Avodah Mailing List

Volume 39: Number 66

Fri, 30 Jul 2021

• 1. virtual reality [VR] (Rich, Joel)
• 2. Tefilas Haderech from Lakewood to Monsey (Joseph Kaplan)
• 3. Re: Tefilas Haderech from Lakewood to Monsey (Zev Sero)
• 4. talit katan (Rich, Joel)
• 5. Hechsheirim and issues other than kashrus (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: talit katan (Zev Sero)
• 7. Re: Hechsheirim and issues other than kashrus (Zev Sero)
• 8. Re: Vayisa m'shalo vayomar (Micha Berger)

Thought experiment: In the near future, virtual reality [VR] becomes
available in a manner in which once connected, no difference can be
perceived from actual reality. A physical support system is also available
such that there is never a need to be physically disconnected from VR. In
the virtual world one could "do" more mitzvot than in the real world. Is
one permitted, required or forbidden to live full time in this virtual
world? Would your answer be different for one with late stage  ALS?
KT
Joel Rich

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RAM writes re tefillat haderech: ? Perhaps all we need is a one-parsah stretch of road where one cannot *see*
any residences from the road. Perhaps a trip qualifies for Tefilas Hederech
even if there are homes close to the road, but I cannot see them because of
the densely-packed trees and/or a fence which is along the side of the road??

Or perhaps, when tefillat haderech was written, no one could contemplate or imagine a built up urban area like the one existing between Lakewood and Monsey. 
Joseph

Sent from my iPhone

On 25/7/21 10:50 am, Akiva Miller wrote:
> he explains that Tefilas Haderech is said for a trip in which one both 
> leaves the general city area, *and* travels a parsa (which he gives as 
> 2.8 miles) past an open area where there are no houses. (A note explains 
> that warehouses, offices, and business, do *not* count as "houses" for 
> this purpose.)

I think you have misunderstood this criterion.  As I understand it, the 
open area needn't be a parsa wide.  Based on the rules for techum 
shabbos, the city ends when there's an open area of 70 amos.  Once past 
that area, you're outside the city, and your journey would have to take 
a parsa from that point.  But that parsa can include parts of the next 
city over.


[Email #2]

On 27/7/21 6:53 pm, Joseph Kaplan wrote:
> Or perhaps, when tefillat haderech was written, no one could
> contemplate or imagine a built up urban area like the one existing
> between Lakewood and Monsey.

They could certainly *imagine* it, because they *did*.  They permitted 
talking on Shabbos about plans to "go" (as opposed to "travel") to a 
place outside the techum, because in principle such a journey could be 
accomplished without breaking Shabbos, supposing there was a string of 
"burgenin" all along the way.

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

Any leads on when the talit katan first was worn (clearly the rishonim discussed it - but was it since Sinai?)
KT
Joel Rich

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strictly prohibited.  If you received this message in error, please notify us 
immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message.  
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On an Areivim thread about Ben & Jerry's and the Kof-K, on Wed, Jul 28
at 5:44 IDT, Simon Montagu wrote:
>                                              I believe that kashrut
> supervision organizations should limit themselves to supervising kashrut
> and not attempt to police other policies of food companies not connected to
> the food. To do otherwise is a dangerous slippery slope at the end of which
> I can imagine it a mashgiah saying "If you want a hechsher you have to vote
> Yahadut Hatorah."

While one has to be careful what the cause is, I think a hekhsher can NOT
simply limit themselves to the food.

They are still mechuyavim in lifnei iver and mesayeia liydei overei
aveirah.

I am not claiming that I can find a black-letter issur in supporting a
company that pulls out of the "Occupied Palestinian Territories" [sic].
But RSM made a general statement about "attempt[ing] to police other
policies of food companies not connected to the food."

There are famous past cases. Like the glatt yacht, which offered kosher
food and mixed dancing while you traveled down the Hudson River. Or
the place in Queens that offered belly dancers as entertainment. Both
situations where the hashgachah was pulled.

So, is a machgiach likely to run afowl of

Rav Moshe (IM YD 1:71) permits a caterer to host a wedding with mixed
dancing because: It's not lifnei iver, because they would otherwise go
elsewhere -- your agreement is not a necessary condition for the sin.
(IOQ, it's not shenei ivrei nahar.) It's not even mesayeia, because the
rabbanan didn't prohibit aiding meizidim. Nor did they prohibit making
available something that is primarily used for heter, that might also be
used otherwise. And the primary function of the wedding hall is providing
dinner. (I could question that.)

Based on the IM, R Aaron Levine (Moral Issues in the Marketplace and
Jewish Life, pp 49-59), in his discussion of "Glatt Boat" [sic], would
allow continuing to give a hekhsher to the boat.

(H/T R Gil Student)

Seems that while there may be exceptions, these two issurim aren't likely
going to force a hekhsher to take an issue unrelated to the food into
account. But it's not impossible. CYLOR, but then, if you're making
decisions for a hekhsher, that might involve a mirror.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   but to become a tzaddik.
Author: Widen Your Tent                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF

On 29/7/21 3:23 pm, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
> Any leads on when the talit katan first was worn (clearly the rishonim 
> discussed it ? but was it since Sinai?)

It seems obvious that it is not from Sinai. The gemara seems to take it 
for granted that people at the time of Matan Torah dressed much the same 
way as people did in the gemara's times, and as the Greeks and Romans 
did, by wrapping themselves in square cloaks pinned at the shoulder. 
Thus they wore proper taleisim all day, and had no need for a talles koton.

Taleisim ketanim only came into use when fashions changed and people no 
longer wore sheets all day.  Once normal everyday clothing was no longer 
chayav in tzitzis, it became a problem that people would be going around 
without tzitzis all day, and what would become of the "uz'chartem".  So 
people came up with this bediavad solution, in the form of a garment 
which has four corners but is not worn by `atifa, so they couldn't say 
the proper bracha on it and had to make up a new one that is not 
mentioned in the gemara.

So find out when people started wearing tunics and robes rather than 
wrapped sheets, and you will have your answer.   Definitely post-gemara 
but either pre-rishonim or early rishonim.

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

On 29/7/21 3:37 pm, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> There are famous past cases. Like the glatt yacht, which offered kosher
> food and mixed dancing while you traveled down the Hudson River. Or
> the place in Queens that offered belly dancers as entertainment. Both
> situations where the hashgachah was pulled.

As I have written here before, I think the issue there is that a 
hechsher on an eating establishment is necessarily on the entire 
experience of eating there, not just the food aspect.  It is saying that 
an observant Jew can eat here.  If one can't do that, whether because 
the food is treif, or the chairs are shatnes, or the waiters are naked, 
then you can't give it a hechsher.   You can still give a hechsher on 
the food itself, to be taken away and eaten elsewhere.

Or one can put a highly visible caveat on the certificate.  I've seen 
restaurant certificates that say in kiddush levana letters that the 
food's fine but the wine is not.   So a restaurant with shatnes chairs 
could have a hechsher that warns that "you can eat here but only 
standing up".  Or perhaps "You can eat here but only with a blindfold".

So if Ben & Jerry was donating money to Hamas then I can see that it 
might be assur to buy from them, since every $10 you spend buys Hamas 
another bullet, or whatever it is.  And if so, then it would be wrong to 
give their products a hechsher.  But I don't see how boycotting Yo"sh is 
an avera. B&J is not mechuyav to do business where it doesn't want to, 
and it's certainly not an avera to be an antisemite. So while boycotting 
them is ethically the right thing to do, I don't see how it's 
halachically required, and therefore one who chooses to still buy from 
them is still complying with halacha.  Therefore it's OK to give it a 
hechsher.  Though of course nobody is mechuyav to give one if they don't 
want to.

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

On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 10:38:49PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
> There's a word that appears frequently this week in Parshas Balak, and I'd
> like to understand it better: mashal (often translated as "parable"...

> According to my concordance, the word "mashal" - often translated as
> "parable" - appears only 9 times in the Chumash. Of those nine, only one
> (Devarim 28:37) is not in reference to Bil'am....

> What's more, of the seven times it appears this week in Parshas Balak, all
> seven are in the exact same phrase: "vayisa m'shalo vayomar".

> Does anyone go into the meaning of this word? The usual translation
> (parable) makes me think of stories and the underlying point of the
> stories....

I am thinking of the role of mashal in nevu'ah. Except for Moshe
Rabbeinu's.

Why did other nevi'im get their nevu'ah bederekh mashal? Because they
had ties to gashmiyus, no matter how much less so than ours, far more
so than MRAH. And therefore their koach hadimyon perforce clothed the
messages in familiar imagery.

Which navi would this be more true of than Bil'am? Chazal so emphasize
his gashmiyus, they tell us of his intimate relationship with his ason!

Perhaps the emphasis on mashal is to emphasize the quality of a
nevu'ah granted to someone who wasn't on the highest planes of personal
development. So, he was enmired in the mashal, and to get to a message
he shared with the people, 'vayisa meshalo vayomar..."


Yes, there is the aggadita that says that Bil'am was given to the nations
so that they cannot complain about not having been given an opportunity
like Moshe. Which may imply that Bil'am was miraculously given nevu'ah on
Moshe's level. But it's clear that until his donkey speaks and he sees the
angel, he expects to have to work himself up into a prophetic state, and
to get his nevu'os in dreams. It would seem that even if that implication
is correct, Bil'am's norm was regular nevu'ah, bederekh mashal.

Jumping back a bit, I am interested in a side-issue RAM raised
parenthetically:

> like to understand it better: mashal (often translated as "parable", not to
> be confused with the homonym connoting rulership).

I think we should "confuse" them, as homonyms in Lashon haQodesh are
usually (always?) hinting at some commonality in meaning.

As for "moshel", it stands in contrast to melekh. The Gra has a long
piece on this. "Ki Lashem haMlukhah uMoshei bagoyim" vs. "Vehayah H'
leMelekh al kol ha'aretz". The notion of "ein melekh belo am", that a
king is king by public acclimation, isn't true of moshlim in general.
A moshel rules, whether as a publicly accepted melekh or not. Which is
why Hashem is Moshel over the other nations until the messianic era,
when He will be Melekh over all. (And on RH, Malkhiyos is us accepting
the Melekh.)

"Mashal" also has a third meaning, at least in Rabbinic Hebrew, it could
mean an example. As in, "If you buy something expensive, lemashal, a 3
carat diamond, ..." Admittedly, I didn't see that usage in Tanakh. But
even if the usage is Chazal's, maybe is sheds /some/ light as to how
the shoresh was viewed by them. Perhaps to them a mashal illustrates
an idea either by giving a concrete an example, or a concrete image
for a more abstract concept.

What common meaning would come out of that chulent?

To RSRH (Bereishis 4:9), /m-sh-l/ is to give the character and designation
something *should* have. (Not what it has right now.) A moshel determines
the nation's goal state. A mashal is not just a metaphor, but one that
allows someone in the real to get an image of the ideal.

Wouldn't explain the later evolution of the word, though, as an example
is often an existing instance.

Genesius: "Learned men have made many attempts to reconcile the
significations of making like, and ruling; However I have no doubt but
that from the signification of making like, is derived that of judging,
forming an opinion (compare nei'im)."

Not sure what to make of that. Apparently neither did Brown-Driver-Briggs,
since there is no linkage of the usages in their lexicon, which
the subtitle says is "[b]ased on the lexicon of William Gesenius, as
translated by Edward Robinson, and edited with constant reference to the
thesaurus of Gesenius as completed by E. Roediger, and with authorized
use of the German editions of Gesenius' Handwoeterbuch ueber das Alte
Testament".

What appealed to me was what I saw in Jastrow. He points to Yoma 46a,
and says the shoresh means "to handle or touch". And thus a mashal is a
tangible version of an abstract truth, and a moshel handles to attend,
manage or control. And that does indeed explain the later development
of mashal as an example.

Would any of these help for "vayisa meshalo vayomar", or answer why
the word is particularly apt for Bil'am?

:-)BBii!
-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


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