Avodah Mailing List

Volume 38: Number 6

Fri, 24 Jan 2020

• 1. Re: Question (Rich, Joel)
• 2. Re: Question (Micha Berger)
• 3. Using Bein adam leMakom to motivate bein adam lechavero (Anthony Knopf)
• 4. truth priority (Rich, Joel)

A colleague asked me the following question and I had
no answer.
If the ba?al kore is reading the Torah and either has a
nose bleed or a finger cut which causes blood to transfer
to the Sefer Torah, what is the halachic response?
_______________________________________________
IMHO
1. Make sure the ba'al kore gets proper medical treatment
2. clean up any mess
3. if the ba'al kore can't continue, get a substitute

Now if the oleh is the one bleeding, it's probably a bigger issue. See S"A O"C 140

KT
Joel Rich
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On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 03:53:49PM -0500, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote:
> A colleague asked me the following question and I had
> no answer.
> If the ba'al kore is reading the Torah and either has a 
> nose bleed or a finger cut which causes blood to transfer
> to the Sefer Torah, what is the halachic response?

RJR focused on the leining. But I saw the question as being more
about the kashrus of the Torah with the blood on it.

Ink spills, which are actually black, do not invalidate a sefer Torah --
as long as the letters remain intact. Now that I think of it, although
I do not remember this case in the AhS -- maybe also as long as the ink
itself doesn't look like an inserted letter?

Blood that is red or brown could invalidate a letter too. Or so I am
deducing from the case of black letters that had gold painted on top
of them (eg in an attempt to glorify Hashem's name) -- the gold has to
be removed. So it seems you have to see the black ink.

But I do not think any of my speculation about added letters would
apply.

And in any case, it should be cleaned up simply out of respect for
the Torah.

----


I also had thoughts about tum'ah. And so I wrote the below. But I don't
think the blood in either scenario (nose bleed or paper cut) is tamei
even to begin with. Struck me after I wrote it, in comparison to dam
niddah.

Still, I invested time, and there are things in it that might inform,
so I didn't delete.


There is a derabbanan to treat a seifer Torah as if it were tamei.
This was to prevent a practice that became commonplace, that of
storing all the holy things together. But rodents would come to
eat the terumah, and naw on any scrolls nearby. But once they
told the masses that the seifer Torah is not only tamei, but can
be metamai one's hands too much for handling terumah, that ended.

However, a seifer Torah cannot really become tamei. All of this
is about treating it as though tamei.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   if only because it offers us the opportunity of
Author: Widen Your Tent      self-fulfilling prophecy.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                            - Arthur C. Clarke

I've read this recent discussion with great interest.
Rebbetzen Katz and Joseph Kaplan are right that there is much that the frum
community can be proud of in its bein adam lechavero. This can't simply be
attributed to its being a typical middle class religious community.
I recommend in this regard, Jack Wertheimer's?What You Don?t Know About the
Ultra-Orthodox - Commentary. And I'd also recommend a couple of other
articles:?Values and Religiosity?and?Charitable Giving Among Britain's
Jews. And see also this page from?The Jewish Mind.
With all that, I think Rabbi Berger and others have identified a genuine
problem (and therefore a challenge). I think it is true that fewer sheilos
are asked in bein adam lechavero. I agree that both the occurrence and the
communal reaction to scandals in bein adam lechavero are telling and
disconcerting.?
As Rabbi Berger acknowledges, there are different approaches within our
mesorah in understanding the place of bein adam lechavero. Which ever
approach one takes, there is room for much more serious thought as to how
to reduce the gap between values and communal practice.
Anthony




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A High School student causes a teacher to be fired with false testimony
that only his parent can refute. The parent either (a)remains silent or
(b)lies to protect the child or (c) tells the truth
1. What percentage of people would take each course? (orthodox vs. non?
2. What would a poseik say halacha requires or suggests?
KT
Joel Rich

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