Avodah Mailing List

Volume 41: Number 77

Fri, 03 Nov 2023

• 1. Re: divorcee (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: Monetary Damages? (Brent Kaufman)
• 3. Re: Fasting Priority (Akiva Miller)
• 4. Who Can Disagree - Decrees Found in ShA (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi)
• 5. Re: AI and Jewish Law (Akiva Miller)
• 6. younger teenage boy as the shatz (Joel Rich)
• 7. Re: younger teenage boy as the shatz (allan.en...@gmail.com)
• 8. Re: younger teenage boy as the shatz (Micha Berger)

On Wed, Sep 20, 2023 at 04:53:25AM -0400, mcohen--- via Avodah wrote:
> why is a widow different/more helpless than a divorcee?

The idiom "yasom ve'amanah" date back to the chumash.

But in any case... Maybe the extra pathos of losing someone you love
and a relationship that was working? No matter how bad a gett is,
it is a way out of something that wasn't working and opens the door
to finding something that will.

Rather than a protection to not hurting the helpless, the extra issur
is hurting someone already suffering.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

>>> IIRC there's a tshuva concerning jousting (Purim?) that holds one not
> liable for damages due to implied consent. Does this imply that the
> jousting itself is really prohibited?

Tshuvos haRosh (I heard this referenced by R. Berel Wein).

Chaimbaruch Kaufman
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.
R' Jol Rich asked:

> There's a halacha I?ve heard stated many times that it's better
> to stay in bed all day on yom kippur in order to be able to
> complete the fast rather than to go to shul (tfila btzibur et al)
> and have to have even a small break (ie shiurim). How would you
> analyze a similar question on tzom gedalya?

I'd love to help out, but I honestly don't understand your question.
Exactly what is it that you want us to "analyze"?
Haven't plenty of rishonim and acharonim already explained what to do if
one is weak or ill on the other fast days?
What are you hoping to hear from us that you can't get from the many
existing published works?

Akiva Miller
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Chief Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron, has written in his Sefer Binyan Av 4:39,
a significant discussion re the ability of making binding decrees after
Chasimas HaTalmud. He concludes we have no such power.

He brings a wonderful illustration of a decree that stands, permitting that
which ought to be prohibited,
and may not be altered
even where it is clear that in our changed circumstances Chazal would
almost certainly have prohibited i.e. NOT applied their decree to permit.
One need not undress in a public zone in order to remove ones Tzitzis -
Human Dignity is so great that it eclipses a Torah Prohibition.
Does the same rule apply to one who is wearing a Tallis Gadol? even though
there is no disgrace or discomfort?
Yes!
can be viewed here
https://beta.hebrewbooks.org/reader/reader.aspx?sfid=52137#p=182&;fitMode=fitwidth&hlts=&ocr=
 at the end of the page.

As for the many additions found in the ShA that are beyond what is found in
the Gemara
It must be considered that these are not necessarily binding as Halacha
even though we describe it as Halacha

It is possibly, and quite likely just a convention that has been broadly
accepted
and its enforcement is more a reflection of community pressures and peoples
desire to go along to get along

Many Yidden do not kiss their Tzitzis when reciting Shema or BSheAmar - is
that a problem?

More and more Ashkenasim are consuming Kitniyot - is that a problem?
if yes, is that because it ruffles feathers or because there is a real
halachic problem?


Best,

Meir G. Rabi

0423 207 837
+61 423 207 837
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I've been wanting to write this post for a while, but I thought it might be
more appropriate for a computer-science group than for Avodah. But recent
posts have gone deeper into the comp-sci side, and I'm hoping the
moderators will let it go through. If not, no hard feelings.

For example, R' Micha Berger wrote:

> It produces results that usually seem like it knows what it's
> talking about, because the training texts generally make sense.
> But that's why at times it fills in the pattern with nonsense.
> Hence what people call AI "hallucinations".

Many decades ago, I came to the personal conclusion that the Turing Test (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test) might be good entertainment, but
I rejected its value for determining whether or not a computer might ever
be deemed "intelligent". Reasonable responses to a conversation are too
easy for a sufficiently advanced computer, I felt. My feeling was that
genuine intelligence could be proven best by some show of originality.
Computers are great at algorithms and calculations, but a truly
formidable task would be for them to come up with an original thought.

I did not have a method of defining what I meant by "original thought", but
if I can believe what has appeared in the press about AI, that problem
might have been solved: ChatGPT has been inventing lies out of whole cloth,
and to me, that certainly qualifies as an original thought. A parent will
be very upset the first time that their child tells a lie, but inwardly,
they may be very impressed by the child's creativity. There have been many
articles about an AI that wrote a paper on a certain topic, giving quotes
and citations from nonexistent sources. (See, for example,
https://blogs.library.duke.edu/blog/2023/03/09/chatgpt-and-fake-citations/)

It is one thing to take information and reach wrong conclusions, but when a
paper quotes an article, and gives the title of the article and the URL
where it can be found, but no paper of that title ever existed, nor did
that URL ever work, I don't know how to describe it other than as a
deliberate lie. And my description of it as "deliberate" worries me very
much. (Even HAL would be horrified.)

As a former programmer, I wonder how all this works. I have some sort of
vague inkling of what is meant by things like "language learning", but
isn't there something in the programming code that says, "If you output
something in quotation marks, there must be a real-world source that used
that particular text", or "Don't output a URL unless it works"?

R' Joel Rich wrote:
> In its current format ChatGPT will not have all the data on the
> poseik because it will only include written responses not any of
> the discussions that led up to those and not ones that were oral.

Yes, but that's true of ALL human poskim too. For example, how many times
have I heard, "Acharon XYZ would not have paskened that way if he had seen
what Rishon ABC had written, but it was not yet published in XYZ's day."
But this never stopped anyone from trying their hardest and issuing a psak.

RJR again:
> A more basic issue in the whole meta-physical context is what is
> consciousness or sentience, how do we know the ChatGPT will not
> have hashraat shechina.

Yes indeed, that is THE most basic issue here. I can't help but wonder if
these computers might genuinely have the sentience of a young child. They
sure do lie like one!

Akiva Miller
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I have noticed that in a number of chareidi shuls that I attend from time
to time there seems to be a practice that if there is no chiyuv, a younger
teenage boy goes up as the shatz. I was wondering as to the halachic
underpinnings of this practice given: ?Hence, the chazan must be an
upright, highly regarded, humble, amiable person, who has a pleasant voice
and is accustomed to reading the Torah, Nevi?im and Ketuvim? (Shulchan
Aruch 53:4)

Thoughts?

Hashem Oz Lamo Yiten Hashem Yvarech Et Amo Bashalom
????????? ???? ????????? ??????? ????????? ????????? ???????????
???????????:

Joel Rich
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You will struggle to find anyone who is accustomed to reading the Ketuvim.


On Wed, 1 Nov 2023 at 13:15, Joel Rich via Avodah <avo...@lists.aishdas.org>
wrote:?Hence, the chazan must be an upright, highly regarded, humble,
amiable person, who has a pleasant voice and is accustomed to reading the
Torah, Nevi?im and Ketuvim? (Shulchan Aruch 53:4)
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On Wed, Nov 01, 2023 at 06:30:42AM +0200, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
> I have noticed that in a number of chareidi shuls that I attend from time
> to time there seems to be a practice that if there is no chiyuv, a younger
> teenage boy goes up as the shatz. I was wondering as to the halachic
> underpinnings of this practice given: "Hence, the chazan must be an
> upright, highly regarded, humble, amiable person, who has a pleasant voice
> and is accustomed to reading the Torah, Nevi'im and Ketuvim" (Shulchan
> Aruch 53:4)

The SA is talking about hiring a Chazan on a permanen basis. Not an
ad-hoc Shatz the gabbai has to find.

But that only says it's mutar. Doesn't the din for hiring a Chazan
indicate that anyone else would be sub-optimal for a one-time sha"tz?

But there are two counteveiling concerns:

First, we need someone who can grow up comfortable taking the amud
for when he is a zaqein veragil.

Second, we need teens to feel like they belong and are tied into the
shul. Makes sure more of them grow up to be shomerei Torah uMitzvos,
anavim, etc...

(Not sure why you mention Chareidi shuls in particular. Serpharadim
go further, and will put a qatan up for Pesuqei deZimra, Qabbalas
Shabbos, and some eidos -- even Maariv.)


Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Weeds are flowers too
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   once you get to know them.
Author: Widen Your Tent             - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne)
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF


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