Avodah Mailing List

Volume 42: Number 35

Tue, 21 May 2024

• 1. Re: dibbur (Zvi Lampel)
• 2. Interest and modern economies (Marty Bluke)
• 3. Re: Rabbi Akiva's Students' Deaths as Soldiers in Bar Kochba's Army? A thorough critique of the theory (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: Kitniyos (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: El Al Flights To JFK Airport In New York (Micha Berger)

>
> On Wed, May 15, 2024 at 05:59:43AM +0300, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
> > The Rambam in the peirush hamishnayot (Avot 1:16) categorizes types of
> > dibbur. 1. Mtzaveh (commanded) 2. Asur (forbidden) 3. Maus {disgusting}
> 4.
> > Ahava (beloved) and 5. Mutar (permitted.)



> How do you understand 4 -- Is it a
> > mitzvah or an inyan (and the flip for 3)? Is HKBH indifferent in cases of
> > 5.?
>

If the word "mitzvah" in your question has the same meaning as Mitzvah in
the Rambam's list, then obviously #4 (Ahuvah) is not a mitzvah.

The Rambam spells out each category of speech. And Ahuvah is indeed the
flip for Maus.

#1, "Mitzvah: Things the Torah commands us to articulate [in appropriate
circumstances]: E.g. reading and learning the Torah and Talmud, as it is
stated (Deuteronomy 6:7), "and you shall speak in them."

#2. Asur (forbidden): Things the Torah prohibits us from articulating:
false testimony, lies, rechilus, blasphemy, nivul peh, lashon hara

#3. Maus (disgusting): Speech that is not forbidden or
considered rebellious, yet provides no benefit to one's soul: what the
masses mostly indulge in, which the sages called sichah betaylah--news, how
king so-and-so conducts himself in his palace, what was the cause of
so-and-so's death, or how so-and-so became wealthy. These are kinds of
topics the chassidim strive to let go of speaking about. The category of
Maus also includes speech that praises contemptible ideas or character
traits, or that demeans admirable ones.

#4. Ahuvah (beloved): Speech that promotes derech eretz, including that in
inspirational stories and songs, that praises high intellectual or
behavioral standards and those who maintain them, and disparages the
opposite,

#5. Muitar (permitted): Speech addressing those matters that apply to
mankind regarding [what is necessary for] his livelihood, eating and
drinking, clothing and all else that is permitted. There is no love of it
or disgust with it; but one who minimizes such speech is commended.

I think the last line (which the Rambam wrote in passive form, I think to
include HKBH as an inexplicit subject) answers the last question.

Zvi Lampel
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Dad Yomi recently learned the 5th perek of Bava Metzia which deals with
interest and the gemara stresses the severity of the prohibition of taking
interest. It is so severe that one who violates the prohibition is like a
kofer bakol and will lose all their money.
The question is how do we reconcile this prohibition with modern economic
systems. Every modern economy today runs on interest. It is the lifeblood
of the economy. The most important person in the country in terms of
economics is the head of the central bank. His decisions about interest
rates affect the economy more than any politician can. With the Torah
prohibiting interest does that mean a Torah society cannot have a modern
economy? I understand that there are workarounds but those raise a larger
question. If taking interest makes you a kofer then surely circumventing
the prohibition through technical means is not what the Torah wants. So how
can we have a modern economy Al pi Torah given the prohibition on interest?
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On Tue, May 14, 2024 at 06:24:51PM -0400, Zvi Lampel via Avodah wrote:
>> The idea that the Y-mi's "iskarah" wasn't a lung disease (askara) but the
>> type of low-ranking Roman soldier who carried a dagger (sicarii) also fits
>> Igeres R Sherira Gaon referring to their deaths as a "shamda". Persecution
>> is a term we would use for something caused by people, not disease.

> RSY is here countering the known (to him) arguments that have been made
> (and documents them naming names) based on Rav Sherira Gaon's attribution
> of "shamda" to Rabbi Akiva's students' death ("vehayah shamda al talmidim

Except that what I said about "iskara" is found in most divrei Torah
that refer to the idea at al. (Hit Google
<https://www.google.com/search?&;q=%22sicarii%22+rabbi+akiva%27s+students>
and ignore the hits that are mine. Looking further, I think this element
started with R Shlomo Riskin; but many others run with it.)

The daggers were "sicae", so a soldier who weilds a dagger is a "sicario"
-- "sicarii" in plural. "Sicarii" makes it to Hebrew as the name of a
group of Zealots in the war that led to the Churban -- the Siqariyum. And
in South American Spanish idiom, a "sicario" is a hitman.

I think RSY's oversight of a key part of the argument as frequently
presented is a major limitation of the article you shared. It doesn't
matter if you can give alternate explanations for all of the bases of
a theory except the most compelling one.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Today is the 26th day, which is
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   3 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer.
Author: Widen Your Tent      Hod sheb'Netzach: When is domination or taking
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF       control just a way of abandoning one's self?

On Mon, May 13, 2024 at 09:40:23AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote:
> It seems that the Kitniyos ban may have been misinterpreted. The ban may
> well only apply to cooked and baked Kitniyot but not to raw,fresh Kitniyot
> such as sweet peas, sugar snaps etc.and peanuts and peanut butter.

Some say the minhag extends the some of the treatment of grains to
qitniyos, and others, that qitniyos are an extension of the treatment
of chameitz. As I wrote on Apr 22nd:
> This assumes the minhag is to treat qitniyos like one of the five
> grains, and not like a pre-dough mixture.

> R Melameid is meiqil (9:6) but he does note that there are machmirim.
> Those who are meiqil also include Shulchan Arukh haRav 453:5, and the
> Chayei Adam (127:1). However, the Sho'el uMeishiv 1:1:175 and Maamar
> Mordechai (#32) are machmir. They argue that since we aren't talking
> about things that actually become chameitz, whether or not they are wet,
> nevermind wet long enough for a grain to become chameitz, is irrelevant.

Can we say the Sho'el uMeishiv or Maamar Mordechai "misinterpreted"
the minhag?

I mean, maybe the fear was that mashed peas might be confused with a
dough, even without water. And then the minhag isn't not about mistakenly
making chameitz thinking you were working with pure pea powder, but
about eating chameitz thinking it was a pea product.

We don't even know if it's a machloqes, or if different regions practiced
similar seeming but different minhagim. You may either be picking sides
in a machloqes, or describing one community's minhag but not another's.


..
> It seems strange then to suggest a credible risk existed that these same
> people who were so exemplary and careful in baking their daily Matza,
> ensuring that it not be Chamets, would somehow confuse Kitniyot with wheat
> and barley, inadvertently producing Chamets.

And yet the Gra, who lived before most bought "matzah bakery" matzah,
offered just that as the *talmudic* point from which the minhag evolved.

    Rav Papi allowed the exilarch's manor's kitchen staff to thicken the
    stew with lentils. Rava said: is there one who permits this activity
    in a place where servants are common? Others say: Rava personally
    allowed lentils in the stewpot.
                                - Pesachim 40b

Wether you take the first version or second version of Rava, the kitchen
staff shouldn't be allowed to make lentils on Pesach, whereas Rava
himself could.

The Gra suggests that the minhag of qitniyos grew from thinking we were
more like the kitchen staff than the reish galusa in the likelihood of
our making a mistake.

But this would justify the qitniyos may be confused with grains model. If
you are comparing qitniyos with dough...

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Today is the 26th day, which is
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   3 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer.
Author: Widen Your Tent      Hod sheb'Netzach: When is domination or taking
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF       control just a way of abandoning one's self?

On Mon, May 13, 2024 at 05:12:54PM -0500, Jay F. Shachter via Avodah wrote:
> I don't know why El Al flights don't fly over the Holon cemetery
> (maybe some reader of this mailing list can address that -- I would
> thank that Iggroth Moshe Yoreh De`ah 164:276 [1973] is dispositive),
> because if you fly El Al often, the chances are good that you have
> shared your airplane with several dead Jews in the cargo area.

El Al actually has weekly flights that will never carry a meis for this
very reason. And maybe a kohein should ask, at least on El Al, (Shema
Shlomo, YD 18), because then the probability is significant (around 45%
of flights). RMF wouldn't allow a kohein flying on the same flight as a
meis (YD 2:164), but I think others hold the cargo area is its own ohel,
and this isn't necessarily a problem.

...
> Actually, an airplane flying over a cemetery does not present the
> exact same fact pattern as the partition between the cargo area and
> the passenger area, because airplanes are actually quite porous...

I thought planes had pressurized cabins, because the air pressure can
be quite low at flying altitudes. Which would make they are sealed.

But an ohel can have a much bigger hole than one air can link through
and still be an ohel.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Today is the 26th day, which is
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   3 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer.
Author: Widen Your Tent      Hod sheb'Netzach: When is domination or taking
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF       control just a way of abandoning one's self?


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