzos are either mechanized or learnedly baked;  and
only thin matzos made in ashkenazi land [unless you order softmatza.com].
and though  legume flours like  chickpea are extant, the communities that
primarily use them never accepted this new minhag.

it all then comes down to minhag avos , and who is empowered to cast them
off...
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R' Eli Turkel wrote:

> 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 !

Last week, in the thread "Ta'am kitniyos", I wrote that Mishne Berurah
453:7 writes that if a choleh - even a choleh she'AYN bo sakanah - needs
kitniyos on Pesach, one may cook it for him. I was struck by how casually
he said this, yet he said nothing about the keilim involved. So I will now
rephrase the question that I had asked there:

RET referred here to "seforim". Are there actual seforim that discuss this
question? I have seen many publications - usually issued by the hechsherim
- which tell us that kitnios baby food (for example) must be prepared in
separate keilim. But they give no sources. I'd like to see a posek who
tackles this question in writing, and gives his reasoning.

(My wild guess is that if such a source can be found, it is less likely to
be in the context of baby food, and more likely to be in the context of an
Ashkenazi who was invited to eat at a Sephardi home on Pesach.)

Anyone know of such seforim?

Akiva Miller
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On Apr 22, 2016 5:50 AM, "Micha Berger" <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:
> The minhag is as old as the Raavan (12th cent), although he thinks they
> were in error, he does advocate a more limited form ...
> Gebrochts in its full form doesn't come to pass until a generation after
> the Besh"t...                                           The SA haRav...

> I cannot picture RMF simply rejecting an SA haRav as not even a shitah.

> Interestingly, a contemporary of the SAhR, the Shaarei Teshuvah, says that
> gebrochts only made sense back before our more recent thin cracker matzos...

> But it is possible RMF agreed with the ST, and that the SAhR's world
> used thicker (although still cracker-like) matzos than we do. In which
> case, he could have held the minhag -- while once real -- is no longer
> applicable.

I don't see how any of these considerations suggest that Gebrochts is a
Minhag that requires Hatarah. In fact I think it more than likely they
reflect otherwise.

The earliest source pretty much rejected it and stories about the Besht are
hardly substantial.

And if there is any substance to the reason being related to the change in
the way Matza is made, well then being so late, it can hardly be considered
a binding Minhag. And one opinion is not adequate to propel activity to the
point of being a binding Minhag, especially when it is so poorly justified.

BTW it is astonishing that Matza of 10mm thickness be considered edible
when baked to the point of being hard. You would need a hammer and cold
chisel to break it. It makes no sense. Such Matza would only be edible if
it was baked soft.

Re the ShTeshuvah, he limits the problem to soft Matza, which is GRATED on
a RibAysen (and explains that the problem no longer exists due to changes
to the Matza used for making meal being baked hard and describe CRUSHING
it) so it must have been soft.

Soft Matza that is whole can be easily evaluated to determine if it is
fully baked. Once it is grated however, that becomes impossible.

The problem is compounded when you remember that probably the most
important quality sought by the balabusta is that it be as white as
possible so the risk of being under baked is all the greater.

There was not ever a concern that flour remained in the Matza and that
might become Chamets. But even if it did it can not become Chamets since it
has been heated.

On Thu, Apr 21, 2016 at 01:04:14PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote:
: it all then comes down to minhag avos , and who is empowered to cast them
: off...

An earlier question... Given our lack of minhag hamaqom, do we want to
cast minhag avos off? What ties us to community if we're not connecting
"laterally" to our contemporaries if not our connection to the past?

Pesach is so experiential and so nostalgia driven, perhaps we should
harbor / develop enough attachment to minhag avos (mimeticism) for that
alone to motivate keeping qitniyos.


:-)|,|ii! (And a special :-)|,ii to any Granikim out there!)
-Micha

PS: Yes, I do appreciate the irony that in a post about preserving
minhag avos, I do a "shout out" to those who use 2 matzos at their
seder. Even though most of them are doing so in a choice of textualism
over mimeticism.

-- 
Micha Berger             Life isn't about finding yourself
mi...@aishdas.org        Life is about creating yourself.
http://www.aishdas.org                - Bernard Shaw
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Fri, Apr 22, 2016 at 06:50:07AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote:
: The earliest source pretty much rejected it and stories about the Besht are
: hardly substantial.

The stories about the Besht are that he DID eat gebrochts. This isin
contrast to the SA haRav who was firmly against.

And the SA haRav (shu"T #6 in the bac of vol 6) IS substantial.
See last year's
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol33/v33n055.shtml#06>

BTW, while I fint this hard to accept as RMF's pesaq, R Eli Turkel
told us last year that RSZA does hold as per the story about RMF:
> In Halichos Shlomo (p90) it states explicitly that one can change his
> custom and eat gebrochs after hatart nedarim. However, this should be done
> only if there is a good reason (tzorach chashuv) for the change. Thus, for
> a chatan he would allow the hatarat nedarim if keeping bebrochs would cause
> family difficulties.

And R Yisrael Herczeg wrote:
>       ... I just looked over the notes of the droshoh Rav Yitzchok
> Mordechai HaKohen Rubin gave last Shabbos. He said that Rav Elyashiv
> allowed for hataras neder on gebrochts. He also mentioned that Rav Chaim
> Kanyevski said that the Steipler was matir neder on gebrochts for someone
> who had difficulty eating matzah unless it was softened with liquid. He
> added that Rav Chaim Greineman said that the Chazon Ish told him that the
> Steipler's heter was invalid.

And yet in his own life:
> I asked Rav Elyashiv z"l if I could be matir neder on gebrokts and he told
> me I could not.

From R/Prof Y Levine:
> A friend of mine who did not eat gebrokts and who was a close talmud
> of Rav Tuvia Goldstein , Z"L, a well-know halachic expert here in
> the US, asked Reb Tuvia about changing this and eating
> gebrokts. Reb Tuvia replied, "Mutar Loch, Mutar Loch, Mutar
> Loch." and that was it!

And quoting http://torasaba.blogspot.com/2015/03/of-gebrokts-and-kitniyos.html
he wrote:
> The Sefer Ashrei Haish quotes Rav Elyashuv zt"l who says that one
> who has the Minhag of not eating Gebrokts may change his Minhag to
> eating Gebrokts.

> It is preferable to make Hatoros Nedarim but not necessary. One may
> rely on the Hataras Nedarim made on Erev Rosh Hashana.

> Reb Elyashuv holds the original Chumra of Gebrokts started when
> Matzohs were thick

Notice we have convlicting reports about RYSE, but the one who says
he allowed leaving the minhag of gebrochts didn't so much dismiss the
minhag as wrong as much as agree with the ST that the minhag refers to a
kind of matzah most of you do not eat.

I have a few lb from the Syrian community in Flatbush, in addition to the
usual. So if I had the minhag of nisht gebrochts, RYSE might still have
told me to limit my hataras nedarim and continue not eating Syrian-style
matzos with liquids.


IOW, my wanting confirmation of the story about RMF has to do with my
opinion of RMF's tendencies in pesaq. Not that the idea is inadmissable.
And I'm betting that if RMF did advise hataras nedarim, it was for
reasons similar to the RYSE report.

:-)|,|ii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Every second is a totally new world,
mi...@aishdas.org        and no moment is like any other.
http://www.aishdas.org           - Rabbi Chaim Vital
Fax: (270) 514-1507


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