Avodah Mailing List

Volume 34: Number 52

Tue, 10 May 2016

• 1. Re: Salted butter? (Lisa Liel)
• 2. Re: RavSharki on university students (Akiva Miller)
• 3. Re: Ramchal: Hashem not bound by logic? (Was: Re: Rav Sharki on university ) (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: Gebrochts Understanding the Issue (Akiva Miller)
• 5. Re: Gebrochts Understanding the Issue (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: Gebrochts Understanding the Issue (Zev Sero)
• 7. Re: Gebrochts Understanding the Issue (Akiva Miller)
• 8. Eating chametz that was sold to a Goy - was RE: kitniyot (Marty Bluke)
• 9. Re: Understanding an Unfriendly Minhag: Not Eating (Marty Bluke)
• 10. Re: Eating chametz that was sold to a Goy - was RE: kitniyot (Zev Sero)
• 11. buffalo (Eli Turkel)
• 12. Re: Ramchal: Hashem not bound by logic? (Micha Berger)

On 5/8/2016 8:00 AM, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
>
> What I'd really like to know is why the salted butter isn't available
> in 100g packs, in either country.
>

The idea of salted butter was originally to be able to sell the butter 
longer.  If the butter has gone off (rancid) a little, salting it hides 
that.  So a lot of people refuse to buy salted butter, figuring that if 
it's unsalted, they *know* whether it's good or not, and they can always 
salt it themselves if they want.

Lisa

---
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R"n Toby Katz wrote:

<<< ... Both  mothers suffer terrible pain and grief.  But even if both
children "only"  suffered the same amount of pain before dying, you can see
that there would be  a huge difference between a world in which no disease
would ever kill a  child and a world in which no Nazi would ever kill a
child. >>>

The difference that I see, is that in one case the mother would have angry
or otherwise negative feelings towards Hashem, and in the second case, the
mother would have angry or otherwise negative feelings towards both Hashem
and the Nazi.

But as I understand this conversation, we are discussing theodicy, which is
the question of "How can a good God allow such a thing to happen?" And in
that regard I see no difference between the two cases.

Akiva Miller
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On Mon, May 02, 2016 at 05:41:13PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote:
: Wed, 27 Apr 2016 From: Micha Berger
:> The Ramchal says that logic is a nivra, and therefore Hashem can 
:> indeed create round squares and other self-contrdictory things.
: 
: I assume the reference is to Kelach Pischei Chohma 30...
: where Ramchal says Hashem is not bound by logic? I've been told that in 
: fact it implies the opposite

Then why would you think tht was the reference? Pesach 30 is where he
discusses zeh le'umas zeh, so mybe they're talking about the implied
lack of a law of contradiction? (Ie that creation comes in paradoxical
pairs.)

YOu are asking for a source for something I have been repeating since
before its appearance in Avodah vol 1, something I learne from R' Aryeh
Kaplan. Sources, even my notebook from those days, are not at hand. But I'm
working on it -- al titya'esh.

Actually, I am on the hunt for where I saw the point in seifer haHigayon.
The Ramchal defined higayon as a tool the seikhel was given. I am just
looking for where I found it explicit that logic was created for people.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

R' Meir G. Rabi writes:

> The ShA HaRav writes
> "as can be readily seen, many baked Matzos have a little flour on their
surface
> which is a consequence of the Matza dough not being thoroughly kneaded
...."
>
> May I ask with all due respect - is this factually correct?
>
> Furthermore, it is clear that the SAHaRav is NOT concerned about flour
> WITHIN the Matza ONLY flour on the surface of the Matza

I have trouble visualizing this. If the problem is in the kneading, then
flour would be on the inside as well. If the flour is only on the outside,
I would blame the general cleanliness and procedures of the bakery, NOT the
kneading specifically.

Could you please give the siman and se'if where the ShA HaRav writes this?
I'd like to see the words inside. Thanks.

Akiva Miller
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On Mon, May 09, 2016 at 6:52pm EDT, R Akiva Miller:
: I have trouble visualizing this. If the problem is in the kneading, then
: flour would be on the inside as well. If the flour is only on the outside,
: I would blame the general cleanliness and procedures of the bakery, NOT the
: kneading specifically.

: Could you please give the siman and se'if where the ShA HaRav writes this?
: I'd like to see the words inside. Thanks.

On Tue, May 03, 2016 at 2:55pm EDT, I wrote:
> Here's the teshuvah we've been discussing: SA haRav, back of Hilkhos
> Pesach, tshuvah 6, pg 475-476
> <http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=25074&;pgnum=486>.

-micha

On 05/09/2016 06:52 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
>
> Could you please give the siman and se'if where the ShA HaRav writes this? I'd like to see the words inside. Thanks.

Teshuvah #6, in the Shu"t at the back of volume 6.
http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=25074&;pgnum=486
http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=25074&;pgnum=487

-- 
Zev Sero               Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire
z...@sero.name          meaning merely by appending them to the two other
                        words `God can'.  Nonsense remains nonsense, even
                        when we talk it about God.   -- C S Lewis

Many thanks to R' Zev Sero and R' Micha Berger for sending me links to the
HebrewBooks.org edition, and at almost the same instant.

R' Meir G. Rabi wrote:

> The ShA HaRav writes
> "as can be readily seen, many baked Matzos have a
> little flour on their surface which is a consequence
> of the Matza dough not being thoroughly kneaded ...."

I responded:

> I have trouble visualizing this. If the problem is in
> the kneading, then flour would be on the inside as well.
> If the flour is only on the outside, I would blame the
> general cleanliness and procedures of the bakery, NOT the
> kneading specifically.

I now suspect that the situation was a bit different than I had imagined. I
would like to suggest that the matzos described by the Alter Rebbe had
plain flour through and through, as a result of the dough being dry and
hard, and difficult to knead, exactly as described. But the Rebbe
complained only about the flour on the outside, and I suspect that this is
because it presents a bigger halachic problem than the flour on the inside.

I first got this feeling in the paragraph "V'hinei eineinu", though I can't
point to any specific words where he might have said this. But in the
paragraph "V'af d'haMagen Avraham", he is machmir on one who crumbles his
matza into the soup, but he is meikil for one who puts matza balls into the
soup.

What I translated as "matza balls" are, more precisely in his words,
"ground matza that they make into rounds (agulim)", and the room for
leniency is because it can be judged to be a ta'aroves. I'm going into some
detail here, because he is NOT talking about crumbling some matza into a
dry bowl, which would contain a mixture of matza meal and flour, and the
flour would lose its identity to the matza meal before it ever got wet. No,
that's not what he is talking about. He makes explicit reference to these
balls which were made previously, and were added to the soup afterward,

I am at a loss to explain the advantage of these matza balls over one who
crumbles his matza directly into the soup. The only advantage I see is that
one who crumbles the matza into his soup is making chometz personally,
whereas in the other case the chometz was made in the kitchen when the
matza balls were fashioned. (Footnote 45 there might be saying something
similar.)

Be that as it may, it leads me to a very wild guess that when the dough is
not kneaded well, it will have flour on the inside, and although one might
think that this flour is subject to chimutz, the truth is that there is
some room for leniency because that flour is batel to the matza itself.
However, this leniency applies only to the flour inside the matza, and not
to the flour on the outer surface of the matza. Again, this paragraph is
only a wild guess that I offer to the group.

(On a side point, I'd like to ask about the modern "hard (kasheh)" dough
that the Alter Rebbe described. Why was it hard? I can understand spending
less time kneading it so that it can be rushed into the oven, but the Rebbe
seems to feel that the consistency of the dough changed too. Why would
anyone think that using less water is a good idea? Kneading a bread dough
is hard work, and it seems like common sense to me that if we want to knead
it well, you'd use *more* water, not less. Does extra water accelerate the
chimutz, independently of the temperature of that water?)

Akiva Miller
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R' Eli Turkel asked:
"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?"

The fact is that it's actually not really possible not to buy chometz that
was sold to a goy in Israel because none of the hechsherim (even the
mehadrin one like Eidah Hacharedis, R' Landau, R' Rubin) hold from this
chumra. Therefore there is no supervision as to when things were baked amd
what ingredients were used and the manufacturers/stores can simply print
whatever they want and no one is checking that it is true. See for example
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-X9_D8LFI5O8/UWEoF_JIlgI/AAAAAAAAAc4/XDK
yPFsMN7Q/s1600/%D7%90%D7%A4%D7%94+%D7%9C%D7%90%D7%97%D7%A8+%D7%94%D7%A4%D7%
A1%D7%97.jpg

Some people rely on checking product codes which tells them when the
product was made. However, this is not that useful. All it says is that the
product was made after Pesach. However, every Chometz product has chometz
ingredients in it (at least flour which is most probably chometz because it
was washed) and the consumer has no way of knowing when the chometz
ingredients were made and who owned over them over Pesach. For example even
if you only buy cookies that were made after Pesach you have no idea what
flour was used. It is very possible/probable that the flour used to make
the cookies was chometz and was sold for Pesach.

Som people only eat things that were made with flour that was fround after
Pesach. However there a problem with this as well. Flour in Israel is very
low in gluten and therefore won't rise well unless gluten is added. All
bakeries add gluten to the flour in all baked goods.

There is no gluten produced in Israel, it is all imported mostly from
Germany, France, and China. Gluten by definition is chamtez gamur . Because
it needs to be imported gluten must be SOLD to a Goy over Pessach; unless
the bakeries want to close shop for a few weeks waiting for a new shipment.
Since they start making bread literally a few hours after Pesach is over
they must be using gluten that they sold to a goy.

Therefore, even if the bread says baked after Pesach from flour that was
ground after Pesach, the gluten was most definitely sold and therefore you
are relying on the sale to a goy.

In other words they are pulling the wool over your eyes. They say that it
was baked after Pesach from flour that was ground after Pesach but
conveniently leave out the bit about gluten that was sold. (source
http://www.
bhol.co.il/9196/%D7%91%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%9F-%D7%95%D7%A9%D7%9E%D7%95-%D7%9C%D7
%90%D7%97%D7%A8-%D7%94%D7%A4%D7%A1%D7%97.html
)

In short, this is a chumra that makes people feel frum but has no basis in
halacha and is in fact not really possible to keep.
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R' Elazar Teitz wrote:
"I heard from an unimpeachable source that R. Chaim
Brisker visited the Chafetz Chaim on Pesach.  The CC did not offer so much
as a cup of tea to his guest, so as not to embarrass RCB by compelling him
to decline.."

On the other hand there is a famous story (printed in the Brisker Haggada
and in HaRav MiBrisk) about the Brisker Rav visiting R' Chaim Ozer on
Pesach in Vilna in 1941. The Brisker Rav thought that the sugar in Vilna
had Kitniyos mixed in and therefore did not use it on Pesach. However, when
the Brisker Rav visited R' Chaim Ozer on Pesach, R' Chaim Ozer served him
tea with sugar which the Brisker Rav accepted and drank. Afterwards,
someone (his son?) asked him why did he drink the tea with the sugar if
there was a chashash of kitniyos in the sugar? He answered that not eating
kitniyos is a minhag but being mevaze a talmid chacham is an issur
d'oraysa.
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On 05/10/2016 06:50 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote:
> The fact is that it's actually not really possible not to buy chometz
> that was sold to a goy in Israel//because none of the hechsherim
> (even the mehadrin one like Eidah Hacharedis, R' Landau, R' Rubin)
> hold from this chumra. Therefore there is no supervision as to when
> things were baked amd what ingredients were used and the
> manufacturers/stores can simply print whatever they want and no one
> is checking that it is true.

Since it's only a chumra, why not just trust the manufacturer?   Most
manufacturers are honest, and if you happen to come across one who isn't
you haven't really lost anything.

In any case, while there are of course those who look for the "baked after
Pesach" label for kashrus reasons, I assume that *most* people who look for
this label do so as a guarantee of freshness.

-- 
Zev Sero               Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire
z...@sero.name          meaning merely by appending them to the two other
                        words `God can'.  Nonsense remains nonsense, even
                        when we talk it about God.   -- C S Lewis

YD 28:4 discusses a buffalo. What animal are the mechaber and Rama talking
about (American Bison wasn't discovered yet)

-- 
Eli Turkel
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On 2016-05-10 5:31 pm, H Lampel wrote:

> Any luck with this? 
> 
> Zvi 
> On 5/2/2016 5:41 PM, H Lampel wrote: 
> 
> Wed, 27 Apr 2016 From: Micha Berger  
> 
> The Ramchal says that logic is a nivra, and therefore Hashem can indeed 
> create round squares and other self-contrdictory things.
> 
> I assume the reference is to Kelach Pischei Chohma 30. Can you please
> indicate (I've sent an attachment of the sefer that Avodah cannot see
> but R. Micha can, and the passage of which he refers he can highlight)
> where Ramchal says Hashem is not bound by logic? I've been told that
> in fact it implies the opposite.
> 
> Zvi Lampel
> (To whom kabbalistic ideas are beyond)

The truth is, this machloqes is something I was repeating since R' Aryeh
Kaplan zt"l was alive. (I mention it in Avodah vol. 1.) And RAK's
presentation on logic that made it to print (years before my NCSY days)
does not mention the Ramchal's side. Well, it does mention Derekh Hashem
1:1:5 but in the context of one of the paradoxes he's trying to resolve,
not about allowing for paradoxes. So I'm trying to dig up an old memory
of his stated source. 

I was thinking of a few places in sefer haHigayon and Derekh Tevunos,
which I am still looking for. The Ramchal describes higayon and tevunah
as tools Hashem created for a sekhel to use. I thought it was the
haqdamah, but since not... 

The Maharal's model of machloqesin (on Avos 5:17) allows for paradoxes
to result when we try to map the supernal Emes to olam hazeh. This point
is not THAT relevant, but it's about machloqesin (perhaps only a subset,
see end of Be'er 7 which says not every machloqes is eilu va'eilu), and
I am writing to the Baal haDynamics. Anyway, it's not really a statement
about logic, any more than saying that two shadows of a 3D object can
differ and yet both be real shadows. 

(BTW, the copy of Dynamics in the beis medrash at Yeshiva of Greater
Washington is well-worn and due for replacement or rebinding. I was just
in the neighborhood for Grandparents' Day at my grandchildren's school.)


I did post on-list (to appear in the next digest) that the nearest
_pesach _30 gets to denying logic is that "zeh le'umas zeh" denies the
law of contradiction. Which doesn't mean Hashem is above logic; it could
just mean Hashem's logic isn't the classical one. Which I pointed out in
a few halachic examples -- safeiq lashon isah hu appears to mean that a
doubt is a coexistence of conflicting states, the need for a tenai to be
in both positive and negative, etc...

_Tir'u baTov_!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Here is the test to find whether your mission
mi...@aishdas.org        on Earth is finished:
http://www.aishdas.org   if you're alive, it isn't.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Richard Bach
 
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