Avodah Mailing List

Volume 04 : Number 442

Thursday, March 16 2000

• Tav l'Meisav:
• Re: Avodah V4 #441
• Diyyuk Redux
• Moshe Rabbeinu
• Criticizing the Avos
• Re: Moshe Rabbeinu
• Re: Moshe Rabbeinu
• The Hidden City PreExilic Jerusalem Located
• [none]
• Mordochai and More; medical alert
• Re: Criticizing the Avos
• A Tale of Two Rabbis

----- Original Message -----
From: David and Tamar Hojda <hojda@netvision.net.il>
To: <avodah@aishdas.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2000 4:05 PM


> Please explain. Aren't there numerous instances where Chazakas regarding
> human behavior would seem to no longer apply and a contemporary Posek
would
> not assume that they do apply, by default, to a specific case? ("Ain adam
> oseh b'eilaso b'eilas znus", for example). Is this one, perhaps, different

To the best of my understanding, this chazoko is also still assumed to be
inforce. We assume that an individual who is willing to be bo'eil nidda is
also open to bi'as zenus (Rivash) and has been motzsi him (or her)self from
the chazoko, but otherwise it is in effect.

> because it is perhaps based on a societal norm that has now changed, as
> opposed to certain other chazakas which deal with man's basic nature,
which
> does not change? How do we know the difference? We do know that
> post-Sanhedrin Rabbonim (Tanaim, Amoraim, Rishonim, Acharonim) have openly
> declared that certain halachic assumptions no longer apply because,
"Nature
> has changed" - See the sefer by Rav Neriah Moshe Gutal, Hishtanut HaTevaim
> B'Halacha.
>

I dunno. Generally those were "safek sakkono" ones like mayim megulim, etc.,
not potential d'orysas.

> If I am not mistaken, doesn't Rav Moshe (even one generation ago, when
Jews
> were less promiscuous), question the applicability of the above chazaka to
> Modern Jewish society?
>

Only based on the Rivash.

His heter on C/R/Civil ceremonies is that the couple thinks their bi'ah is
not bi'as zenus because it was sanctioned by a pastor or justice, and
therefore has no subsequent da'as kiddushin.

> Certain things seem to be beyond the bounds of consideration - gross
anatomy
> issues that impact on hilchos treifos, for example. But, it does seem that
> some other things are not.
>
> David Hojda
>

Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer
http://www.aishdas.org/baistefila    ygb@aishdas.org

On Micha's comment that "Mosheh Rabbeinu wore a nose ring" David Finch
notes:
> Yes. The first Jewish husband.

Considering that Moshe Rabbenu presumably divorced Tsippora before Matan
Torah, he probably was not the first jewish husband!

Here are a few more on the Diyyuk thread:

Yigdal:
    Hino adon alom *L*'chol notzar;
    
    vs.
    
    Hino adon Olam!  *V*'chol notzar yoreh...
    
    
    The Roedelhiem siddur has it the first way, the Roedlehim machzor the 2nd 
    way!

Kaddish d'rabbonon

     Kodom avuhon divshmayo
     
     v'Yeish Gorsin: divsihmaya v'ar'oh
     
     but the v'aroh seems a later inerpolation...
     Baer in Avodas Yisrael has a piece on this - ayein sham!

Saying the the kedusha d'sidroso out loud:
     In KAJ, while they do say kedusha out loud in Uva liTziyon,
     the minhag is NOT to say it out loud in the Va'to Kadosh that is said on 
     Motza'ei Shabbos, Purim, etc.

Richard_wolpoe@ibi.com

On 16 Mar 00, at 16:51, Prof. Aryeh A. Frimer wrote:

> Considering that Moshe Rabbenu presumably divorced Tsippora before Matan
> Torah, he probably was not the first jewish husband!
> 

I don't think that's correct. The Gemara says *peirash* min ha'isha. 
That's separation, not divorce. If Moshe had divorced her, the 
Gemara would have said "*geirash* es ishto." 

Moreover, the Gemara says that Miriam found out that Moshe had 
left Tzipora when she heard her talking after Eldad and Meidad got 
nevua. If Moshe had divorced her, why would she have said that 
Moshe left (as opposed to divorcing her)? Why would she not have 
remarried?

And, if Moshe had divorced her, wouldn't that have been a maaseh 
beis din that would have been publicized? Why isn't it mentioned in 
the Torah? Wouldn't Miriam have known about it?

-- Carl


Carl M. Sherer, Adv.
Silber, Schottenfels, Gerber & Sherer
Telephone 972-2-625-7751
Fax 972-2-625-0461
mailto:cmsherer@ssgslaw.co.il
mailto:sherer@actcom.co.il

Please daven and learn for a Refuah Shleima for my son,
Baruch Yosef ben Adina Batya among the sick of Israel.
Thank you very much.

I know this is sheer egoism, but it seems that at Tradition they have a
sub-editorial committee whose purpose is to find and publish essays that I
find distressing. In the latest issue there is a piece "justifying" modern
criticism of the Avos. The essay could have been written based on Avodah
postings, as all the material has been hashed and rehashed here before. The
essay does include some gratuitous swipes at the JO, those who enjoy that
sort of stuff should find those passages fun. In general, the paucity of
sources other than some examples in RSRH (all of which, I believe, we have
discussed here ab nauseum) for this practice of criticizing the Avos warms
the cockles of the opposing heart.

Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer
http://www.aishdas.org/baistefila    ygb@aishdas.org

Question: Doesn't the Rambam equate separation to divorce during the 
pre-Matan Torah era?

Richard_Wolpoe@ibi.com

______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Moshe Rabbeinu 

> Considering that Moshe Rabbenu presumably divorced Tsippora before Matan 
> Torah, he probably was not the first jewish husband!
> 

I don't think that's correct. The Gemara says *peirash* min ha'isha. 
That's separation, not divorce. If Moshe had divorced her, the 
Gemara would have said "*geirash* es ishto." 

Moreover, the Gemara says that Miriam found out that Moshe had 
left Tzipora when she heard her talking after Eldad and Meidad got 
nevua. If Moshe had divorced her, why would she have said that 
Moshe left (as opposed to divorcing her)? Why would she not have 
remarried?

And, if Moshe had divorced her, wouldn't that have been a maaseh 
beis din that would have been publicized? Why isn't it mentioned in 
the Torah? Wouldn't Miriam have known about it?

-- Carl


Carl M. Sherer, Adv.
Silber, Schottenfels, Gerber & Sherer 
Telephone 972-2-625-7751
Fax 972-2-625-0461
mailto:cmsherer@ssgslaw.co.il
mailto:sherer@actcom.co.il

Please daven and learn for a Refuah Shleima for my son, 
Baruch Yosef ben Adina Batya among the sick of Israel. 
Thank you very much.

On 16 Mar 00, at 11:44, richard_wolpoe@ibi.com wrote:

> Question: Doesn't the Rambam equate separation to divorce during the 
> pre-Matan Torah era?

I don't know, but it's kind of irrelevant. That's the other point I forgot 
to make. If Moshe separated from his wife, it was after Matan 
Torah. Because whatever separation he had from her before Matan 
Torah was the same separation that the rest of Klal Yisrael had, 
and was therefore not a divorce. Certainly you couldn't argue that 
they all divorced their wives for the three days leading up to Matan 
Torah? Think of all the problems that would have caused for 
Kohanim.... Besides, "v'ata po amod imadi" was said after Matan 
Torah.

-- Carl

____________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
> Subject: Moshe Rabbeinu 
> 
> > Considering that Moshe Rabbenu presumably divorced Tsippora before Matan 
> > Torah, he probably was not the first jewish husband!
> > 
> 
> I don't think that's correct. The Gemara says *peirash* min ha'isha. 
> That's separation, not divorce. If Moshe had divorced her, the 
> Gemara would have said "*geirash* es ishto." 
> 
> Moreover, the Gemara says that Miriam found out that Moshe had 
> left Tzipora when she heard her talking after Eldad and Meidad got 
> nevua. If Moshe had divorced her, why would she have said that 
> Moshe left (as opposed to divorcing her)? Why would she not have 
> remarried?
> 
> And, if Moshe had divorced her, wouldn't that have been a maaseh 
> beis din that would have been publicized? Why isn't it mentioned in 
> the Torah? Wouldn't Miriam have known about it?
> 
> -- Carl
> 
> 
> Carl M. Sherer, Adv.
> Silber, Schottenfels, Gerber & Sherer 
> Telephone 972-2-625-7751
> Fax 972-2-625-0461
> mailto:cmsherer@ssgslaw.co.il
> mailto:sherer@actcom.co.il
> 
> Please daven and learn for a Refuah Shleima for my son, 
> Baruch Yosef ben Adina Batya among the sick of Israel. 
> Thank you very much.
> 
> 
> 


Carl M. Sherer, Adv.
Silber, Schottenfels, Gerber & Sherer
Telephone 972-2-625-7751
Fax 972-2-625-0461
mailto:cmsherer@ssgslaw.co.il
mailto:sherer@actcom.co.il

Please daven and learn for a Refuah Shleima for my son,
Baruch Yosef ben Adina Batya among the sick of Israel.
Thank you very much.

                 The Hidden City
            PreExilic Jerusalem Located

     The PreBabylonian Jerusalem has remained hidden for thousands of years; 
prominent archaeologists admit they haven’t found it.  Yet, Scripture and 
logic explain where it lays hidden.  It’s the ancient Jebus, an early 
Canaanite City, with an historic castle that subsequently became the 
majestic royal palace for the world’s most famous kings: Saul, David, 
Solomon, and the many that followed them.  It’s also the ancient site of the 
early Levitical City wherein the preserved Holy of Holies and other 
preserved inner recesses of the glorious Solomonic Temple await reentry.   A 
colossal find!  Even the abundant ancient records stored therein and the 
wealth of Temple treasures described in the intriguing Copper Scroll await 
recovery.  But GOD’S Holy Ark is not there as the Prophet Jeremiah hid it 
before King Nebuchadnezzar attacked the City (Jeremiah 43:8-10; II Maccabees 
2:4-8).

     The PreExilic City is also the coveted site raided by marauding armies 
of ancient Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and Babylon.  And the new Jerusalem 
created when Jewry returned from Babylon is not atop this ancient City.

     Note again: People will soon unearth the remnants of Jebus, the great 
castle (fortress) of David, the Solomonic and other Temples.  Findings 
therein should provide substantial treasures and historical records 
concerning the Middle East, Egypt, Mesopotamia, ancient India, perhaps 
China, the Phoenicians, etc.  This discovery should also confirm the 
skeletal history of the ancient world and much more.

     For details see: “The Hidden City: The PreBabylonian Jerusalem”:

http://www.angelfire.com/fl/BriansHouse/hiddencity.html
                        Or
http://Brians_Annex_II.tripod.com/hiddencity.html

     Help reopen Solomon's Temple.  Feel free to link to this site and/or 
forward this email to your mailing lists and interested parties.

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

 Chana/Heather Luntz  writes

>> The same is true of choshen mishpat.  While traditional Zionist thinking
>> held that nothing happened between the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash
>> and the founding of the State of Israel, those of us more rooted in our
>> tradition know that not to be true.  

>> You clearly haven't read siman 2 of Choshen Mishpat in the Tur, as I
>> suggested you should in a previous posting on the subject.  The Tur
>> includes in his long list of punishments that can be meted out at all
>> times and all places (ie not just by those with smicha in Eretz Yisroel)
>> with or without halachic witnesses or strict halachic justification
>> imprisonment in a house of imprisonment (b'beis ha'asurim) and to remain
>> there against his will.  

If you would spend more time with logical arguments than insulting people your
point might be better received. I strongly suspect that zionist rabbis can learn
better than you can and don't need your condescending attitude!
I strongly suggest you read the 3 volume set HaTorah VeHamedina by Tzomet
to see that even zionist rabbis know what has happened the last few 
hundred years. Before you write any article there are a number of articles 
in volume I that deal with hilchot melech, dina demalchuta and takanat hakahal 
in terms of modern day Israel.

As to your nasty comment about siman 2 of Choshen Mishpat in the Tur it is
completely irrelevant to the discussion. As the Tur makes perfectly clear he 
is discussing "horaat shaah" - emergency matters. He explicits states that one
cannot legislate any of these matters and they can be decided only on an
individual basis. Hence, these rules are useless for ruling a state!
The Bach goes further and states that these emergency matters apply only to
matters that involve issurim "lemigdar milta" and not for the benefit of any 
group.  Hence, these emergency rules cannot apply to ordinary crimes .
Thus, I repeat that kippa as a punishment for crimes without witnesses is not
valid under halachah. In fact the whole purpose of emergency rules is that they
supercede what is in the rest of shulchan Arukh.

For the same reason reliance on dina demalchuta is a cop-out. It again basically
says that if halacha can't handle lets go the goyim. Like a shabbos goy.
It may work in practice outside of Israel but it is hardly a philosophic underpinning.
More importantly, dina demalchita does not apply in the state of Israel where
there is no foreign government. No nonzionist posek would accept dina demalchuta
based on the Knesset (though I know of piskei halacha that use it for custom in
hilchot shechenim).

Kehilot of the past were a more homogenous group with organized crime.
What worked in the shtetl of Eastern Europe will not work in Tel Aviv. Plenty
of groups will use the din of gerama to cause damage to opponents without
being responsible. A curse of"mi shepara" is not very effective for someone 
that owes a million dollars. It is no big secret that if one looks at
teshuvat of the last few hundred years in monetary matters they all deal
either with interest laws or fights between neighbors. No major business
complaints were brought to a bet din. A major fight between corporations
today requires months if not years of litigation. No bet din has the
capability to handle such a case. Of course the fact that no bet din can
enforce its decision is another reason for lack of teshuvot in this matter.
Hence, I claim that in fact there is a tremendous paucity of responsa
dealing with real monetary problems compared to the number of responsa
dealing with shabbat or kashrut. In a self enforcing society I would
expect that choshen mishpat questions would be the main job of a bet din.

For a sefer with a full discussion of kinyanim I would suggest "dinei mamanot"
by Rav Batzri. As One sees from his sefer all modern takanot are severely limited
when they contradict issues in the Gemara and shulchan Arukh. Thus, for example
one cannot legislate that one no longer needs a kinyan. According to maybe poskim
one cannot invent new kinyanim and "samtuta" is very limited. Based on kim li
the other side other loses and so in practice I don't see how a wire transfer
done by computers without human intervention can be validated.
Similarly, davar shelo ba leolam cannot be overcome by new legislation by a
kahal. This is especially severe according to Rabbenu Tam  that a kahal can
never introduce new legislation at someones expense.  This is somewhat less of
a problem according to Raviayah but there are still limits on takkanat hakahal.

As a topical example of a problem in criminal law is the problem of rape which
somehow has become a common occurence in Israeli news. According to halachah 
if the girl is over 12 1/2 (bogeret) there is no major crime involved and
the punishment is mainly based on the physical damage. This is even more serious
for date rape where there are no witnesses (though any crime rarely has two 
kosher witnesses). As discussed above a rapist can be punished as an 
individual case beyond the normal limits of the law. This becomes more 
difficult as the number of such cases increases.

The gemara tells us that when murder became too prevelant the Sanhedrin stopped
judging these cases. This may be fine from the philosophical stanpoint but is 
not very satisfying from a practical viewpoint. Of course in the real world the Romans would handle such cases. However, such an attitude becomes a serious drawback in trying to govern a modern secular society.

kol tuv,
Eli Turkel

While I have no wish to review rBannetts fine reprise of the mysteries
of the chataf - nor do I think it medically advisable as the excitement
generated by this topic may be too intense for more frequent visitation
by weaker constitutions - a few peripheral comments are yet in order,
and, being of limited scope, will not, I trust, endanger the public weal.
 

Needless to say none of the pronunciation pronunciamentos below should
be taken seriously by any ba'alei q'rioh.  They pertain only to the pronunciation
of masoretic hebrew (during the 7-10th) and c"v that we should lein like
the ba'alei mesoroh expected us to. 
1.  R Bannett mentions that preceeding a g'ronis (l&p), the shivoh takes
on <a weak mild tint of the respective vowel, just a faint hint of the
vowel sound> and elsewhere inveighs against the tendency to promote the
chatufed letter to a full vowel. I infer from his other remarks that
he is relying on Prof Morag as his authority here , which is certainly
an elan godole to shelter under in these matters - but nevertheless this
ought not be asserted as a simple factual certainty since some parameters
of the matter are in dispute.  Thus other bi'qiim bo'inyon would assert
that the shivoh preceeding the g'ronis was fully assimilated by the vowelization
of the g'ronis, but when a meseg was present was also essentially promoted
from an ultra short to a  full vowel status (indeed diqduqei hasoferim
also speaks of this case as requiring a patach godole. See e.g. margolies
in j. of semitic lang. and lit. 26, 1909).  Also, while there are many
other particular circumstances associated with its pronunciation - which
I don't propose to list here (the two or three people still reading this
paragraph may look them up in the above reference or in any standard
work, e.g.. yeivin's intro to th tiberian mesoroh)  at least one of these
is worth mentioning separately, which is that almost all shivohs in the
middle of a word (unless they preceeded a g'ronis or came under some
reishes) were pronounced like a noch, even if they followed a tinuoh
gidoloh.  Oh yes. And the g'ronis rule cited above is suspended if the
following g'ronis is itself pointed with qometz.

2.  The truism that spoken language is a moving target (at least until
the universal spread of television) illustrated by the obvious divergence
between current realizations of hebrew and the masoretic era instructions
for pronunciation of the shivoh noted above and in RDB's posting has
other implications as well. And that is for consideration of the interesting
question as to how chazal's hebrew (and moshe's for that matter) actually
sounded compared to what the tiberian masoretes proposed and compared
to what we do.  Fortunately there are some clues.  Thus origen's hexapla
(a six column tanach-first column hebrew and the second a greek transliteration,
the other four columns different greek translations - with the third
column that of aquilas hageir and the fourth basically the septuagint
- unfortunately it only survives in fragmentary form) written after rebbe
compiled the mishnoh but before abaye and rovoh were having at it, can
offer some authentically ancient insight. E.g. the transliterated column
indicates that the modern ashqenazi tendency to lose the shivoh noh in
almost every circumstance (even at beginning of words), contra the explicit
masoretic instructions,  was in fact widely practiced during mishnaic-amoraic
times. So, at least in some matters, the more things change,  the more
they don't. 

3.  I find his report re R. Breuer's dissing of the Leningrad Codex 
a bit overdone, though of course RDB is just reporting Breuer's perspective
(I don't have breuer's keter book and thus can't comment directly). While
there are indeed more divergencies in L between its own text and its
own mesorah (which BTW has always been the metric for inclusion in the
category of "siforim ha'miduyoqim".  Not some conformity to any external
standard, e.g. our "modern" chumoshim.  I.e. strictly speaking to speak
of the normative mesoraoh is a misnomer as there is no such thing.  There
are only individual mesorohs associated uniquely with each individual
ms).than in Breuer's preferred Sassoon codex, it is also true that no
other Codex, with the exception of the Ben Asher/Aleppo, conforms more
accurately to the ben Asher tradition as recorded in the masoretic era
work sefer ha'hillufim  (recording the differences bwtween the BA and
ben nathan textual traditions -this latter still had some halachic currency
through the rishonic period - see tishuvos mahari mintz 8)  it agrees
with BA over 80% of the time.  By contrast, the other siforim ha'miduyoqim
(a very small eilte category) including breuer's preferred codex only
agrees with the BA tradition 30- 60% of the time. (amusingly enough even
the BA itself only agrees with the BA tradition 94% of the time. I guess
we must assume that sefer ha'hillufim has itself been defectively transmitted).
As well, the L may be seen to conform more closely to BA tradition in
matters of poroshios pisuchos and sisumos - see penkower's book on the
keter, footnote 125. 

4.  R .Bannett also makes some assertions re the reasons for inclusion/exclusion
of the non-g'ronis chataf which exceed what the source texts support.
 Thus as part of his campaign against the promotion of chataf letters
to full vowels he claims that R. Breuer's decision to drop all non-g'roni
chatfas is driven by his interest in avoiding abetting  mispronunciations
that might result from promotion of the chataf to a full vowel.  He may
be right, but my leaky memory of breuer's article (printed in the back
of his small tanach edition) doesn't support that claim at all.  Rather
I recall breuer claiming that he was dropping it because there was no
single accepted source or methodology for its employment, rather each
sofeir employed it ka'asher yoshor b'einov, so he would simply drop all
of them.  Also it is not accurate to assert that breuer dropped all non-g'ronis
chatafs. In a number of categorical instances, if all the mesorohs concurred
as well, breuer did retain the non-g'ronis chataf. e.g. a non-g'ronis
chataf following a vov ha'hibbur (the only example I remember winging
it here is the one in bireishis -"u'zahav") was retained by breuer.

5.  RDB writes: . < The last line, however, that there is no basis for
the two ways of notation (or reading?) seems to indicate that there is
no difference in pronunciation between the two notations and that the
soferim
have free choice whether or not to give warning in weak syllables. There
was certainly nothing more than a barely distinguishable difference in
sound between the two notations. > the conclusion might, or might not,
be true but simply doesn't logically follow from the fact that each sofeir
was free to choose to deploy a chataf or not.  If anything I would first
assume that a difference in notation did imply a phonological split as
well.  I.e. the chatuf nature of the vowel relates only to its quantity,
not its quality  (to use the obscure jargon of that trade).

6.  Rbannett remarks that there are nine spelling differences between
the Breuer?Keter and the "normal chumoshim'. This is worthy of a slight
expansion.  There were/are indeed nine traditional spelling differences
between the yemenite (now shown to have a spelling identity with the
keter) and the spelling variants taken from both the traditional ashqenazi
and sephardi girso'os.  But there were never nine differences between
the individual ashqenazi   (and possibly sefardi as well, I'm not sure
there) tradition and the keter. Thus the real ashqenazi minhog is to
spell pitzu'oh dacoh with an aleph - just like the yemenite/keter/breuer.
 (indeed in many of the older printed (but mistake rich) chumoshim, such
as the popular letteris edition, will have a specific note at that posuq
that the aleph spelling conforms to ashqenazi mesoroh).  But that was
all before the ashqenazim threw in the towel and essentially adopted
the sephardi girso'os for their torahs. I still can't figure out when
that happened but it must have been fairly recent, and is not I suspect,
everywhere uniform even today.   BTW there are a number of other non-spelling
differences between our current ashqesfard torahs and the yemenites.
 These include matters such as word separation (e.g. "keis-yoh" is written
as two words by yemenites and keter, other word breakup differences bteween
yemenites, breuer, keter, ashqesefard on the words poti-feroh, Ha-(l)adoshem),
the layout of the shiros on the page, use of a "broken " vov in bimidbor
25:12.   And while breuer claims his tanach was identical to the yemenites
(and thus the keter) - and this is true for spelling matters, it is not
true for non-spelling matters such as those already noted, but also the
halachically significant issue of open and closed poroshios, where the
yemenites actually disagree with the keter on the presence of poroshios
in vayiqroh 7:22 and 7:28, and breuer corrects his edition to conform
to the keter.    

7.  Now for Mordochai.  He remarks that he can see no grammatical reason
for this chataf and conjectures that it may have something to do with
fact that it is a name.  However, in fact, this chataf qometz is simply
an example of a class of chataf qometz's that yeivin has described as
"morphological chataf" which has nothing to do with pronunciation problems
(as opposed to "phonological chataf" which indeed is deployed because
of a perceived pronunciation pitfall).   They may occur in the middle
of a word under the second of a pair of letters with shivoh, as here.
Similar examples in "yeh'dofenu" (bemidbor 35:20), "qod'qo'do", "ha'bar'no'qim"
(shoftim 8:7).  Yeivin states that it derives most commonly where the
shivoh derives from a "u" or "o" vowel and there was a tendency to preserve
the original sound.     Finally it is a bit odd to quote  "Heidenheim
and those following him" as a source for employing the chataf qometz
for  Mordochoi. .why quote such a late reconstructive work as moqore
when the authoritative early sources are literally before our eyes. 
Thus the Leningrad Codex everywhere employs a chataf qometz. You can
check the  facsimile edition in any decent jewish library.  And while
one can't check the Ben Asher/Aleppo directly since esther is one of
the sections which didn't survive the 1948 fire, the evidence is that
the Keter also employed the chataf qometz.     

anybody still awake out there?

Mechy Frankel				W: (703) 588-7424
frankemj@acq.osd.mil			H: (301)  593-3949
michael.frankel@dtra.mil 





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In a message dated 3/16/00 11:34:51 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
sbechhof@casbah.acns.nwu.edu writes:

> I know this is sheer egoism,

Chayov Odom Lomar Bshvili Nivra Ho'olom :-)

Kol Tuv

Yitzchok Zirkind

Yesterday, I became aware of something that happened
here in Chicago which has really upset me.  I'm sure
that Avodah is not the proper forum for me to mention
it but since I am helpless to do anything about it,
I'll just vent. Feel free to press the delete button
at this point.


For those of you still here, this is the story:

There are two very popular Rabonim in this town that
have somewhat different constituencies.  That is,
besides being involved with different Shuls they also
tend to attract different types of people. To nflesh
out their personalities a bit, both are well
established within the RW communities. Both are
charismatic. Both have additional careers in Chinuch.
Hashkaficly, one is totally "Lakewood" (Rabbi Ploni)
and the other (Rabbi TIDE) is more intellectually
inclined and brings with him a broader scope of
knowledge while being firmly implanted on the "Right"
side of the aisle.  Both are beloved figures. Recently
it has become somewhat public knowledge here that
Rabbi Ploni will not be re-hired as the Rov of his
Shul.  Reason? He speaks out too often about talking
during Davening etc. Too much Hochacha.  Because
Chinuch does not quite pay all of the bills for Rabbi
Ploni,  there is a danger that this vibrant, popular
personality will leave town for greener pastures.  To
the rescue comes the patron of Rabbi TIDE's Shul , and
tells Rabbi TIDE... "Bye bye". He was told that the
Shul has not grown since he was hired.  Translation: I
 need to give your job to Rabbi Ploni.  He is too
valuable for us.  He is my son's Rebbe next year and
we don't want to lose him.

What a SHAM!  The Shul likely hasn't grown because it
is too small physically and is not in a highly
populous location. Rabbi TIDE is a brilliant speaker,
writer, and Mechanech who is Moser Nefesh for his
Shul, for his students, and anyone who has any
Shaichus with him.  If you talk to any of the Bal
Habatim  of Rabbi TIDE's Shul they will speak only in
superlatives. I know many of them and have heard them
give rave reviews about his tenure as Rav of the Shul.
 Furthermore I happen to know that Rabbi TIDE works
there for only a token salary. His primary income is
from Chinuch. He deserves a lot better than he is
getting.

This is not to cast any aspersions on Rabbi Ploni. I
am a big fan of his and I do not think that he is even
aware of the sordid details. From what I understand
the primary Bal HaBos of Rabbi TIDE's Shul got
together with a close friend of his, one of the most
generous philanthropists in the world from our
community and conspired to save Rabbi Ploni's career
by creating a scenario where Rabbi Ploni will feel
free to take over Rabbi TIDE's job. This, under the
guise that Rabbi TIDE wasn't working out anyway. Not
true, at least not according to the Shul membership.

If I am wrong about the details of the case I would
like to be corrected. And if anyone reading this post
recognizes the  above players and knows the truth,
please confirm or correct. If, however, the facts as I
have stated them are accurate then this is just plain
unfair and insulting to Rabbi TIDE. Antics like this
should be put to a stop. No one should ever be
sacrificed for the benefit of another.  One of the
brightest stars in Chicago is being mistreated. And,
it's not the first time.  

It's not right.  It's almost criminal and I am
outraged.

HM



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