Avodah Mailing List

Volume 30: Number 177

Thu, 20 Dec 2012

• 1. Re: ISHA RA'A (Saul Guberman)
• 2. Eglah Arufah, who was wronged? (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: Yochanan Kohein Gadol (Lisa Liel)
• 4. Re: Yochanan Kohein Gadol (Micha Berger)
• 5. lashan hara about poskim (Eli Turkel)
• 6. abbreviations (Eli Turkel)
• 7. Re: ISHA RA'A (T6...@aol.com)
• 8. Lifnei Iver (Liron Kopinsky)
• 9. Re: Lifnei Iver (Micha Berger)
• 10. Re: LH about poskim (Akiva Miller)
• 11. Re: Isha ra'a (Elazar M. Teitz)
• 12. Middos, Connecting to the Creator, and Giving to Others in the Mussar Movement (Prof. Levine)
• 13. Re: Middos, Connecting to the Creator, and Giving to Others in the Mussar Movement (Micha Berger)
• 14. Re: what issur holds? (Micha Berger)

On Wed, Dec 19, 2012 at 2:09 PM, Ben Waxman <ben1...@zahav.net.il> wrote:
> Elqana, Penina and Hanna. And that didn't work out well at all.

Another that did not work well was pilegesh B'Givah.  Technically not a
wife, but....

The Y-mi on Sotah 9:6 begins (43a) with a machloqes chakhmei EY and
chakhmei Bavel. When the beis din of a city proclaims that "yadeinu
lo shafkhu es hadam hazeh", about whom are they saying they discharged
their responsibility?

EY: Their responsibility to protect the world from the horeig.

Bavel: Their resposibility to keep the neherag safe.


So, this works leshitasan with another machloqes, and the Netziv comments
on this.

The Y-mi holds that a BD of 23 is needed for a city to qualify as such
for an eglah arufah. The Bavli holds it's any beis din of 3. So, the
Netziv explains:

EY: Only a BD of 23 can punish a murderer, so only a city with such a BD
    can be held accountable for not taking care of their murderers.


Bavel: Anyone can provide a visitor with food, accompany him, etc... So
       oany DB, even an ad hoc group of 3, should be sufficient.

But there is another machloqes between the two shasin that I would have
had a much easier time explaining had the positions been the other way.
From what part of the meis do you measure the distance to the city?
The mishnah (4:3 in the Y-mi) has three shitos:

R' Eliezer: The navel, because from there he was created as a velad

R' Aqiva: His nose, because that is the place from where he could be
    recognized

R' Eliezer b Yaaqov: from the chalal, from his neck. Quoting Yechezqeil 21,
    "laseies osah al tzav'arei chalalei resha'im." I do not know what
    it means when the victim was wounded elsewhere.

But what I was looking at was the reason given for R' Aqiva's giving
importance to the nose. The Y-mi (41b) says it's because noses are critical
for recognizing people. The Bavli says (Sotah 45b) the argument is where
the source of life.

In this machloqes, the Bavli's criterion can be viewer either way: it
is equally the identifying the central lovation of the life the horeig
ended or the life the neharag lost that we are measuring from.

But... I would have thought that the Y-mi is more consistent with saying
that beis din is responsible to the neherag. Which is why measurement
revolves around who was closer to recognizing him.


Also, interesting to our discussion of breathing vs heartbeat vs
brain-stem death is this discussion on nose vs. navel. It might reflect
on the parallel machloqes about why we stop digging out on Shabbos to
identify if a person is dead. And not having to do with which siman is
determinant to the exclusion of the other.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             If you won't be better tomorrow
mi...@aishdas.org        than you were today,
http://www.aishdas.org   then what need do you have for tomorrow?
Fax: (270) 514-1507              - Rebbe Nachman of Breslov

On 12/19/2012 3:15 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> Related to this question is whether there was a
> kohein gadol named Yochanan who lived before the
> events of Chanukah. The Gaon (Imrei Noam, Berakhos 29a
> <http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14215&;st=&pgnum=45>) says
> THE Yochanan Kohein Gadol (YKG) who served for 80 years was Matisyahu's
> grandson, not his father. And of couse the question of whether Matisyahu
> was the son of THE Yochanan Kohein Gadol doesn't start according to
> Abayei, who says that YKG was Yanai haMelekh. Rava disagrees, saying
> that Yanai was a rasha to begin with, and did not first become a Tzeduqi
> after 80 years of being kohein gadol.
>    
The name Chonyo (rendered in Greek as Onias) is a diminutive, or 
shortened, form of the name Yochanan.  And we know of a few such kohanim 
gedolim.  One Chonyo was the father of Jason, which suggests that the 
Maccabees were Jason's first cousins.

Lisa

On Wed, Dec 19, 2012 at 03:51:03PM -0600, Lisa Liel wrote:
> The name Chonyo (rendered in Greek as Onias) is a diminutive, or  
> shortened, form of the name Yochanan.  And we know of a few such kohanim  
> gedolim.  One Chonyo was the father of Jason, which suggests that the  
> Maccabees were Jason's first cousins.

But to identify that Chonyo with the Yochanan who made these taqanos,
if we say they were made when Ansei Keneses haGedolah told us to give
maaser rishon to kohanim, is a stretch.

The Gra and Mateh Ephraim's girsa would depend more on your penultimate
line -- "we know of a few such kohanim gedolim" rather than your thesis.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Between stimulus & response, there is a space.
mi...@aishdas.org        In that space is our power to choose our
http://www.aishdas.org   response. In our response lies our growth
Fax: (270) 514-1507      and our freedom. - Victor Frankl, (MSfM)
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

<<I have heard such comments before, and I've long wondered whether such
comments are muttar or not. First, the accusations are of such as general
nature that they besmirch all poskim across the board, and I can't imagine
that to be okay.>>

I purposely was vague so as not to attack individual poskim. Does Akiva
prefer that I get into specifics?

However, even the gedolim disagree with Akiva. Rabbi Dr. Steinberg
performed an operation on a sheep to determine various effects related to
the moment of death for RSZA. When the operation showed RSZA was wrong his
reaction was that he regreted not writing IMHO in the original teshuva as
he was now a liar in addition to being wrong. RSZA did not argue that he
followed proper procedure and that is all that matters (I heard this all
personally from Dr. Steinberg)

In some case (sorry I dont remember the specifics) RYSE issued a psak based
on wrong information. RYSE later retracted his psak and said that he had
relied on someone who gave wrong facts. Again, he did not say that a psak
survives wrong factual data.

My comment was that a psak from a gadol should rely on a major person in
the field being discussed. It is useless for a gadol to rely on a local
engineer about some technical matter because he trusts hi. What does it
mean to trust a nonexpert. I repeat the psak from a local rabbi of mine
that the piskei halacha of Rabbi Rosen from Tzomet are frrequently better
because he has the technical knowledge on top of his halachic background.
Of course secular experts in a field also can disagree and then a posek has
to rely on his contacts. But this is true only if the outside person is
indeed an expert (being a professor does not imply being an expert)

 The major kashrut organizations have technical experts who help the posek
make a decision. Part of the problem with Heimesche hashgachot is that they
don't have such experts. Following halachic procedure doesnt make the treif
product become kosher if one didnt check the facts appropriately)

<<We have said before on these pages that halacha is not about being right
or wrong - it's about following proper halachic procedure>>
The proper halachic procedure is to get the facts right. Again, when the
posek says he relied on expert X I agree that is ok.
The problem is when they rely (and yes it happens) on non-experts. It is
well known that some "shamashim" take as part of their job keeping out
major figures from seeing the posek whom the shamashim don't want. Many
poskim tend to be isolated.

I end by again stressing that I am not talking about all poskim and that I
explicitly don't want to name names. If Akiva feels that is lashon ha-ra he
is entitled to his opinion.
-- 
Eli Turkel
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20121220/570378c0/attachment-0001.htm>

The question of kavod applies not only to abbreviations. I have seen
statements that the family of the Steipler was unhappy with that "nickname"
and wanted him referered by his proper name. Nevertheless, the practice
continues among all segments of the population. In general, it is not clear
to me how names are attached to people. Thus, for example the Chafetz Chaim
is known by a book he wrote and not by his proper name (unclear even what
it is) as is the Chazon Ish. OTOH R. Moshe Feinstein is usually referred to
by name (or even Rav Moshe) and not usually as the Iggerot Moshe (or Dibrot
Moshe), similarly for Rav Auerbach.

BTW does anyone know when the practice of referring to rishonim by
abbreviations began. I don't think it appears in the gemara. Tosafot
usually refer to Rashi is Kuntress. Rabbenu Tam is not called by his proper
name (when did that start?). Later baale tosafot are already called RI etc.
at least in our version of tosafot.  rishonim are not usually referred to
by their sefarim eg Rabbenu Tam. Their are some exceptions like the Yereim,
Tur, Akedat Yitzchak.  As pointed out the majority of rishonim are known by
their abbreviations, In addition to those mentioned there is Ritva, Ran and
later Maharil. Rivash, Maharsha,

-- 
Eli Turkel
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20121220/ba5b8d76/attachment-0001.htm>

 
 
From: "Akiva Miller" <kennethgmil...@juno.com>

>>  ....We do know that Moshe Rabenu never took even a second  wife....<

Akiva Miller



 
>>>>>

Actually we don't know that for sure. I recently came across an opinion  
(unfortunately I don't remember where) that the Isha Kushis of whom Miriam 
spoke  was not Tzipporah, but another wife -- perhaps a wife he had taken 
before he met  Tzipporah -- as there seems to be a gap of about 60 years between 
Moshe fleeing  Egypt and his meeting Yisro/marrying his daughter/shepherding 
his sheep.
 

But your point that there seems to be an ideal of one wife is nevertheless  
well-taken. Even men who had more than one wife had one main wife. AFAIK 
the  only wife Yakov ever called "Ishti" was Rochel. Yitzchak had only one 
wife  because he was an olah temimah and it would have been unseemly for him to 
have  more than one wife. Yehudah seems to have been vulnerable in the 
Tamar story  because his wife had died and he was alone -- no indication of 
multiple wives.  Yosef had only one wife. The other shevatim, it never says 
anything about their  wives.
 

Elkanah had two wives, possibly having taken the second wife because his  
first wife was infertile (and he loved her too much to divorce her).
 

Dovid had many wives but his main wife or "real" wife was Batsheva.

 
BTW a co-wife is a "tzarah" in Loshon Kodesh, which well expresses how any  
woman would feel towards another woman who was a rival for her husband's 
love. 



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


------------------------------------------------------------------- 





-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20121219/af368b71/attachment-0001.htm>

Quote seen online (unverified):
"Jewish law recognizes that indiscriminate sale of weapons cannot fail to
endanger the public. The daily newspaper confirms this deep-seated distrust
far more often than is necessary. As the bearers of an ageless moral code,
Jews ought to be in the vanguard of those seeking to impress upon our
legislators
that handguns are indeed ?stumbling blocks? which must not fall into the
hands of the ?blind.? Criminals do commit crimes, and it is precisely
because ?morally blind? criminals are disposed to crime that Judaism
teaches that it is forbidden to provide them with the tools of their
trade." Rabbi J. David Bleich

I assume R' Bleich has an answer to this question, being as he is a big
Talmid Chacham, but I always thought that Lifnei Iver only applies from Jew
to Jew, and not to preventing a non-Jew from violating one of the 7 Mitzvot
Bnei Noach. Am I mistaken on that point? Or is he just saying that we
should remind the rest of the world of these same principles in a
non-Halachic sense?

Kol Tuv,
-- 
Liron Kopinsky
liron.kopin...@gmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20121220/4c44522c/attachment-0001.htm>

On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 09:23:34AM +0200, Liron Kopinsky wrote:
: I assume R' Bleich has an answer to this question, being as he is a big
: Talmid Chacham, but I always thought that Lifnei Iver only applies from Jew
: to Jew, and not to preventing a non-Jew from violating one of the 7 Mitzvot
: Bnei Noach. Am I mistaken on that point? ...

See the Rama and the Shakh at YD 151:1. Lifnei iveir definitely applies.
Which seems clear-cut from the top of AZ 6b "minyain shelo yoshit ...
ve'eiver min hachai livnei Noach? T"L 'velifnei iveir...'" They argue
as to whether mesayei'a applies to a non-Jew (or a Jewish apiqoreis).

What you might be thinking of is that they themselves aren't chayavim
in lifnei iveir toward others.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The true measure of a man
mi...@aishdas.org        is how he treats someone
http://www.aishdas.org   who can do him absolutely no good.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                   - Samuel Johnson

R' Saul Newman wrote:

> if the qualification to be a Gadol includes a fairly large
> measure of being cut off from the reality to the world of
> day-to-day life, other than ruach hakodesh how is the Gadol
> to know that an 'expert' in a field that the Gadol doesnt
> know about is in fact an expert?

Absolutely NO ONE is expert in everything. We each have our own fields of expertise.

Let's talk about me for a moment. My day-to-day experiences include a
gigantic measure of being cut off from the realities of the discussions
that go on in the world of Torah. If so, then how - other than ruach
hakodesh - am I to know that an expert in Torah is in fact an expert?

> eg  the posek  never had a secular education.  a question
> comes up about vaccinations. if they bring him an
> anti-vaccination advocate as an 'expert', other than ruach
> hakodesh what can tell him that veracity emerges from the
> expert's mouth?

I don't know what field your expertise is in, but in my case, I am
certainly NOT an expert in medical matters. I am aware that some physicians
are pro-vaccination, and some are anti-vaccination. Being that I am not an
expert, I am not qualified to judge the merits of their arguments. It does
seem to me that the pro-vaccination physicians are in the majority, but
that's just a function of the media outlets that I listen to, and the mazel
of the personal doctors that I have used.

In other words, I suspect that *everyone* -- you, me, the local posek, and
the local sanitation worker -- chooses their experts in pretty much the
same manner, and I'm interested to hear what improvements you would
suggest. One improvement I can think of might be to go directly to some
acknowledged world leader. For example, for medical issues, one might ask
what the position is of the American Medical Association. Or the National
Institutes of Health. Or the Surgeon General. But these groups might not
agree with each other. And they've been accused of "having an agenda"
anyway.

So we are back to finding an individual, or several, who *IS* capable of
researching the issues, and relying on that. Which is exactly what the
poskim do, isn't it? No ruach hakodesh at all.

Akiva Miller
____________________________________________________________
Gaviscon® Liquid Antacid
Looking for Mylanta? Try Gaviscon® for Fast Acting & Lasting Relief!
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/50d2f5a65c1c275a67be9st03vuc

<Who do we know of that DID have plural wives, beyond Avraham, 
Yaakov, and David Hamelech? And do we know WHY they (Dovid, for example) took the 
additional ones?>

     The record holder (at least in Tanach) is, of course, Shlomo haMelech.
      And, whether factual or not, the story has it that Rabbeinu Gershom
     was motivated by his own unhappy experience.      As for examples
     among Chazal, see Yevamos 37a, though they were not long-term
     relationships. EMT
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20121220/28608c0c/attachment-0001.htm>

[R/Prof Y Levine posted a reference to a book review on Hirhurim by
RGStudent. I commented on part of the snippet R/P YL quoted, which then
led to this conversation about the Mussar Movement.

[This post was sent to Areivim, but I think the conversation belongs here.

-micha]

At 12:42 PM 12/20/2012, Micha Berger wrote:
>On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 11:56:31AM -0500, Prof. Levine wrote:
> > From http://tinyurl.com/cowjct3
>...
> > R. Yisroel Miller's In
> > Search of Torah Wisdom: Questions You Forgot to Ask Your Rebbi is a
> > refreshing example of principled pluralism....
>..
> > R. Miller adopts the views of the mussar yeshiva, unsurprising given his
> > background. He sees Torah as the center of life, both as a subject of
> > study and a focus of life...

>The first sentence is inconsistent with the second. It's the Yeshiva
>Movement which says that learning Torah is the center of life. Mussar
>taught that giving to others is front and center, and fixing one's
>middos and one's connection to the Creator (to be better at doing so)
>is very close second. Torah study is part of that self-repair, not
>the end-all.

While is it certainly true that the early Musarniks were concerned 
with others, Reb Yisroel Salanter being the prime example,  my 
impression is that later generations of the followers of Mussar were 
primarily concerned with their middos and their connection to the 
Creator and did not show that much concern with giving to others.

Yitzchok Levine 

On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 01:48:53PM -0500, Prof. Levine wrote:
>> The first sentence is inconsistent with the second. It's the Yeshiva
>> Movement which says that learning Torah is the center of life. Mussar
>> taught that giving to others is front and center, and fixing one's
>> middos and one's connection to the Creator (to be better at doing so)
>> is very close second. Torah study is part of that self-repair, not
>> the end-all.

> While is it certainly true that the early Musarniks were concerned with 
> others, Reb Yisroel Salanter being the prime example,  my impression is 
> that later generations of the followers of Mussar were primarily 
> concerned with their middos and their connection to the Creator and did 
> not show that much concern with giving to others.

I posted to Areivim a list of sources of people in or influenced by the
Mussar Movement as evidence of my claim. To reinsert is here:

>> Think of REEDessler's Qunterus haChesed (in MmE vol 1), the Meshekh
>> Chokhmah on Devarim 28:61 (translated at
>> <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2012/04/torah-sefer-torah.shtml>,
>> <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2012/04/learning-and-teaching-1.s
>> html> and
>> <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2012/04/learning-and-teaching-2.s
>> html>)
>> or R' Shim'on Shkop's intro to Shaarei Yosher (bilingual PDF at
>> <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/ShaareiYosher.pdf>.

Let me also add Dr Nathan Birnbaum. I couldn't translate his essay
on Da'as Rachamim Tif'eres, my Yiddish isn't up to that. But I found
excerpts in Hebrew and posted an English [double-] translation at
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2012/07/daas-rachamim-tiferes.shtml>.

These are all names from the 20th century, not "early Mussarniks"!

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It's never too late
mi...@aishdas.org        to become the person
http://www.aishdas.org   you might have been.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                      - George Elliot

On Tue, Dec 18, 2012 at 08:47:03AM -0800, saul newman wrote:
: one could  certainly imagine  a haredi party where women could be on
: the list.but  it would seem that the political culture of  UTJ and
: Shas could not manage this...
: the poster wonders based on what sin.

Giving women serarah. This is actually more of an issue for RAYKook
followers. RAYK was against women's suffrage because of serarah. If
voting is inappropriate political power, being an MK is altogether
out of the question.

R' Uzziel permitted voting, vekakh nohagim.

I'm told that Rn Dr Nechama Leibowitz didn't vote to the day she died
because of RAYK's pesaq.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A person must be very patient
mi...@aishdas.org        even with himself.
http://www.aishdas.org         - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov
Fax: (270) 514-1507


------------------------------


Avodah mailing list
Avo...@lists.aishdas.org
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah
http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org


End of Avodah Digest, Vol 30, Issue 177
***************************************

Send Avodah mailing list submissions to
	avodah@lists.aishdas.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
	http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
	avodah-request@lists.aishdas.org

You can reach the person managing the list at
	avodah-owner@lists.aishdas.org

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Avodah digest..."


A list of common acronyms is available at at
        http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/acronyms.cgi
(They are also visible in the web archive copy of each digest.)