Avodah Mailing List

Volume 17 : Number 096

Tuesday, July 25 2006

• mitzvos kalos and chomuros
• Re: MB/Yeshiva Communities
• Music
• RE: MB/Yeshiva Communities
• Re:Ir haSemuchah laSfar and pikuach nefesh
• Re: Kinot for the Holocaust
• Eli Tziyon tune
• Re: MB/Yeshiva Communities
• Re: historical contingency and brachos
• Pesuqei deZimrah after Shemoneh Esreh
• Re: Music
• Re: Eli Tziyon tune
• Re: Israeli News on NY Erev Shabbos
• Re: Army exemptions
• Re: Halachah k'Mishna Brura
• Re: historical contingency and brachos
• Rav Soloveitchik on Holocaust Kinot
• Subject: Re: Music during the Three Weeks

[RnTK:]
> "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,

I had always seen this as imlplying (or even explying (being explicit))
that there actually are mitzvos that are kal and those that are
chamur. Not that I know which is which, nor do I even know on what
scale these terms are judged. In other words, is it about difficulty? or
the amount of the spiritual effect in the worlds above? or subjectively
biased attitude for or against each mitzvah? Tikun needed? punishment?...
Nonetheless, I don't think it is necessary to add words into the text of
the maamar like a "hachi ka'amar". The maamar simply seems to be saying
that there are mitzvos kalos and mitzvos chamuros.

> Is learning during chazarat hashatz prohibited in Yeshiva communities?

I believe that Shut Vavei Hoamudim permits it when there is otherwise
a minyan to answer.

  M. Levin

I saw a discussion in the Yated a few months ago in which R. Y. Belsky
stated that even acapella recording now considered music and assur. This
is becasue it is digitally mastered with imperfections removed and thus
becomes a recording, perfomred by an instrument and included in the
issur of music.

  M. Levin

RRW:
> 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.

Why does an alphabetical acrostic denote post-Talmudic authorship? Think
Eshes Chayil and L'dovid B'shanoso.

KT,
MYG

[Eichah and Ashrei leap to mind too. -mi]

RYHenkin wrote
> Kiryat Sefer on the Rambam and, among the rishonim, Raavan, Or Zarua and
> others write that the reason for Ir haSemuchah laSfar is pikuach nefesh
> and applies even in chutz laAretz...

I did not mean to imply that RZS' thesis is without basis; I just
questioned if it is muchrach, as he implied. I saw in the Rabbenu
Yehonatan on the Rif (the major mefaresh haRif in Eruvin, where the
Ran and Nemukei Yosef are in other masechtot) that he applies the din
of Ir hasmuchah laSfar to EY. The biblical source of this din is stated
in the gemara itself, in which David HaMelech is commanded by Hashem to
go to battle over a border town, even though the attackers wanted only
kash v'teven . Unfortunately, the gemara (and the Tosefta on which it
is based) do not say why this is the din, giving rise to some doubt as
to its application.

The reference to Nahrdea is cryptic. At first the gemara says Bavel
is a sfar, something difficult to understand. This is "translated"
(tirgema) to refer to Nahardea. Those who apply the din of sfar only
to EY apparently learn this gemara differently than those (very likely
the majority) who do not. It is possible to suggest that the gemara is
discusssing what a "sfar" is. The gemara says that Bavel also has border
cities, Nahardea being an example. This is does not mean to apply the
din of ir hasmuchah l'sfar to Bavel, just to explain what a sfar is. I
will readily concede that this understanding of the gemara is somewhat
dachuck, but would suggest that this is how Rabbenu Yehonatan ud'imei
would understand the gemara.

The Tzafnat Paneach al HaRambam (Yerushalayim, 5739) on Yad Shabbat 2:23
indeed says what was quoted in his name(sfar is "midin kibush velo midin
pikuach nefesh") . I was gratified to see that hitkavanti l'daat gdolim,
since he compares the din in halacha 23 to that in halacha 25 ("tzarin
al ayarot ovdei kochavim..." ayen sham), which defintely applies to EY,
something that occured to me. He then notes that the gemara applies the
din to Nahrdea, but what follows is hard to follow (a series of "ayenim").

Interestingly this subject was recently discussed on Hirhurim
http://www.hirhurim.blogspot.com/ "War in Lebanon", about halfway down
the page (Tuesday, July 18th). See also the comments there.

Saul Mashbaum

"Rich, Joel" <JRich@Segalco.com> wrote:
> In the recently released "The Lord is Righteous in all his Ways",
> R'YBS goes through the kinot to show parallels to events in the
> holocaust. "Of course, the six million Jews deserved to be eulogized on
> Tish'ah be'Av. But we do so within the frame of reference of the kinot
> we recite on that day"
...
> In fact an imitation of a Kinah was written for those killed by Hitler
> in the 1940s, and not badly written. <snip> I can not use it because, in
> my opinion, there is no one, no contemporary, who has all the qualities
> indispensable for writing prayers....

If you have the Artscroll Kinos, read the introduction to the kinos
written by the Bobover Rebbe and Rav Schwab, zichronam livracha.

Gershon
gershon.dubin@juno.com

KT 
Joel Rich

From: "Danny Schoemann" <doniels@gmail.com>
> While growing up, "Eli Tzion" was considered a great "march" kind of
> niggun. A grand finale to end off the mourning. Of course it was also
> the tune for Rosh Chodesh bentsching of Menachem Ov which couldn't arouse
> any question of mourning on Shabbos.

There are two main variants on the tune. In Western Europe-influenced
places (German and Modern, e.g when I was growing up in the 70s-80s),
they do the march-like version. In Eastern Europe-influenced places, such
as Chabad and the tapes of horav YBS, they do the more mournful variant.
In either case, it's clearly the same tune, and it also shows up in the
mussaf for Yom Tov, "benei veit'cha kevat'chilah..."

> In Yerusholayim we have the identical tune for "Eli Tzion" but sung in
> such a way that if it doesn't move you to tears then nothing will.

When you say "we", do you mean every shul, or just those you frequent?
What do Sefardim/EhM use? I guess, since the Old Yishuv was entirely
Eastern European, the mournful tune would have taken root, but surely
the Germans who came before/after the War might have brought the other
variant. Are there any German shuls in J'lem?

> May we be zoche to deserve singing the upbeat "Eli Tzion" this year.

By davening with a German-influenced kehillo?

   - jon baker    jjbaker@panix.com     <http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker> -

>> Is learning during chazarat hashatz prohibited in Yeshiva communities?

[R M Levin:]
> I believe that Shut Vavei Hoamudim permits it when there is otherwise
> a minyan to answer.

Do they assign 10 people ro be sure. Which is considered the better
assignment?

Kt
joel rich

On Fri, Jul 21, 2006 at 04:26:02PM +0200, Arie Folger wrote:
: 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.

I think I'm still not making sense. Although I appreciate your sympathetic
judgment.

First, I think that differences in pesaq were not only tolerated, but
considered a "good thing". Unless the differences get in the way of the
shevatim uniting together behind a common goal.

Second, I would think that differences in derekh that exceed the gap I
gave as an example, combined with differences in pesaq that far exceed
those of Batei Hillel veShammai, would be fundamentally different
implementations of the beris Sinai.

Or is it that we also disagree on the concept of fundamental?

So yes, the same beris, the same chumash (although they may have had
different proto-canons of sifrei navi and kesuvim), and the same halachic
process. But with far less common precedent, and far greater cultural
isolation. Twelve very different results of the same process are the
same in a deep way, but it would be hard to see that similarity watching
day-to-day shemiras hamitzvos or other hanhagos.

-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             "The worst thing that can happen to a
micha@aishdas.org        person is to remain asleep and untamed."
http://www.aishdas.org          - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm
Fax: (270) 514-1507      

In Bnei Banim vol.4 no. 28:1 (p. 139) I cited Teshuvot haRashba 3:285
from which it appears that the prohibition is only against reciting
Pesuqei deZimrah with its berachot after Shemoneh Esreh, but not without
the berachot.

    With Torah blessings,
    Yehuda Henkin

Mark Levin <mlevinmd@verizon.net> wrote:
> I saw a discussion in the Yated a few months ago in which R. Y. Belsky
> stated that even acapella recording now considered music and assur. This
> is becasue it is digitally mastered with imperfections removed and thus
> becomes a recording, perfomred by an instrument and included in the
> issur of music.

This is really a stretch. How can a digitally mastered recording in any
way be considered an instrument? In fact how can a recording be considered
an instrument. At best it is as technologicaly faithful a duplication of
a sound an instrument makes as is possible. But in no way can a recording
be an instrument. Anyone who can't tell the diference between a live
instrument and a recording of it needs to have his ears checked.

WADR to HaRav Belsky, I fail to see the leap here. That anyone would
think, let alone Paskin that an accapella recording is more entertainig
than a live accapella performance is mind boggling.

HM

[R Jon Baker:]
> There are two main variants on the tune. In Western Europe-influenced
> places (German and Modern, e.g when I was growing up in the 70s-80s),
> they do the march-like version. In Eastern Europe-influenced places, such
> as Chabad and the tapes of horav YBS, they do the more mournful variant.

given the lyrics (mourn for zion like a woman in the pain of
childbirth)....

Kt
joel rich

On Sat, Jul 22, 2006 at 11:28:25PM +0200, saul mashbaum wrote:
: Regarding the suggestion that visiting the sites of the JP and other
: papers encourages chillul Shabbat because they expand their coverage
: of the war based on the number of "hits" on their sites: I *highly*
: doubt that this is the case.

The problem is more straightforward: since one is reading the latest info
available only through their chilul Shabbos, it's assur behana'ah (even
if r"l the news isn't always stories that provide literal hana'ah).

 -mi

On 7/24/06, Rich, Joel <JRich@segalco.com> wrote:
> In the times of Tanach when
> there were kings who did not do what was good in the eyes of HKB"H,
> is there historical or medrashic evidence that those who wished to do
> what was good in the eyes of HKB"H separated themselves (or did not)
> from the rest of the community either in general(e.g. physical distance)
> or for specifics(e.g. army service)

In the time of Achav the Neviei emes were forced to hide because Izevel
was killing them out. Yehoshofot entered into a commercial venture in
partnership with Achav and was criticized in the Navi for doing so.

This doesn't quite answer your question, but maybe you can get something
out of it.

 -Shmuel

On Fri, Jul 21, 2006 at 04:59:03PM -0400, rabbirichwolpoe@aol.com wrote:
: H asnwered -ein hachi name - see the Hakdama of the MB himself, that he
: wrote the sefer davkabecassue Tur/BY was being negelected...

The haqdamah says that he wrote a survey of those poseqim that post-date
the standardized page of SA, and therefore people may not be aware of
these later developments of the din.

 -mi

 -- 
Micha Berger             Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries
micha@aishdas.org        are justified except: "Why am I so worried?"
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507      

Rabbi Rich Wolpoe asks:
> Case 1 pas haba b'kisnan - everything that one eats is mtiztareif to
> a shiur
> Case 2, with hamotzie on pas, you need at leat a k'zayais/k'beitza of
> davka bread.
> Why this paradox?

My friend, I'm sorry to inform you that you -- and far too many others --
are the victim of an unfortunate Urban Legend.

It is true that "everything one eats is mitztaref to the shiur", but
this saying is too often misunderstood. Too many people think that one
can eat a half-kezayis of pas, and a meal of other food, and then say
Birkas Hamazon. This is not the case. (I still remember one Shabbos
Hagadol where my family was invited to friends for dinner, and in order
to minmize the crumbs around the house, they used two challa rolls -
each barely a kezayis on their own - for the two whole families to share.)

This halacha is very easily seen in the first lines of Igros Moshe Orach
Chayim 4:41, where he explains that if one ate less than a kezayis of
bread, it is as if he ate no bread at all, and so he does not say Birkat
Hamazon - not D'Oraisa, and not D'Rabanan.

So what *does* that phrase - "everything one eats is mitztaref to the
shiur" - mean?

There are two things it means, as I understand it.

First: If one does eat a kezayis of bread, then all the other food counts
towards the *sevia*, and the benching is D'Oraisa. Phrased differently,
even though one's satiety comes from the food, and not from the bread,
the benching is d'Oraisa as long as he *did* eat a kezayis of bread and
he *is* sated from the meal.

Second: If one eats a kezayis of Pas Habaa BKisnin with his meal, all
the other food counts towards the *shiur seudah* to determine if the
Pas Habaa BKisnin is Mezonos/AlHamichya or if it is Hamotzi/Benching.
Phrased differently, even though he did not eat a meal's worth of Pas
Habaa BKisnin, he still has to say Birkas Hamazon provided that he ate
a meal's worth of *food*.

All the above is quite clear from the first and last paragraphs of the
above-mentioned Igros Moshe (though the middle should be learned too!).

There is one detail which is not so blatant in that teshuva: That if one
eats a meal's worth of food, and a half-kezayis of Pas Habaa BKisnin,
he does not say Birkas Hamazon. But I'm confident that Rav Moshe would
hold that way, because it is a simple kal vachomer: If one can't bench
when he had a half-kezayis of Pas Gamur with his meal, he certainly can't
bench when he had a half-kezayis of Pas She'ayno Gamur with his meal!

RRW also asked:
> Furthermore, why isn't every food eatne lelafeis
> hapas NOT mitztareif to pas for a shiur? this
> makes no sense to me. If you eat a tuna fish
> sandwhich the bracha is hamotzi for sure, and IMHO
> the shiur should include the utna the mayo the
> lrettcue tomato etc. I do NOT understand why not

I suspect this is the origin of this Urban Legend. There are two totally
unrelated topics which are too easily confused. The first is ikar/tafel,
in the sense that making a bracha on the ikar also covers the tafel. The
second is how to measure the shiur for bracha acharona. It is an easy
trap to confuse these issues, but they really have nothing to do with
each other.

For example, in "Halachos of Brachos", pg 257, Rabbi Yisroel Bodner
cites Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach in Minchas Shlomo 91:4 as saying that
the filling in a cherry pie does *not* count towards the Al Hamichya;
one cannot say Al Hamichya on a cherry pie unless he eats a kezayis of the
crust. So too here, one cannot say Birkas Hamazon unless he eats a kezayis
of Pas Gamur or [a kezayis of Pas Habaa BKisnin in a meal situation].

Another example would be a fruit cup, made of 3/4 of a kezayis of grapes,
and 1/4 of a kezayis of pineapple. The grapes are the ikar and HaEtz
is the bracha rishona for the whole thing. But can one say Al HaEtz
afterward? I'm guessing that Rav Moshe would say not.

Disclaimer: This entire post is according to my understanding of Igros
Moshe O"C 4:41. If there are any opposing poskim, please tell us!

Akiva Miller

The following selection is from pages 298-299 of "The Lord is Righteous
in All His Ways: Reflections on the Tish'ah be-Av Kinot" (edited by
Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter).

    On Tish'ah be-Av, our eulogy is not limited to the Ten Martyrs. They
    were the first victims. We also deliver a eulogy for the victims of
    the Crusades, and for the deaths of millions of Jews down through
    Jewish history, including those killed by Hitler. I would rather use
    a piyut by one of the Ba'alei ha-Tosafot or any other of the Hakhmei
    Ashkenaz than a liturgical piece by a present-day writer. In fact,
    an imitation of a kinah was written for those killed by Hitler in
    the 1940s, and not badly written.

    Some rabbis in Eretz Yisrael accepted it, but I do not like it. I do
    not like new "prayers." I cannot use it because, in my opinion, there
    is no one, no contemporary, who has all the qualities indispensable
    for writing prayers. I am always reluctant to accept new compositions;
    in general, I do not trust anyone who tells me he intends to compose
    a prayer. I do not believe in so-called liturgical creativity or
    creative liturgy. The Gemara (Megillah 17b) says that "One hundred
    and twenty elders, among whom were many prophets," wrote our Shemoneh
    Esreh. Only they could write it.

    Prayer is not just a hymn, but a copy of a conversation between
    Ha-Kadosh Barukh Hu and a human being. Who can write such a
    conversation? Only the Men of the Great Assembly and the prophets
    were able to do it. That is why we are so careful about every word
    in the nusah ha-tefillah, the text of the liturgy.

    Of course, later piyutim (not tefillot) were written by Hakhmei
    Ashkenaz and Hakhmei Tzarfat. There is no doubt that the authors of
    the piyutim mourning the destruction during the Crusades were of the
    Ba'alei ha-Tosafot. But the Hakhmei Ashkenaz and Hakhmei Tzarfat were
    the Hakhmei ha-Masorah! They were responsible not only for piyutim,
    but for the shalshelet ha-kabbalah, the transmission of the tradition
    as a whole! Tosafot quotes Rabbi El'azar ha-Kalir many times when
    he has a halakhic problem. Rabbi El'azar ha-Kalir was not simply
    a paytan; he was one of the Hakhmei ha-Masorah. So, of course, if
    he wrote a piyut of a kinah, it has relevance. But I cannot trust
    others to do it. Not that I am suspicious. Not that I, God forbid,
    have anything against the author of a contemporary kinah. I just do
    not believe that a contemporary has the inner ability, the faith,
    the depth, the sweep of experience, the ecstacy, and the taharat
    ha-nefesh, the purity of soul, that would authorize him or give him
    permission to write a piyut. I just do not believe that there is
    anyone today who is qualified to do this.

From: "Elazar M. Teitz" <remt@juno.com>
> If a voice singing is permitted at a live performance, this would indicate
> that it is not considered music. If so, why is an instrument duplicating
> such non-music prohibited?

>> Doesn't answer your question, but R' Shlomo Miller did asser acapella
>> that is difficult to distinguish from musical instruments.

> Is there a counterpart in previous generations to adding on such levels
> of chumra on something (listening to music in the Three Weeks) which is
> itself only a minhag not mentioned in Shulchan Aruch?

I don't know but I think that perhaps we've gotten a bit too creative in
our abilty and desire to pile Chumra upon Chumra. I don't want to get
sarcastic but when will it stop? Maybe someone who speaks in a melodic
tone will become ossur too.

Why can't we get back to roots and remember the whole Mekor for all of
this music stuff. (there really isn't one) Let us also remember the Posuk
at the end of the Haftorah of Balak (The end of Micha). Hashem doesn't
want all the access sacrifices, (access Chumros) but rather Asos Mishpat
.... Hatzne Leches... Kiru Levavchem v'al bigdeichem.

In getting caught up in the whirlpool of Chumros we musn't forget the
whole purpose of the three weeks. It is not to see who can come up with
the greatest Chumra but who can do T'shuva, improve themseleves and
thereby correct the wrongs and bring Moshiach

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


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