Avodah Mailing List

Volume 40: Number 10

Fri, 11 Feb 2022

• 1. On the Ephod (Isaac Balbin)
• 2. Re: On the Ephod (Joel Rich)
• 3. Re: Corners of the Chatzeir (Akiva Miller)
• 4. AH"S (JOEL RICH)
• 5. Re: AH"S (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: On the Ephod (Micha Berger)

I had obviously been reading the Rashi on the Ephod mechanically over the
years. This year, his words ?VeLibi Omer Li? screamed out and bothered me
(he doesn?t use that phrase in any other Rashi). I wondered whether this
suggests that Rashi?s own Rebbes seemingly had no Mesora either for the
look of the Ephod. Was it just taught as being ?some style of apron secured
by its own belt? etc? And then I wondered how does the ?heart? per se
adduce what the actual Ephod looked like (yes, the Rambam and Rashbam etc
have different opinions, to boot).
I saw that the Rav (Soloveitchik) as quoted in the Chumash Mesoras HoRav
wrote about this being a level of Kesser Torah and that his Zeyda, Reb
Chaim was suffused with this when unearthing Pshat in the Rambam.
Of course some may say the expression "of the heart" is a euphemism for *Ruach* HaKodesh ?
That being said, a learned friend pointed out very nice lomdus from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, here

https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=16021&;st=&pgnum=282
<https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=16021&;st=&pgnum=282>

especially from page 192:2 onwards
See also 198-199.
You need to be comfortable with Yiddish. (I don?t know if it has been translated)
I don?t know anyone else who seriously tries to dissect the ?Libi Omer Li?. Do you?
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20220208/4c55ffb8/attachment-0001.html>

> I don?t know anyone else who seriously tries to dissect the ?Libi Omer Li?. 
 ???-
Rabbi Asher Weiss often uses the phrase when describing a position which is
not based on concrete sources, especially when it?s due to new technology
or circumstances.  I?ve usually heard it referred to as halachic intuition. 
If one looks outside the Yeshiva they?ll find that this is a subject of
much study in the Academy. Here?s one example what their tons more. https://www.livescience.com/54825-scientists-measure-intuition.html

The bottom line is intuition may be simply the subconscious accumulation of a lifetime?s worth of experiences.

My own footnote is that I believe it is on this basis that those who say
anybody who has seen anything outside the Torah  world is not fit to be a
posek  because their intuition has been affected by outside sources. Of
course, I would argue just the opposite but that?s for another time. 

Kt
Joel rich 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20220208/aa687f0d/attachment-0001.html>

.
R' Micha Berger asked:

> If you didn't know about Fencepost Errors, you might just assume
> that the pillars were every 5 amos. But...

Okay, class, listen up! We have a curtain 100 amos long, being supported by
20 vertical posts. How far apart are the posts?

If your answer was 5 amos, then you missed the important clue that RMB gave
you. You need to go to Wikipedia and search for the article on "Fencepost
Errors". You don't need to read the whole thing, just the first few
paragraphs will suffice. It's okay, we'll wait till you get back...

> If one of the back's 10 pillars was in the corner, i.e. 0 amos
> from the corner, then the second is at 5 amos, the 3rd at 10...
> and the 10th at 45 amos from that first corner. Not yet at the
> second corner.
>
> So, were there amudim at the corners? And if so, which side's
> count included the corners? Those pillars would end up being
> more than 5 amos apart.

The first place I looked was the beautiful full-color coffee-table sefer,
"The Tabernacle" published by Soncino. Their pictures (pp 71-81) show the
curtains being suspended from horizontal poles that were held up by the
amudim, and there are no amudim at any of the corners. Rather, the poles
made a sharp right-angle turn at the corners, and were not held up at that
point, but the corner of the bent pole could still hold up the corner of
the curtain. The text on page 72 reads, "The four corners of the court were
formed by hangings alone, as there were no pillars at the corners."

> Or maybe the corners of the chatzeir cut the diagonal, and
> there were no pillars at the corner. So, the northmost pillar
> on the west side was a bit away from the corner, the westmost
> pillar on the south side as well, and the qela'im ran from
> one to the other, cutting the corner.

This is exactly how the western side is illustrated on the top of page 237
of Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's "The Living Torah". (In other words, instead of
making a sharp corner, the curtains veer off on the diagonal.) The eastern
side is shown a bit differently, and I leave that as an exercise for the
reader.

> Anyone know if this is discussed?

I'm sorry to admit that I can only cite these pictures. I do not know what
sources, if any, those artists followed.

Akiva Miller
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20220207/a2900c8b/attachment-0001.html>

> 
> 
>     (And, by the editor's insistence, I did have to throw in a few words
>     comparing the AhS to the MB. But I think that's unfair to both sefarim.)
> 
>     FWIW R' Etam Henkin HY"D agrees with you, especially on printing the AH"S with MB as footnotes. (See Taaroch Lfanai Shulchan)
>     KT
>     Joel Rich
> 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20220208/b516498e/attachment-0001.html>

On Tue, Feb 08, 2022 at 02:12:58AM -0500, JOEL RICH via Avodah wrote:
>> (And, by the editor's insistence, I did have to throw in a few words
>> comparing the AhS to the MB. But I think that's unfair to both sefarim.)

> FWIW R' Etam Henkin HY"D agrees with you, especially on printing the
> AH"S with MB as footnotes. (See Taaroch Lfanai Shulchan)

I have no problem with the footnotes, actually. (And in the Buchman
edition, the "Pisqei MB" footnotes include a lot of SA haRav.)

In the early days of AhS Yomi there were people who were annoyed by the
encroachment of MB, as though the AhS isn't stand-alone. Whereas the
lack of a MB with AhS footnotes implies that the MB is more so than the
AhS.

In practice... far more people do consider the MB their "poseiq acharon"
text. So, yeah.

But more than that, I felt like that whole "team AhS" vs "team MB"
mindset was wrong. They're both holy sefarim. Even if you tightly follow
one of the other, remember how Beis Hillel learned halakhah -- you need
to value Beis Shammai's contribution too!


My problem is that

1- I think the books differ more because their goals did than because the
CC and RYME had different legal philosophies.

2- When you define A in contrast to B, you are assuming both work in the
same paradigm, but provide different answers to the same questions. But
what if they are asking different questions? (Even if I thought the MB
were written for halakhah lemaaseh?)

But here, you are comparing someone writing a more up-to-date addition
to the SA (again, if I thought the MB was meant as halakhah lemaaseh)
so someone continuing the discussion in the BY.

An article that extols the virtues of halakhah-as-dialectic shouldn't
mention a code or a survey of codes. It makes it sound like there is a
flaw in the second book.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Imagine waking up tomorrow
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   with only the things
Author: Widen Your Tent      we thanked Hashem for today!
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF

On Tue, Feb 08, 2022 at 09:08:18AM +0200, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
> My own footnote is that I believe it is on this basis that those who say
> anybody who has seen anything outside the Torah world is not fit to be
> a posek because their intuition has been affected by outside sources. Of
> course, I would argue just the opposite but that's for another time.

Since this would rule out most of Chazal, I would take it with a grain
of salt. But I would consider the converse:

*My* own footnote would be that I believe it is on this basis that Chazal
say that anybody who knows Torah intellectually but was not meshameish
talmidei chakhamim is not fit to be a posek because their intuition has
not sufficiently internalized Torah sources.

Related to this is an aphorism I came up with for a discussion here
some years back:
Chareidim believe they are playing a sport in which modernity and its
temptations are the opposing team.
Mod-O beliewve that modernity and its knowledge is the field they are
playing on.

And that would be the difference between finding it plausible (if not
actually believing) that exposure to non-Torah is inherently going to
pull one further from a Torah intuition, and believing such exposure is
something a Torah-fueled intuition would need to map theory to practice.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 You will never "find" time for anything.
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   If you want time, you must make it.
Author: Widen Your Tent                        - Charles Buxton
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF


------------------------------



_______________________________________________
Avodah mailing list
Avo...@lists.aishdas.org
http://www.aishdas.org/lists/avodah
http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org


------------------------------


**************************************

Send Avodah mailing list submissions to
	avodah@lists.aishdas.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
	http://www.aishdas.org/lists/avodah/avodahareivim-membership-agreement/


You can reach the person managing the list at
	avodah-owner@lists.aishdas.org


When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Avodah digest..."

A list of common acronyms is available at
        http://www.aishdas.org/lists/avodah/avodah-acronyms
(They are also visible in the web archive copy of each digest.)