Avodah Mailing List

Volume 40: Number 71

Sun, 30 Oct 2022

• 1. How Sin Changes a Person (Prof. L. Levine)
• 2. Why Was RLakish Unhappy? Chanufah (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi)
• 3. Re: Why Was RLakish Unhappy? Chanufah (Micha Berger)
• 4. Marriage I: The Concept of Kiddushin (Prof. L. Levine)
• 5. [TorahWeb] Rabbi Ahron Lopiansky: Drinking: Spiritual or Vulgar? (Micha Berger)

Consistent with the concept that sin changes a person fundamentally,
the Rav (Rav Shimon Schwab) expounded on how living in a world full of sin has affected us as
a nation:

In galus the Jewish People have become very sick. As a result of our
dispersion among the nations and of our mingling with them, we have
learned non-Jewish values and mores. But they
mingled with the nations and learned their deeds (Tehillim 106:35).
Unfortunately, we did not similarly absorb some of the good middos that
are found among the nations.

First, we have learned to hate each other. In the world at large, there
is a great deal of ethnic and racial hate, and we have likewise absorbed
this. For example, Jews born in one country often look down upon those
from another country.

Second, we have lost two of the three distinguishing characteristics
by which a Jew has always been recognizable:

(being a bashful person, being a merciful person, and doing kindness).
As long as a sense of tznius existed in the world at large, we
excelled in this trait. But when the sense of personal modesty and
decency was lost among the nations, we, too, lost our bushah.

When
I was a child in pre-World War I Germany, no decent non-Jew would
swim in a mixed swimming pool. Men and women had separate
swimming facilities. After World War I, this sense of personal decency
was slowly lost among the nations, and unfortunately this trend found its
way into Jewish life as well. We lost the bushah, not only in our mode of
dressing, but also in our behavior and in the relationship between men
and women.

Being merciful: We have observed how cruel the nations are to each other-not
to speak of their cruelty to us-and, consequently, we, too, developed
cruelty. I do not wish to go into details about this. Jews did not kill; Jews
did not use violence; our nevi'im and leaders did not advocate violent
demonstrations. But, unfortunately, in galus, we have learned these
things from the non-Jews.

However, baruch Hashem, one characteristic, that of gemi!us
chassadim, doing kindness with one another, remains intact among the
Jewish nation even during the ga!us.

Generally, though, we have contracted the "sickness of the ga!us"
during our long exile. First, there was the desire to associate with the
"upper class" of non-Jewish society; the poets, the artists, the writers, the
philosophers, the intelligentsia of the world. The desire to assimilate with
the non-Jewish world then deteriorated into a desire to associate with and
copy the lifestyle of the lower element of world society. Unfortunately,
we now even have a "Jewish underworld."

Rav Schwab on Prayer, page 493

Professor Yitzchok Levine
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Kesuvos 25b
On a later occasion Rabbi Elazar and Reish Lakish sat before Rabbi Yo?anan
and as before, testimony was presented to validate someone as a Cohen based
on the fact that he'd been called as the first Oleh to the Torah reading.
Reish Lakish said to the person who testified: Did you see that he received
a share of teruma at the threshing floor? But Rabbi Yo?anan objected: And
if there is no threshing floor there, does the priesthood cease to exist?
Now this was the same response Rabbi Elazar had earlier said to Reish
Lakish. Now RL understood that Rabbi Elazar was in fact repeating the
objection he'd heard from Rabbi Yochanan without disclosing it was Rabbi
Y's objection.

Reish Lakish turned and looked at Rabbi Elazar harshly, and said to him:
You heard a statement of bar Naphac?a [the blacksmith's son - an epithet
for Rabbi Yo?anan] and you did not say it to us in his name?

WHat is the problem?
He raised an objection; RLakish considered it and dismissed it.
Is one supposed to stop thinking when one's teacher raises and objection
and just accept it?

Had RL Paskened as per the objection, following his Master's guidelines,
would that have been acceptable?
He was asked for HIS ruling not his Master's ruling.
Is that not a violation of Chanufah?




Best,

Meir G. Rabi

0423 207 837
+61 423 207 837
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On Tue, Oct 25, 2022 at 03:45:07PM +1100, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote:
> Kesuvos 25b
...
> Reish Lakish turned and looked at Rabbi Elazar harshly, and said to him:
> You heard a statement of bar Naphac'a [the blacksmith's son - an epithet
> for Rabbi Yo'anan] and you did not say it to us in his name?

> WHat is the problem?
> He raised an objection; RLakish considered it and dismissed it.
> Is one supposed to stop thinking when one's teacher raises and objection
> and just accept it?

It is likely that Reish Laqish was giving his opinion in R Yochanan's
shiur because RL no longer just another fellow talmid, but RY's
chavrusa. Or closer to that time. For that matter, with RL's passying,
R Yochanan was upset that he couldn't find a chavrusa that would challenge
him. So, I would be hard pressed to say that RL expected to "just accept"
RY's position.

That said, R Shteinzaltz did assume that RL was saying that has he known
it was RY, he would have accepted the ruling. (Noticed when I looked
the quote up on Sepharia.)

Perhaps, though, the reason was localized and not about halachic theory.
Maybe in this one case, RL didn't think his reasoning was as solid as
all that, and would have had more faith in an alternative just because
it was RY's.

But what I wondered when I read this, despite RMR and RAShteinzaltz's
take on the gemara:

Why does RL's objection have to be due to legal outcome? Not naming
R Yochanan was a slight to RY's kavod, and missess a chance to bring
ge'ulah to the world. And RY's talmid-chaver and brother-in-law would
feel deeplyh about either.


Chodesh Tov!
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 I thank God for my handicaps, for, through them,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   I have found myself, my work, and my God.
Author: Widen Your Tent                   - Helen Keller
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF

Please see

https://www.deracheha.org/kiddushin/
[https://www.deracheha.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Deracheha_Logo_featured_image.png]<;https://www.deracheha.org/kiddushin/>
Marriage I: The Concept of Kiddushin ? Deracheha<https://www.deracheha.org/kiddushin/>
What is the halachic significance of bat mitzva? How should it be observed
or celebrated?What is kiddushin and how does it work? What role does a
woman play in it? Is it a mitzva?
www.deracheha.org


Professor Yitzchok Levine
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It isn't often that a parashah sheet raises a dialectic.

In any case, RALopinsky's discussion of wine as "elixir" vs "poison"
reminded me of Rav's description of the Torah. Don't know
what to make of it.

Shabbos 88b (c.f. Yuma 72b; in Widen Your Tent pp 6-7, I offer a possible
difference between RCbP's citation quoted here, and R Yehudah b Levi's
in Yuma):
    Rav Chananel bar Papa said: What is meant by, "Hear, for I will speak
    princely things, [and my lips will open with what is right]" (Mishlei
    8:6)? Words of Torah are compared to a ruler, to tell you that just
    as a ruler has power of life and death, so too the words of the Torah
    [have potential for] life or death. As Rava said: To those who go
    to the right side of it, it is a sama dechayei, a medicine for life;
    to those who go to its left, it is a sama demusa, an elixir of death.

-micha

Fcc: RAL

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


Drinking: Spiritual or Vulgar?
https://www.torahweb.org/torah/2022/parsha/rlop noach.html

Wine and drinking first appear in the Torah in parshas Noach. Throughout
the Torah, wine is referred to very ambiguously. Sometimes it is treated
as the most heavenly of all elixirs, and sometimes it seems as if it is
the most poisonous of all potions. On the one hand, we know that wine
is brought together with sacrifices, and that shira -- song is recited
only over wine. We also know that we both bring in Shabbos and escort
her out, over a cup of wine. Additionally, wine is referred to as,
"that which gladdens the hearts of men" (Tehillim 104:15).

Then there is a second side to wine. A nazir is considered someone who
has become uniquely sanctified because he has abstained from drinking
wine. The downfall of the children of Aaron happened because of the
wine that they drank (Rashi, Vayikra 10:2). In our parsha Noach plants a
vineyard, drinks wine, becomes drunk and loses his dignity, and thereby
incurs shame on himself and a curse on one of his children. The Gemara
states that "wine brings about all tragedies" (Berachos 40a).

So how do we understand wine? Is it something positive and a divine
elixir, or is it a poison that drives a person away from all that is
good and noble?

This dichotomy is actually alluded to in the responsa of the Radvaz
(2, 615) where someone asks him about the nature of the drinking of
the children of Aaron. He speaks about it a bit and then he states:
"you need to be aware that there are two types of wine, the wine that
is poisonous and intoxicates, and on the other hand the wine that brings
about joy. It all depends on the intention of the drinker. The children
of Aaron were seeking the wine that intoxicates. They rejected the wine,
'that has been kept in the grapes from the six days of creation' and
therefore they deserve death".

The words of the Radvaz are cryptic. Let us try to understand them with an
explanation that the Maharal gives (Sanhedrin 78 and other places). The
Gemara there states: "Rav Chanan says that wine was created in the world
only for two reasons: to comfort mourners, and to pay the wicked their
reward in this world." It's a little bit hard to understand the seemingly
random juxtaposition of these two purposes, but we do gather that one is
very positive and one is very negative; i.e. the comforting of mourners
seems to be something very positive, whereas the paying back the wicked
with the reward in this world seems to be something very negative. So
once again we see in the words of the Gemara that there are two types
of drinking.

Let us, then, try and understand a little bit about what is it that
drinking represents and expresses. The Maharal explains that of all the
physical foodstuffs we ingest, wine is unique, because wine comes from
"something hidden, within something that's hidden". This means to say,
that the grape is the fruit itself, the juice is the hidden essence
of that fruit, and the fermented wine is hidden within that hidden
juice. This represents "sod" which means 'secret' in Hebrew. As the gemara
states, "when wine enters, one's sod (secrets) exits." The word "sod -- 
secret" and the word "yayin -- wine" actually have the same gematria
(numerical value).

This is parallel to the process of Hashem creating the world, wherein
He created the world as is perceived on the surface, together with
a multitude of deeper understandings and realities. The outer layer
of the world is that which the physical senses and the rational mind
grasp. The senses feel the object physically, while the rational mind
defines it. But there is something deeper within this world, an inner
essence. The body and senses cannot perceive this reality, nor can the
rational mind, for it, too, is limited to that which can be grasped by
the senses and extrapolated by reason. The mind cannot process that which
is beyond the senses and beyond even reason. However, when we succeed in
bringing out some of the inner essence of a person, some of that inner
awareness that transcends reason, then that person is able to "grasp"
things that lie beyond reason.

This ability to reach beyond the constraints of the superficial and
physical world is an incredible faculty, and can be a great blessing. For
instance, going back to the words of the Gemara, when someone is in
mourning, something has been lost to him forever. As far as human beings
can perceive with their senses and "reason", death is final and there is
nothing after that, and thus the loss is irreversible and eternal. Try as
hard as we may, there is no way for our physical minds to "understand"
that there is life after death. But when we loosen the shackles of our
senses and rigid physical reasoning, we are able to perceive that there
is a world after our world, a world that is eternal and whose essence
cannot grasped by the senses, or even by the mind. This is how wine
enables the mourner to rise above his sorrow.

Similarly, when a person praises Hashem, he starts with prose. While such
prose is limited to our experiences, our knowledge, and our understanding,
Hashem's true praise rises beyond that. That true praise is shira -- 
song, and that is the ultimate praise. Shira is enabled by the wine that
liberates us from our world of sense and reason, and allows us to rise
higher. This is why true shira demands wine.

This liberation is only possible for a person who has risen as high as
he can with his actions and his mind, and is now looking to rise even
higher. His "drink" is simply a push further. However, a person who
has not reigned in his physical drives and passions, and is looking for
wine to loosen the last remnants of reason from his body, is acting most
destructively. A person who has few deeds and even less developed daas
is fooling himself terribly when he claims that the wine "elevated"
him. Besides the crudeness and vulgarity that the drinking evokes,
its experiences are nonsense. What he thinks are "deeper revelations"
are in fact nothing but idle fantasies. Yes, they "transcend" the mind,
but not because they're revealing a greater truth, rather because they
fall very far short of any truth.

Thus, the Torah is revealing to us the correct understanding of the
"wine" experience. When a person has climbed the ladder of kedusha and
da'as and is using wine to say shira to HKB"H, it is most uplifting. But
when a person drinks to forget the reality around him and to free himself
from the moral constraints of da'as, then not only is one not uplifted,
rather one is falling into the deepest of abysses. Indeed, it is the
fool's paradise of the wicked!

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