Avodah Mailing List

Volume 23: Number 176

Sun, 26 Aug 2007

• 1. Re: Is it better to have one person do a vadai mitzvah or a number do a safek mitzvah? (Chana Luntz)
• 2. Bishul achar shelo bederekh bishul (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: Rav Sternbuch's psak regarding kiruv of non-Jews (kennethgmiller@juno.com)
• 4. Re: Why is Milchemes Reshus allowed? (kennethgmiller@juno.com)
• 5. Re: tachanun at Bris (SBA)
• 6. Re: Rav Sternbuch's psak regarding kiruv of non-Jews (Daniel Eidensohn)
• 7. Re: Rav Sternbuch's psak regarding kiruv of non-Jews (Daniel Eidensohn)
• 8. Re: Rav Sternbuch's psak regarding kiruv of non-Jews (Rich, Joel)
• 9. Re: Standing for Vayivarech David (Michael Kopinsky)
• 10. Intuition -- Sources (Samuel Groner)
• 11. Rav Sternbuch's psak regarding kiruv of non-Jews (M Cohen)
• 12. Re: Rav Sternbuch's psak regarding kiruv of non-Jews (David Riceman)
• 13. Re: Rav Sternbuch's psak regarding kiruv of non-Jews (Daniel Eidensohn)

RSM writes:
> RCLunz addressed the question in the subject line in the 
> framework of he Mishna on Yevamos 98b, it which five brothers 
> of uncertain parentage, each of whom definitely has a 
> brother, die childless. Each of the 5 y'vamim give 4 
> chalitzot, and marry one y'vama. Thus for each yavam, there 
> is a 20% chance that he did mitzvat yibum with his y'vama. If 
> one yavam married all 5 y'vamot, although in that case he 
> would vadai be doing mitzvat yibum, none of the other yvamim 
> would be doing mitzvat yibum. So five safek yibubim, which of 
> which real yibumim range from 0-5, are seen to be preferable 
> to one, and only one, vadai yibum. 
> It is pertinent to point out that in the mishna's case, each 
> of the 5 brothers has with 100% certainty done a mitzva. This 
> is because chalitza to one's yevama is a mitzvah min haTorah. 
> Thus in the mishna's solution, each brother has with 80% 
> probabilty  performed mitzvat yibum, and with 20% probability 
> performed mitzvat yibum. In the alternate possibility, when 
> one yavam marries all of the y'vamot after each of the other 
> brothers have given chaliza to all of the y'vamot, each of 
> the choltzim has with certainty done mitzvat chalitza, and 
> the the fifth brother has with certainty done mitzvat yibum. 
> Thus although the presumtion of the g'mara is that yibum is a 
> greater mitzva than chalitza, in any event everyone will have 
> done, with certainty, either yibum or chalitza.

This is all true, but why does this not make matters worse, rather than
better?  Given that everyone will have done a mitzvah, either chalitza
or yibum, why not have one person who knows he has done the vadai
mitzvah of yibum, and four who know they have done the vadai mitzvah of
chalitza.  Instead, everybody will have done a safek mitzvah of yibum
and a safek mitzvah of chalitza - ie two sfekos.  Now agreed that one of
those sfekos has to come up trumps, ie if one has done yibum one has not
done chalitza, but if one has not done yibum, one has indeed done
chalitza, meaning everybody gets a mitzvah apiece, but it is equally
true that everybody gets a mitzvah apiece if you go the other way - and
at least that way, everybody knows which mitzvah he has performed.  

 Thus the 
> mishna does not allow one to draw a conclusion for the 
> general case of "one vadai vs many safeks", in which the many 
> safeks may wind up doing no mitzva at all. 

The many safeks may indeed in the general case wind up doing no mitzvah
at all, but if it were not for the mitzvah of chalitza here, if we
allowed the vadai yibum here, the other four would vadai wind up doing
no mitzvah at all.   Would that not seem to be worse?  At least here,
one could say that the other four would vadai get a "lesser" mitzvah and
the one would get a vadai "greater" mitzvah, so why mess with safekos?
If it is important that each man should get the chance merely to upgrade
his mitzvah from a lesser to a greater one, then one would have thought,
perhaps, how much more so, that each should have the chance of upgrading
his no mitzvah to a real mitzvah.

>Saul Mashbaum

Shabbat Shalom

Chana 

Here's the case:

I made a cup of tea on shabbos, green tea so it certainly started out raw,
so I did so in a "keli shelishi". (There is no concept of keli shelishi,
I mean I avoided irui keli rishon.)

Now I wanted to make a second cup using the same leaves. Would it have
been okay to rely on ein bishul achar bishul, or do we saw that the
first lo kederekh bishul means that this is the first bishul?

Does derekh bishul necessary to define bishul or the issur?

I asked R' (and Dayan) Jack Love in shul, and he connected the question
to the Pri Megadim's kulah on soup. The PM holds that while bishul achar
bishul is assur WRT water, it doesn't apply to soup which actualy gets
changed through the cooking. (The PM lumps milk with water, but that
raises metzi'us questions.)

RJL suggested that the PM defines bisul achar bishul in terms of impact on
the item, and therefore would apply even if the tea got changed through a
"lav derekh bishul".

That seemed rational to me WRT my case of the tea, but I'm not sure
that's really peshat in the PM.

What do you think?

Gut Voch!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             When faced, with a decision, ask yourself,
micha@aishdas.org        "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now,
http://www.aishdas.org   at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?"
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter

Disclaimer: I am not qualified to comment on whether or not we should be actively trying to convert children of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother. I only want to comment on one detail of Rav Sternbuch's letter.

R' Daniel Eidensohn wrote:
> Rav Moshe Sternbuch ... wrote a letter which he asked me to
> translate and distribute. He personally read and approved
> the translation.
That translation of the letter says:
> According to the unanimously held Torah view - any person
> with a non-Jewish mother is completely non-Jewish.

I question the use of the word "completely" here. If I'm not mistaken, if the children of such an intermarriage do convert, their Jewish father is considered as having been makayem pirya v'rivya. If so, there *is* some sort of Jewishness to them, even though they are not chayav in taryag mitzvos.

This may or may not be related to an idea I've heard many times in the name of Rav Yosef Soloveitchik, that a distinction is made between two categories. One was "Kedushas Yisrael", and I've forgotten what the other was, perhaps "Klal Yisrael". But his point was that such children do have Kedushas Yisrael, even though they are excluded from the other category.

Akiva Miller

R"n Shoshana L. Boublil wrote:
> I believe that R' Akiva Miller has just managed to add 
> Milchemet Reshut to a whole list of dinim that we learn but 
> do not actually carry out -- like Ben Sorrer U'Moreh etc.
> Until WWII, economic reasons, and not piku'ach nefesh type 
> ones, were sufficient to start a war.   Just look through 
> the Torah and then general history and you'll see plenty of 
> occasions where kings led their people to war for economic 
> reasons that included the possibility of future needs.

This is precisely why I began this thread. Chazal already had moral qualms about executing the Ben Sorrer U'Moreh prior to his crimes, and attempted to explain and justify it. A few months back, we here on Avodah did the same about slavery. I'm simply raising the same questions about another thing which the Torah allows, and hoping for a reasonable explanation.

By slavery, there were comments showing that an eved is a respected human being with rights thereto pertaining, unlike the chattel which we often perceive a slave as being. I'm hoping for a similar exlanation which can show that a milchemes reshus is truly a non-objectionable concept, and not merely an improvement over what the goyim do.

Akiva Miller

From: "Rich, Joel" <>
IIRC from R' Sperber's minhagei Yisrael the original minhag was the
whole town didn't say tachanun.
>>

That is the psak of the Minchas Elozor - except for large cities 
where there are brissim daily.

SBA

Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky was asked this week whether he had given approval 
for a non-Jew with a Jewish father to joining a kiruv program since he 
already had a Jewish  identity. [The director of the kiruv program that 
sent me the non-Jew claimed that he had received a heter from Rav 
Kaminetsky] Rav Kaminetsky vehemently denied giving such a heter and 
said that all he had said was not to turn away a non-Jew with a Jewish 
father. He was not saying this in reference with participation in a 
kiruv organization. He said chas v'sholom to  allow a non-Jew with a 
Jewish identity joining a kiruv program - especially if it is co-ed.

Daniel Eidensohn

R' Joel Rich wrote:
> Reb Moshe is acknowledging the danger of intermarriage from a non-Jew
> who views himself as Jewish. However he allows the teaching of Torah
> only because the person is a "questionable Jew". It follows that if the
> person is definitely not Jewish he would not have given this heter. 
> Otherwise Reb Moshe would have simply said "any non-Jew who has a Jewish
> identity should be educated in Torah and converted".
>
>
> Daniel Eidensohn
>
> ====================================
> Could be, but not compelling. Perhaps he was just responding to the
> question at hand and not trying to show how far he would take the
> argument.
>
>   
According to your reading of the Igros Moshe - there is absolutely no 
justification for generalizing from what he says in any teshuva to a new 
situation. Thus despite Reb Moshe's assertion in the introduction to the 
Igros Moshe that he is primarily concerned with presenting servoras - 
you want to view it as simply a historical record of psakim that he had 
given. Consequently you are invalidating the universally accepted use of 
the Igros Moshe - why? However if you are just trying to say that only 
in the teshuva dealing with the Falashas he wrote in an imprecise manner 
which precludes generalization - why should this teshuva be different 
than the rest of the Igros Moshe?

Daniel Eidensohn

R' Joel Rich wrote:
> Reb Moshe is acknowledging the danger of intermarriage from a non-Jew 
> who views himself as Jewish. However he allows the teaching of Torah 
> only because the person is a "questionable Jew". It follows that if 
> the person is definitely not Jewish he would not have given this
heter.
> Otherwise Reb Moshe would have simply said "any non-Jew who has a 
> Jewish identity should be educated in Torah and converted".
>
>
> Daniel Eidensohn
>
> ====================================
> Could be, but not compelling. Perhaps he was just responding to the 
> question at hand and not trying to show how far he would take the 
> argument.
>
>   
According to your reading of the Igros Moshe - there is absolutely no
justification for generalizing from what he says in any teshuva to a new
situation. Thus despite Reb Moshe's assertion in the introduction to the
Igros Moshe that he is primarily concerned with presenting servoras -
you want to view it as simply a historical record of psakim that he had
given. Consequently you are invalidating the universally accepted use of
the Igros Moshe - why? However if you are just trying to say that only
in the teshuva dealing with the Falashas he wrote in an imprecise manner
which precludes generalization - why should this teshuva be different
than the rest of the Igros Moshe?

Daniel Eidensohn
=========================================================
You could be correct but again, he may just be stating the rule for a
questionable Jew because this was the case at hand and he was perfectly
happy to have this extended to other cases of questionable Jews and may
not be opining on different case extension.  Even if one accepts that he
would not have extended this logic to the case of a non-Jewish mother,
it's still possible he would have allowed it for another reason. BTW in
these cases has the person expressed an interest and, if so, how do we
differentiate from treatment of other would be converts.

KT
Joel Rich




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On 8/24/07, Rich, Joel <JRich@sibson.com> wrote:

>
> In the new R' YBS R"H machzor the following note appears:
>
> "...  Because blessings in general are recited while standing, the
> congregation arises for the recitation of these verses."
>
>

On a total tangent: The minhag seems to be to stand when the chazan says
birchos hashachar.  I could not find a reference to this in either the
Artscroll siddur or the MB.  Is there a source for this?  Is it similar to
Shochein Ad, when many people naturally stand up for some reason, even
though it is clearly not recognized as a minhag?

KvCT,
Michael
6/12/67 (on the Hebrew calendar, which I have set my watch to display,
partly as a result of an email R. Micha Berger wrote here not long ago.)
(On the English calendar, 6/12/67 was 2 days after the end of the 6th day
war.)
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See R. Alan Brill's article, Worlds Destroyed, Worlds Rebuilt:
The Religious Thought of Rabbi Yehudah Amital, available online at
http://www.edah.org/backend/JournalArticle/BRILL_5_2.pdf; from there,
you should be able to pretty easily find the primary sources in Rav
Amital's writings.

Some samplings from R. Brill's article:

"R. Amital writes that recognition of our innate image of God leads to
moral sensitivity and conscience. Fundamental for R. Amital, following
his reading of the thought of the Ge'onim, Maimonides, and Musar
writers, is the idea that man can naturally tell right from wrong,
independently of the halakhah. R. Amital cites the Ga'on Rabbenu
Nissim, (eleventh century) who, like most ge'onim, affirmed the kalam
doctrine of a
natural intuition (lutf) given to all people as a gift of God that
allows humans to know the correct course of moral action even without
revelation (p.21)."

"We need to have a sense of gratitude and dignity in our souls;
Nahmanides' open-ended directives of "do the good and the right" and
"not to be a scoundrel with the Torah's permission" typify a broad
approach to the many moral intuitions that are part of Torah. For R.
Amital, natural morality is not an ideal that one aspires to fulfill,
not a virtue ethic, or a system that provides answers in life, or even
a prescription to change. It is, rather, a natural capacity of our
souls. (p. 8 )."

RDE writes..
..The big money seems to be going in the direction of Kiruv for non-Jews
(with some kind of Jewish identity) with the hope of converting them. A
friend of mine told me that on three separate occasions he was sent
guests for Shabbos from a Russian Kiruv program here in Jerusalem and
found out that they were all non-Jews. When he complained, the program
simply stopped sending him guests.

and then writes...
..Similarly there has been a major effort to actively pursue intermarried
couples and using various techniques - representative of the best American
marketing techniques - convince the non-Jewish spouse to convert.

imho, you have mixed two very different issues together

the first case is clearly controversial.
R sternbuch's psak is clear - and I think in line with the approach of the
major Kiruv organizations in NAmerica
(although I am not familiar with the L approach to this issue)

however the second case spoken about (and not mentioned in R sternbuch's
psak) is different.

in order to help the Jewish spouse of an intermarried couple, the Kiruv
worker typically has 2 approaches:
a) convince them to divorce their nonJ spouse
b) education and possible conversion of the nonJ spouse if they show true
interest in
halachic Judaism, torah, etc

I believe the latter is the approach of the major Kiruv organizations in
NAmerica towards this second issue,
where interest exists in the nonJ spouse to true torah judaism

I personally know of many fine frum families with children active in torah
and mitzvos
and the Jewish community where one half of the couple was originally nonJ
and the latter approach was taken.

(and sometimes one even finds that the converted spouse is the one who spurs
their spouse and family
to greater commitment to  torah and mitzvos than the bornJ one)

Mordechai Cohen
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Daniel Eidensohn wrote:
> I mentioned this information to Rav Moshe Sternbuch who found my 
> revelations disturbing and he wrote a letter which he asked me to 
> translate and distribute. He personally read and approved the 
> translation. The original letter and its translation can be found at the 
> following links.
>
> http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/faxes/RSternbuch_KiruvNonJew_Aug07_heb.pdf
> http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/faxes/RSternbuch_KiruvNonJew_Aug07_eng.pdf
>
>   
Israelis sometime fail to distinguish between "X is halachically
prohibited" and "I strongly advise against doing X".  If RMS means the
latter he is persuasive; if he means the former how does he explain
Tshuvos HaRambam, ed. Blau, #149?

David Riceman

I received the following comment which indicates that the situation is 
more polarized than I had realized

Anonymous said...

   Hi. The shitah that children of non-Jewish fathers should be
   encouraged to convert has backing in the sefardic and religious
   Zionist worlds, but not so much in the chariedi litvish world that
   you seem most comfortable in.

   See especially Piskei Uziel be-she'elos hazman (R. Ben Zion Chai
   Uziel). This was also the opinion of R. Azriel Hildesheimer and much
   later Rav Goren. It is today accepted by most of the dati-leumi
   rabbinic world, most especially championed today by R. Zephania
   Drori (Kiryat Shemonah) and R. Chaim Druckman (Rosh yeshivos Bnei
   Akiva). R. Shear Yashuv Cohen, the rav of Haifa, recently asserted
   this view quite forcefully as well.

   If you are not comfortable with this view, then the kiruv
   organization was right not to send you more candidates for Shabbos.
   You are entitled to your view and they to theirs, and there is no
   reason for you to step on each others' toes.



Anonymous said...

   >> Do these Sefardic and Religious Zionist rabbis include these
  non-Jews in their schools or kiruv programs

  For dati-leumi programs, the answer is an overwhelming yes. This has
  become the norm over the past decade.

 

Anonymous said...

  PS In addition to my previous comment, note that the Shuvu schools
  for russian immigrants sponsored by the litvish community also
  employ this policy, similar to the dati-leumi programs.



Daniel Eidensohn


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