Avodah Mailing List

Volume 38: Number 2

Thu, 09 Jan 2020

• 1. Q. If one read through a Masechta, but did not really understand it, can he make a siyum? (Cantor Wolberg)
• 2. Interesting Equation (Cantor Wolberg)
• 3. downloads available.. (mco...@touchlogic.com)
• 4. Halachic accidents? (Rich, Joel)
• 5. Re: Halachic accidents? (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: Halachic accidents? (Micha Berger)
• 7. Re: kiruv (Micha Berger)
• 8. Q. When does the obligation to put mezuzahs on the home begin? (Prof. L. Levine)

That?s a question which I have always wondered about.
The way I see it is the same as taking a test and either passing
or failing.
If you and I take a test and you get 100 and I get a 60 (assuming
that is the passing grade), then I have at least passed.
Therefore, I see the same as learning. We both can have learned
B?rochos and you know it by heart with all of the m?forshim, and I
have learned it enough to get a passing grade so therefore I feel I
would have the right to make a siyyum. However, I would look upon
your siyyum as more noteworthy (however you wish to interpret that).

Nahum Sarna says: "The use of numerical symmetry is Scripture's way of
conveying the conviction that the formative age in Israel's history was not
a series of haphazard incidents but the fulfillment of God's grand
design??"

Avraham lived for 175 years
Yitzchok for 180 years
Ya'akov for 147years.
These numbers form an ordered and symmet-
rical series:
7 x 5 squared = 175   (Abraham)
5 x 6 squared = 180   (Isaac)
3 x 7 squared = 147   (Jacob)
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A coffee drinker's guide to Shabbos

micro ground coffee / drip coffee / French press / using timer

OUD creamer. do you have to wait 6 hrs till using..

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/62kukx9q3ybjs4f/A%20coffee%20drinker%27s%20guide%2
0to%20Shabbos.docx?dl=0

 

2500 quick English psakim from R Shlomo Miller shlita

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0jqlihzci97xunk/RSMiller%20RBartfeld%20questions%2
0all.doc?dl=0

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From a post:
On the one hand, a frustrating element of arbitrariness surrounds umbrella
use on Shabbos. Why do we act strictly on this issue, which is hotly
debated among authorities, while acting leniently on other disputed issues?
God's will, as defined by halakhah, should not be subject to historical
accident. On the other hand, like an individual, a community is defined in
part by its past. We cannot change how we got to where we are, our communal
evolution through history. As halakhah evolves--within boundaries, of
course--we cannot turn back the clock without destabilizing the system.

Me: ?God's will, as defined by halakhah, should not be subject to
historical accident.? I tend to agree, yet we see it not infrequently (e.g.
stories told about why no dairy bread allowed even with wrapper, why no
duchening in ch?ul) So IMHO either you have to say it is hashgacha pratit
or at least that those poskim saw it as such (rather than random
fluctuation) ?

Your thoughts?

Kt

Joel Rich
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On Tue, Jan 07, 2020 at 10:12:14PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
> "God's will, as defined by halakhah, should not be subject to historical
> accident." I tend to agree, yet we see it not infrequently (e.g. stories
> told about why no dairy bread allowed even with wrapper, why no duchening
> in ch"ul) So IMHO either you have to say it is hashgacha pratit or at
> least that those poskim saw it as such (rather than random fluctuation)?

Third possibility: They saw the two sides as supportably within eilu
va'eilu, and indeed let the challenges to halakhah of their times be a
factor in choosing which.

After all, we allow for G-d's Will including 49 ways letamei and 49 ways
letaheir, and letting humans decide which way of approaching the Truth
is necessary for the situation we're in.

What I am proposing is more limited than Historical School. With no
parallel to some travesty like assigning personal or political motives
to a ruling. I am saying that the strengths and weaknesses of how the
masses are relating to halakhah itself are historical realities halakhah
must account for.

Also, to be complete although the issue isn't pragmatic any more --
gezeiros. If you do not believe that Chazal saw where practice *happened
to* need shoring up at their moment in time, the decision to make a
gezeira to avoid one risk and not a different one seems kind of arbitary
at times. I have to believe they were responding to which mistakes were
actually being made, or at least mistaken attitudes gaining currnecy.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 We look forward to the time
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   when the power to love
Author: Widen Your Tent      will replace the love of power.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF              - William Ewart Gladstone

On Wed, Jan 08, 2020 at 7:12am EST I replied to RJR:
> Third possibility: They saw the two sides as supportably within eilu
> va'eilu, and indeed let the challenges to halakhah of their times be a
> factor in choosing which.

This reminds me of another question RJR (was it RJR or is my memory
playing tricks?) asked years ago about Goedel's Theorem.

Halakhah is immune from Goedel's Theorem:

Halakhah on the Divrei Elokim Chaim / dialectic level allows for Eilu
veEilu. THere is no Law of Contradiciton, A and not-A can both be Torah,
so Goedel's proof fails.

Halakhah lemaaseh is not a closed formal system, because -- as I am
arguing in this thread -- history matters. It's not a clean room exercise
detatched from the realia the poseiq and sho'el/alim are living in. More
info from the outside can influence the answer. It's not the kind of
system math is, so Goedel's proof fails here too.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 With the "Echad" of the Shema, the Jew crowns
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   G-d as King of the entire cosmos and all four
Author: Widen Your Tent      corners of the world, but sometimes he forgets
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF    to include himself.     - Rav Yisrael Salanter

On Wed, Dec 25, 2019 at 07:14:21AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
> From a blog on relations with non-orthodox:
>> We should instead become more involved with them while accepting them
>> as they are. While the ultimate goal is to bring them closer to God,
>> it should be done by example.

> Perhaps we should stop looking at them as our "cheftza shel mitzvah"
> (object through which we carry out a mitzvah) and view them as Jewish
> human beings with a tzelem elokim who we interact with in a manner
> consistent with the will of HKB"H...

In R' Wolbe's essay titled "Frumkeit" (Alei Shur vol II,
available at <http://www.aishdas.org/as/frumkeit.pdf>), he
quotes the Alter of Slabodka as saying

     "Ve'ahavta lereiakha komakha -- and you shall love your peers like
     yourself." That you should love your peer the way you love yourself.
     You do not love yourself because it is a mitzvah, rather, a plain
     love. And that is how you should love your peer."

To which Rav Wolbe notes, "This approach is entirely alien to
frumkeit." The frum person is the one who makes sure to have Shabbos
guests each week, but whose guests end up feeling much like his
tefillin -- an object with which he did a mitzvah. A person acting
out of frumkeit doesn't love to love, he loves in order to be a holier
person. And ironically, he thereby fails -- because he never develops
that Image of the Holy One he was created to become. The person who acts
from self-interest, even from the interest of ascending closer to G-d,
will not reach Him.

(Taken from my blog post at
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/what-is-frumkeit>.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 We are what we repeatedly do.
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   Thus excellence is not an event,
Author: Widen Your Tent      but a habit.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                 - Aristotle

From today's OU kosher Halacha Yomis


Q. When does the obligation to put mezuzahs on the home begin?

A. If a person owns their home, they are obligated to put mezuzos on the door as soon as they occupy the home (see Gilyon Maharsha YD 286:22).

At what point is one considered an occupant? If one moves furniture and
other belongings into a home, but has not actually started living in the
house, there is a dispute between the poskim whether a mezuzah is required.
The Chovas Hadar (13, footnote 10) assumes there is an obligation, while
Rabbi Aharon Felder, in Oholei Yeshurun (page 6, fn 69) quotes other poskim
who say the mitzvah begins only when one resides in the home.

Shulchan Aruch (YD 236:22) rules that if one rents a house or apartment in
the Diaspora, the requirement to put up mezuzos begins after 30 days have
elapsed ? on the 31st day (the day of the move counts as day one, even if
it is only a partial day.) The Derech Chaim disagrees and maintains that if
the lease is for more than 30 days, the obligation to post mezuzos begins
immediately. Though most poskim agree with the Shulchan Aruch that there is
no obligation to post a mezuzah within 30 days under all circumstances,
nonetheless the Magen Avrohom suggests that it is permissible to put a
mezuzah on the wall during the first thirty days and recite a bracha. By
doing so, the opinion of the Derech Chaim will be covered. The Nachalas
Tzvi (286:22) objects to the suggestion of the Magen Avrohom and maintains
that the bracha cannot be recited before the mitzvah is obligatory. Rav
Moshe Feinstein (YD 1:179) offers a solution that covers all bases. He
recommends putting up the mezuzos (to satis
 fy the opinion of the Derech Chaim) without a bracha (in deference to the
 Nachalas Tzvi). After 30 days the mezuzos should be removed, or at least
 slightly pushed, and then a bracha is required.

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