Avodah Mailing List

Volume 40: Number 85

Wed, 21 Dec 2022

• 1. Re: Tamar Not Embarrassing Yehuda (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: Tamar Not Embarrassing Yehuda (Joel Rich)
• 3. Re: Tamar Not Embarrassing Yehuda (Micha Berger)
• 4. Gezeira Against Cloth Sukkos? (Micha Berger)
• 5. Chatzros Kodshecha (Zvi Lampel)
• 6. Re: Conditions upon a gett (Motti Yarchinai)
• 7. Torah intuition (Joel Rich)
• 8. Articles by RSRH Related to Chanukah (Prof. L. Levine)

On Sun, Dec 18, 2022 at 10:39:15PM +0200, Yisrael Herczeg via Avodah wrote:
> That's a very interesting take you have on Yehuda and Tamar, but if Yehuda
> never divulged his sin, he did not do teshuvah optimally according to the
> Rambam, Hilchos Teshuvah 2:5...

Doesn't one only have to say vidui to the RBSO and, if BALC, the one
they wronged?

So, couldn't Yehudah could have fully fulfilled the requirements of
teshuvah without making the kind of public revelation Tamar speaking up
would have caused?

An enlightening and enjoyable Chanukah!
-Micha

And Bney Noax -- remember, we are talking about Bney Noax here -- are
not even obliged to martyr themselves to avoid committing idolatry, or
gilluy `arayoth.
?????????
I?m not sure this is generally agreed though. Keep in mind that it is clear the avot added at least some mitzvot (and perhaps did all of them). 
This is probably a separate thread though. 
Kt
Joel Rich

Here's a related vertl...

    Tzadiq katamar yifrach,
    ke'erez balvanon yisgeh...

Given how many associate erez with gaavah, eg the combination of lowly
eizor and the mighty erez in the means of being mitaheir the metzorah,
maybe we could read the pasuq this way:

How does one flourish like a proud erez in the Levanon and yet still be
a tzadiq? When one flowers like capital-T Tamar, placing others kavod
ahead of one's own.

After all: Eizehu mekhubad, hamekhabeid es haberiyos.

A lichtikn un freilechn Chanukah!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 How wonderful it is that
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   nobody need wait a single moment
Author: Widen Your Tent      before starting to improve the world.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF            - Anne Frank Hy"d

AhS Yomi recently hit OC 630:32, in hilkhos Sukkah.

If I understand correctly, and given how far this is from common practice,
I likely don't, the Tur assumes there is a gezeira in the gemara against
using cloth for Sukkah walls even if they are tied down. Because too
many don't stay tied.

And not only does the AhS explicitly include a well-bound cloth wall,
he says that one can rely on the Taz for a single cloth wall only
"bemaqom tzorekh".

So, would the AhS have a problem with the ubiquitous canvas Sukkah? If
not, why not?

I was thinking that maybe this was leshitaso with chalav Yisrael; maybe
his derekh is to be quite strict on gezeiros even / especially when it
looks like batlah taam.

An enlightening and enjoyable Chanukah!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Every second is a totally new world,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   and no moment is like any other.
Author: Widen Your Tent              - Rabbi Chaim Vital
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF

CHATZROS KODSHECHA

Al HaNissim recounts of the Maccabees?

Ba-u banecha lidvir beisecha, ufinu es heichalecha, vetiharu es
mikdashecha, vehidliku neiros bechastzros kodshecha.

Your sons came to the entrance of Your Temple,* and cleansed Your
Sanctuary, and purified Your Holy Place, and lit the oil lamps in the
chatzeiros of your holy ones / Your holy chatzeiros.


1. What are the chatzros kodshecha the Al HaNissim is referring to? * Did
the Beis HaMikdash have chatzeiros? How many? Where? Or were these outside
the Beis HaMikdash?

2. If they were part of the Beis Hamikdash, after saying "vetiharu es
mikdashecha, and they purified you Mikdash," why doesn't it just say,
'vehidliku neiros (shom), and they lit lamps (there)"? Why add "bechatzros
kodshecha"?

TWO CHATZEIROS
1. Melachim Beis 21:5, 23:12 and Divrei Hayamim Beis 33:5 refer to "the two
chatzeiros of the Beis Hashem." Metzudas Dovid identifies them as the Ezras
Kohanim and the Ezras Yisrael, and Ralbag on Divrei Hayamim Aleph 28:12 as
well explains that the chatzeiros are the chatzer of the kohanim and the
Ezras Yisrael.
So, it would seem that the Maccabees lit in two places: the Ezras Kohanim
and the Ezras Yisrael. Possible, but strange.

2. As to the second question, (after saying "vetiharu es mikdashecha, and
they purified you Mikdash," why doesn't it just say, 'vehidliku neiros
(shom), and they lit lamps (there)"? Why add "bechatzros kodshecha"?) one
may simply consider it a matter of prose. But I have another suggestion.

The kohanim practiced a stringency in preparing the parah adumah and its
ashes. They took extreme means to ensure those involved in that preparation
were perfectly free of any tumah. To this end, they raised children who
were protected *from birth* from *ever* having any contact with tumah.

Specifically, they constructed huge living quarters in the city of
Yerushalayim that were each built on top of a layer of rock that covered a
hollow space, so that in case there were any dead bodies buried beneath
that area, the spread of tumah would be contained and prevented from
reaching anyone above in those quarters. A kohane woman who was ready to
give birth would have her baby in such quarters, and the male children
would be raised in those quarters. guaranteed to never have been exposed to
tumah. Further measures were taken to keep those kohane youngsters pure of
tumah up until the time they were ready to perform the parah aduma
preparations.

This is described in the second mishnah of the third perek of maseches
Parah.

The mishnah refers to these Jerusalem quarters that were kept strictly pure
as: CHATZEIROS.

We are familiar with the concept that the Maccabees insisted on the
stringency of using only pure oil in the lamps, uncontaminated with tumah.
It would be consistent with this concern that even after purifying the Beis
HaMikdash, they would insist on kindling those lights in areas that from
the start were stringently kept uncontaminated by tumah as well?the
chatzros kodshecha.

Your sons came to the entrance of Your Temple,* and cleansed Your
Sanctuary, and purified Your Holy Place, and lit the oil lamps in the
chatzeiros of your holy ones / Your holy chatzeiros.

Ba-u banecha lidvir beisecha, ufinu es heichalecha, vetiharu es
mikdashecha, vehidliku neiros bechatzros kodshecha.


Your sons came to the entrance of Your Temple,* and cleansed Your temple,
and purified Your Sanctuary, and lit the oil lamps in the chatzeiros of
your holy ones / Your holy chatzeiros.

======================================
*See Malbim on Melachim Aleph 8:6.
** The phrase or similar ones appear elsewhere as well. Tehillim contains
six references (two of which are in Hallel) to the chatzros kodshecha,
chatzros Elokim, or His chatzeiros of the Beis HaMikdash Mikdash; and two
in Nechemiah 8:16 and 13:7 (as well as to those of the future third Beis
HaMikdash in Sefer Yechezkiel, but I will put those aside):
Tehillim 92:14?Shesulim b'veis Hashem, b'chatzros Elokim yafrichu.
Tehillim 84:3?v'gam kalsah nafshi lechatzros Hashem libi ubesari
Tehilim 96:8?s'u mincha u'vo'u l'chatzrosov
Tehillim 100:4?bo'u sh'arav b'sodah, chatzeirosov b'tehilah
Tehillim (Hallel)--B'chatzros beis Hashem, b'socheichi Yerushalayim.
Tehillim 135:1-2?hallelu es Sheim Hashem, hallelu avdei Hashem she'omdim
b'veis Hashem, b'chatzros Beis Elokeynu.
Nechemiah 8:16?vaya'vi'u vaya'asu ish al gago u'v'chatzroseyhem
u'v'chatzros beis haElokim?
Nechemiah 13:7?nishkah bechatzrei Beis Elokeynu.
Divrei Hayamim I 23:28, 28:6,12?laavodas Beis Hashem al haChatziros;
chatzros Beis HaElokim
Divrei Hayamim II 23:5, 33:6? vekol haAm bechatzros Beis Hashem; bishtay
chatzros Beis Hashem.

And in the daily Modim Derabannan--V'se'esof galuyoseinu l'chatzros
kodshecha.

(There are also the chatzros Yerushalayim ir hakodesh of Yeshaya 62:9, but
those are clearly the courtyards throughout Yerushalayim, distinct from the
chatzros Beis Hashem.)

Zvi Lampel
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David Riceman thinks I was obscuring details in my original post on this
subject and he says he did not see a link in my post. I was not obscuring
anything, and if the link did not appear for you, then there must be
something wrong with either the email client you are using to read incoming
emails or with the way the Avodah listserver is handling the links. In the
copy I received of Avodah Digest Volume 40, Issue 83, the link appears
exactly as I sent it. It is in paragraph 3 of my post, which I will copy
again here. It reads:

For details of this see this webpage devoted to this issue, which has, over
the last two weeks, become a hot topic of discussion on social media in the
country concerned. (If the above link does not work for you on first
attempt, close the browser tab and try a second time.)


The first sentence of that paragraph reproduced above, begins "For details
of this see this webpage devoted to the issue, " and the link was attached
the words "this webpage." In case the link is being stripped out by the
listserve software, it points to this web-address, which you will have to
edit appropriately:? tiny [dot] cc/mbd? and the reason I suggested to try
again a second time if clicking the link doesn't work on first try has to
do with an occasional problem that sometimes occurs with the server on
which my website is hosted. That is beyond my control; it is to do with my
webhosting provider. That webpage contains the full text of the condition
that is in the Melbourne Beth Din's gett-application form and it also
contains two links to the form containing the the condition. The first link
is to the form on the website of the Melbourne Beth Din, and the second
link is to a copy of the form that I put on my website, to preserve it in
its current form in case the Beth Din chan
 ges it, in which case my comments on it would be referring to a different version from the one on the beth din's website.
On the second night of Hanukah, I was informed that the beth din will be
removing that clause from its gett-application form. Yesterday, I appended
an update to that webpage about that new information.
Motti

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A poster said:While Torah intuition may lie beneath their rulings, the vast
majority of rabbinic decisions are supported by source-based evidence. And
if a refutation is brought to light, the theory is abandoned with no source
left unexplained.

Me-IMHO this is a bit of an oversimplification -ISTM that if a refutation
is brought to light but no other theory suggests itself which more fits the
data, the approach is to minimize the offending source or read it somewhat
tortuously. The interesting question to me then is why does one data point
offend one of the disputants more than the other (and vv). Thoughts?

Kt

Joel Rich 

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The articles below are form the Collected Writings of RSRH and deal with Chanukah.


Kislev_I The Prayer for Rain<https://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/kislev_I.pdf>
 (Collected Writings II)


[https://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/New_icons_50.gif]
Kislev_II Hellenism and Judaism<https://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/hellenism_judaism.pdf>
 (Collected Writings II)


  [https://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/New_icons_50.gif]
   Kislev_VI Chanukah: Consecration and Inspiration in Judaism<https://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/kislev_VI.pdf>
  (Collected Writings II)

Kislev II discusses Hellenism and Judaism.

From https://www.jewishpress.com/headline/hanukkah-real-message-alien-to-most-american-jews/2022/12/20/

It may come as a shock to most American Jews, but Hanukkah is pretty much
the opposite of the modern secular celebration of Christmas that most of
their neighbors celebrate. Rather than an expression of peace, the revolt
of the Maccabees was a battle against foreign oppression and a bloody civil
war.


The priest Mattathias and his five sons and their followers fought both
their Syrian Greek oppressors and the assimilated Jews who had embraced the
Hellenistic practices of their overlords. Contemporary leftists critical of
Hanukkah aren?t wrong to point out that most American Jews probably have a
lot more in common with the latter?who were embracing a universalist
culture and rejecting the narrow, parochial beliefs of the rebels?than the
heroic Judah Maccabee.


That?s precisely why Hanukkah really does deserve the disproportionate
attention it gets from American Jews this time of year, relative to its
lesser importance in the liturgical calendar.


See the above URL for much more.


Professor Yitzchok Levine


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