Avodah Mailing List

Volume 39: Number 55

Sun, 20 Jun 2021

• 1. Re: When was Pi haAretz created? (Micha Berger)
• 2. When was Pi haAretz created? (Zvi Lampel)
• 3. chimeras (Rich, Joel)
• 4. Ambiguity (David Riceman)
• 5. Alef-Lamed in a gett (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: Alef-Lamed in a gett (Zev Sero)
• 7. Re: Alef-Lamed in a gett (Micha Berger)
• 8. Chalav Yisrael in 19th and early 20th cent US with Badatz ) (Micha Berger)
• 9. Re: Chalav Yisrael in 19th and early 20th cent US with Badatz ) (Zev Sero)

On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 08:55:08AM -0400, Zvi Lampel wrote:
>> I am sure this is addressed by primary sources.
>> ... "ve'im beri'ah yivra H' ufatzesa ha'adamah es piha..."
>> But according to Avos, the mouth was already created well before Moshe
>> spoke! So, why does Moshe describe the earth opening up to swallow people
>> as a new beryah?
...
> Sanhedrin 110a, invoking the principle that G-d does not create any new
> entities after the original Creation, concludes that the term beriah here
> cannot be understood literally....

Is seems to me that gemara starts with the assumption that bara must
indeed mean something new, yeish mei'ayim. Thus the question about "ein
davar chadash tachas hashemesh". And even in the answer contrasts this to
"lemavrei mamash".

But this is RAM's answer as well. He gave more detail, but no source.

The Maharsha points you to what he says on Nedarim 39b, where it asks
based on a beraisa about 7 things created before the universe, including
gehennom.

There he quotes the Ran that they were "alu beMachashavah lehibar'os".
Which would mean this bara could be literal.

The Meharsha objects based on Pesachim 54a where it distinguishes between
the chalalah of gehenom being created before the world, and the fire
within it were created day 2. Then Pesachim says normal fire was oleh
beMachashavah on erev Shabbos, but was actually created motza"sh. The
Maharsha cannot imagine that fire would be explicitly only ObM but it
would be left implicit in the same sentence WRT the "fire" of gehennom.

But I'm liking the Ran.

> The rishonim on this posuk and on the posuk in Breishis about the tanninim
> point out that the term beriah is sometimes used for significant events
> even though they are not ex nehilo.

Thank you.

That said, I want to quible with what RAM wrote on Tue, Jun 15, 2021
at 11:05am EDT:
> Words can mean slightly different things when they are in different
> contexts. One of my favorite examples is "melacha", which is defined
> differently for Shabbos, for Chanuka, and in business. Sometimes a "yad"
> means an arm in general, and sometimes it means specifically a hand.

The different physical meanings of yad (in contrast to extending it into
the abstract "control") isn't a great example. We learn from hilkhos
tefillin that the concept of "yad" as arm even if there is no hand at
the end of that arm is subject to machloqes.

But "melakhah" is closer to my point anyway. We have multiple similar
words: melakhah, avodah, and likely others are eluding me right now.
Yes, "melakhah" can be used in a variety of ways, or in one way but
the details of what kinds of "constructive work" is prohibited for legal,
not semantic reasons.

But I wouldn't expect the contrasting feature with the near-synonym to
be eradicated. We wouldn't expect "melakhah" to be used for something that
isn't constructive, since we could use extend "avodah" in that case.

Same here, beri'ah has asiyah and yetzirah as similar but different terms.
I would expect the usage in the pasuq to be somethign that is closer
to other uses of beri'ah than something I could just call "asiyah" or
"yetzirah".

Moving the pi ha'aretz to where is was needed seemed more like yetzirah
to me. Everything existed as before, but moved around.

But the two of you convinced me the key nequdah for beri'ah is not "yeish
mei'ayin" but newness. Yeish mei'ayin being but one example where you
would emphasize that what is being made is totally new.

> Specifically, the Torah refers to the creation of Adam and Chava in several
> places (Bereshis 1:27, 5:2, 6:7, Devarim 4:32). But they were explicitly
> made from pre-existing things - Adam from adamah, and Chava from Adam...

>                          ... Perhaps this new aspect was their neshama,
> or bechira, or something else. But whatever it was, it was so significant
> that the word beriah could be used to describe it.

But that "new aspect" is the essence of being human and was being created
yeish mei'ayin just then.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 When faced with a decision ask yourself,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now,
Author: Widen Your Tent      at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?"
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                          - Rav Yisrael Salanter

Micha Berger, Date: Mon, 7 Jun 2021 wrote:

I am sure this is addressed by primary sources.
> ... "ve'im beri'ah yivra H' ufatzesa ha'adamah es piha..."
> But according to Avos, the mouth was already created well before Moshe
> spoke! So, why does Moshe describe the earth opening up to swallow people
> as a new beryah?


Yes, it is addressed by the primary sources.

Sanhedrin 110a, invoking the principle that G-d does not create any new
entities after the original Creation, concludes that the term beriah here
cannot be understood literally. Moshe Rabbeynu was only asking Hashem to
relocate that opening so that it would be situated specifically under
Korach?s followers. (And Rambam famously makes the caveat that the mishna
in Avos means that Hashem implanted the ground's aberrational behavior
during Maaseh Breishis. It sounds like he's understanding the
aberrational behavior to be the grounds very opening, but the
principle also works with the Gemora's maskana.)

The rishonim on this posuk and on the posuk in Breishis about the tanninim
point out that the term beriah is sometimes used for significant events
even though they are not ex nehilo.

Zvi Lampel
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In the latest advance, researchers in the U.S. and China announced earlier
this month that they made embryos that combined human and monkey cells for
the first time. So far, these human-monkey chimeras (pronounced
ky-meer-uhs) are no more than bundles of budding cells in a lab dish, but
the implications are far-reaching, ethics experts say.
Me-And what will halacha say?
KT
Joel Rich

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I can think of at least two ways to deal with ambiguity: to sustain some or
all options or to reject all but one option.  Hazal do both in different
places.  I?m collecting examples for something I?m writing.  I?d welcome
any examples you can provide.

David Riceman

Scene on Facebook, but in a group unlikely to generate an Orthodox answer...

Say someone named Shmuel generally writes his name shin-mem-vav-aleflamed,
where the last is that ligature you'll find in some older siddurim.

Would that spelling have to appear in any gett he gives?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   of instincts.
Author: Widen Your Tent                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF

On 17/6/21 6:21 pm, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> Scene on Facebook, but in a group unlikely to generate an Orthodox answer...
> 
> Say someone named Shmuel generally writes his name shin-mem-vav-aleflamed,
> where the last is that ligature you'll find in some older siddurim.
> 
> Would that spelling have to appear in any gett he gives?

I don't think how a person writes his name is relevant.  Shemu'el has a 
fixed spelling, and if he misspells it that's his problem.  Kol shekein 
in the case of the ligature, which isn't even a spelling, it's just a 
shorthand.


-- 
Zev Sero            Wishing everyone a healthy summer
z...@sero.name

On Fri, Jun 18, 2021 at 12:20:50AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
>> Say someone named Shmuel generally writes his name shin-mem-vav-aleflamed,
>> where the last is that ligature you'll find in some older siddurim.

>> Would that spelling have to appear in any gett he gives?

> I don't think how a person writes his name is relevant.  Shemu'el has a
> fixed spelling, and if he misspells it that's his problem...

You are assuming gett only requires "hamechuneh" to list other things a
person is called acoustically.

I was wondering about other spellings and such the person would use.

Of course, then I realized I never saw discussion of writing a la'az name
in la'az, so I was headed off course.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 "The worst thing that can happen to a
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   person is to remain asleep and untamed."
Author: Widen Your Tent             - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF

On Thu, Jun 17, 2021 at 10:57:10AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote ON AREIVIM:
> On 16/6/21 4:57 am, Marty Bluke via Areivim wrote:
> > Regarding chalav stam, yes everyone knows that other gedolim held it was
> > mutar. However, the fact is that there were/are many poskim who hold it
> > is not including the Chasam Sofer. Therefore, today it has become an
> > accepted chumra and is not difficult to keep.

> The matirim (or most of them) also hold like the Chasam Sofer.  R Moshe does
> so explicitly...

RMF's idea is that we hold like the CS but "re'iyah" means knowledge
as sure of seeing it yourself, a higher level of certainty than for usual
birur. And we find this usage 

I do not believe the reisha is true. I know that in Boston, the rav who
served until 1931, R Yisrael Avraham Abba Krieger, held like the Peri
Chadash -- that Chalav Yisrael is a pesaq, like any other possibility
of taaroves issur.

Zev himself mentioned in 2019
<https://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol37/v37n004.shtml#10>
that the Ridvaz held like the PC. (It is only due to the 5th diberah and
filial loyalty that I didn't open with the Ridvaz.) So, likely the same
was true in Chicago.

I think RMF was mechadeish a way to preserve existing halachic pesaq
even though he personally couldn't side with the PC over the CS. But the
people who actually gave the pesaqim that set that norm did indeed tend
to rely on the PC.

I think the CI also held like the PC. See 4:14 and read for youself. It's
not clear enough to me that I can express certainty.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

PS: I am also unclear about acronyms. We have R David [ben Shelomo ibn
Abi] Zimra who was expelled from Spain when he was 13. And the person
I was talking about, R Yaakov David Wilovsky, founder of the yeshiva in
Slutzk (now BMG of Lakewood) who came to the US to pay off publication
of his edition of the Yerushalmi. He headed the Agudas haRabbanim and
was rav in Chicago, when the Mafia in the meat industry forced him to
flee to Tzefas.

I am used to calling the latter the Ridvaz, spelled reish yud... for R'
Yaaqov David, and the former the Radbaz. Zev in 2019 called RYDW "Radvaz".

I would love to know if there are conventions, as otherwise the two could
get confusing.

-- 
Micha Berger                 Education is not the filling of a bucket,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   but the lighting of a fire.
Author: Widen Your Tent                   - W.B. Yeats
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF

On 18/6/21 9:52 am, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> Zev himself mentioned in 2019
> <https://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol37/v37n004.shtml#10>
> that the Ridvaz held like the PC. (It is only due to the 5th diberah and
> filial loyalty that I didn't open with the Ridvaz.) So, likely the same
> was true in Chicago.

The Radvaz doesn't hold like the Pri Chadash, the Pri Chadash holds like 
the Radvaz!  It's the Radvaz's shita, the Pri Chadash merely quotes it. 
  Which is why I don't understand why the velt speaks of holding or not 
holding like the Pri Chadash.


> I think RMF was mechadeish a way to preserve existing halachic pesaq
> even though he personally couldn't side with the PC over the CS. But the
> people who actually gave the pesaqim that set that norm did indeed tend
> to rely on the PC.

I don't think that's tenable.  For one thing, he *didn't* "preserve 
existing psak".  Not only does he make no mention of such psak, but he 
explicitly writes that it is *forbidden* to purchase milk directly from 
a farmer, which the Radvaz would permit.   He also writes explicitly 
that *we Ashkenazim* all follow the shita of the Chasam Sofer; if he was 
aware of "existing psak" otherwise, he pretended not to be.  That's not 
consistent with attempting to preserve it.


> PS: I am also unclear about acronyms. We have R David [ben Shelomo ibn
> Abi] Zimra who was expelled from Spain when he was 13. And the person
> I was talking about, R Yaakov David Wilovsky, founder of the yeshiva in
> Slutzk (now BMG of Lakewood) who came to the US to pay off publication
> of his edition of the Yerushalmi. He headed the Agudas haRabbanim and
> was rav in Chicago, when the Mafia in the meat industry forced him to
> flee to Tzefas.
> 
> I am used to calling the latter the Ridvaz, spelled reish yud... for R'
> Yaaqov David, and the former the Radbaz. Zev in 2019 called RYDW "Radvaz".

No, I didn't.  I have barely even heard of him.  I was referring to the 
Radvaz, R David ibn Zimra, whose shita the Chasam Sofer disputes.

-- 
Zev Sero            Wishing everyone a healthy summer
z...@sero.name


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