Avodah Mailing List

Volume 42: Number 40

Sun, 09 Jun 2024

• 1. Re: editorial intent (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: Interest and modern economies (Micha Berger)
• 3. context? (Joel Rich)
• 4. material success (Joel Rich)
• 5. "It is as if there was a bas kol..." (Micha Berger)
• 6. To: Horeb doesn't discuss Taharas haMishpachah? (Micha Berger)

On Thu, May 30, 2024 at 05:50:07AM +0300, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
> Chulin [107a] a tells separately of rav yakov and rav ashi who posed rivit
> sized containers (one glass, one clay) so that (per Rashi) people could
> measure their own containers (for hand washing purposes)...

The gemara says Rav Ashi beHutzal. Shaarei Toras Bavel says it must mean
R Asi, since he was the one in Hutzal. (See Chullin 26b, Qiddushin 58b)

R Yaaqov from Nahar Peqod made a natla.
R Ashi / Asi in Hutzal made a kuza.
Both -- which would hold a revi'is.

The differences, other than the amora's identity:
    - RY is mi-, from, a place; RA is in it.
    - RY made a natla; RA made a kuza

I don't know what the differences mean. I just have an intuition that
that's where the answer lies.

Looking at Jastrow:
A natla is a utensil made for pouring -- like a netilas yadayim cup
or a ladle. The Tosafos YT (Berakhos 8:2) says the berakhah "al netilas
yadayim" take the name from the keli.

A kuza is a pitcher of a jug, typicaly found in the context of serving wine.
(Shabbos 77b)

And, as RJR writes, The Tosafos YT and R Shteinzaltz assume a natla is
made of glass, and a kuza, of earthenware. Rabbeinu Gershom also says
a kuza in earthenware, but nothing about what a natla is made of. From
what I saw, wine storage was in earthenware, so that part fits with what
I've seen at archological sites.


I think the fact that well-known Amoraim are called by their place is
significant. I find RA being beHutzal easier to understand. He was making
a model washing cump for the people of Hutzal. But why was RY described
as being "mei-"?

And RY making as a model for others to copy a natla, the stereotypical
washing cup, also makes sense. Why was R Ashi's model a vessel usually
associated with wine? As RA makinga model for other purposes, a revi'is as
per defining shetiyah for berakhos or a taanis?


Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Today is the 42nd day, which is
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   6 weeks in/toward the omer.
Author: Widen Your Tent      Malchus sheb'Yesod: Why is self-control and
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF     reliability crucial for universal brotherhood?

On Sun, May 19, 2024 at 10:55:07AM +0300, Marty Bluke wrote:
> Dad Yomi recently learned the 5th perek of Bava Metzia which deals with
> interest and the gemara stresses the severity of the prohibition of taking
> interest. It is so severe that one who violates the prohibition is like a
> kofer bakol and will lose all their money.


On Wed, May 22, 2024 at 09:38:48AM -0400, mcohen replied:
> i would have thought that the prohibition on interest is a localized
> interpersonal Jew to Jew concept only.
> one doesnt lend to his brother with interest.

This is exactly how the pasuq describes it: "Ki yamukh *achikha*"
(Bamidbar 25:35, setting the context for "al tiqakh miyado neshekh
vesarbis" in the next pasuq).

Ore than that, I would say this is why the gemara calls a person who
charges ribis tantamount to being a kofer. Like the Rambam says (Teshuvah
3:6), "And these are the ones who have no cheileq le'olam haba ... and
those who are poreshin midarkhei tzibbur..."

Not feeling famlial ties to the rest of the Jewish People is a kind of
kefirah. As we will read next week in Megillas Rus, to become a Jew,
Rus declares, "ameikh ami, ve-Elokayikh Elokai." Similarly, our doxology
begins "Shema Yisrael"; someone who believes "Hashem Elokeinu Hashem
Echad" but not as part of Yisrael didn't buy in to Yahadus.

There is also a bein adam laMaqom aspect to it. What does breaking
halakhah out of some belief that charging ribis would bring financial
stability say about that person's Bitachon?

Back to RMB's original post:
>          I understand that there are workarounds but those raise a larger
> question. If taking interest makes you a kofer then surely circumventing
> the prohibition through technical means is not what the Torah wants. So how
> can we have a modern economy Al pi Torah given the prohibition on interest?

And RMC replied:
> i would think a torah nation and economy would operate with interest
> from banks to LLCs on a corporate level (based on RMF's heter to lend
> money to an LLC with ribbis)

IM YD 2:63. I don't see this as a circumvention of the prohibition. I
can't cut my brother's corporation slack in situations where I would do
so for my brother directly. There is no pegam in Jewish achdus in this
situation.

And quite the reverse... Allowing his corporation to exist as a vehicle
to feed his family is quite brotherly. Even though it requires conducting
"business as usual" -- including ribis. It is, after all, your brother's
*business*.

And I think the cholqim agree with RMF on the "tamamei diqra", they merely
draw the line of being too unbrotherly in a different place. (Minchas
Yitzchaq 1:3m 4:16; Minchas Shelomo 28; and I am sure there are others
my notes aren't aware of.) Rather, they don't hold "business is business"
until you use a heter isqa with the corporate entity.

And this would explain all the machloqesin about heter isqa. There is
a tension between the coldness of usary and the warmth of supporting a
family member's business. And posqim see reasons to strike the balance
in different places. E.g. If you have a H"I with an individual that even
allows you to make profit that matches compounded interest, is that
still brotherly? Or is it only a fixed-rate ribis that is friendly in
business dealings?


Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Today is the 42nd day, which is
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   6 weeks in/toward the omer.
Author: Widen Your Tent      Malchus sheb'Yesod: Why is self-control and
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF     reliability crucial for universal brotherhood?

From the Steinsaltz institute -would your bet medrash entertain this?
One of the best examples is the famous Talmudic teaching that follows the
argument between Abaye and Rava about the laws of lost objects, Rabbi Even
Israel said. ?You have three pages of discussion going back and forth, but
then my father adds a few lines of explanation about the background and
reality of those two sages that puts everything into context.? Abaye was
very poor as a child, and therefore his idea of losing an object reflected
that reality, while Rava, by contrast, was wealthy, and for him, losing an
object didn?t have the same significance.
Bsorot Tovot
Joel Rich
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My comment on the most recent Tradition :
https://traditiononline.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Tradition-Spring-2024-SUMMIT.pdf

A very sad read. I?d suggest that much of the phenomenon is due to the
wrong frame of reference (what everyone else has) rather than on ?When
Rabbi Zusha was on his deathbed, his students found him in uncontrollable
tears. They tried to comfort him by telling him that he was almost as wise
as Moses and as kind as Abraham, so he was sure to be judged positively in
Heaven. He replied, ?When I pass from this world and appear before the
Heavenly Tribunal, they won?t ask me, ?Zusha, why weren?t you as wise as
Moses or as kind as Abraham,? rather, they will ask me, ?Zusha, why weren?t
you Zusha?? Why didn?t I fulfill my potential, why didn?t I follow the path
that could have been mine.?? Bsorot tovot

joel rich
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In YD 274:13 (this coming Friday) RYME writes, "... Uke'ilu Bas Qol Yar
yatza dehalakhah kehaRambam." He famously says something similar about
community eiruvin - "To what effect is any of this extended analysis,
after Eiruvin spread out in most Jewish cities for many hundreds of
year, just relying on this heater. And is it like a BQ went out that
the halakhah is like this opinion." (OC 345:18)

But we know from the famous Tanur Akhnai story that a Bas Qol telling
us what the halakhah should be is meaning!

Doesn't that make this an odd turn of phrase?

---


9:12am EDT) when I picked it out of the moderation queue, I had another
thought:

There is another bas qol, one which we do follow lehalakah. Back in 2005
I posted a summary of positions about the halachic authority of a bas qol
from the Ency Talmudit entry "bas qol".
<http://aspaqlaria.aishdas.org/2005/01/08/legislative-authority-of-bas-qol>
That discussion revolved around contrasting our not holding like R Eliezer
that a tanur akhnai can become tamei -- we hold like the majority that its
pieces aren''t connected enough to qualify as a single keli. The other data
point is "eilu va'eilu divrei Elokim Chayim" -- where we do hold like the
BQ.

So one resolution is that in the usual case BQ has authority, and there
is a reason why the TA case was different. But that's not commonly held,
and so I doubt that's what RYME is referring to.

In another venue, R Dan Margulies mentioned that R Asher Weiss uses this
idiom as well, for example whenwarning people against being meiqil about
electricity on Shabbos "hotzi es atzmo min hakelal, and it is as if a BQ
was emitted from Shamayim that there is a cheshash melakhah deOraisa."

Anyway, this is where I am currently leaning:

Lekhol hadei'os, when a BQ tells you to do what the kelalei pesaq would
also tell you to do, you are going to hold like a bas qol.

We follow the BQ about following Beis Hillel, but they were the rabbim
anyway.

Why then the BQ? Well, Beis Shammai were sharper, so maybe people questioned
the applicability of "acharei rabbim". Or, maybe it's because this is
around when the Sanhedrin left the lishqas hagazis (to prevent dinei
nefashos), and people weren't sure about acharei rabbim lehatos when there
was no vote on Har haBayis. I don't know. We do know lemaaseh that Shammutim
existed and didn't follow the majority.

Which is much like the person who chooses to be machmir in the AhS's cases
(at least, the two I remembered), or meiqil in RAW's. Perhaps the idiom
just means "this is such a clear and ancient rov, it is as if a bas like
the one that endorsed Beis Hillel..."

Shetir'u baTov!
Micha

At least I couldn't find it. And if it's really not there to be found,
anyone know why not?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha


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