Volume 32: Number 131
Mon, 08 Sep 2014
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Message: 1
From: Micha Berger
Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2014 22:31:27 -0400
Subject: [Avodah] Ben Soreir Umoreh won't change?
So here we have a kid, just entering adolescence, with so perfect an
upbringing, most of chazal were sure the situation could never exist.
And yet he turns out evil.
So we know we're dealing with someone with a strong rebellion streak
and a very strong will -- he doesn't follow environment, he defied it.
And yet HQBH says we're still sure he isn't going to change tracks again
and end up at least enough less evil to be worth saving?
Seems to me the ben soreir umoreh's history would lead us to conclude
he's the last person for us to predict his path.
Gut Voch!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger "Someday I will do it." - is self-deceptive.
mi...@aishdas.org "I want to do it." - is weak.
http://www.aishdas.org "I am doing it." - that is the right way.
Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Reb Menachem Mendel of Kotzk
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Message: 2
From: Micha Berger
Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2014 22:49:44 -0400
Subject: [Avodah] Thought, Action, and Halakhah
I recently listened to http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/811491
When Philosophy Meets Halacha:
Doctors and Soldiers Switching Shifts on Shabbos
Rabbi Jonathan Ziring - Apr 1, 2014 - Yeshivat Har Etzion
This shiur analyzes the Gemara's attempt at defining the nature
of sin and shows how poskim have taken this issue to have legal
implications. Specifically, it deals with whether religious doctors
and soldiers should switch shifts with non-religious ones.
Also includes a link to mar'eh meqomos.
(H/T R Ben Rothke, vol 32 issue 88.)
The shiur revolves around Nazir 23a, and whether sin inheres in the
thought or the action. Three cases are discussed:
1- A woman who violates a neder, not knowing her husband was meifir
it
2- Someone who has to get kaparah for eating lamb thinking he was
enjoying pork
3- Someone who didn't know whether they were eating cheilev or
shuman
So, what about a chiloni who doesn't think in terms of piquach nefesh
docheh Shabbos?
Anyway, it's an interesting topic, worth listening to the shiur, or
at least reading the m"m and guessing at the shiur, which likely
it faster. But...
I was wondering in this context Izhbitz and their position that the
only bechirah a person has isn't in maaseh, but only in how they choose
to understand their actions -- whether they accept that everything that
happens is retzon Hashem, or whethery they persist in trying to rebel. And
the consequent take on aveirah lishmah. (One of RYGB's favorite topics.)
Gut Voch!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger None of us will leave this place alive.
mi...@aishdas.org All that is left to us is
http://www.aishdas.org to be as human as possible while we are here.
Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous MD, while a Nazi prisoner
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Message: 3
From: Eli Turkel
Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2014 12:49:19 +0300
Subject: [Avodah] a temple in flames
<<f so, we cannot declare the story ahistorical or a character ahistorical,
unless we declare all versions of that story as ahistorical, or all
versions of that story where said character appears, respectively.
Therefore, please specify which version of the story you believe ought to
be rejected (the one most likely to be ahistorical as portrayed is the most
popular version, by the way, with the link to the Joseph story).>>
Most historians would argue that the very fact that there are so many
different versions
of the asara harugei malchut would indicate that they are all ahistorical
or at best that we cant locate the real historical event. The most likely
scenarion is that there were many martyrs at this period of time and later
they were combined into one story with the identification of the exact
events depending on each version.
Jeremy Cohen has a book about the massacres of the first crusade. He claims
that the details of the martyrs were written much later and are not
accurate.
http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14014.html
The Jewish survivors of 1096 memorialized the victims as martyrs as they
rebuilt their communities during the decades following the Crusade. Three
twelfth-century Hebrew chronicles of the persecutions preserve their
memories of martyrdom and self-sacrifice, tales fraught with symbolic
meaning that constitute one of the earliest Jewish attempts at local,
contemporary historiography. Reading and analyzing these stories through
the prism of Jewish and Christian religious and literary traditions, Jeremy
Cohen shows how these persecution chronicles reveal much more about the
storytellers, the martyrologists, than about the martyrs themselves. While
they extol the glorious heroism of the martyrs, they also air the doubts,
guilt, and conflicts of those who, by submitting temporarily to the
Christian crusaders, survived.
--
Eli Turkel
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Message: 4
From: Zev Sero
Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2014 00:13:27 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Ben Soreir Umoreh won't change?
On 6/09/2014 10:31 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> So here we have a kid, just entering adolescence, with so perfect an
> upbringing, most of chazal were sure the situation could never exist.
> And yet he turns out evil.
>
> So we know we're dealing with someone with a strong rebellion streak
> and a very strong will -- he doesn't follow environment, he defied it.
Where did you get this idea that his upbringing was perfect, or even good?
Where did you see anything at all about his upbringing? Chazal's assumption
that such a case is so unlikely that it probably never happened has nothing
to do with what sort of upbringing he had!
--
Zev Sero Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable
z...@sero.name from malice.
- Eric Raymond
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Message: 5
From: David Wacholder
Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2014 23:49:41 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Zemanim: Analemma or RMF static high noon
Earliest time to validly start Amidah 18 of Mincha:
Adding to RMB's latest post, were Chatzot plus precisely one 24th part of
"daylight", that is were the sun at a precise coordinate location in the
sky, - which the amateur cannot easily calculate - one cannot pray until
clearly the time is passed. That would be in fact harder than "high noon"
which is observable.
I am forced to conclude - by elimination, It is just an indication - that
one sees "past noon" with some degree of caution. Then one can pray
Minchah. Bdi'avad - IMHO Mincha after True Chatzos - even one second - is
Kasher and accepted. One assumed an unnecessary risk and got away with it.
Maharil Diskin may have said that Kachatzos Halayla - all of the Bchorim in
Mitzrayim lined up on the same longitude line so the miracle could happen
at one exact moment. RMF looked at his watch, and goes according to that.
The majority calendar assumes it was exactly 12 hours from High Noon.
According to the idea of random distribution, those who wanted longer life
went as far west as they could reach.
I seem to have always assumed that there is no elegant solution to RMF's
"conflict" with the Annalemma. Rather - the slippage of actual Chatzos -
when one is in Petersburg not that far from the Arctic Circle - is really
hard to separate from refraction errors. My major defense would be that -
for the direct observors of the sun and shadows - it was the simplest most
direct measurement all day.
"Clear as the sun at high noon!" - Witnesses in the Gmara knew when their
shadow disappeared, without any trouble. There is the least refraction. As
all know, this is the border between Tamid Shel Shachar and Tamid Shel Bein
Ha'Arbayim - Min Hatorah. the Annalemma is self-evidently correct, and
agrees with High noon of the Gmara. If only Alos Hashachar were so
precisely defined. Even sunrise and sunset can be argued much more
effectively.
Was RMF relying on "traditions" such as the Vilna Gaon's calculations for
ZmKrSh? Those were based on the previous normal - three times a day one
glances at the sky or the stars or his shadow or whatever. What was RMF's
basis? Nobody has written and documented a solid answer. Until then - it is
a historical curiosity, and for his dignity and ours, we try to accommodate
it.
As RZS pointed out, until the railroads came, the mayor added minutes to
the Town Clock manually. This made the 30 minute range disappear due to
regular adjustments. This applies perhaps to the entire Czarist period,
especially in isolated enclaves.
The simple rustic in Russia did not need exact time for his agricultural
purposes. Nothing was amiss if his clock, wound up manually, was ten
minutes early or even late. When the Gabay knocked it was time to pray. He
did not use electric power at all.
Beinish in his Seifer mentions such an assumption.
Chatzos for Minchah - the solution is to always start ten minutes late.
Thus there is no negation of RMF logic.
Standard calendars just ignore RMF and relegate it to a footnote. It
conflicts with their computer generated and standardized data sources. As
the entire discussion proves to me, no explanation on the elegant
astronomical level has been reached, though my opinion is by no means
dispositive.
Rather, when it comes to precision calculation of the moon's actual
position, as calculated by the Gedolei Hador behind closed doors as "Sod
Ha'Ibur" implies, there will be a precise answer. The Beth Din has the duty
to decide.
By contrast, for purposes of publicly universally practiced "folk-Halacha"
- approximations sometimes suffice. Halacha records the public practice, as
announced publicly in the Drasha, eventually recorded in Codes. For this
purpose - today's vaunted precision was - for most of history - totally
irrelevant.
After a certain level of complexity - say Veset She'Eino Kavu'a had only
one Haflaga of 40 days then 33 34 35 - it is defensible to say that in
theory 40 should still be there. In practice, I use simplify the complex --
Just use the last one, as the fog and murk is so strong. What about 73 days
followed by 33 34 35 ? Soon she is keeping long term calendars, beyond the
ability of some.
Were it a Vesset Kavua - 40 40 40 40 discarding minor conditions - Chas
Veshalom to be lenient. Ramban says clearly - only a longer Haflaga is
sufficient to uproot the established pattern.
But - if the woman is presumed pregnant, both Onah Beinonis of Haflaga 30
and 31 may - at discretion of a Rav - to days 59 and 61 based on a
phantom ghost non-event. Also a second time to day s88 adnd 62 (I am
probably off a day or two - it is the theory I am after now) . Even where
ineffective, keep some structure to keep them thinking the right way. That
is just as a reminder for next year that there is such a thing. It has zero
theoretical validity. See Aruch Hashulchan YD 189-42. Unless there is
Great Need - then the lenient Rabbi is just "borrowing from his assets", he
can sleep like a lamb.
Is this valid? It is sound day to day Rabbinical practice.
Opposite end of the scale - spending 100,000 dollars annually on fertility
treatments - out comes the Book of Leniencies. The Antarctic explorer
pieces his way forward step by step with his poles checking the ice for
chasms. His safety equipment is vital. The Rabbi is now a decisor - well
trained deeply trained Rabbi up to Gadol Hador.
Chatzos - in your average Yeshivah - can wait a few minutes with no great
loss. Guaranteed - no Baal Habayis will come to the Rabbi screaming. Still
- the discussion of the Ideal Truth - RMF is classified as lacking
necessary information for a solution.
--
David Wacholder
Email: dwachol...@gmail.com
dwachol...@optonline.net
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Message: 6
From: Micha Berger
Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2014 16:50:59 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Ben Soreir Umoreh won't change?
On Sun, Sep 07, 2014 at 12:13:27AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
: >So we know we're dealing with someone with a strong rebellion streak
: >and a very strong will -- he doesn't follow environment, he defied it.
: Where did you get this idea that his upbringing was perfect, or even good?
As RSRH writes (on our pasuq), it's more sensible to read Chazal as
speaking of both parents giving the same educational message. But if
you think Chazal instead mean that both parents had the same voice,
physically, you wouldn't get any statement about upbringing. But it's
kind of odd to think Chazal were saying HQBH made the mitzvah depend on
some physical absurdity that has no bearing out the outcome. (Except,
perhaps, that the boy would be more likely to be bullied, teased about
having the masculine mom or effeminate dad.)
Anyway, see RSRH. I just echoed his point.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger There's only one corner of the universe
mi...@aishdas.org you can be certain of improving,
http://www.aishdas.org and that's your own self.
Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aldous Huxley
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Message: 7
From: Prof. Levine
Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2014 18:33:11 -0400
Subject: [Avodah] Jerusalem rabbinical court refuses to let widow of
From http://tinyurl.com/k7yobnk
Woman performed 'halitza' rite to release her from husband's brother,
but was denied to wed new partner, with whom she had four children.
A widow who was unable to remarry for 13 years due to the refusal of
her dead husband's family to allow a little- known ceremony to be
performed has recently been denied the right to finally marry her
partner of over 10 years by the Jerusalem Rabbinical Court.
<Snip>
Shlomit Lavi, now 42, was happily married to her husband, Shlomi, for
a year and a half until he died 13 years ago.
She initially believed that performing the halitza ceremony would be
a formality, but her father-in-law demanded that she pay NIS 200,000
for his son, the brother of her late husband, to perform the ceremony.
<Snip>
In July this year, Shlomit flew to Canada, where her brother-in-law
resides, and the halitza ceremony was performed under the auspices of
an Orthodox rabbinical court in Toronto.
However, in the years during which the family refused to perform the
halitza ceremony, Shlomit found a new partner and had four children
with him, but was unable to marry him since Jewish law prohibits a
woman from marrying without having performed halitza.
<Snip>
The rabbinical court ruled that since she had lived with a man and
had children with him before the halitza ceremony was performed, she
was no longer permitted to marry him according to Jewish law.
See the above URL for more.
----------
Question: Are these 4 children considered mamzerim? YL
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Message: 8
From: Micha Berger
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2014 06:08:01 -0400
Subject: [Avodah] Ein Adam Meisim Atzmo Rasha
With the new book on Hannah Arendt out, there is some discussion of her
study of Eichman y"sh and "the banality of evil".
The AFP just put out this story
https://news.yahoo.com/evil-not-banal-says-disturbing-060928267.html
Evil not so banal, says disturbing new probe
3 hours ago
"The more we read and the more data we collect, the less evidence
we find to support the banality of evil idea, the notion that
participants are simply 'thoughtless' or 'mindless' zombies who don't
know what they're doing and just go along for the sake of it," said
Alex Haslam, a professor at the University of Queensland in Australia.
"Our sense is that some form of identification, and hence choice,
generally underpins all tyrannical behaviour."
Their detective work focused on legendary experiments conducted in
1961 by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram.
...
Frighteningly, in one test, nearly two-thirds of volunteers continued
all the way to "lethal" voltage, even when the learner pleaded for
mercy, wept or screamed in agony.
These experiments became enshrined in textbooks as an illustration
of how the conscience can be put on hold under orders.
The findings meshed with a landmark book by the writer Hannah Arendt
on the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Holocaust.
Far from the monster she had expected, Arendt found that Eichmann came
across more like a petty bureaucrat, prompting her to coin the term
"banality of evil" to suggest how ordinary people, by conforming,
could commit atrocities.
...
A team sifted through a box in the Yale archives that contained
comments written by the volunteers after they were told the purpose
of the experiment, and that the torture had been fake.
Of the 800 participants, 659 submitted a reaction. Some said they
had felt unease or distress during the tests, but most reported
being positive about the experience, some extremely so.
...
"To be part of such an important experiment can only make one feel
good," said one.
"I feel I have contributed in some small way toward the development
of man and his attitudes towards others," said another.
"If it [is] your belief that these studies will benefit mankind then
I say we should have more of them," said another.
Were these happy comments spurred by relief, after volunteers learned
they had not, in fact, hurt anyone?
No, suggests the paper. A sense of pleasure, of duty fulfilled,
of having served a higher calling, pervaded the comment cards.
...
These people were able to justify turning a knob that would -- as far
as they know -- risk someone's life for the sake of some greater good.
It's not that people suspend moral judgment in the face of authority, it's
that we have an incredible capacity to convince ourselves that the evil
choice isn't actually evil. If this re-analysis of Milgram's experiment
(by adding the post-experiment revalataions of the participants) is
correct, we have experimental evidence for ein adam meisim atzmo rasha.
After all, if no one acts without interpreting their actions as positive,
or without reinterpreting them that way after the fact, then we should
assume that meaning when listening to the accused's testimony.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
PS: The original study at the British Journal of Social Psychology
is here http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjso.12074/abstract
'Happy to have been of service':
The Yale archive as a window into the engaged followership of
participants in Milgram's 'obedience' experiments
S. Alexander Haslam1, Stephen D. Reicher, Kathryn Millard and
Rachel McDonald
Article first published online: 5 SEP 2014
Abstract
This study examines the reactions of participants in Milgram's
'Obedience to Authority' studies to reorient both theoretical and
ethical debate. Previous discussion of these reactions has focused
on whether or not participants were distressed. We provide evidence
that the most salient feature of participants' responses -- and the
feature most needing explanation -- is not their lack of distress
but their happiness at having participated. Drawing on material in
Box 44 of Yale's Milgram archive we argue that this was a product of
the experimenter's ability to convince participants that they were
contributing to a progressive enterprise. Such evidence accords with
an engaged followership model in which (1) willingness to perform
unpleasant tasks is contingent upon identification with collective
goals and (2) leaders cultivate identification with those goals by
making them seem virtuous rather than vicious and thereby ameliorating
the stress that achieving them entails. This analysis is inconsistent
with Milgram's own agentic state model. Moreover, it suggests that
the major ethical problem with his studies lies less in the stress
that they generated for participants than in the ideologies that
were promoted to ameliorate stress and justify harming others.
--
Micha Berger Man is capable of changing the world for the
mi...@aishdas.org better if possible, and of changing himself for
http://www.aishdas.org the better if necessary.
Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning
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Message: 9
From: Zev Sero
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 01:49:25 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Ben Soreir Umoreh won't change?
On 7/09/2014 4:50 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 07, 2014 at 12:13:27AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
> : >So we know we're dealing with someone with a strong rebellion streak
> : >and a very strong will -- he doesn't follow environment, he defied it.
>
> : Where did you get this idea that his upbringing was perfect, or even good?
>
> As RSRH writes (on our pasuq), it's more sensible to read Chazal as
> speaking of both parents giving the same educational message. But if
> you think Chazal instead mean that both parents had the same voice,
> physically, you wouldn't get any statement about upbringing. But it's
> kind of odd to think Chazal were saying HQBH made the mitzvah depend on
> some physical absurdity that has no bearing out the outcome.
But that is precisely what they do say, and all the Rishonim seem to have
taken them literally on it. The Rambam *paskens* this way lehalacha, that
if the Sanhedrin is reestablished and such an unlikely case comes before a
BD,this is what must be done. WADR to RSRH, he did not have the authority
to come up with such a radical new psak on his own.
If this were Chazal's own idea we would expect it to make sense. But it
isn't their idea, this is how they received the meaning of the pasuk. It
probably didn't make any sense to them either, because they don't try
explaining it, they just say this is how it is, this is what the words mean,
this is how our rabbeyim told us to pasken should a case come up.
If I had to speculate as to why Hashem would make crazy rules like that,
I might suggest that perhaps it's precisely so that it would never happen;
perhaps the law's only purpose is to drive home to rebellious children (of
both sexes and all ages) how seriously Hashem regards their behaviour, that
in principle what they're doing is a capital crime, and if they continue in
their ways they will only escape execution on a technicality. But that's
just a guess; Chazal didn't give us any clue to their own thoughts on the
matter.
--
Zev Sero Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable
z...@sero.name from malice.
- Eric Raymond
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Message: 10
From: Zev Sero
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 02:07:36 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Jerusalem rabbinical court refuses to let widow
On 7/09/2014 6:33 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote:
> Question: Are these 4 children considered mamzerim? YL
No, they are not. Yevama lachutz is an issur lav, and a mamzer is only created
by an issur kareis.
--
Zev Sero Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable
z...@sero.name from malice.
- Eric Raymond
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Message: 11
From: Micha Berger
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2014 17:42:23 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Rebbi Akiva, Rabbon Gamliel, Who Brings the
On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 5:24pm EDT, I wrote:
: We discussed numerous times the Sifri that takes "lo sosur min hadavar
: asher yagidu lekha yemin usmol" (Devarim 17:11) to mean even if they
: tell you "al yemin shehu semol" and all the more so if they tell you
: "al yemin, 'yemin'". This is the well-known take, because the Sifri is
: quoted by Rashi.
: But yet again Y-mi Yomi has me reopening topics. Horios 1:1, 2b.
: And this time, it's the Horios thread that'll never die...
: The Y-mi raises this as a hava amina and rejects it. And so, a Ben Azzai
: (the Y-mi's recurring example of a talmid not in BD who is more learned
: than a number of the Sanhedrin) is not expected to follow a pesaq ofd
: Sanhedrin that he knows is wrong. (Not merely disagree with.)
: The acharonim ad loc struggle with the Rashi and why he didn't follow
: the Y-mi.
Well, I just saw the the Torah Temimah last week, so the thread still
isn't dying....
It seems the Gra favored a different girsa of the Sifri and Rashi, which
says "afilu nir'im be'einekha". The Gra holds the Sifri is telling us
to follow the poseiq's opinion over our own when the matter is open to
interpretation. Not when the din is open-and-shut.
The Ramban has a different resolution: The Sifri (and Rashi) are referring
to the power of the din derabbanan. Even if they prohibit the permitted,
or tell you (besheiv ve'al ta'aseh) to ignore a chiyuv. Nut not if they
tell you the halakhah is X and you know for certain it's Y.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger "The worst thing that can happen to a
mi...@aishdas.org person is to remain asleep and untamed."
http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm
Fax: (270) 514-1507
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