Avodah Mailing List

Volume 34: Number 140

Wed, 02 Nov 2016

• 1. Re: fitbit (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: fitbit (Zev Sero)
• 3. Re: R' Nissim Karelitz's Beis Din: Kohanim cannot fly from Ben Gurion (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: R' Nissim Karelitz's Beis Din: Kohanim cannot fly from Ben Gurion (Zev Sero)
• 5. Re: R' Nissim Karelitz's Beis Din: Kohanim cannot fly from Ben Gurion (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: fitbit ()
• 7. Re: R' Nissim Karelitz's Beis Din: Kohanim cannot fly from Ben Gurion (Zev Sero)
• 8. Re: fitbit (Zev Sero)
• 9. Re: fitbit ()
• 10. Swaying During Prayer and Torah Study (Professor L. Levine)
• 11. Re: Swaying During Prayer and Torah Study (Micha Berger)
• 12. Re: Swaying During Prayer and Torah Study (Mandel, Seth)
• 13. Coca Cola (Sholom Simon)
• 14. halacha vs minhag (Sholom Simon)

On Tue, Nov 01, 2016 at 11:39:07PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
: again, according to the material you cited about static the whole
: problem was sparks.  Since there is no mention of sparks in the
: article, none of that discussion was relevant to our topic..

But they must be, somehow. This clothing is using the same effect as
making static electricity by rubbing one's feet on carpeting. Just here,
the electrons are not left static, and set in motion around a circuit.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

On 02/11/16 10:58, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 01, 2016 at 11:39:07PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
> : again, according to the material you cited about static the whole
> : problem was sparks.  Since there is no mention of sparks in the
> : article, none of that discussion was relevant to our topic..
>
> But they must be, somehow. This clothing is using the same effect as
> making static electricity by rubbing one's feet on carpeting. Just here,
> the electrons are not left static, and set in motion around a circuit.

Why should that be a problem?  The problem discussed over there is not 
the static electricity at all, but only the sparks that are created when 
it discharges.  If there are no sparks (and the article we're discussing 
doesn't mention any) then the problem doesn't exist.  *Other* problems 
may or may not exist, but the discussion about sparks sheds no light on 
that.

-- 
Zev Sero                Hit the road, Jack
z...@sero.name           but please come back once more

On Tue, Nov 01, 2016 at 07:16:50PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
: Simple.  He's walking on the path. But the path comes within four
: amos of graves.  Without a fence he might be maahil over a grave;
: with a fence he's on one side, the grave is on the other, so no part
: of him can be over it.

1- Today no one grinds their medicine either, but that law is still on
the books. (If very less frequently applied.)

2- The portable ohel does nothing to help the kohein avoid walking on a
qever. The taqanah is that even with a demarkation around the grave and
a division into multiple reshuyos (a 4 foot wall or trench), the kohein
must stay 4 tefachim away. He has no demarkation saying "you would now
be above the grave".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

On 02/11/16 10:55, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
 > 1- Today no one grinds their medicine either, but that law is still
 > on the books. (If very less frequently applied.)

Hence the need for the fence.


> 2- The portable ohel does nothing to help the kohein avoid walking on a
> qever. The taqanah is that even with a demarkation around the grave and
> a division into multiple reshuyos (a 4 foot wall or trench), the kohein
> must stay 4 tefachim away. He has no demarkation saying "you would now
> be above the grave".

The path is his demarcation.  So long as he's on the path he knows he's 
not walking over graves, nor is he within four tefachim of them.

-- 
Zev Sero                Hit the road, Jack
z...@sero.name           but please come back once more

On Wed, Nov 02, 2016 at 11:21:08AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
: On 02/11/16 10:55, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
: > 1- Today no one grinds their medicine either, but that law is still
: > on the books. (If very less frequently applied.)
: 
: Hence the need for the fence.

But that's not the taqnah. The taqanah is a fence or trench of 10 tefachim
marking where the grave is.

There is no such demarkation. The path doesn't have a 10 tefach border.

So, while you take care of the reshus issue, and you took care of the risk
the taqana was set up to address, one isn't really complying with the
taqana.

Unless one could show the taqana was only to have any demarkation, and the
mention of 10 tefachim was to create another reshus only, as a totally
different din.

That is possibly true, but it has yet to be demonstrated.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes
mi...@aishdas.org        exactly the right measure of himself,  and
http://www.aishdas.org   holds a just balance between what he can
Fax: (270) 514-1507      acquire and what he can use." - Peter Latham

 
From: Zev Sero via Avodah <avo...@lists.aishdas.org>

How  is it zilzul shabbat to simply wear clothes, just because they do 
something  that will be useful after shabbos?  Surely it's just like 
wearing a  self-winding watch, which I don't think anyone has a problem  
with.


-- 
Zev  Sero                 
z...@sero.name            





>>>>>
 
There are people who will not wear a watch on Shabbos.  This is not  such a 
rare phenomenon.
 

--Toby Katz
t6...@aol.com
..
=============


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


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20161102/4a670a6c/attachment-0001.htm>

On 02/11/16 11:51, Micha Berger wrote:
> But that's not the taqnah. The taqanah is a fence or trench of 10 tefachim
> marking where the grave is.

Since when?  All we have a law (YD 371:5) that a cohen may not come 
within four amos of a grave unless there is a fence or trench between 
them; so now there is one.  Who says the fence has to belong to the 
grave?  If someone just happened to be buried next to a fence that was 
already there, or if someone were to build a fence and then happen to 
discover a grave next to it, could a cohen not stand on the other side 
of it?!

-- 
Zev Sero                Hit the road, Jack
z...@sero.name           but please come back once more

On 02/11/16 12:05, via Avodah wrote:
>
>
> From: Zev Sero via Avodah <avo...@lists.aishdas.org>
>
> How is it zilzul shabbat to simply wear clothes, just because they do
> something that will be useful after shabbos?  Surely it's just like
> wearing a self-winding watch, which I don't think anyone has a problem
> with.
>
>
> --
> Zev Sero
> z...@sero.name
>
>
>
>>>>>>
>
> There are people who will not wear a watch on Shabbos.  This is not such
> a rare phenomenon.

There are people who won't wear *any* watch outside on Shabbos, unless 
one would wear it even if it weren't working. But that's because of 
issur tiltul.  It's got nothing to do with any issur connected with the 
watch itself or what it's doing.  They'll wear watches where there's an 
eruv.    But afaik nobody has a problem with a self-winding watch.


-- 
Zev Sero                Hit the road, Jack
z...@sero.name           but please come back once more

No some people will not wear a watch at all on Shabbos, even where  there's 
an eruv.
 
-
--Toby Katz
t6...@aol.com
..
=============



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

 
In a message dated 11/2/2016 12:33:57 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
z...@sero.name writes:

They'll  wear watches where there's an 
eruv.    But afaik nobody has a  problem with a self-winding  watch.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20161102/5396e28d/attachment-0001.htm>

Please see the article at

http://tinyurl.com/zxu88bg


YL
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20161102/f4c688bb/attachment-0001.htm>

On Wed, Nov 02, 2016 at 05:14:13PM +0000, Mandel, Seth wrote:
: He also mentions R. Breuer as if it was only the German Jews who did
: not shockle. Everyone knows that RMF and RYBS stood ramrod straight,
: and they were not copying German minhogim. R. Aharon Kotler also stood
: straight. The minhag of shockling is one of the things specifically
: mentioned as a chiddush of the Chasidim.

And yet R' Aryeh Kaplan was also against shukling, saying it inferferes
with proper kavanah. But kayadua, his definition of proper kavanah was
far from that of Yekkes, Litvaks, or post-meditation Chassidus.

I think the role of shukling depends on whether one's emotion in prayer
is expressive or impressive.

To quote R/Dr H Soloveitchik's R&R
<http://www.lookstein.org/links/orthodoxy.htm>:
    In 1959, I came to Israel before the High Holidays. Having grown up
    in Boston and never having had an opportunity to pray in a haredi
    yeshivah, I spent the entire High Holiday periodfrom Rosh Hashanah
    to Yom Kippurat a famous yeshiva in Bnei Brak. The prayer there
    was long, intense, and uplifting, certainly far more powerful than
    anything I had previously experienced. And yet, there was something
    missing, something that I had experienced before, something, perhaps,
    I had taken for granted. Upon reflection, I realized that there was
    introspection, self-ascent, even moments of self-transcendence,
    but there was no fear in the thronged student body, most of whom
    were Israeli born.95 Nor was that experience a solitary one. Over
    the subsequent thirty-five years, I have passed the High holidays
    generally in the United States or Israel, and occasionally in England,
    attending services in haredi and non-haredi communities alike. I
    have yet to find that fear present, to any significant degree, among
    the native born in either circle. The ten-day period between Rosh
    Hashanah and Yom Kippur are now Holy Days, but they are not Yamim
    NoraimDays of Awe or, more accurately Days of Dread as they have
    been traditionally called.

    I grew up in a Jewishly non-observant community, and prayed in a
    synagogue where most of the older congregants neither observed the
    Sabbath nor even ate kosher. They all hailed from Eastern Europe,
    largely from shtetlach, like Shepetovka and Shnipishok. Most of their
    religious observance, however, had been washed away in the sea-change,
    and the little left had further eroded in the "new country." Indeed,
    the only time the synagogue was ever full was during the High
    Holidays. Even then the service was hardly edifying. Most didn't
    know what they were saying, and bored, wandered in and out. Yet,
    at the closing service of Yom Kippur, the Ne'ilah, the synagogue
    filled and a hush set in upon the crowd. The tension was palpable
    and tears were shed.

The prayers of his youth were expressive; people were scared, and the
tears of the mispallelim were expressions of existing fear.

What he perceived in that yeshiva and among most shuls he visited
since was impressive. trying to make an impression on themselves. The
emotional content is more what R Yisrael Salanter terms, "hispa'alus",
working yourself up / working on yourself, trying to create the emotional
experience that will make an impression and interanize that fear.

I don't think such hispaalus of artificially trying to summon up the
passion is to be deprecated. Even if the greaer need for it post-rupture
is sad; once needed -- BH people are doing it.

Shukling makes sense in impressive prayer, but it's such an unnatural
way of being emotional it would detract from expressive prayer.

For that matter, that both RSRH and RYBS talk about how lehispallel
is in the hitpa'el (*), and the point of siddur-davening, prayer with
formal liturgy, is impressive -- to internalize what we are supposed
to be concerned with and turning to HQBH for. So hispa'alus emotionality
seems appropriate. Why not shukl, if that helps you personally?

(* Yes, I realize there is an inconsistency in how those two words are
transliterated, but writing diqduq terms in Ashkanzis looked weirder.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             How wonderful it is that
mi...@aishdas.org        nobody need wait a single moment
http://www.aishdas.org   before starting to improve the world.
Fax: (270) 514-1507              - Anne Frank Hy"d

From: Professor L. Levine <llev...@stevens.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, November 2, 2016 1:05 PM
> Please see the article at http://tinyurl.com/zxu88bg

WADR to the author, he mixes up several different things. Shockling is
not the same as swaying. Most of the sources refer to swaying, not to
what is called in Yiddish shockling.

He also mentions R. Breuer as if it was only the German Jews who did
not shockle. Everyone knows that RMF and RYBS stood ramrod straight,
and they were not copying German minhogim. R. Aharon Kotler also stood
straight. The minhag of shockling is one of the things specifically
mentioned as a chiddush of the Chasidim.


Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel

At 10:46 AM 11/2/2016, via Avodah wrote:
>If they say that Coca Cola is okay and that is a guarded secret...

Oh, but a rabbi _did_ see the formula, and even got the company to change it!!

See, e.g., 
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Kashering_Coke.html
and a more halachic discussion at http://ohr.edu/4499

-- Sholom

>I found another case for a difference between minhag and psak

Aren't there around a gazillion of those? ;-)

>Most poskim say that the cohen's hands should be outside the tallit during
>birkhat kohanim.
>One proof is the minhag not to look at the chohen's hands. If his hands are
>inside the tallit then this custom is meaningless.

I have a vague recollection that there is a dispute that comes from 
interpreting a line (perhaps in the gemara?) "they should not look 
the kohain's hands", whether it refers to the kahal looking at the 
kohanim's hands, or the kohanim themselves looking at their own 
hands.  (Perhaps the B"Y says something on this?)

-- Sholom





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



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


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


***************************************

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