Avodah Mailing List

Volume 17 : Number 094

Friday, July 21 2006

• Re: Music during the Three Weeks
• Re: Music during the Three Weeks
• RE: MB/Yeshiva Communities
• Re: historical contingency and brachos
• Re: historical contingency and brachos
• Re: historical contingency and brachos
• Re: How do Achronim become Rishonim?
• Re: Music during the Three Weeks
• Re: Music during the Three Weeks
• Yesh Koach laakor
• Re: Broken Windows Theory
• Re: MB/Yeshiva Communities
• Re: historical contingency and brachos
• RE: historical contingency and brachos
• RE: Music during the Three Weeks
• Re: MB/Yeshiva Communities

On Thu, Jul 20, 2006 at 11:42:03PM -0400, Shmuel Weidberg wrote:
: Doesn't answer your question, but R' Shlomo Miller did asser acapella
: that is difficult to distinguish from musical instruments.

RYBS's pesaqim in this regard are unique, but just to fill in more
of the survey...

RYBS holds that the problem with music during aveilus (including also
omer and the 3 weeks) has nothing to do with instruments, and a capella
would be just as assur as instrumental music. OTOH, he holds it does
have to do with dancing and parties.

RHSchachter limits this to being in contrast with listening to music
to study it. I do know that in the community of RYBS's followers, many
listen to music in the car, but would not attend a bar mitzvah during
the omer unless compelled by overwhelming shalom bayis issue (e.g. your
sister-in-law is making a bar mitzvah...)

RANebenzahl gave a heter to attend a classical concert even during
aveilus for a parent, r"l.

See also the thread in vol13 titled "Music during Sefira". Along the
way, RAMiller quotes R' Eider as making the instrument issue decisive,
according to "most poskim". Kayadua, this is what most observant Jews
do.

Also, when we speak of music we aren't talking "Eli Tzion".

:-)BBii!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             With the "Echad" of the Shema, the Jew crowns
micha@aishdas.org        G-d as King of the entire cosmos and all four
http://www.aishdas.org   corners of the world, but sometimes he forgets
Fax: (270) 514-1507      to include himself.     - Rav Yisrael Salanter

On Thu, Jul 20, 2006 at 11:42:03PM -0400, Shmuel Weidberg wrote:
: Doesn't answer your question, but R' Shlomo Miller did asser acapella
: that is difficult to distinguish from musical instruments.

RYBS's pesaqim in this regard are unique, but just to fill in more
of the survey...

RYBS holds that the problem with music during aveilus (including also
omer and the 3 weeks) has nothing to do with instruments, and a capella
would be just as assur as instrumental music. OTOH, he holds it does
have to do with dancing and parties.

RHSchachter limits this to being in contrast with listening to music
to study it. I do know that in the community of RYBS's followers, many
listen to music in the car, but would not attend a bar mitzvah during
the omer unless compelled by overwhelming shalom bayis issue (e.g. your
sister-in-law is making a bar mitzvah...)

RANebenzahl gave a heter to attend a classical concert even during
aveilus for a parent, r"l.

See also the thread in vol13 titled "Music during Sefira". Along the
way, RAMiller quotes R' Eider as making the instrument issue decisive,
according to "most poskim". Kayadua, this is what most observant Jews
do.

Also, when we speak of music we aren't talking "Eli Tzion".

:-)BBii!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             With the "Echad" of the Shema, the Jew crowns
micha@aishdas.org        G-d as King of the entire cosmos and all four
http://www.aishdas.org   corners of the world, but sometimes he forgets
Fax: (270) 514-1507      to include himself.     - Rav Yisrael Salanter

Rabbiner Arie Folger wrote:
> ... despite public perception that the "piyutim are a hefseq" opinion won
> out, it really didn't. Piyutim are not considered a hefsek in 'hazarat
> hashatz, except by a small minority, ... According to most everyone else,
> piyutim are inclusions, part and parcel of 'hazarat hashatz.

Can someone please explain this to me? AIUI, the piyutim were added many
centuries after the text of the Amidah was fixed, and no one ever said
them as part of their silent Amidah. So it cannot be the case that we
say them in order to be motzi one who doesn't know how to daven. So what
purpose do they have, and why is that purpose best filled by inserting
them into the Amidah?

I admit that most of the above can be asked of Kedushah as well, and
answers in that vein are sought for too.

The only answer I've heard is that the subject matter of the piyut
is relevant to the subject matter of the bracha into which it is
inserted. But to me, that seems at best an explanation of why, b'dieved,
it is not the sort of hefsek which would require one to repeat the
tefillah. It does not explain why the piyutim were added to the chazaras
hashatz begin with, as opposed to being inserted elsewhere in the service.

Akiva Miller

I wrote:
> I am willing to accept that in other cultures, bread was the
> ikar of the meal, and the meat was eaten to enhance the 
> bread, but to me such logic seems somewhat bizarre.

R' Micha Berger offered:
> Just to help the mental picture seem less bizarre: We're talking
> flat middle-eastern breads, and eating by scooping up spreads
> (techinah and chumus) and finely chopped foods. Everything
> becomes means of adding taste and nutrition to the bread.

That's exactly my point! In *those* Mideast situations, of course the
bread is the ikar of the meal! I'm talking about Westerners, Jewish or
not, who sit down to a plate of meat and vegetables, and the only bread
present is a small amount at the start of the meal, eaten for reasons
of either ritual or boredom.

Akiva Miller

RMB:
> We're talking flat middle-eastern breads, and eating by  scooping
> up spreads (techinah and chumus) and finely chopped foods.  Everything
> becomes means of adding taste and nutrition to the bread.

> I had that experience in a Teimani home....

1) I don't know what possessed me to buy a frozen package labelled
"Yemenite Malawach" but I did -- and now realize that I don't have a
clue what to do with it. What bracha is it, how is it eaten? Is it
a flaky dough like a knish and the bracha is mezonos? Is it bread and
the bracha is hamotzi?

>                                                   (As well as some treif
> Indian restaurants I've nursed a beer in for business purposes.

2) How do you get around the problem of mar'is ayin "nursing a beer"
in a treif restaurant? This relates to a backstage discussion I had with
someone -- how can a frum person sit in a treif restaurant altogether?
I know that people do, for business purposes, but it is far from clear
to me how and when that would be OK.

 -Toby  Katz
=============

On Friday, 21. July 2006 12:08, Avodah wrote:
> But I also realized something else: My blog entry (which, after all,
> will lack the defendability of a PhD thesis, despite this discussion)
> wasn't written with a focus on pesaq. This discussion refocused the
> topic, and I hadn't noticed.

> Picture one of the rishonim from the Golden Era of Sepharad finding
> himself amongst Chassidei Ashkenaz. "Self-flagellation as a means of
> repentence??? What religion is this?"

> I was extrapolating more from those kinds of differences backward.

Now you start making sense. There were no inherent fundamental
differences, nor were these desirable. Instaed, because of lack of fast
communication media, divergence happened and was tolerated. In addition,
there was a layer of desirable divergence on top, a derekh, as we would
say today. Finally, because the circumstances of each of the shevatim
was different, the application of the same theory could be different.

If the above describes your position pretty well, I find it attractive,
though somewhat speculative, however, also somewhat compelling.

> Side note: 10 of the Shevatim were onesim by Malkhus Yisrael law from
> going to aliyas haregel. Its role in being able to have a convention to
> standardize practice between shevatim (assuming one believes they wanted
> to) would have been limited.

But they also descended into behaviour that was clearly undesirable,
hence you can't prove anything from there. "Nebech a sindiger" (a play
on "nebech an apikoires") comes to mind. In fact, that story shows how
dependant klal Yisrael was on the contact with Y-M.

KT,
Arie Folger

R. Rich Wolpoe
>I am not sure HOW the Bavli got to be so per-eminent.

There is a history there. It involved the decline of the EY community
under Byzantine persecution, which is why the Yerushalmi was virtually a
'rush job,' lacking much of the stamma de-gemara which glues the Bavli
text together. At the same time that the EY community and its influence
was declining, the Bavli community and its influence begun to expand. In
addition, there were actual campaigns by certain figures (Pirkoi ben
Baboi comes to mind) to spread the Bavli to different communities. We
have extant letters from him.

By the time it *was* preeminent the rishonim viewed its preeminence as
right due to halakha ke-batroi, reasoning that the latter (i.e. Bavli)
authorities were familiar with the positions of the Yerushalmi and afilu
hachi disagreed where they did, so their opinions would rightly be more
authoritative.

SW

R' Micha Berger wrote
> Also, when we speak of music we aren't talking "Eli Tzion".

Because it's part of tefille, or because it's a solemn melody? People
have a lot of hanoe from it, still humming it in the street with a smile
on their face weeks after Tishebaf. And then we'd have to talk a lot of
classical music and blues, too. No "shpringen un tantzen".

I don't play or listen to any music during oumertzait and the drai
vochen and didn't in the aveiles year, on instruments or recorded,
but halachically, the minneg and it's nafkeminnes are a bit hard to
understand, in particular if you have no issue with music all year
round. The latter question is above the level of minneg. (A historical
explanation why people did and do listen to music might be geseire
she-ein hatzibber yochel laamed bo. It's just too much to ask for.)

Lipman Phillip Minden

Shmuel Weidberg <ezrawax@gmail.com> wrote:
> Doesn't answer your question, but R' Shlomo Miller did asser acapella
> that is difficult to distinguish from musical instruments.

And then again their are Poskim, like the one I rely upon, who Matir
recorded music during the three weeks, sfira, and even during the period
of an actual aveilus.

HM 

Go to <http://www.bcbm.org> for an excellent shiur "CBY YU Summer
Kollel Rav Sacks Davar Shebiminyan Tzarich Minyan Acher Lihatiro and
Amirah Laakum"
One point which we've discussed before is Yesh Koach Laakor - while we
discussed it broadly, one possible application was dvarim shbaal peh iy
ata rshai.....
If you hold this is an akira, The mishkenot Yaakov in choshen mishpat
2 says that these are never lo plug (categorical) and thus don't need
minyan lhatiro if the reason for the rabbinic decree disappears.

KT
Joel Rich

> To stop this, the solution is to fix the broken windows. The people
> who broke them don't need to be arrested in order for this to work
> (according to the theory. As discussed on Areivim, I don't think the
> data support this theory).

You are defining the "broken window theory" way too narrowly. It is
not just about broken windows, but about taking small breaches of law
and order seriously. If a window is broken, fix it. If a kid jumps the
turnstile instead of paying his fare on the subway, arrest him. Arrest
the panhandlers and squeegee men, or at least stop them from approaching
and bothering people. Don't let people sleep on subway grates.

When Giuliani started cleaning up these daily, "minor" irritations,
New York became a markedly more civil city, and not only did the rate
of petty crime drop, but the rate of serious crime dropped, too.

There may have been other factors. For example, there is a theory that
twenty years after Roe v Wade, the crime rate began to fall because
so many members of the criminal class had been aborted. Thus, many of
them never reached the high-crime-rate age of teens and twenties.

However there is pretty strong evidence that the main factor in the drop
in crime had to do with paying attention to the "little" crimes and thus
giving criminals the idea that the grown-ups were back in town and would
not let them get away with things anymore.

A similar idea can be found in Pirkei Avos where it says, "Hevei zahir
bemitzva kala kevachamura." Although the idea behind that is that you
don't really know what is a "major" and what is a "minor" mitza in G-d's
eyes, there is certainly also an idea being conveyed that if you are
careless about the little things, you will in time not be so careful
about the big things, either.

 -Toby  Katz
=============

Re: R' Micha's question on making up skipped p'sukei d'zimra 
> The Gra says no, and while the world holds otherwise, I could use help
> finding a conflicting maqor.

As there are many who wrote about the minhag "ha-oilem", I assume your
looking for someone who agrees with the Gra. If so, this is what I have
to offer:

The Tola'at Ya'akov (R' Meir ben Yehezkel ibn Gabai) wrote that
"one should not go back later to read p'sukei d'zimra... as he is
m'hapekh ha-seder ha-'elyon according to which all our prayers are
organized. Because some poskim were not aware of this sod, they wrote
that, after davening, one should go back and and say all he skipped."

This is quoted in Siddur Nehora Hashalem, Slavita, 1833, page 47b just
before barukh she'amar.

Considering the possible horrible results, might I hope that no one on
this list would want to m'hapekh ha-seder ha-'elyon?

k"t,
David

T613K@aol.com wrote:
> 2) How do you get around the problem of mar'is ayin "nursing a beer"
> in a treif restaurant? ...

As expalined to me by my Rebbe, RAS (IIRC):

Maras Ayin on Shabbos is Assur Afilu BaChadrei Chadorim. This means no
matter how far you are "out of town" even if you are positive no one
will ever see you, if you do something that looks like Chilul Shabbos,
it is Assur.

Other types of Maras Ayin are relative to whether anyone will actually see
you or not. Therefore, AIUI, going into a treif restaurant in a situation
where no one will see you and having a beer, there is no Maras Ayin.

HM

[Rn Toby Katz:]
> 2) How do you get around the problem of mar'is ayin "nursing a beer"
> in a treif restaurant? ...

 From a recent presentation by R' Genack of the OU in West Orange as
reported by the local jewish News:

Genack offered an overview of the principle of ma'arat ayin, including
examples from rabbinic sources, and then applied them to business meetings
at non-kosher restaurants. "We are not permitted to leave wet clothing
out to dry because people will misinterpret it and think we washed them
on Shabbos," Genack said, citing the Talmud.

Applying the same logic to a business lunch in a non-kosher restaurant,
he said, "Nowadays, people know what a business lunch is.... You're
allowed to go into a non-kosher restaurant and do business if you're not
going to [eat] anything." The question becomes more complicated if the
person wants to eat something - even uncooked - kosher food, such as a
melon. "That's ma'aras ayin," since others might spot a yarmulke-wearing
Jew bent over a meal in a non-kosher restaurant and get the impression he
is eating treif food. However, Genack added, there is a proviso. "Let's
say you're absolutely famished. Then you could order a melon" or other
uncooked, permitted food. But, he pointed out, a cold salad "is not
simple" because the laws of kashrut demand that certain types of lettuce
be inspected for insects.

Genack also took up the issue of a business meeting where the observant
Jew is provided with a kosher meal from an outside purveyor. If, however,
the utensils and dishes are kosher but look no different from the other
diners', he said, "mamish [verily] that's ma'aras ayin." The solution,
said Genack, is to "leave the [kosher] seal from the food on the table
where people can see it."

KT
Joel Rich

R' Lipman Phillip Minden:
> (A historical
> explanation why people did and do listen to music might be geseire
> she-ein hatzibber yochel laamed bo. It's just too much to ask for.)

IIRC, R' Ya'akov Kamenetsky told my father something similar. He said
that we're too nervous. My father asked him what about Sefira and the
three weeks, and he indicated that we can stand that much.

KT,
MYG

From: afolger@aishdas.org
> Which just shows that despite public perception that the "piyutim are a
> hefseq" opinion won out, it really didn't Piyutim are not considered a
> hefsek in 'hazarat hashatz, except by a small minority, whose 'hazarat
> hashatz on RH & YK would look radically different from anything we
> know. R. 'Hayim Brisker is said to have had that in his minyan.
> According to most everyone else, piyutim are inclusions, part and parcel
> of 'hazarat hashatz.

As a shitckle historian I will weigh in on this

Although Bavli has a sort of nusach to the Amidah, it was by NO MEANS
fixed. That came later and Rav Amram Gaon, etc. made a big impact
on this...

While the Amida was quite fluid, payattanim were at work. Yossi Ben Yossi
is probably the first. Kallir has been dated as 700 - 850, but we now
have strong evidence he flourished about 580 in pre-Moslem Israel when
the Bavli was just being popularized.

Asheknezic Rishonim embraced kallir and Meshullam Ben Laonymos withou
hesitation. Tur cites R'MAH as in the Yad R'MAH who in a teshuva blasts
piyyutim. I don't know why Tur deserted Ashkenzic Tradition to go against
establihsed practcice, but Rema Isserles, Bach, Taz, etc. come back
to defend.

Now the moderns are a bit revisionistic. It's as if the Bavli HAD a
fixed nusach and therefore Piyyutim are now deemd a hefsek. That is
anachronistic...

What is a trend amongst BOTH Chassidim and followers of the Gra - to
roll back Asheknazic Rishonim in favor of more stripped down version of
Liturgy, etc. This is much too long a topci to go in depth but mostly
the same people who eschew Piyyutim eschew Baruch hashelm Lo'lom in
Ma'ariv as also problematic.

But let's face facts. Every and ANY piyyut in the service that has an
alpphabetci acrostic is by definition post Talmudic.

So Keil Baruch G'dol Dei'aj
Keil Adon
Tikanta Shabbos
are all such piyyutim.

The principle of withcing piyyutim from chol to Shabbos, imho, sets a
precedent for adding piyyyutim on Regalim and Yamim Nora'im.

Unfortunately, SOME piyyutim get WAY off topic. And that is ein hachi
name a problem.

The Arizal takes - imho- a very elegant aproach. he endorses the Piyyimt
of Kallir and others "who knew what they wer doing" and eschews the
piyyutim of later payatanim. This Possibly attributable to the fact that
Kallir was quite into proto-kabbalah etc.

And with the exception of Breuer's even shuls that SAY piiyyutim don't
say them all. They are there as "buffet" to pick and choose. It would
make sense to do this for Selichos, too, bizzmeneinu since the halacha
is tov m'at bichavan. Better a samll sslection of beautfiul Piyyutim
said with real kavanah then lots rsuhed thru.

Think of Hoshanos. We say one good Hoshana with a meodloy every day. On
Hoshana rabba we say 7, and thne most shuls daven-up the rest of the
hoshanos really fast. These were meant to be said by people who were into
making Hoshana rabba a yom Hadin and those hosafos need to be recited
with feeling

'nuff said for now

Good Shabbos
 -RRW

Kol Tuv
Regards,
RabbiRichWolpoe@aol.com   

*********************


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