Avodah Mailing List

Volume 40: Number 72

Tue, 01 Nov 2022

• 1. Davening direction (Eli Turkel)
• 2. shelo assani boor. (Richard Wolberg)
• 3. Re: Davening direction (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: Davening direction (Eli Turkel)
• 5. Re: Davening direction (Zev Sero)
• 6. Further to Giving The Look to R Elazar and Chanufah (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi)
• 7. Re: Davening direction (Zev Sero)
• 8. further to R Lakish Annoyed with R Elazar (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi)
• 9. Re: How Sin Changes a Person (Ben Bradley)

I am currently in Newark Airport and got the following instructions on my
phone

Davening direction in Newark
Following a *Rhumb Line* *
<https://www.myzmanim.com/messagebox.aspx?messageid=direction>*
Maintains a constant compass direction
HaRav Yisroel Belsky and others    Bearing *96?* ? *East*
Following a *great circle* *
<https://www.myzmanim.com/messagebox.aspx?messageid=direction>*
A straight path of shortest distance
HaRav Yechiel A. Zilber and others    Bearing *54?* ? *North-East*
Instinctively it seems silly to me davening north east towards Jerusalem
even though that is the direction a plane would fly

Didn't understand the logic of the rhumb line for davening

Gut feeling is that south east is reasonable even that is based on a flat
earth
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Near the end of Brachos 64-65 it mentions 3 of the b?rochos said at the beginning of shacharis:

1) shelo assani goy
2) shelo assani boor
3) shelo assani isha

So the question was asked why do we no longer make the shelo assani boor? The answer is because we are all boorim (unintelligent dolts).
That?s a pretty harsh explanation which I?m sure many find it hard to buy.
So the boor b?racha was replaced with shelo assani a-ved. 

The other interesting teaching in the same b?lat is that we should pray for the goyim that they do teshuva. 

On Sun, Oct 30, 2022 at 01:16:21PM -0400, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
> Instinctively it seems silly to me davening north east towards Jerusalem
> even though that is the direction a plane would fly

> Didn't understand the logic of the rhumb line for davening

> Gut feeling is that south east is reasonable even that is based on a flat
> earth

I am thinking from context you mean you don't understand the logic of
facing Yerushalyim for davening along the *great circle*. ince, you
continue by waying that the plumb-line result seems reasonable.


First thing I would highlight is that the question is one only faced
by acharonim. In Tokyo, the rumb-line direction and the great circle
one are 33 deg apart. In Canterbury, NZ, 34 deg. NY - 42deg, and LA -
a whopping 66 deg!

But until Jews reached such far-flung locations, the directions were
within the usual fuzziness. The AhS talks about being more exact,
but continues that minhag Yisrael has been to just face the correct
compass point (OC 96:6), concluding best to get the right 8th of a circle
(e.g. NE; s' 7), and that halakhah is only saying "qetzas netiyah lesham"
(s' 8).


Given that it's all about kavvanah, I would think it depends on the person.
Most shuls should do what's intuitive, even if it's technically wrong.

(Queue up my bit about halakhahh being about reality as percieved, not
objective reality. Play it in your head -- I'm sure the majority of you
know it by heart by now, now continue reading...)

But the minyan at MIT, or anyone working on MyZmanim (for examples),
perhaps should be facing along the great circle. To STEM nerds, the
great circle direction may feel more real and intuitive.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Brains to the lazy
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   are like a torch to the blind --
Author: Widen Your Tent      a useless burden.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF               - Bechinas haOlam

On Mon, Oct 31, 2022 at 9:58 AM Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:
> First thing I would highlight is that the question is one only faced
> by acharonim.... until Jews reached such far-flung locations, the
> directions were within the usual fuzziness....

> Given that it's all about kavvanah, I would think it depends on the person.
> Most shuls should do what's intuitive, even if it's technically wrong.
...
> But the minyan at MIT, or anyone working on MyZmanim (for examples),
> perhaps should be facing along the great circle. To STEM nerds, the
> great circle direction may feel more real and intuitive.

I agree that one certainly needs only the general direction and need not
use a compass

The app on my phone seems to use the great circle. As a scientist I
understand what that means.

However, in my mind NY is in the north and Israel is more tropical. So
facing north-east seems counterintuitive even though flights from NY to
Israel go north. As Micha points out it is even stranger in LA Actually
my preference would be for the old fashioned two dimensional maps.

I would imagine that achronim that denied that the earth is a globe
would agree  -)

ELI
-- 
Eli Turkel

On 30/10/22 13:16, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
> 
> Instinctively it seems silly to me davening north east towards Jerusalem 
> even though that is the direction a plane would fly

Your "instinct" is based on having so deeply absorbed the flat Mercator 
map into your consciousness that even though you know it's incorrect you 
still think that way.  But if you take a globe and a piece of string, 
and put one end on NY and the other on EY and pull it tight, you will 
see that the straight line, which is surely the only reasonable 
definition of what direction EY is, goes over Newfoundland.

The only other reasonable definition I can think of is to daven towards 
the nearest road that will lead to the airport; or, since you were at 
the airport, towards the gate where you will board your plane to EY.


> Didn't understand the logic of the rhumb line for davening
> Gut feeling is that south east is reasonable even that is based on a 
> flat earth

That *is* the rhumb line, and I don't understand the logic either; it 
seems based entirely on people sharing the above-cited "instinct", which 
is based entirely on a lifetime of looking at Mercator maps.  (I've seen 
it claimed that this is the Levush's view, but I couldn't find any hint 
of it in the Levush.  He was writing in Prague or thereabouts, where the 
difference between the two lines is negligible.)


-- 
Zev Sero            ?Were we directed from Washington when to sow
z...@sero.name       and when to reap, we should soon want bread.?
                    ?Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821.

Kesuvos 25b the entire piece of Gemara pasted below -

this is the part that requires attention
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?

Lets say it was well known that RElazar was a close Talmid of R Yochanan
and RLakish ought to have known that it was said in the name of RYochanan
In that case why is he looking daggers at RE??
Besides what diff does it make? RLakish was often in disagreement with R
Yochanan?

He raised an objection; RLakish considered it and dismissed it.
Is one supposed to stop thinking when one's teacher raises an 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?

WADR to R Micha, it is difficult to see how his response addresses any of
these issues.

If I present a Diyuk in Rashi or RaMBaM to a Rosh Yeshivah a TCh, and his
response is to reject it without explaining why, am I supposed to bow my
head and abandon the Diyuk?
If one sees that the Acharonim say a diff Peshat in the Diyuk which seems
to make little sense or they dismiss or ignore the Diyuk altogether - what
is one supposed to do? Bow one's head and abandon this Diyuk? Is that the
Mitzvah of TT?



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 31/10/22 10:18, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
> However, in my mind NY is in the north and Israel is more tropical. So
> facing north-east seems counterintuitive

Again this is an artifact of a lifetime of looking at Mercator maps. 
Chazal never saw such a map and would have thought of things very 
differently.

 > I would imagine that achronim that denied that the earth is a globe
 > would agree  -)

Which achronim denied something that the entire world has agreed on 
since Chazal's day?  The Bavli Amora'im seem to have not yet heard of 
this "modern discovery", but in EY they had.   Certainly the Rishonim 
all knew.

But assuming there are such achronim, what makes you think they had a 
Mercator map in mind rather than a flat polar projection, or some other 
weird thing, which might well have a great circle line, or some other 
line?

It's only on a Mercator map that a rhumb line looks straight.  That's 
what Mercator maps are *for*.  They're good when you're trying to 
navigate by compass; they give you a heading which, if you stick to it, 
will eventually take you where you want to go, though not by the 
shortest route.   And since this is usually exactly what sailors want, 
that explains this map's popularity.

-- 
Zev Sero            ?Were we directed from Washington when to sow
z...@sero.name       and when to reap, we should soon want bread.?
                    ?Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821.

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?

In other words - being called as first Oleh to the Torah is not adequate
proof. Proof is established if he is given the Cohen's gifts.

But Rabbi Yo?anan objected: And if there is no threshing floor there, does
the priesthood cease to exist?

Why and How is this an objection - if there is no evidence then there is NO
EVIDENCE
Is this somehow PROOF that being called as first Oleh is proof?
That seems to make no sense.


Best,

Meir G. Rabi

0423 207 837
+61 423 207 837
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R Schwab's essay raises a number of questions.

Firstly, galus was not an accident. It was a response to the spiritual
state of the Jewish people. R Hirsch, as R Schwab would have been very
aware, consistently claims that the purpose of galus was so the Jewish
people would learn that the Torah and not the land is what sustains us, and
return to its mitzvos (see Iyar 1 for example in RSRH The Jewish Year). 
Now, it is clear that being everyone absorbs values from those around them.
If we absorbed non-Jewish values from those around us, is that really our
fault? Seems an inevitability once in galus. The mashal of the prince
deposited with a purse outside a brothel seems apt. R Schwab seems close to
proposing a flaw in Hashem's plan.

Second. We learned to hate in galus? Surely the reason for the current
galus was sinas chinam, How can you claim we only learned to hate in galus?
And the first galus was for the three Big sins or murder, sexually
immorality and idolatry. We did that all by ourselves with no outside
influence. More basically, the origin of galus was with catastrophe of the
ten spies. In the desert. No external influences there. Chazal state 'We
want to do your (Hashem's) will. But what prevents us? The yeast in the
dough (the yetzer hara) and shibud malchiyos'.	Ie there are two basic
causes of sin. One, shibud malchiyos, has to do with galus, but may or may
not be to do with influences from the nations. I suspect the term implies
more the pressures of being ruled by others. But the other, the yetzer
hara, has nothing to do the outside world. So why lay the exclusive blame
there?

Third. Who said we didn't pick up some positive influences? I think it's
possible to identify some positive traits which are strong amongst those
living in the anglosphere. Work ethic, critical thinking, the kind of
respect for difference which enables democracy. These owe much to us in the
first place but are stronger amongst those who lives in nations where these
are strong values. More fundamentally, it seems clear that the most
introverted and socially isolated groups amongst the Jewish people have
greater prevalence and acceptance of bad middos than more exposed groups.
This does not fit with R Schwab's thesis. It is simply not tenable to pin
bad behaviour, or even warped values, on nothing but outside influences.
The yetzer hara is inherent and autonomous, and sometimes it's frum.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Original post:

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."

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