Avodah Mailing List

Volume 25: Number 69

Wed, 13 Feb 2008

• 1. Reiat Akum (Saul.Z.Newman@kp.org)
• 2. Re: Baruch Shelo Asani Eved (hlampel@koshernet.com)
• 3. Re: Baruch Shelo Asani Eved (T613K@aol.com)
• 4. Re: Baruch Shelo Asani Eved (Simon Montagu)
• 5. Re: Baruch Shelo Asani Eved (Michael Makovi)
• 6. Re: Baruch Shelo Asani Eved (Micha Berger)
• 7. Re: Baruch Shelo Asani Eved (Daniel Israel)
• 8. Re: Why Jewish Women should NOT wear a Burka (chana@kolsassoon.org.uk)
• 9. Re: Why Jewish Women should NOT wear a Burka (chana@kolsassoon.org.uk)
• 10. What are we to learn from Bereishis? (T613K@aol.com)

can anyone tell me who holds in practice, besides chabad , issues of goyim 
seeing wine? are all chassidim makpidim on this?

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On Tue, February 12, 2008 3:53 pm, R Zev Sero wrote:
: An eved kenaani, who's not obligated in many
mitzvot, and isn't part
: of am yisrael. An eved ivri is obligated in all
mitzvot, and his
: master must allow him to practise them, he just
happens to be in
: temporarily straitened circumstances. That doesn't
fit the theme.

And R Micha Berger responded:

Back a step... RZS presumes you know that Rashi
explains R' Meir as
thanking HQBH for not being someone with fewer
chiyuvim. Back in
<
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol08/v08n094.shtml#12>
I bring a
ra'ayah from this from the Xian bible. (Not that
Rashi needs such
ra'ayos; but it's helpful in a da mah lehashiv
situation WRT "shelo
asani ishah".)<

If I too may hearken back to old posts, I once
pointed at that the source for this explanation of
the "shelo-assanni's" is not only Rashi, but the very
author of the nusach ha-brachah!

Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 17:16:43 -0400
From: "" <hlampel@thejnet.com>
Subject: Re: SheLo Asani Isha

...This is not only Rashi's explanation (Menachos
43b), but is part and
parcel of the very source for making this blessing!
The Yerushalmi on
Brachos 9:2 reads:

"Manni Rav Yehudah omare shloshah dvarim tsarich adam
lomar b'chol yom:
... barcuh shello assani isha, /she'ain ha-isha
metsuvah al hamitzvos/."

"A braissa teaches: Rebbi Yehuda said, 'Each day one
should say
... "Baruch the One Who has not made me a woman,"
/because a woman is
not commanded to perform [all] the mitzvos/."

Again, the very authority who originally proposed the
recitation of these
blessings gave this reason as his motive.

Zvi Lampel

 
 
From: Galsaba@aol.com

>>In birchot HaShachar, the phase  "Baruch Shelo Asani Eved"
does it refer to an Eved Kenani, or Eved  Ivri?<<

>>>>>
I will ask a related question.

If a Jew happens to find himself in a condition of slavery (e.g., working  in 
a slave labor camp in Siberia under Stalin, or captured at sea and then sold  
in a slave market in medieval Egypt), does he still say this bracha or does 
he  skip it?  




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






**************The year's hottest artists on the red carpet at the Grammy 
Awards. Go to AOL Music.      
(http://music.aol.com/grammys?NCID=aolcmp00300000002565)
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On Feb 13, 2008 2:24 AM,  <T613K@aol.com> wrote:
> I will ask a related question.
> If a Jew happens to find himself in a condition of slavery (e.g., working in
> a slave labor camp in Siberia under Stalin, or captured at sea and then sold
> in a slave market in medieval Egypt), does he still say this bracha or does
> he skip it?
>

This question was asked in the Kovno Ghetto, and Rav Ephraim Oshry's
psak was to say it. Shu"t Mima`amakim 3, 6

> On Feb 13, 2008 2:24 AM,  <T613K@aol.com> wrote:
> > I will ask a related question.
> > If a Jew happens to find himself in a condition of slavery (e.g., working in
> > a slave labor camp in Siberia under Stalin, or captured at sea and then sold
> > in a slave market in medieval Egypt), does he still say this bracha or does
> > he skip it?
> >

> This question was asked in the Kovno Ghetto, and Rav Ephraim Oshry's
> psak was to say it. Shu"t Mima`amakim 3, 6

So what was the logic?

Mikha'el Makovi

On Feb 13, 2008 2:24 AM, RnTK <T613K@aol.com> asked:
:>> If a Jew happens to find himself in a condition of slavery ... does
:>> he still say this bracha or does he skip it?

R' Simon Montagu answered:
:> This question was asked in the Kovno Ghetto, and Rav Ephraim Oshry's
:> psak was to say it. Shu"t Mima`amakim 3, 6

On Wed, February 13, 2008 7:08 am, Michael Makovi wrote:
: So what was the logic?

Well, we already established that the berakhah thanks Hashem for
having more chiyuvim. And from there someone already answered the
original question that the berakhah must refer to an eved Kanaani, not
eved Ivri.

The person the Nazis enslaved was an eved Ivri, and thus "shelo asani
eved [Kenaani]" it still true.

Presumably, had the berakhah been written particularly for this
person, I presume a less ambiguous phrasing would have been employed
than simply "aved". But since it's a general matbei'ah, there is
insufficient motivation (and no disused variant that I know of) for
utilizing a clearer nusach.

On Tue, February 12, 2008 7:00pm, RZL hlampel@koshernet.com quoted me
and dynamically disputed my choice of citing Rashi:
:> Back a step... RZS presumes you know that Rashi explains R' Meir as
:> thanking HQBH for not being someone with fewer chiyuvim....

: If I too may hearken back to old posts, I once pointed at that the
: source for this explanation of the "shelo-assanni's" is not only
: Rashi, but the very author of the nusach ha-brachah!

I got an "oh yeah!" experience. Thanks for the reminder, and my
apologies for not being a better student the previous time around.

That round, on Fri, 20 May 2005 17:16:43 -0400, RZL wrote:
...
: The Yerushalmi on Brachos 9:2 reads:

: "Manni Rav Yehudah omare shloshah dvarim tsarich adam lomar b'chol
: yom:
: ... barcuh shello assani isha, /she'ain ha-isha metsuvah al
: hamitzvos/."

That's the same source as the berakhah, but not the author. Rav
Yehudah haNasi was at most the author's talmid, given R' Meir also
lists these berakhos.

Why is he Rav Yehudah, and not Rabbi Yehudah? Is this really Rebbe,
one generation after the berakhos were written, or Rav Yehudah [bar
Yechezqeil], the amora, student of Rav and Shemu'el, and founder of
the yeshiva in Pumpedisa (Fallujah, Iraq)? In which case it's well
after the writing of the berakhos.

But still an amora would carry more authority than even my source, Rashi.

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight,
micha@aishdas.org        and he wants to sleep well that night too."
http://www.aishdas.org     - Rav Yosef Yozel Horwitz, Alter of Novarodok
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:41:42 -0700 Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org> 
wrote:
>The person the Nazis enslaved was an eved Ivri, and thus "shelo 
>asani eved [Kenaani]" it still true.

Just to be nitpicky: is a Jew owned by a non-Jew called an eved 
Ivri?  Also, is a person who is at forced labor but not legally 
considered "owned" an eved?

Regarding the latter: is the mitzvah of pidyon shivuyim different 
from the mitzvah of pidyon of a eved sold to goyim?  That would be 
the nafka mina.

--
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1@cornell.edu

RKM Wrote

>: I doubt that the word tzeni'ut has two meanings...

And RMB then wrote:

>However, the word tzeni'us WRT covering ervah is used in teshuvos. 
Even
>when speaking of how one comports oneself as alone. One isn't drawing
>the attention of the beams of one's home. So, while this is a derived
>rather than the original and mishnaic usage of the term, I didn't 
simply
>dismiss it.

Well I am not sure of the Mishnaic use of the term, but certainly by 
the time of Rava, we seem to have an alternative usage.  Think of 
Rava's usage of the term the tzni'os, in contrast to the pritzos, in 
Kesubos 2b-3a.  In that context we are discussing a situation where a 
husband is prevented by ones (or not) from coming back and fulfilling 
his tnai in the get.  And the worry is that the tznios will be 
concerned that in fact there is no get when in fact there is, and will 
therefore not remarry (while in contrast the worry is that pritzos will 
decide there is a get when in fact there is not, and will remarry).  In 
this context it has nothing to do with clothing and covering up, or 
attention getting, but it does have to do with being (overly) choshesh 
for a dvar erva.

In fact, are you sure that you have matters the right way around?  Can 
you give me an example where tznius is used vis a vis women in Mishnaic 
Hebrew to mean not attention seeking as distinct from about covering or 
being concerned with a dvar erva?  Of course there is tzanua l'leches 
in the Tanach - but where is that carried through into Mishnaic Hebrew 
vis a vis women?  Is it possible that you are imposing RHS's (and other 
modern) understandings of women's roles via the concept of tzanua 
laleches back onto Chazal, rather than the other way around?  it 
reminds me of this whole debate regarding perfumes and cosmetics and 
jewelry and the like, where there appears to be a modern attempt to 
suggest that such things are not tzniusdik - despite the importance 
that Chazal clearly gave to such matters (I had - well half a letter 
published in the Jewish Tribune the other day on this - they chopped 
out my final paragraph that brought the sources on eye makeup 
specifically, but they did publish enough of my sources to get the 
message across - although to my amusement and my husband's outrage they 
decided to publish it as "name and address supplied" - I don't know if 
that is because they didn't believe it was written by (Mrs) C Sassoon 
or they didn't want to admit that it was)

>-Micha

Regards

Chana



__________________________________________________
What can Tiscali do for you?  Visit www.tiscali.co.uk/services 

Further on the question of the meaning of the word tzenius, RMB wrote 
in a earlier post:


:> tzeni'us has two meanings. Originally, it referred to not calling
:> undue attention to oneself, trying to avoid the spotlight.

And has in various posts suggested that this is understood, perhaps by 
all, to be at least one meaning of the word today.

However even that I am not convinced is universal.

Take a modern day case:  Recently in the Jewish Tribune (Charedi paper 
here in England) there has been increasing coverage of what are often 
called "gala concerts" or "gala performances", where, with the proceeds 
going to charity, women perform for other women by singing, dancing, 
acting etc etc.  The numbers attending these performances appear to be 
getting bigger and bigger, to the extent that they organisers are now 
needing to hire out bigger and bigger halls - so that it sounds like 
hundreds if not thousands of women are now attending these events.  And 
not only that, I have seen advertisements in the Jewish Tribune asking 
women whether they "have a talent they wish to showcase" and if so, to 
come along and audition for such events.

Now, attention seeking is a very negatively loaded term, but the 
reality is that if you choose to step onto a stage in front of an 
audience, you are seeking their attention, and you succeed if you get 
it.  The organisers would no doubt characterise what they are doing as 
"sharing their G-d given talents" with other women - and the audience 
would no doubt agree.  However, one cannot get away from the fact that 
the aim of any performer is to seek attention.

Now are these performances tznius?  Clearly the Jewish Tribune and the 
Charedi press think they are - they would never report on them if they 
did not.  So long as any potential issue of a dvar erva is eliminated 
(which it is by having the audience consist solely of women), attention 
seeking in and of itself is not considered to be not tznius.

Of course according to RHS's definition of tznius, which is one that 
RMB appears to have adopted, one in no shape or form could consider 
these gala concerts tznius.  Nor for that matter would a male stand up 
comic be considered tznius - and presumably such a person would not be 
found in an ideal Torah society, except to the extent that they 
reluctantly put themselves into the spotlight with the sole aim of, 
say, teaching Torah.  It is, ironically for somebody who is generally 
more associated with a Torah "im" approach, more of a Torah only 
perspective than even is found amongst those who are generally 
considered to espouse Torah only - because while for a man it might be 
bittel Torah, at least for a woman amongst women there is a recognition 
and validation of a singing/dancing/performing gift and the desire to 
draw attention to that gift, without it being considered against Torah.

> -Micha

Regards

Chana



__________________________________________________
What can Tiscali do for you?  Visit www.tiscali.co.uk/services 

R' Yakov Homnick, a  writer, a scholar, my neighbor and relative-by-marriage, 
has written an  outstanding article--"First Things First"--about science and 
Torah.  It  appeared in last week's Jewish Press.  Some of his themes will be 
at  least somewhat familiar to regular Avodah denizens, but  this article is  
well worth reading in full.  
 
I have compressed his article,  dispensing with ellipses for ease of reading. 
  

==begin quote==



First we need to establish  perspective by seeing how the Oral Law processed 
the Bible?s presentation. One  Mishna encapsulates the entire subject. It 
begins the 5th chapter of  Avot:  "The world was created by ten Divine statements. 
Why was this necessary?  Couldn?t everything have been created in one 
statement? It must be to punish the  wicked who destroy a ten-part world and reward 
the righteous who maintain a  ten-part world."  
In other words, the  surprising part of the Bible?s Creation story is that it 
has phases. In purely  religious terms, we would presume that the world was 
created at once, since an  omnipotent Creator has no need for steps. Had 
Creation not been mentioned in  Genesis, the natural assumption would be that it was 
done simultaneously. The  purpose of the Bible story is to introduce a staged 
 process. This somehow raises the stakes on the table of existence, making 
the  righteous maintenance of the enterprise a more profound achievement.  

We  can extrapolate from this Mishna to the arena of time as well. The 
intuitive  sense would lead us to think that all of Creation would be accomplished 
at once.  Instead there is a span of development described as seven distinct 
days, with  new components added each day until the full architectural vision is 
realized at  the very end of this schedule.  

Again, in the intellectual  sense this version of events can be fairly termed 
more scientific than  religious. The faith system not only did not "need" 
this information, it is to a  significant degree undermined by it. Why impose 
artificial limits on the  Almighty and say He used stages and time periods? It is 
just a weird and  uncomfortable idea to posit an omnipotent Creator who chose 
to limit the pace of  His creating.  


Even more mystifying is  the insistence in the biblical text that a point 
existed at which no observer  could glean an inkling of where all this was 
heading. By the eleventh word of  Genesis, we have already been plunged into a dark 
world of chaotic images that  defy any decoding.  

"A man seeing this vista would be utterly confused by the  havoc," Rashi 
(1035-1105) explains. (The Midrash says it would have been heresy  to say this had 
it not been written.) What possible purpose would there be in  forcing 
existence to pass through an amorphous state? 


The  point here is that the Torah is spending all its initial effort on 
teaching you  science rather than religion. The first sentence would have been 
quite enough.  "In the beginning the Lord created the heavens and the earth."  
Instead, the Jew is being forced to train his mind to relinquish  simplistic 
constructs of how divinity meets humanity.  

To review, the concept of  creation taking time was introduced by the Bible, 
only later ? much, much later  ? to be echoed by scientists. The idea of 
creation having distinct "ages" along  the track to completion was taught here 
first as well.  

The next shock comes when  the Bible teaches that all living creatures were 
somehow fashioned out of the  preexisting stuff of inorganic matter. 


Creatures of the sea are  said (Genesis 1:20) to be spawned from the water. 
Animals emerge from the  instruction (1:24) "Let the earth bring forth?" Then 
man was fashioned from  "dust of the earth" (2:7).  

Once again the basic  religious impulse is stood on its head. Every time we 
are told that God made a  new creature, the biblical text hastens to clarify 
that He used available matter  as his clay. No new material is added to make the 
fish, the birds, the animals  or even man. The introduction of life is 
somehow accomplished without the  addition of a single new element. All the 
ingredients were built into the earth  in its initial structure (as Rashi repeatedly 
reminds us in his commentary).  

There is no question that without these verses it would be  sacrilege to 
suggest such a scenario. How dare we suggest that God did not  deliver these 
creatures fully formed out of nothingness? 




As startling as this approach must have been to the assumed  orthodoxies in 
other religions and secular systems, nothing can compare in  bombshell status 
to the biblically hinted, and Talmudically expounded, notion of  prehistoric 
man.  

The  Talmud in Shabbos  (88b) indicates there were 974 generations of 
prehistoric man. In Chagiga  (13b) the Talmud sounds more like those generations were 
never actualized. The  Midrash  Rabba (Genesis 28) says they were wiped out.  


While it remains somewhat  unclear exactly what these 974 generations 
represent, this seems to be a matter  of prime importance that is stressed in two 
verses (Psalms 105:8, Chronicles I  16:15). These verses point out that the Torah 
was given to the thousandth  generation, which is explained by the Midrash to 
mean the 974 prehistoric  generations plus the 26 from Adam until Moses.  

If geology and archaeology have indeed yielded specimens that  are 
indisputably prehistoric men (I am not expert enough to be certain of this),  they are 
substantiating one of the most mysterious parts of the Jewish  intellectual 
tradition. (The late David Brown makes this point in a work that  received the 
imprimatur of Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchak Ruderman,  zt"l, considered one of the 
supreme scholars of the last generation.[The  book is called *Mysteries of 
Creation* -- TK]) 


Even many Jews are not  aware that the dating system existed before the seven 
days of Creation. The  tradition (Midrash  Pesikta) is that the first day of 
Creation was the twenty-fifth day of  the sixth month, so that man emerged on 
the first day of the seventh month:  hence Rosh Hashanah is the anniversary of 
mankind?s birth.  


Another point relating to  time is in the area of compression. Sometimes time 
seems to accommodate much  more than we would expect, as in the Talmudic 
tradition (Sanhedrin  38b) that Adam was created on the sixth day, Eve two hours 
later, and their two  children were born an hour after that. On the other hand, 
we find early man  living eight or nine hundred years. However these things 
are explained, the  overriding message comes through: do not expect to compute 
the early time frames  for events with great retrospective accuracy.  


All this being said, there is one other Mishna which holds  another very 
important key. That is in Chagiga  (11b), where it states that the story of 
Creation should only be taught to one  student at a time, not in the classroom. 
Creation is a matter that must be  conveyed with great accuracy and subtlety. 

The  Talmud and Midrash explain that this is an area in which God hides more 
than He  reveals.  

Furthermore, we encounter  a phenomenon in the Creation story that is 
inconceivable in other biblical  tales. There are entire sections of the presentation 
that are understood to be  conceptual rather than actual.  


The  Talmud in Brachot  (61a), Eruvin  (18a) and Ketubot  (8a) says the verse 
(Genesis 5:2) "He created them male and female" refers to a  "prior concept" 
of Creation rather than to what happened in the end, where man  appeared 
without immediately having a companion. Rashi (ibid 1:1) seems to go  much further, 
understanding a Midrash to say that the entire first chapter of  Genesis is 
communicating a conceptual model.  


Once again, this type of  interpretation is never applied to any other part 
of the Torah. It is clear that  Creation is being transmitted in a unique 
system, where the principle ? not the  medium ? is the message.  


In  summation, the Bible does not claim to be presenting a complete version 
of  Creation. What we can derive from the first chapters of Genesis is a broad  
outline with a few critical high points. Those keystones tend to be supported 
by  the clearer conclusions of science.  


Long before modern  science, we Jews said it took time to create the world. 
Long before modern  science, we said it was created in stages. Long before 
modern science, we said  living things were developed from preexisting matter.  

Long before modern science, we said there was something encoded  into the 
evolving planet to drive it toward perfection. Long before modern  science, we 
said the most sophisticated creatures came last, with man as the  climax.  
The indications that these claims are accurate serve as a  dazzling testimony 
that our revelation, counterintuitive though it was, was  indeed the truth. 


==end quote== 
For the entire article, please see 
_http://w
ww.jewishpress.com/displayContent_new.cfmmode=a&;sectionid=61&co
ntentid=29737&contentName=First%20Things%20First_
 
(http://w
ww.jewishpress.com/displayContent_new.cfmmode=a&;sectionid=61&co
ntentid=29737&contentName=First%20Things%20First) 

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





**************The year's hottest artists on the red carpet at the Grammy 
Awards. Go to AOL Music.      
(http://music.aol.com/grammys?NCID=aolcmp00300000002565)
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