Avodah Mailing List

Volume 30: Number 29

Mon, 30 Apr 2012

• 1. Re: Any opinions on the kashrus of Peng Peng? (hankman)
• 2. Re: Subject: Size of Maccabbee Army (Ezra Chwat)
• 3. Re: Any opinions on the kashrus of Peng Peng? (Zev Sero)
• 4. Vachai Bahem (Liron Kopinsky)
• 5. correction to daily halacha (mendel zirkind)
• 6. Re: Vachai Bahem (Micha Berger)
• 7. analytical thought and religion (Micha Berger)
• 8. Parshas Tazria: Rav Shamshon Rephael Hirsch - When The Whole World Goes White (Prof. Levine)

RMB wrote:
There are no halakhos about eating something based on its genetic makeup.
Peng Peng, like all sheep, chews her (?) cud and has split hooves. Kosher.
No?

And I don't think anything microscopic, like the genes injected into a
cell is within the scope of halachic discourse altogether.

In a similar vein RZS wrote:
What's the hava amina that he should be forbidden? He has simanei tahara,
and was born from a dam that had the same simanim, as did her dam and
her grand-dam all the way back to one of the original ewes that Hashem
created. Some of his great-great-aunts and -uncles were brought on
the Mizbeach. So why should he be anything but a beheima tehorah?

CM remarks:

My intial reaction to these responses was agreement. These responses do
make sense to me. I imagine there must be many shu?ts addressed to this
issue many probably using this straightforward logic. However on further
thought the clarity provided began to get a little murky.

Take a hypothetical future Peng Peng II with more extensive genetic
manipulation that is born looking like (being?) a Roundworm on four legs,
but with split hooves and that chews its cud and has the two simonim for
shechita. Would you both still stick to your logic so assuredly?

Or consider the genetic manipulation of fowl. Here the Torah basically
gives us the 22 non-kosher birds, the others being kosheer. Here specie is
determinative. So there are no Simanei kashrus utreifus (although some are
given in shas and poskim). Then the operative question would be how much
genetic manipulation could halacha tolerate before considering the result a
new species?

Which brings us back to Peng Peng. when the Torah gives us the simanei
tahara of split  hooves and chewing the cud it explicitly only applies to
the class of chaya and beheima ? not other living creatures. So we must
revisit the question how much genetic manipulation would halacha tolerate
before considering Peng Peng something other than a chaya or beheima. My
intuition (sorry - nothing better than that) tells me we have not yet
crossed that line with Peng Peng, but clearly that line exists and placing
it will become a future subject for many shu?ts as this technology
continues to develop.

Kol Tuv

Chaim Manaster
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Maccabees I, 4:29 (here-
http://www.kotar.co.il/KotarApp/Viewer.aspx?nBookID=24937940#1
66.8675.3.fitwidth
p. 157) At its peak, at Beth Zur, the Maccabee Army numbers 10,000,
vs. Lysius, same battle, 60,000 including 5,000 cavalry.

In his other battles, Judah's army was far smaller, so he had to resort
to guerilla warfare and topographic strategy.

Ezra Chwat

-----Original Message-----
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:07:33 +0300
From: Liron Kopinsky <liron.kopin...@gmail.com>
Subject: [Avodah] Size of Maccabbee Army

Does anyone know how large the Chashmonai army was? Also, how small was it
compared to the Greeks?

How does this compare to the Israeli army in 1948 compared to the
collective Arab armies?

On 29/04/2012 10:22 AM, hankman wrote:
> Take a hypothetical future Peng Peng II with more extensive genetic
> manipulation that is born looking like (being?) a Roundworm on four
> legs, but with split hooves and that chews its cud and has the two
> simonim for shechita. Would you both still stick to your logic so
> assuredly?

Why not?  It has simanei tahara, after all.

> Or consider the genetic manipulation of fowl. Here the Torah basically
> gives us the 22 non-kosher birds, the others being kosheer. Here
> specie is determinative. So there are no Simanei kashrus utreifus
> (although some are given in shas and poskim). Then the operative
> question would be how much genetic manipulation could halacha tolerate
> before considering the result a new species?

To the best of my knowledge, the definition of speciation in hilchos
kil'ayim is whether they can produce fertile offspring.  Thus if this
creature can breed only with members of its own clan then it's a new
kosher species; if it can breed with sheep but not with roundworms,
then it's a sheep.

(Harry Turtledove, writing as "Eric G Iverson", published a short story in
_Analog_ in the late '80s on this theme, but in reverse; when does a member
of a tamei species that has been engineered to have simanei tahara count as
a new species?  In the story the rabbi who is asked the question comes to
what I think is the right conclusion: that if they breed true, though his
path there is not that strong.)


> Which brings us back to Peng Peng. when the Torah gives us the simanei
> tahara of split  hooves and chewing the cud it explicitly only applies
> to the class of chaya and beheima ? not other living creatures. So we
> must revisit the question how much genetic manipulation would halacha
> tolerate before considering Peng Peng something other than a chaya or
> beheima. My intuition (sorry - nothing better than that) tells me we
> have not yet crossed that line with Peng Peng, but clearly that line
> exists and placing it will become a future subject for many shu?ts as
> this technology continues to develop.

Then what is it?  It's certainly not a fish, a bird, or a creepy-
crawly.  I'd think that by definition if it has four legs that are
clearly visible when it walks then it's either a beheima or a chaya;
but if not, then it's something that the Torah never told us *not*
to eat.

-- 
Zev Sero        "Natural resources are not finite in any meaningful
z...@sero.name    economic sense, mind-boggling though this assertion
                  may be. The stocks of them are not fixed but rather
                 are expanding through human ingenuity."
                                            - Julian Simon

Oznayim LaTorah asks the following question. (I wasn't left feeling
satisfied with the answers given, but I really liked the question, so I'll
just post that for now.)

We know that the pasuk "vaChai Bahem" teaches us "vaChai Bahem v'lo laMut
Bahem" that one is not obligated to give up their life if someone forces
them to do an Aveira [in private] with 3 exceptions: Avoda Zara, Gilui
Arayot and Shfichut Damim.

The problem is though, that this Pasuk comes as the introduction to all the
Mitzvot of Gilui Arayot. How can one say that we are obligated to give up
our lives to avoid Gilui Arayot when specifically here is where we are told
"vaChai Bahem"?

Kol Tuv,

-- 
Liron Kopinsky
liron.kopin...@gmail.com
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> A few corrections:
> 1. The disagreement between the Chachamim and Rabbi Yehuda is only about
> when is the (earliest) time to daven marriv and not when to say Shma.
*you are correct in psht in the mishnah however when writing for halacha
purposes shma is included in  ??' ???"? ??' ???: ?"*? ?*???' ????? ?*.
> 2. According to the Alter Rebbe's Siddur the period from ???? ????  until
> sunset (not ??? ) is divided in half which is called  ??? ?????
*i know and i lchatchila wrote it that way, however again im trying to keep
it simple to give a basic explanation. in truth its a machlokes *
> 3. e.g. during the time of the year when the day light is 12 hours from 6
> a.m. to 6 p.m. with the afternoon stating at 12p.m. so ??? ????? would be
> 4:45 p.m. (not 4:30).
*correct*
> 4. The halacha says that you could choose either opinion for Maariv and if
> one davened marriv earlier he would have to say ??? again at  [3]???
???????
?*? ??? ???? ???"? ??? ??? ???? ????? ??' ??"? ?"? ??' ???"? ??' ??"?:?
?????"? ??' ??"?:?? ???' ??"? :?? ???? ???? ?? ??"? ????? ???????? ???
????? ???? ?? ???"? ???? ?????? ???? *....
> .
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On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 09:40:49AM +0300, Liron Kopinsky wrote:
: We know that the pasuk "vaChai Bahem" teaches us "vaChai Bahem v'lo laMut
: Bahem"...
: The problem is though, that this Pasuk comes as the introduction to all the
: Mitzvot of Gilui Arayot...

Barukh shekivanta! The Chasam Sofer asks this question.

See
<http://havolim.blogspot.com/2010/04/achrei-mos-vayikra-185-vechai-
bahem.html>
He doesn't give a citation for the CS, but he gives answers from Tosafos,
the Meshekh Chokhmah, two of his own answers, R' Chaim Brown (former
fellow Avodahite), and RYFrand.


Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 23rd day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org        3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            stifle others?

On Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 10:10:19PM -0700, Saul.Z.New...@kp.org wrote
to Areivim:
: http://www.scientificamerican.
: com/article.cfm?id=losing-your-religion-analytic-thinking-can-undermine-b
: elief

If the survey is conducted in an area where the predominant majority of
the population relate to religion in Xian terms, that would not surprise
me. We're talking about a culture where religious people are expected to
take a "leap of faith" or to "believe because it is absurd" (Tertullian,
as said culture misquotes him).

That said, we live after Kant, Salanter, Freud and Existentialism. The
notion that people make decisions based on rational argument has been
discredited. R Yehudah haLevi (Kuzari I) is generally accepted as
correct -- what any one philosopher can "prove" another can "prove"
the opposite. It inheres in the fact that for all the rigor of a proof,
it still rests on one's givens. And one's experience, proclivities and
negi'os change which givens you find self evident.

To quote my own aphorism:
    The mind is a wonderful organ
    for justifying conclusions
    the heart already reached.

It's the experience of Shabbos that convinces someone that the system
by which we get Shabbos is reliable. Shabbos is just one example, but
perhaps it and talmud Torah are by far the strongest cases. The internal
experience is a data point, one of our givens.

It is no more becoming frum because I like Shabbos than saying that I
accept that two lines with the same slope (in flat Euclidian space)
will not meet because I like the idea. It's not a matter of "like",
it's an a priori mental judgment.

The typical Kiruv worker still thinks Scholastically, that there is
some ultimate theological proof that would convince anyone willing to
really listen. And second, he is dealing with Westerners -- there is
a tendency today to expect our truths in sound bites. Between the two,
true education is difficult, instead there is marketing. Either he tries
to make an overly simple philosophical argument or he simply gives up on
thought and goes for the enjoyable experience -- liking Shabbos rather
than feeling its congruance with the needs of the soul.

Rationality is an assessment of the relationship of givens to a conclusion
-- if there is one. Not of the givens. People confuse rationalism with
metaphysical minimalism. They're both tools of the skeptic, but they
are not the same thing. It is fully rational to accept that Shabbos
must reflect a Truth, which implies things about the reliability of the
halachic process and the Torah.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 23rd day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org        3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            stifle others?

 From http://revach.net/article.php?id=5023

The Gemara (Sanhedrin 97) says that Moshiach will come when every
government in the world turns to Apikursus. Rava says, "We see it
from the pasuk (Tazria 13:13) 'Kulo Hafach Lavan Tahor Hu;' when a
nega spreads through a person's entire body he is tahor." What is the
connection?

Rav Shamshon Rephael Hirsch says that white is a distinguished color,
the color of purity, righteousness, and innocence. It is the color of
a special breed. When every country turns to Apikursus and cloak
themselves in righteousness, only then will Moshiach come and spread
true purity on the world.

----------
If white is the color of purity,  then why do so many Orthodox men 
wear black, and why do I see a trend amongst  observant women to 
favor wearing black over clothing of other colors?  YL


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