Avodah Mailing List

Volume 34: Number 144

Thu, 10 Nov 2016

• 1. Re: tefillin on chol hamoed (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: CARRYING ON YOM TOV: IS IT ALWAYS PERMITTED? (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: Faith and Doubt ()
• 4. Re: Questions about Krias Ha Torah (Prof. Levine)
• 5. Re: Questions about Krias Ha Torah (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: Does the prohibition of chodosh apply in the diaspora? (Zev Sero)
• 7. Re: Geshem or Gashem?! (Zev Sero)
• 8. Re: Questions about Krias Ha Torah (Zev Sero)
• 9. Re: Faith and Doubt (Zev Sero)
• 10. Re: Faith and Doubt (Micha Berger)
• 11. Re: The Beracha on Matzo (Akiva Miller)
• 12. Re: Practice During the First and Second Bais Hamikdash (was Questions about Krias Ha Torah) (Micha Berger)
• 13. Re: The Beracha on Matzo (Micha Berger)
• 14. bracha on matza (Eli Turkel)
• 15. Re: Practice During the First and Second Bais Hamikdash (was Questions about Krias Ha Torah) (Prof. Levine)

On Mon, Oct 31, 2016 at 07:45:55AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
: People say that deleting this piyut is an unjustified change to the
: established minhag, but I wonder if *introducing* the piyut is an
: unjustified change to the established minhag. There must be rules to answer
: this, and if those rules could be determined, these questions would go away.

You'll be unsurprised to learn that R Gil Student has a well laid-out
discussion of rolling back minhagim. Starting with a taxonomy of
kinds of minhagim (by type, by scope, by source). He doesn't discuss your
"why", but it's well worth a read
<http://www.torahmusings.com/2015/08/how-to-undo-a-minhag>.
He in turn is basing himself on R' Baruch Simon's Imerei Barukh: Tokef
haMinhag baHalkhah, ch 3-5.

Closing summary:
> ... you can discared a curom if:

> 1. It falls into the category of a mistaken custom
> 2. It is based on a prior halakhic ruling and one of the unique Torah
>    scholars of the generation ruled against this practice
> 3. All (or most) of the people subject to the custom formally annul it
>   (which is not possible with a universal custom)
> 4. You move to a place with a contrary custom, except for family customs
> 5. You change families

For my own thoughts:

This may be a question according to the Rambam, if Mamrim 2:2 implies the
rabbinate makes minhagim. "BD she.... vehinigu minhag, upashat hadavar
bekhol Yisrael..."

Most contemporary people (and most google hits), not that I have an
explicit source, would assume that the word minhag is more literal. That
the primary difference between a din derabbanan and a minhag is that the
latter is more grass roots -- the people follow a practice that stands
up to rabbinic review.

And while I do not have an explicit source, it is implied by Nedarim
81b and the Ran ad loc who say that a minhag is a neder created through
the mere action of performing it. Which derabbanan would be a binding
neder. Similarly, the case we've revisited ad infinitum from Maqom
sheNahagu (Pesachim 50b) is where the people of Baishan are apparently
being told by R' Yochanan to follow minhagt because the parents did it.
In Nefesh haRav, RHS cites R Moshe SOloveitchik saying that despite the
above, the Rambam holds that breaking minhag is assur as perishah min
hatzibur. A machloqes with the Ran, but still appears to be saying that
a minhag is a minhag by virtue of common practice. Not formal enactment.

And perhaps the Rambam in Mamrim means a BD must actively ratify
(not just fail to strike down) a minhag, which then -- even if it then
spread to the rest of Kelal Yisrael -- could be repealed by a BD gadol
bechokhmah uveminyan.

And if minhag is not formally enacted, one cannot ask centuries later
if the idea was okay to initiate. All we can say is that by the time
rabbis were asked, the piyut was ratified as an oay minhag. Here one
is asking for rabbis to use rules in favor of removing a piyut, which
would be a different, non grass roots, process.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Man is capable of changing the world for the
mi...@aishdas.org        better if possible, and of changing himself for
http://www.aishdas.org   the better if necessary.
Fax: (270) 514-1507            - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning

On Sun, Oct 30, 2016 at 03:41:03PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
: I don't want any of the things in my house to get stolen, and that's why I
: lock the house when I go to shul. There is a machlokes on whether or not
: this justifies carrying the key on Yom Tov, and the MB says that if I can
: secure those things in some other way, then "all opinions" forbid me to
: carry the key. And that's why I wrote that when I lived in an area without
: an eruv, and people were home to let me in, I saw no heter to carry my key,
: so I used my Shabbos key.

Tangent:
If you don't wear your Shabbos key on yom tov or other times when you
don't need it to avoid hotza'ah, does it still work as a Shabbos key?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

 

From: Akiva Miller via Avodah  <avo...@lists.aishdas.org>

R"n Toby Katz wrote:

> The  difference between them was that Noach never was an agnostic.
> ....Not  for a
> moment did he doubt the existence of the One who was talking to  him
> and giving him instructions! The premise is absurd.

On the  one hand, I concede that "he is obviously talking about the flood",
given  that Rashi (7:7) says explicitly, "He believed and did not believe
that the  flood would come."

But on the other hand, that same Rashi begins with the  words "Af Noach
mik'tanei amana haya - Even Noach was among those of little  faith." Isn't
it clear that this refers to faith in general? "Little faith"  is a world
apart from "Maybe He will relent."

[skip]
Akiva  Miller

 
 
>>>>>
His lack of faith was a doubt that Hashem would really do what He said  He 
was going to do.  The people of his generation did not believe there was  
going to be a Flood, and even Noach himself was not sure -- hence, "miktanei  
emunah haya."  The word "agnostic" simply does not apply to this type of  
doubt.
 

--Toby  Katz
t6...@aol.com
..
=============


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At 10:24 AM 11/8/2016, Micha Berger wrote:
>That's because there is no one answer. You're asking for a standard when
>there was none. Different shuls or towns had different minhagim. All
>people can do is describe their notion of the range. And if one author
>thinks some practice is an outlier, far from any of the norms and another
>does not, they both could end up describing the same history differently.

Are we to deduce the same for other practices,  namely,  that there 
was no single standard? If so,  then the Yahadus we have today is a 
far cry from what it was originally.  People did many different 
things.  For example,  the format of tefillah was established by the 
Anshe Knesses Ha Gedola.   Before this occurred,  presumably people 
had widely different versions of, say, shemone esrei.  If so,  then 
why is there so much emphasis in Judaism today regarding doing 
mitzvas in a very precise and prescribed manner?

YL 
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On Tue, Nov 08, 2016 at 02:26:02PM -0500, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote:
: Are we to deduce the same for other practices,  namely,  that there 
: was no single standard? If so,  then the Yahadus we have today is a 
: far cry from what it was originally.  People did many different 
: things.  For example,  the format of tefillah was established by the 
: Anshe Knesses Ha Gedola.   Before this occurred,  presumably people 
: had widely different versions of, say, shemone esrei...

Tefillah. AkhG invented Shemoneh Esrei. Before this occured, davening
couldn't mean Shemoneh Esrei in any version.

And even at the end of the 2nd Beis haMiqdash, the chasimos of Shemoneh
Esrei were established, but the bodies of each berakhah was pretty
free-form. Just make sure that the body closes with me'ein hachasimah.

That's why you didn't trust a Chazan who ad-libbed "Modim Modim" as
possibly being a Gnostic or Zoroastan dualist.

And why R' Chaninah had a talmid who went on and on with complemenary
adjectives in Birkhas Avos -- "haKeol haGadol haGibor vehaNora vehaAdir,
vehaIzuz..." until his rebbe said "Have you exhaused all possible praise
of your master? (Berakhos 33b)

There are remians of THREE parashah orderings among the tefillin worn
by those who fought under the Chashmonaim -- including those that conform
to Rashi and to Rabbeinu Tam.

The question of how many strings of tzitzis should be blue and how
to combine the number and colors of the windings with the knots was
never resolved.

Etc...

:                                                        If so,  then 
: why is there so much emphasis in Judaism today regarding doing 
: mitzvas in a very precise and prescribed manner?

Because pesaqim accumulate. Halakhah is crystalizing. Meanwhile, there
are always new questions that are open...

Especially when there are arguments over which pesaq is better, and
it threatens to turn the community into agudos agudos. Then the poseiq
has to set up a communial pesaq rather than allowing people more
autonomy.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The thought of happiness that comes from outside
mi...@aishdas.org        the person, brings him sadness. But realizing
http://www.aishdas.org   the value of one's will and the freedom brought
Fax: (270) 514-1507      by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook

On 04/11/16 12:41, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
>
> Se'if 18: In Russia, the winters are long. No one would be planting wheat
> before Pesach -- it is an ignorable miqreh rechoqah. According to the USDA
> 1997 <https://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/nass/planting/uph97.pdf>
> wheat planting could start as early as Mar 1 (beginning of the season
> in Washington and Oregon). So this heter wouldn't apply in the US. And
> the AhS says it wouldn't work in Germany or Poland.

You have this backwards.  He says that in Russia this heter *doesn't* 
work.  In Germany and Poland it does, and according to your information 
the same would be true of America.

-- 
Zev Sero                Hit the road, Jack
z...@sero.name           but please come back once more

http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol30/v30n144.shtml#10




-- 
Zev Sero                Hit the road, Jack
z...@sero.name           but please come back once more

On 06/11/16 10:27, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah wrote:
>> > 3. When Jews returned to EY in numbers they opted for the yearly cycle.  Why
>> > didn't the return to the triennial cycle?

This one's simple.  The old yishuv of EY, which read on a 3-year cycle, 
was completely destroyed by the Crusaders, and its minhagim disappeared 
When Jews resettled EY there was no existing community for them to join, 
and whose minhagim to adopt, so they brought all their minhagim from 
chu"l with them, including the 1-year cycle.

-- 
Zev Sero                Hit the road, Jack
z...@sero.name           but please come back once more

On 04/11/16 12:50, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 04, 2016 at 12:35:03PM -0400, via Avodah wrote:
> : The difference between them was that Noach never was an agnostic...
>
> And who said Charan was? Who in his era questioned the existence of any
> gods at all?

Haran, not Charan!   And people very much questioned the existence and 
power of Avraham's God.

-- 
Zev Sero                Hit the road, Jack
z...@sero.name           but please come back once more

On Tue, Nov 08, 2016 at 05:26:43PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
:> And who said [H]aran was? Who in his era questioned the existence of any
:> gods at all?

:                      And people very much questioned the existence
: and power of Avraham's God.

We were talking about agnostics. As in, people who questioned the idea
that there are any gods. Not people who question the existence of one
particular G-d.

When R' Besdin, or R' Riskin paraphrasing R' Besdin, suggested that Noach
or Haran were "agnostics", the intent could not have been as RnTK took
it, because the notion of an agnostic would be anachronistic.

I took it for granted R Besdin was referring to their inability to be
convinced one way or the other on this particular question, waiting for
evidence before actually committing irrevocably.

(Sense 2 or 3 of the word in http://www.dictionary.com/browse/agnostic ,
not sense 1.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

R' Yitzchok Levine posted from Daf Hayomi B'Halacha:

> On Pesach, the proper beracha is hamotzi according to all opinions,
> since matzo is the bread on those days. (??????? ??????? ????, 29)

I would like to request that the chevreh pay more attention to the language
that they are posting in. Hebrew is usually messed up in these emails, and
I have no idea what source they were referencing. Please try to include a
transliteration.

R' Micha Berger asked:

> What I do not understand is why Sepharadim would make a hamotzi on
> Pesach, "since matzo is the bread on those days." What about those
> Edot for whom crispy matzos never became a norm for Pesach? For them,
> Ashkenazi crackers are not the normal bread for Pesach. What am I
> missing?

My question goes farther. I ask this question even for those Edot -
including Ashkenazim - whose fear of chometz led to a lack of soft matzos,
and for whom crispy matzos *did* become the norm.

I question the whole logic of "since matzo is the bread on those days." Are
the definitions of Pas Habaah B'Kisnin so flexible that they would vary
from one part of the year to another? I do not see evidence of this
flexibility.

For example, if I see something in the supermarket labeled as being
"flatbread", does that define its bracha as Hamotzi? No, it does not.
Rather the halacha tells us that - because it is crispy and not soft - it
is normally eaten as a snack food, so its bracha is Mezonos. Further, the
concept of "normal circumstances" tells us that in an *unusual*
circumstance, where I *am* using it as the basis of my meal, then the
proper bracha is Hamotzi.

Why would this change for a similar product, where the box is not labeled
"flatbread", but instead it says "matzah". Does the label on the box define
its status, or is that the halacha's job?

If crispy matzah is Mezonos during the year, it is surely because
occasionally I might eat a piece of it as a snack. Let's say that I'm in
the mood for something that is crunchy but not salty, so my choices are
carrot sticks or matza. So I take a piece of matza, and say mezonos. Are
you saying I can't do that on Pesach? That if I want to snack on matzah,
and it happens to be Pesach, I have to wash and bench? Why?

Of course, if it is Pesach and I sit down to a meal, and I want bread at
the meal for whatever reason, I will use whatever matzah happens to be
available, and the bracha will be Hamotzi because I am kovea seudah on it.
Why should that affect the bracha for matza when it is a between-meal snack?

Akiva Miller
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On Wed, Nov 09, 2016 at 05:11:19AM -0500, Prof. Levine wrote:
: My understanding is that the first machlokes was the machlokes
: concerning semichah between Yosi ben Yo'ezer and Yose ben Yochanan,
: as cited in the Mishnah in Chagigah (2:2).
: 
: If so,  then weren't Tefillen "standardized" regarding the parashah
: orderings from the time that this mitzvah was given?...

Again, you're arguing against archeological evidence. We know as
a scertainty that both versions were in common use for well over a
millennium, at least. that is a plurality, a range of options, not
a dispute.

It wasn't a machloqes until someone decides that one ordering was
preferred, and someone else decides that a different one was.
When there are a variety of equally good ways to implement the
desiratum in Menachos 34b-35a that is a plurality, a range of
ways to do something, not a dispute.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is our choices...that show what we truly are,
mi...@aishdas.org        far more than our abilities.
http://www.aishdas.org                           - J. K. Rowling
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Wed, Nov 09, 2016 at 06:21:47AM -0500, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
:> since matzo is the bread on those days. (??????? ??????? ????, 29)

: I would like to request that the chevreh pay more attention to the language
: that they are posting in. Hebrew is usually messed up in these emails, and
: I have no idea what source they were referencing. Please try to include a
: transliteration.

Administative note (skip down if you just want real content):

I have a recommendation.... The problem is with the digest part of the
email software in particular. There are two ways to avoid it, and we could
make this list fully bilingual, at least for everyone but users of older
email readers.

1- You could go to single email mode. Combined with a rule in your email
client that moves emails from Avodah to its own folder, it's no less
convenient than a digest -- and gets you the emails sooner.

2- Switch to MIME digest mode, where each individual email comes in as
an attachment. Most email readers will display attached emails as part
of the original. If you want, I can help you test your own reader
before trying.

If you get the email as-is, not flattened to plain text, the Hebrew
would come through as-is as well.

...
: I question the whole logic of "since matzo is the bread on those days." Are
: the definitions of Pas Habaah B'Kisnin so flexible that they would vary
: from one part of the year to another? I do not see evidence of this
: flexibility.

Isn't this case itself the evidence your looking for?

Sepharadim appear to say that it is context sensitive, like depending
on the part of the year. Whereas Ashenazim *might* well hold that being
used like bread part of the year means it is used like bread, full-stop.

But I see what you're saying, it tends to differ by function. Like bagel
chips. If they were made to be bagels and only toasted after baking,
they're bread. If they were made for the sole purpose of chip manufacture
-- pas haba bekisnin.

Wouldn't the same line of reasoning then have Sepahradim making a
distinction not between Pesach and the rest of the year, but between
matzos made for Pesach and thus to be used like bread, and those made
for the rest of the year? So why wouldn't Sepharadim make a hamotzi
on leftover KLP matzah?

(About matzos and labeling, Tam Tams TM are a real-life example.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where
mi...@aishdas.org        you are,  or what you are doing,  that makes you
http://www.aishdas.org   happy or unhappy. It's what you think about.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Dale Carnegie

<<What I do not understand is why Sepharadim would make a hamotzi on
Pesach, "since matzo is the bread on those days." What about those
Edot for whom crispy matzos never became a norm for Pesach? For them,
Ashkenazi crackers are not the normal bread for Pesach. What am I
missing? >>

My assumption is that the sefardi custom is to make hamotzi on the type of
matzah used for seder night. If that is a soft matzah than the crispy hard
matzah would still be mezonot ad vice vesa

-- 
Eli Turkel
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At 01:53 PM 11/9/2016, Micha Berger wrote:
>It wasn't a machloqes until someone decides that one ordering was
>preferred, and someone else decides that a different one was.
>When there are a variety of equally good ways to implement the
>desiratum in Menachos 34b-35a that is a plurality, a range of
>ways to do something, not a dispute.

Are you asserting that Torah shel Baal Peh was not given with 
precision and definitiveness?  If so,  then this is a chidash to me.

YL 



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