Avodah Mailing List

Volume 34: Number 47

Mon, 02 May 2016

• 1. Re: Understanding an Unfriendly Minhag: Not Eating Out on Pesach (Zev Sero)
• 2. Re: Fwd: RMF Mattir Neder Gebrochts (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: RMF Mattir Neder Gebrochts (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: kitniyot (Micha Berger)
• 5. kitniyot (Eli Turkel)
• 6. Re: kitniyot (Zev Sero)
• 7. Re: RMF Mattir Neder Gebrochts (Zev Sero)
• 8. Understanding an Unfriendly Minhag: Not Eating Out on Pesach (Prof. Levine)
• 9. Old French (Jay F. Shachter)
• 10. Re: tenets of faith (Eli Turkel)
• 11. Re: kitniyot (Zev Sero)
• 12. Re: kitniyot (Ben Waxman)
• 13. RMF Mattir Neder Gebrochts - stories from Poskim (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi)
• 14. Re: RMF Mattir Neder Gebrochts - stories from Poskim (Micha Berger)
• 15. Re: kitniyot (Micha Berger)

On 05/01/2016 05:48 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
> I did not see any suggestion of why someone would want to act this
> way, or any explanation of how this practice got started. This is
> especially so in situations where the kashrus standards of the
> would-be host are at least as high as those of the would-be guest.

I believe it got started because on Pesach there are so many different
standards that it's often difficult to be sure that this is the case.
Even if the host has more chumros than the guest, they may be different
ones, and there will be something the guest doesn't eat and the host does.
Detailed inquiry about these matters may be embarrassing.  If the guest
is certain that the host's standards are as strict or stricter than his
own in all matters, then AFAIK the minhag doesn't apply.



-- 
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 Mon, May 02, 2016 at 03:01:51PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote:
: On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 2:16 PM, Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:
: > Except that RHS explicitly told me that an Ashkenazi could eat soft matza
: > on Pesach....

:> no idea why this is relevant to this discussion

Well it doesn't need to be. Topics drift. However, I would ask whether
RHS would compare Ashkenazi matzah styles to fashion rather than minhag
if he could not prove there was a time when Ashkenazim too used soft
matzos.

You were using his idea as an example of minhag requiring a halachic
foundation, that the risk gebrochts avoids be a real one. I don't
see that. (It would also do wonders to qitniyos if that question were
admissible.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 9th day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org        1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            most appropriate?

On Mon, May 02, 2016 at 12:38:35PM +1000, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote:
: Mori V'Rabbi R' Hershel Schachter advised me as follows: (emphasis is mine)
: "what I said was that there never was a minhag for Ashkenazim not to
: eat soft matzot....
: he is not the baal ha'neder. I was told that R.Tuvia Goldstein used to
: say that the whole minhag against eating gebrokts only made sense years
: ago when the matzohs were much thicker...."

Why quote RTG when the Pischei Teshuvah said it first?

OTOH, in the same generation, the SA haRav says that gebrochts only makes
sense *after* we started counting kneading time toward the 18 min. And as
a pragmatic matter, they both were very likely part of the same change
in matzah-making norms. (If you have less time to bake matzos now that
kneading ate up some of the time, you need thinner matzos.)

I know I'm repeating myself; it just makes me wonder about the PT's
theory. It is very likely the SA haRav is correct in timing, if not
causality (it could be post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning) because
the Besh"t ate keneidelach and yet chassidim two generations later --
their generation -- did not. The PT holds it was an old minhag that is
no longer applicable; but given those stories about the Besh"t, how old
could the minhag have been?

And if so, could RTG's theory be correct even in our day?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 9th day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org        1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            most appropriate?

On Mon, May 02, 2016 at 12:28:49AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
: On 05/01/2016 02:13 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote:
:> 1) Pots: Yes there are various opinions and customs on whether or
:> not one needs separate pots. One guide said that while it is true
:> that kitniyot are batel b'rov, still one shouldn't batel an issur
:> litchatchila. Therefore, he recommended that if one wants to cook rice
:> for Shabbat, don't cook anything else after using that pot.

: I don't understand how bitul lechatchila applies here.  When you're
: cooking the kitniyos you are not deliberately being mevatel its taste
: in the walls of the pot -- that happens automatically...

To make explicit what might be the missing detail: Intentionally doing
something that is mevateil issur (or basar bechalav) for valid ulterior
reasons is not considered lekhat-chilah for this discussion.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

1) Pots: Yes there are various opinions and customs on whether or
> not one needs separate pots. One guide said that while it is true
> that kitniyot are batel b'rov, still one shouldn't batel an issur
> litchatchila. Therefore, he recommended that if one wants to cook rice
> for Shabbat, don't cook anything else after using that pot.

I saw somewhere that ein veatlim issur lechatchila doesnt apply to minhagim.

Question: can one cook gebrochs on the 7th day of Pesach for the 8th day
(for those who
dont eat gebrochs 7 days). This was particularly relevant this year when
the 8th day was shabbat.

---------------------------------
On a slightly different matter it is generally assumed that a store can
sell its chametz as it is hefsed merubah. OTOH there are communities that
don't buy chametz that has been sold.  Don't these contradict each other?
what good does it do the supermarket to seel its chametz if no one will but
it after Pesach?

-- 
Eli Turkel
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On 05/02/2016 06:51 AM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Mon, May 02, 2016 at 12:28:49AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
> : On 05/01/2016 02:13 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote:
> :> 1) Pots: Yes there are various opinions and customs on whether or
> :> not one needs separate pots. One guide said that while it is true
> :> that kitniyot are batel b'rov, still one shouldn't batel an issur
> :> litchatchila. Therefore, he recommended that if one wants to cook rice
> :> for Shabbat, don't cook anything else after using that pot.
>
> : I don't understand how bitul lechatchila applies here.  When you're
> : cooking the kitniyos you are not deliberately being mevatel its taste
> : in the walls of the pot -- that happens automatically...
>
> To make explicit what might be the missing detail: Intentionally doing
> something that is mevateil issur (or basar bechalav) for valid ulterior
> reasons is not considered lekhat-chilah for this discussion.

This should be obvious, because if it were not so then it would always
be forbidden to cook kitniyos, or anything else that is batel berov,
even in keilim designated for this.


-- 
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 05/02/2016 06:48 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> I know I'm repeating myself; it just makes me wonder about the PT's
> theory. It is very likely the SA haRav is correct in timing, if not
> causality (it could be post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning) because
> the Besh"t ate keneidelach and yet chassidim two generations later --
> their generation -- did not. The PT holds it was an old minhag that is
> no longer applicable; but given those stories about the Besh"t, how old
> could the minhag have been?

It wasn't even a generational change.  The Alter Rebbe says it was only
"these last twenty years or more", i.e. within his own memory.


-- 
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".

At 06:12 AM 5/2/2016, R. Akiva Miller wrote:


>BTW: I have cited this article only because it answers (to some degree) a
>question that was raised by RBW. Lest anyone think that I actively endorse
>this practice of not eating out on Pesach, let me say this: Rabbi Reiss'
>article brought many sources to show that this practice is a legitimate
>minhag, not to be disparaged; but I did not see any suggestion of why
>someone would want to act this way, or any explanation of how this practice
>got started. This is especially so in situations where the kashrus
>standards of the would-be host are at least as high as those of the
>would-be guest. To twist the title of the article, Rabbi Reiss may have
>legitimized this unfriendly minhag, but I still do not understand it.

And how, pray tell,  is one to determine how "the kashrus
standards of the would-be host are at least as high as those of the
would-be guest"?

Is one to make an inspection of the host's kitchen and review all of 
the products he uses?  If so,  is this not insulting to the host?

YL

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> I had long thought that English-speakers are uniquely fortunate to
> have grown up with this concept as a part of our language. According
> to my research, Pesach is called "Pascua" in Spanish, "P?que" in
> French, and "Passah" in German. To my ear, all of these seem to be
> transliterations and adaptations, much more like Hanuka than
> Passover. In my imagination, I always saw a seder in Paris, and when
> they got to Rabban Gamliel's Three Things, the leader had to go on
> an etymological sidetrack, while his brother in London kept the
> focus on the experiential story.

> But last week I saw Rashi at the very end of Shemos 12:11. After
> explaining the verb p-s-ch to mean skipping and jumping, he writes
> (as translated and explained by Rabbi Yisrael Isser Tzvi Herczeg, in
> ArtScroll's Rashi on Shemos): "And also [the Old French term for
> Passover,] *Pasche*, is an expression of stepping."

The French word for "step" is "pas". In Rashi's time the 's' was
pronounced. That gives you the first two consonants of the p-s-x root.
The third consonant is an aspirate which, although it never drops out in
inflected forms like the h does, might still be considered dispensible
by an aspirational (sorry, I couldn't resist) etymologist willing to
cut corners. It is a bogus albeit tempting etymology, like the ones
you see in Hirsch.

> A footnote in that edition tells us that this "appears to have been
> inserted into the text of Rashi by someone other than Rashi himself", but
> that is utterly irrelevant, because no rabbinic authority is needed for the
> question I am asking. I could ask my question to any ordinary Jacques: How
> do the French refer to Pesach in their language, now and/or 900 years ago?
> And is that word more of a translation, or more of a transliteration?

I can't tell you how the French of Rashi's time referred to Pesax.
There are no French translations of the Hebrew Scriptures dating to then.
The French Jews probably said "Pesach". That's what Yiddish speakers
say today and I have no reason to think that their ancestors did any
differently. French Jews nowadays -- who speak, by and large, French,
although there are some who speak Arabic among themselves -- also say
"Pesach", usually. Sometimes they say "Paque" (circumflex accent on the
'a' deliberately omitted because the Avodah digest software chokes on it,
which is unfortunate, because the circumflex, which always indicates a
missing 's', would be highly informative if you could see it), which is
the correct French word, but it is rare for them to do so. I don't like
saying "Paque" because it is also the French word for "Easter" and thus
evokes a disagreeable sense of linguistic imperialism, even though the
imperialism is almost certainly operating in the other direction here, I
would think -- taking a Hirschian risk here, but there are worse people to
emulate -- that the French word for "Easter" obviously comes from p-s-x.

                        Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter
                                j...@m5.chicago.il.us
                                http://m5.chicago.il.us

                        "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur"

> (Which is why it is usual to assume that the Raavad is referring to R
> Moshe Taqu when he speaks of someone holier than the Rambam who believes
> that HQBH has a body. Though I doubt it, because that's not what RMT
> actually says. More that he refuses to take a position on the subject,
> one way or the other.)

Raavad : Born : 1125, Narbonne, France
Died : 1198, Vauvert, France
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_ben_David>

R, Moshe ben Chasdai Taku:  1250-1290 CE

So Raavad couldn't have referred to R Taku

-- 
Eli Turkel

On 05/02/2016 08:12 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
> On a slightly different matter it is generally assumed that a store can sell its chametz as it is hefsed merubah.

Why does it need to be hefsed merubeh.  Mechiras chometz is 100% valid,
and everyone is entitled to rely on it no matter how easy it would be not to.
If people want to be machmir for themselves that's very nice but they have
no right to expect other people to follow their crazy chumros, any more
than they follow those of other people.


> OTOH there are communities that don't buy chametz that has been sold.
> Don't these contradict each other? what good does it do the
> supermarket to seel its chametz if no one will but it after Pesach?

It seems to me that this attitude rests on a fujndamental amhoratzus:
the idea that chametz she'avar alav hapesach is an inherent issur, an
issur cheftza, so that if you hold for some reason that mechiras chometz
is somehow flawed then you must hold that to the same extent the food sold
is tainted.

But chametz she'avar alav hapesach is a kenas on the owner for deliberately
or negligently transgressing Bal Yera'eh Uval Yimatzei.  Therefore even if
you don't wish to rely on mechiras chametz, and destroy all your own chametz
rather than sell it, the shopkeeper is not obligated to share your crazy
chumra, and when he sold his chametz you must admit that he did so beheter
gamur.  If so, he doesn't deserve a kenas, so his chametz remains permitted
even to you.



-- 
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".

The contradiction is exactly why some rabbis oppose the custom/practice 
of "only buying chameitz that was ground after Pesach". You can't tell 
someone "do X" and then the community says "X isn't good enough".

Ben

On 5/2/2016 2:12 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
> On a slightly different matter it is generally assumed that a store 
> can sell its chametz as it is hefsed merubah. OTOH there are 
> communities that don't buy chametz that has been sold.  Don't these 
> contradict each other? what good does it do the supermarket to seel 
> its chametz if no one will but it after Pesach?

 R Isaac,

Please provide the references for the Shut Ramah and
the Rashi in the first Perek Beitza.

As for the Achiezer, that quite clearly supports the assertion that ONLY if
the practice of not being MeNaker the hind-quarters is associated with a
Halacha can it have any sort of binding power.

It is truly confounding to see some people asserting the views of various
Rabbanim without ever finding it necessary to actually do more than tell a
story or tell us that the Posek said "it" to a friend or "it" was heard
directly.

For example we just had someone quote RHS saying a Halacha from the Rama,
which the Rama does NOT say - this seriously undermines the credibility.

Neither should we accept the report that RHS Paskened that those who do not
eat Gebrochts require a Pesak that it is a Shtus because Hatarah does not
work since a community has followed this practice, and the entire kehilla
requires Hatarah. That's like an entire Kehilla following the practice of
using royal blue for the Paroches.

Suggesting Gebrochts which as we have documented has absolutely no Halachic
foundation, is a Dovor ShaBeMinyan, is pretty close to fantasy.

Indeed we ought to be much more careful before suggesting Halacha from
stories and hearsay from Poskim.
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On Tue, May 03, 2016 at 02:35:29AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote:
: Indeed we ought to be much more careful before suggesting Halacha from
: stories and hearsay from Poskim.

Are you REALLY saying that RIB should not accept an answer he personally
received from his own rebbe? Or that we shouldn't accept that he can quote
that answer verbatum, albeit with a "(emphasis is mine)"?

If that's not sufficient evidence of a person's position, no quote on the
list works, and we might as well shut down.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

On Mon, May 02, 2016 at 03:12:10PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
: On a slightly different matter it is generally assumed that a store can
: sell its chametz as it is hefsed merubah. OTOH there are communities that
: don't buy chametz that has been sold.  Don't these contradict each other?

Don't buy all chameitz that has been sold, or all chameitz that was
"sold" by a store than then proceeded to leave it on the shelves and
sell individually over Pesach?

The latter is the nearest I've seen in my experience to such communities.

After all, it's more ready to conclude that the initial sale of all
chameitz was a meaningless asmachta, and not a real sale than it is to
conclude the storeowners were selling someone else's merchandise and
stealing the profits.

But if you mean that people aren't supposed to buy properly sold chameitz,
yes that makes no sense -- the storeowner still suffers a hefsed merubah,
just days later.

In any case, I do not think we still hold that mechiras chameitz requires
the hefsed to be merubah. OTOH, it's more than merely a "crazy chumerah",
as Zev puts it. According to the Bach (OC 448 "ve'im") mechiras chameitz
of the sort where nothing actually is moved to space the nakhri already
owns was originally promulgated as a widespread practice specifically
for "yayin saraf" dealers, and only because they can't move their full
merchandise. (The actual mechanism is in the Tosefta, Pesachim 2:6.)
Resisting growth of a heter to include boxes we could just throw into
the trunk of our car is quite different than "crazy chumerah".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 9th day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org        1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            most appropriate?


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