Avodah Mailing List

Volume 34: Number 70

Fri, 17 Jun 2016

• 1. Re: listening to governments and derabbanan (Marty Bluke)
• 2. Re: listening to governments and derabbanan (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: Boaz's nisayon with Ruth (Micha Berger)
• 4. derabbanan (Eli Turkel)
• 5. Re: derabbanan (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: Boaz's nisayon with Ruth (Ben Waxman)
• 7. Re: Boaz's nisayon with Ruth (Zev Sero)
• 8. Re: derabbanan (Eli Turkel)
• 9. Re: Boaz's nisayon with Ruth (Simi Peters)
• 10. Re: Boaz's nisayon with Ruth (Ben Waxman)
• 11. Re: Boaz's nisayon with Ruth (Ilana Elzufon)
• 12. Re: Boaz's nisayon with Ruth (Zev Sero)
• 13. Re: Boaz's nisayon with Ruth (Micha Berger)
• 14. mareh mekomo -- talmud torah rules! (Sholom Simon)

What I see is the Ramban (Hasagah, Seifer haMitzvos, shores 1) telling
> Ramban puts it,
>     shelav zeh 'delo sasur' hu keshe'ar halavin shelaTorah
>     aval divreihem al zeh halav halav asmekhinhu samakh be'alma
>     lo sheyehei azhara kelal be'oso lav

> As I see it, the Ramban is saying that lo sasur gives them the power
> to legislate, but the specific legislation (oso lav) is only someikh on
> the pasuq.

> Which would keep derabbanan's out of the list of 613, but still mean that
> following them is a qiyum of lo sasur. A way to have the "asher qidishanu
> bemitzvosav" cake and eat it too.

The Ramban's problem with the Rambam is that if derabbanan's are based on
lo tasur then why the distinction between derabbanans and doraysas. With
your formulation that question still arises.

> Ad kan discussing the Ramban. Jumping back to discuss R MS haKohein:
...
>:                                         His point is that we as human
>: beings don't know Hashems will and therefore we can make mistakes when
>: making takanos. Because of that there is no intrinsic value in doing the
>: act that the Chachamim were mesaken, rather the value is in listening to
>: their words. Therefore if there is a safek there is no need to do the
>: action.

> I think he switches your cart and horse -- "efshar de'eiono misqabel el
> Retzon haBorei". Not that they miss His Will, but the Creator rejects
> their legislation.

If the creator rejects their legislation then it is isn't his will.

On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 11:47:01AM +0300, Marty Bluke wrote:
:> As I see it, the Ramban is saying that lo sasur gives them the power
:> to legislate, but the specific legislation (oso lav) is only someikh on
:> the pasuq.

:> Which would keep derabbanan's out of the list of 613, but still mean that
:> following them is a qiyum of lo sasur. A way to have the "asher qidishanu
:> bemitzvosav" cake and eat it too.

: The Ramban's problem with the Rambam is that if derabbanan's are based on
: lo tasur then why the distinction between derabbanans and doraysas. With
: your formulation that question still arises.

With a mitzvah de'oraisa, oso lav is deOraisa. We do not cook meat with
milk because of a derashah from a pasuq that is specifically about oso
lav -- basar bechalav.

With a mitzvah derabbanan, the authority to make and obligation to
obey the lav is de'oraisa but oso av once made is not. After all, HQBH
said lo sasur, not lo sevasheil owf bechalav. (Earlier version had
"bachaleiv imo", but mentioning bird milk seems too silly even for an
imaginary pasuq.)

I find the question cleanly -- and to my thinking, intuitively -- avoided.
AISI, my read of the Ramban is an intuitive take on the chiluq.

:> Ad kan discussing the Ramban. Jumping back to discuss R MS haKohein:
: ...
:>:                                         His point is that we as human
:>: beings don't know Hashems will and therefore we can make mistakes when
:>: making takanos. Because of that there is no intrinsic value in doing the
:>: act that the Chachamim were mesaken, rather the value is in listening to
:>: their words. Therefore if there is a safek there is no need to do the
:>: action.

:> I think he switches your cart and horse -- "efshar de'eiono misqabel el
:> Retzon haBorei". Not that they miss His Will, but the Creator rejects
:> their legislation.

: If the creator rejects their legislation then it is isn't his will.

As I said, cart-and-horse. The causality is that the rejection is being
offered "in response" (kevayakhol) to the law. Not that the law is to be
rejected because they failed to respond to His Will. Yes, whether A
causes B or B causes A, you still end up with both.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             What we do for ourselves dies with us.
mi...@aishdas.org        What we do for others and the world,
http://www.aishdas.org   remains and is immortal.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Albert Pine

On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 11:36:54AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote:
: In any case, with Rivka it doesn't necessarily mean romantic love. In fact,
: the common derasha about Yitzchak and Rivka is that the love only came
: after he married her and brought her into his tent.

I heard as a contrast between real love and love at first sight. 

In any case, by the time they get to Gera, they are clearly romantically
in love. Unless the point about Boaz and Rus was about love at first
sight in particular, and we're just using the phnrase "romantic love"
in differing ways.

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

<<It is from
that part of the MC I get the idea that he is distinguishing deOraisos
as having ontologies we need to avoid or experience, and derabbanans
which are all about following orders for pragmatic reasons. >>

What are the pragmatic reasons? In particular what happens when the reason
for the derabbanan no longer exists.
Is there a difference on the origin of the derabbanan?

One main concern is in monetary law, Much os the "baba-s" are rabbinic
based on a
monetary/social system that no longer exists

-- 
Eli Turkel
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On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 07:12:28PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
:> that part of the MC I get the idea that he is distinguishing deOraisos
:> as having ontologies we need to avoid or experience, and derabbanans
:> which are all about following orders for pragmatic reasons.

: What are the pragmatic reasons?

Returning to the example I used this morning, poultry with milk.

One could explain this prohibition as preventing some minor spiritual
damage or danger of such damage that didn't rise to the level of
that avoided by basar bechalav. Or some other metaphysical and/or
psychospiritual explanation, or symbology, whatever your favorite
taamei hamitzvos system might happen to be.

OTOH, a gezeirah is pragmatic -- nothing happenms to you for vioolating
it. The whole thing is a means of preventing ending up committing a
real sin.

Is there power to lighting a menorah of Chanukah, or did Chazal just have
to pick /something/ to standardize how people fulfil the general deOraisa
of commemorating a neis?

Second day yom tov nowadays, does it connect to some supernal koakh,
as the SA haRav says? Or is it a way to keep alive memory that the
calendar ought to be al pi re'iyah?

:                                 In particular what happens when the reason
: for the derabbanan no longer exists.

The fact that the consumer is totally disconnected from shechitah and
kashering nowadays might have rendered the gezeira of owf bechalav
superfluous. People have little reason to confuse the rules of one with
the other.

But even if it's true that the reason stated in the gemara no longer
exists, would anyone would say it is therefore no longer in force?
Even though the motive is pragmatic.,

Is this baserd on the idea that we have to be chosheshim for unstated
reasons and those may not be pragmatic?

What I was saying in my earlier post is that I think the MC rules out
any first-order taamei hamitzvos for dinim derabbanan, and they are all
to protect / help implement de'oraisos which have real te'amim.

: One main concern is in monetary law, Much os the "baba-s" are rabbinic
: based on a monetary/social system that no longer exists

Much of which isn't lemaaseh, since qinyan is determined by convention
anyway.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate,
mi...@aishdas.org        Our greatest fear is that we're powerful
http://www.aishdas.org   beyond measure
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Anonymous

In addition the Taz writes in Hilchot Nida (YD 172:1) that they did 
sleep together.

I don't know how to square the Midrash with this Taz.

Ben

..On 6/16/2016 8:38 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> : The Rambam writes at the beginning of hilchos ishus that after matan torah
> : any biah that is not l'shem kiddushin is an issur d'oraysa and he would get
> : malkos. That halacha was certainly around at the time of Boaz.
>
> Only "certainly" if Boaz held like the Rambam rather than the Ramban.

On 06/16/2016 03:10 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote:
> ..On 6/16/2016 8:38 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
>> : The Rambam writes at the beginning of hilchos ishus that after matan torah
>> : any biah that is not l'shem kiddushin is an issur d'oraysa and he would get
>> : malkos. That halacha was certainly around at the time of Boaz.
>>
>> Only "certainly" if Boaz held like the Rambam rather than the Ramban.

> In addition the Taz writes in Hilchot Nida (YD 172:1) that they did
> sleep together.I don't know how to square the Midrash with this Taz.

It's 192:1, and where's the contradiction?  He says they were in the same
bed, which is already in the pasuk.  He doesn't say or imply that they did
more than that.


-- 
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

>
> Returning to the example I used this morning, poultry with milk.
>
> One could explain this prohibition as preventing some minor spiritual
> damage or danger of such damage that didn't rise to the level of
> that avoided by basar bechalav. Or some other metaphysical and/or
> psychospiritual explanation, or symbology, whatever your favorite
> taamei hamitzvos system might happen to be.
>

If one assumes that the only problem is rebellion like the netivot then
milk in poultry
has no spiritual damage (the problem is gavra not cheftza)

>
>
> :                                 In particular what happens when the
> reason
> : for the derabbanan no longer exists.
>
> What I was saying in my earlier post is that I think the MC rules out
> any first-order taamei hamitzvos for dinim derabbanan, and they are all
> to protect / help implement de'oraisos which have real te'amim.
>

Not all takanot are to protect a deoraita. In any case the original
question was
why we are obligated by these takanot

>
> : One main concern is in monetary law, Much os the "baba-s" are rabbinic
> : based on a monetary/social system that no longer exists
>
> Much of which isn't lemaaseh, since qinyan is determined by convention
> anyway.
>

Not all kinyanim. More importantly not every monrtary takanah in shas has
to do
with kinyanim. There are loads of takanot for the good of commerce.
In the change from an agragrian society to a business society to a high tech
society much is no longer relevant


-- 
Eli Turkel
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From: Micha Berger [mailto:mi...@aishdas.org]
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2016 7:08 PM

> On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 11:36:54AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote:
>: In any case, with Rivka it doesn't necessarily mean romantic love. In fact,
>: the common derasha about Yitzchak and Rivka is that the love only came
>: after he married her and brought her into his tent.

> I heard as a contrast between real love and love at first sight.

> In any case, by the time they get to Gera, they are clearly romantically in
> love. Unless the point about Boaz and Rus was about love at first sight in
> particular, and we're just using the phnrase "romantic love"
> in differing ways.

Haven't any of you read the second perek of megillat Rut? We're not
talking about a coup de foudre here. We're talking about the gradual
development of warm feelings between a much older man and a mature woman
(40 years old, according to Hazal).

Rut is a lonely woman. She knows that she is a social pariah, looked
upon with suspicion as a Moabite and not likely to bask in the social
glow of Naomi's connections because Naomi abandoned them all during the
famine and has very little social capital herself. This is why she
tells Naomi that she will go gleaning where they will let her--she's
expecting to be thrown out of some places. This is also part of the
reason Boaz tells her to stay in his field--he knows the social climate
of his town. And Naomi is extremely surprised that Rut has come back
with so much grain; it means that someone has helped her--not something
Naomi expected under the circumstances.

Rut has lousy marriage prospects because everyone looks askance at her
as the weird shiksa daughter-in-law who comes back to Bet Lehem with
her mother-in-law. No one will consider marrying her because she is
a Moabite and people who marry Moabite women die (witness Mahlon and
Khilyon) because it's probably assur (except according to wild-eyed
Reformim or silly idealists like Boaz--the man in the street always
knows better). The halakha was still in dispute well into the lifetime
of David (Yevamot). Tov (aka Ploni Almoni) is practically in a panic
when he refuses the marriage to Rut--he wants the field, but no strings
attached "pen ash'hit et nahalati." Only Boaz has the guts to champion
Rut's cause because he has the authority to do so, has the social clout
to do so, he cares about her, and he is touched by her trust in him
and her courage in coming to speak to him at the goren.

Rut's acceptance into society only comes with her marriage to Boaz and
Naomi's rehabilitation with her neighbors only comes with the birth
of Oved.


[Email #2 -micha]

I believe that 'margelotav' is like 'merashotav' (Bereshit 28:11).
The 'mem' is not part of the shoresh and I don't think it is a pun.
It may be an oblique reference to halitza and, by extension, to yibum,
a delicate way of indicating that, while what Naomi wants for Rut is
not technically yibum, it is the yibum-like 'hakamat shem be'nahala'.
See the perush of the Malbim on the mitzvah of yibum, where he compares
the mitzvah to the yibum-like story of Yehuda and Tamar on the one hand,
and Rut and Boaz on the other.

When a man says to a woman, "You could marry anybody. Why have you
picked me?" that is a compliment, not necessarily a statement of fact.
Part of what impresses Boaz about what Rut has done is that she is
willing to marry an old man when that goes against the nature of things.
As Hazal say on this pasuk, a woman would prefer to marry a young, poor
man rather than an old, rich man (gold diggers aside). Rut has set
aside her natural inclinations in order to do hesed for her mother-in-law.

The words may also be read as an expression of Boaz's sense of gratitude
and wonder in finding his one-in-a- million woman (and Rut is indeed
exceptional) especially at a time in his life when he did not expect to
marry again. When Boaz encounters Rut he has just gotten up from shiva
for his wife. Either way, Boaz is not commenting on Rut's bountiful
marriage prospects, which are pretty much non-existent (as I argued in
the previous post.)

Kol tuv,
Simi Peters

Number 1 he also brings Yehuda and Tamar when referring to the same 
gezira. Number 2, according to you what is the chiddush? That before the 
gezira it was permitted to get into a bed with a woman without her 
counting 7 days? That gets you right back to the Rambam/Ramban machloquet.

Ben

On 6/16/2016 9:07 PM, Zev Sero wrote:
>
> It's 192:1, and where's the contradiction?  He says they were in the same
> bed, which is already in the pasuk.  He doesn't say or imply that they
> did
> more than that.
>
>

RnSP: Rut has lousy marriage prospects because everyone looks askance at
her as

> the weird shiksa daughter-in-law who comes back to Bet Lehem with her
> mother-in-law.  No one will consider marrying her because she is a Moabite
> and people who marry Moabite women die (witness Mahlon and Khilyon) because
> it's probably assur (except according to wild-eyed Reformim or silly
> idealists like Boaz--the man in the street always knows better).
>

Does Boaz's idealism extend to not quite grasping how different his
attitude towards Rut is from everyone else's? His response when she comes
to the goren seems to indicate that he had assumed she had many marriage
options from among the younger men.

Shabbat Shalom,
Ilana
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On 06/17/2016 09:04 AM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote:
>
> Ben
>
> On 6/16/2016 9:07 PM, Zev Sero wrote:
>>
>> It's 192:1, and where's the contradiction?  He says they were in the same
>> bed, which is already in the pasuk.  He doesn't say or imply that they
>> did more than that.

> Number 1 he also brings Yehuda and Tamar when referring to the same gezira.

Yes.  So what?  What do you think that proves?


> Number 2, according to you what is the chiddush? That before the gezira
> it was permitted to get into a bed with a woman without her counting 7 days?

Yes, exactly.

> That gets you right back to the Rambam/Ramban machloquet.

No, it doesn't.  It has no connection whatsoever to that machlokes, and
I'm astonished that you see a connection.  *Everyone* agrees that there is
no issur mid'oraisa on a man and woman sharing a bed, even if she's
*definitely* a niddah, let alone if it's only a possibility.  Everyone
agrees that nowadays it's assur mid'rabanan, even if she's only possibly
a niddah.  Everyone also agrees that nowadays there's an issur yichud
even if she's definitely *not* a niddah.  None of this has any connection
to the machlokes about what level of issur is involved in an unmarried
couple having sex.

-- 
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

On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 11:00:43AM +0300, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote:
: Haven't any of you read the second perek of megillat Rut? We're not
: talking about a coup de foudre here. We're talking about the gradual
: development of warm feelings between a much older man and a mature woman
: (40 years old, according to Hazal).

How gradual? Se'orah harvest is in Nisan (thus "Aviv") and Iyyar, chitah
is in late Iyyar through early Tammuz. So the whole story has to fit
in at most a month, when the two overlap. Add that they were harvesting
long enough that Rus showing up at this point is odd. I think it's more
plausible to picture Rus 2 through 4:12 all occuring in about a week.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless
mi...@aishdas.org        he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness.
http://www.aishdas.org   Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive
Fax: (270) 514-1507      a spirit of purity.      - Rav Yisrael Salanter

I remember reading a generalized essay on why learning the gemara was 
good for you, and the writer was exploring the idea (making the 
point) that the gemara explains to us values that we wouldn't have 
otherwise thought of on our own.

He gave (if I'm remembering correctly) the following example:

1.  A town has a single shochet.  A younger shochet wants to move in 
to town with the latest "shochet" technology -- whatever that 
is.  The point is that he thinks he can provide his services more 
efficiently and at less cost to the community.  In this case, the 
gemara tells us (al pi this rav-writer) that the beis din of the town 
can decide that the town can't support the competition, and weigh the 
fact that the older shochet might be put out of business, etc.  I.e., 
the beis din has a lot of room to enforce a non-competitive monopoly here.

2.  Same scenario,but we're talking about a school, or a 
teacher/educator.  A younger rav wants to move in, because he thinks 
he can do it better.  In this case we davka want to encourage 
competition, even though it might put the present teacher/school out 
of business, because in this case -- teaching our children torah -- 
competition that might provide a better product is more important 
than the parnassa of who might be put out of business.

The point that this writer was making, again, is that this 
distinction is not something we might have thought on our own.

I gave the above example to a few educators last weekend, and they 
all jumped out of their chairs asking me: where in the gemara is this?!?!

I have no idea!  Can anyone here provide a mareh mekomo to this 
idea?  (Am I even telling it over correctly?  Has anyone heard this?)

Thanks!

-- Sholom



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