Avodah Mailing List

Volume 37: Number 5

Sat, 19 Jan 2019

• 1. Re: haftarah (Akiva Miller)
• 2. Maakeh (Micha Berger)
• 3. Safek Tereifah and Damages (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: Safek Tereifah and Damages (Zev Sero)
• 5. sheasa nisim (Rich, Joel)
• 6. Re: Angels and Requests (Toby Katz)
• 7. The Last Nochri Who Owned The Milk (Akiva Miller)
• 8. Re: Angels and Requests (Micha Berger)
• 9. Re: Safek Tereifah and Damages (Micha Berger)
• 10. Re: The Last Nochri Who Owned The Milk (Zev Sero)

.

R' Joel Rich asked:
> I recently was in a Shul in Aretz where they said the haftara
> from a Chumash yet the baal korei read it for the oleh.
> Apparently this is standard practice in this Shul ? has anyone
> seen this done elsewhere?

The standard practice in my shul is that one person reads the haftara from
a Tanach, and most people just listen, though some do read along.

Sometimes, someone will have a yahrzeit and therefore wants to lead the
haftara, but is unable to actually read it himself. So he says the brachos
before and after, while someone else actually reads the navi from the
Tanach.

(Artscroll's "Mourning in Halacha" by Rabbi Chaim Binyamin Goldberg
explains that it is not the reading of the haftarah that is important, but
the saying of the brachos. In chapter 40 footnote 32 he writes, "Yalkut
David (Yoreh De'ah #376) explains that the mourner reads the Haftarah of
the Prophets, because the blessings accompanying this reading include
prayer for the Redemption of Israel and the sanctification of the name of
Hashem, Blessed be He as in Kaddish.")

Akiva Miller
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On Tue, Jan 15, 2019 at 07:43:51AM -0500, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
: Rather, I would argue that the maakeh is inherently a less-than-100%
: protection, and doesn't even claim to offer 100% protection.
: 
: Mechaber Choshen Mishpat 427:5 writes, "The maakeh must be no less
: than 10 tefachim high, so that a faller will not fall from it. And the
: wall must be strong so that a person who leans on it will not fall."

... and if maaqeh were about safety, then why is property owned by a
tzibbur patur?

I therefore suggested here a couple of times that maaqeh is about
reinforcing in oneself the importance of safety more than about
safety itself.

I had the following discussion with an LOR. At the time, his shul's
duchan ran the length of the front of the shul, and had steps down
to floor level, across only the middle third. The two sides were
3-1/2' high walls.

So I asked the rav of this shul why there was no maaqeh. He said it
didn't need one, as it was a shul.

I pointed to the huge mezuzah on the doorway. That isn't needed either,
technically.

But, the rabbi noted, it wouldn't feel to the tzibbur like a Jewish
place, a maqom qadosh, without one.

My point exactly. This is a teaching opportunity about the role of
BALC in defining qeduashah.

Nothing changed until the entire shul was refurbished from the old
facing the center amphitheter shaped structure (think a less grandiose
version of the old LSS) to a grid of tables facing mizrach arangement.
Then the question became moot.

(I should note I knew said LOR in YU. I wasn't stam viciting a shul and
being a nudnik. I was prevailing on a decades long acquaitanceship and
being a nudnik.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision,
mi...@aishdas.org        yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view.
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507

Here's the case...

Someone shechts your cow, and shahah bemi'ut simanim. Now you have a cow
that is safeiq neveilah.

So the Rama writes (CM 306:5) that even though we are nohagim not to
eat it, midinei mamonus, we can't make someone pay for damages. (E.g. if
caused by neglect.) But also, we can't make the owner pay the shocheit.
The AhS (s' 12) says that in cases, chezqas baalim applies.

This is another case of a phenomenon I've asked about before. Such as
the brisker saying that the tzitzis aren't betelim to the beged for
a tallis qatan if it turns out that the Mordechai is right and the
tallis qatan doesn't need tzitzis lehalakhah.

Lemaaseh, this man is wearing tzitzis on his tallis qatan because
he wouldn't wear his tallis qatan otherwise. And that's all yetzi'ah
beShabbos cares about. Bitul to the begged. The fact that he only "needs"
the tzitzis because of safeiq or minhag shouldn't change that. At least,
so it seems to me.

Here too... In the end of it, the man can't eat his meat. Midinei mamonus,
that's all that matters, no?

In fact, the AhS tones this down by saying that someone says (I think
he means the Shakh) that this is only when the minhag not to eat the
meat isn't fully nispasheit, and some still eat it. Vekhein nir'eh ikar.
Okay, I can understand if the person is choosing to be machmir, it shouldn't
be on the shocheit's cheshbon.

But according to the Rama who says nothing about such a limitation... I
don't get it. The shocheit rendered the meat unusable in a manner that
he (qua shomer sekhar) has to pay. Why does it matter that mei'iqar
hadin it might be that the person is allowed to eat it? He has no access
to iqar hadin and we pasten (or minhag hamaqom is) not to eat it. He has
no choice!

Tir'u baTov!
-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

On 15/1/19 5:38 pm, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> Here's the case...
> 
> Someone shechts your cow, and shahah bemi'ut simanim. Now you have a cow
> that is safeiq neveilah.
> 
> So the Rama writes (CM 306:5) that even though we are nohagim not to
> eat it, midinei mamonus, we can't make someone pay for damages. (E.g. if
> caused by neglect.) But also, we can't make the owner pay the shocheit.
> The AhS (s' 12) says that in cases, chezqas baalim applies.

Maybe because it's only nohagim, and the owner *could* break the minhag, 
even though he shouldn't.  If it were actually forbidden to break the 
minhag then it would no longer be nohagim, it would be an issur.  We who 
are "yotz'im beyad Ramo", to misquote this week's sedra, don't say we 
are noheg, we say "the Ramo assers"; but he himself doesn't say "assur", 
so he didn't treat it as an issur. And if it's not an issur then what 
right do we have to make the shochet pay for our minhagim (unless that 
was in his contract)?


-- 
Zev Sero            A prosperous and healthy 5779 to all
z...@sero.name       Seek Jerusalem's peace; may all who love you prosper

The S"A (O"C 2181) lists out a number of places requiring the bracha of
sheasa nisim where miracles occurred for the Jewish people (e.g., sea
spitting). Did they still have a tradition in his time as to the actual
location? If not, why record these specific places.
KT
Joel Rich

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 In Avodah Digest, Vol 36, Issue 138 dated 12/25/2018 R' Akiva Miller asked:

Subject: [Avodah] Angels and Requests

.>> In the Friday night poem "Shalom Aleichem", we ask the mal'achim
togive us a bracha. We've often mentioned here that some people avoidthis
poem because it is either similar to avoda zara, or perhaps mightactually
BE avoda zara.
I call your attention to the morning's parsha, Bereshis 48:16, thepasuk
"Hamal'ach hagoel osi." Yaakov Avinu refers to a particularmal'ach and asks
that this mal'ach should give a bracha to Yosef'ssons. At first glance,
this seems to be very similar to ShalomAleichem. How is this justifiable,
in the view of those who considerShalom Aleichem to be problematic?
<<


?>>>>>>
?Sorry I have fallen behind in reading my emails.I don't understand why
asking malachim for a bracha is any different from asking your father to
bentsh you, or asking your rebbe for a bracha, or asking a Holocaust
survivor for a bracha (as the Satmar Rebbe advised people to do).
If you say to your rebbe or to anyone, "Please give me a bracha for
parnassa, good health, children, etc" I don't see a problem.? If you say to
a human being, alive or deceased, "Please give me parnassa, good health,
children, etc" -- THAT'S a problem.? When Rochel said to Yakov, "Give me
children" he responded, "Am I in place of Hashem?"? Admittedly Chazal
consider his answer unduly harsh; presumably he should have said, "Only
Hashem can give you children, but I will daven for you."
Getting back to Shalom Aleichem, Chazal say if your house looks nice on
Shabbos the malachim will bentsh you.? I just don't understand what the
issue is with saying to the malachim, "Welcome to my home, doesn't it look
nice and Shabbosdig?? So bentsh me as you are supposed to do."
It even seems to me that there is a bit of gaavah involved in saying, "What
was good enough for R' Shlomo Alkabetz and the mekubalim of Tzfas is not
good enough for me, I have a deeper understanding of halacha than they
did."? Unless you are relying not on your own sevara but on some other
authority of equal stature to theirs.
--Toby Katzt6...@aol.com
=============
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.
In the thread "Government Shutdown and Chalav Yisrael", R' Zev Sero wrote:

> But by the end of the long teshuvah that ends the series dealing
> with this, RMF had moved away from even that requirement.  In
> explaining why it doesn't matter that there is no "yedi'a berura
> which is like seeing" about what the farmers are doing, he sets
> out the real core of his chiddush, which is that the whole gezera
> only applies to the last nochri who owned the milk before it
> passed into the hands of a Yisroel. Assuming there is no real
> worry about treife milk (in which case no gezera would be needed
> because it would be a safek de'oraisa), so long as we have "yisrael
> ro'eihu" (which he defines as yedi'a berura) that this last nochri
> didn't tamper with the milk, it is cholov yisroel and we don't care
> about the previous owners. Thus, he says, since we have this
> "re'iyah" at the plant we don't need it at the farm.

Several others have written similarly, and I haven't noticed anyone
dispute it. But the logic surprises me, and I'd like to understand it
better. If "we don't care about the previous owners," then what is the
whole point?

I do see that RZS pointed to "the end of the long teshuvah", but there
are *several* long teshuvos in the Igros Moshe about chalav yisrael.
Can someone please show me more precisely where RMF writes these
things?

advTHANKSance

Akiva Miller

On Wed, Jan 16, 2019 at 06:14:22AM +0000, Toby Katz via Avodah wrote:
:                                                 I don't understand why
: asking malachim for a bracha is any different from asking your father
: to bentsh you, or asking your rebbe for a bracha, or asking a Holocaust
: survivor for a bracha (as the Satmar Rebbe advised people to do).

Well, since we're speaking about the Gra's position, he also heavenly
warns about davening at a qever the wrong way. Can't make requests of
deceased people either.

But even going less extreme, there is another difference:

The gods of the pagans started with mal'akh worship. As per the
Rambam, Hil AZ 1:1:

    In the days of Enosh, the people fell into gross error, and the
    counsel of the wise men of the generation became foolish. Enosh
    himself was among those who erred. Their error was as follows: "Since
    God," they said, "created these stars and spheres to guide the world,
    set them on high and allotted unto them honor, and since they are
    ministers who minister before Him, they deserve to be praised and
    glorified, and honor should be rendered them; and it is the will
    of God, blessed be He, that men should aggrandise and honor those
    whom He aggrandised and honored just as a king desires that respect
    should be shown to the officers who stand before Him, and thus honor
    is shown to the king." When this idea arose in their minds, they
    began to erect temples to the stars, offered up sacrifices to them,
    praised and glorified them in speech, and prostrated themselves
    before them their purpose, according to their perverse notions,
    being to obtain the Creators favor. This was the root of idolatry,
    and this was what the idolators, who knew its fundamentals, said....

To give more weight to this idea... Mercury, the messenger to the gods
in Latin mythos was spun off of Hermes (Greek) who had major influence
from Apis (who had two temples on opposite ends of the country, with
a gold bull in front of each, holiday on the 15th of the 8th month --
sound familiar?), who in turn wouldn't have existed without the precedent
of the Sumarian bull-god who delivered prayers up to the other gods,
and brought their blessings back down to people -- Kirub.

And this keruv-worshipped as a god was even like (but lehavdil) the
faces of keruvim on the chayos of the Maaseh haMerkavah (10:15,22),
in that in the first telling (1:10) that face is that of a bull.

As for a possible reason how the difference between asking a person and
asking a mal'akh for a berakhah may be justified:

People have bechirah chafshi. They can choose whether or not to daven.
When you ask them to do something, you are asking them. And when they
ask Hashem for something, it is they who are asking Hashem for something.

Mal'akhim do not. Anything they do is Hashem's Idea. Asking them for
a berakhah is really asking Hashem for one. But, with the distraction
of not relating to HQBH directly.

To this school of thought, that not relating directly is the essence of
violating the Rambam's 5th iqar: "That He, Yisbarakh, is the one worthy
of serving Him,exalting Him, to make His Greatness known, and do do His
mitzvos, and not to do this to anythink that is below Him in existence,
from the angels and the stars..."

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Strength does not come from winning. Your
mi...@aishdas.org        struggles develop your strength When you go
http://www.aishdas.org   through hardship and decide not to surrender,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      that is strength.        - Arnold Schwarzenegger

On Tue, Jan 15, 2019 at 06:11:47PM -0500, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
: Maybe because it's only nohagim, and the owner *could* break the
: minhag, even though he shouldn't.  If it were actually forbidden to
: break the minhag then it would no longer be nohagim, it would be an
: issur...

Actually, that's no so clear. Just as there is an issur deOraisa against
violating dinim derabbanan (lo sasur), there is a shitah that there
is an issur deOraisa against breaking minhag.

Rav Sherira Gaon bases the deOraisa on the gemara's use of "lo sasig gevul
re'iakha asher gavlu rishonim." (Quoted by the Tur CM 368. See Shabbos 85a,
where Chazal use this pasuq about demai, which may be RSG's source that
we take "gevul" as something other than a physical border or target
market.)

This shitah may even be fully accepted by Ashkenazim, which is why we
can say "asher qiddishanu bemitzvosav vetzivanu" on Chatzi Hallel.

(Long time list people might have noticed that my own attitude toward
halakhah has changed significantly in the 20 years this list has been
around. Learning this sugya was a big part of it. And now 5 years or so of
AhS is cementing it. I have grown much more respectful [in a comparative
sense] of minhag in comparison to sevarah than when Avodah started.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Live as if you were living already for the
mi...@aishdas.org        second time and as if you had acted the first
http://www.aishdas.org   time as wrongly as you are about to act now!
Fax: (270) 514-1507            - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning

On 16/1/19 7:53 am, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
> I do see that RZS pointed to "the end of the long teshuvah", but there
> are*several*  long teshuvos in the Igros Moshe about chalav yisrael.
> Can someone please show me more precisely where RMF writes these
> things?

The series dealing with this issue, and gradually laying out RMF's 
unique shita, is YD2 46-49.   But the real meat of the whole thing the 
lomdus that demonstrates what he believes is going on here, is #49.  One 
can't understand or intelligently discuss his shita without it.

Start here and keep going:
http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=917&;pgnum=83

-- 
Zev Sero            A prosperous and healthy 5779 to all
z...@sero.name       Seek Jerusalem's peace; may all who love you prosper


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