Avodah Mailing List

Volume 42: Number 64

Sat, 21 Sep 2024

• 1. Bakoshas Mechila and Being Mefayess (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi)
• 2. Kamtza /Bar Kamtza (Joseph Kaplan)
• 3. Davening without a minyan (Akiva Miller)
• 4. Re: Pirkei Avot chapter 2 mishna 9 (Akiva Miller)

Has anyone heard of the following being practiced or advocated in recent
times?
The RaMBaMs ruling that one must confess their interpersonal sins in public?
Bein Adam LaMakom RaMBaM rules is not to be publicly confessed bcs it is a
Chutzpah.

It seems this is not just about those interpersonal sins that have publicly
humiliated the victim.
Might the purpose be to set the tone in the community
achieved by the sinners being publicly humiliated for their sins?

Perhaps R Yonas ruling that even those who will certainly have no influence
over a sinner
must nevertheless be MochiAch the sinner
as long as the sinner might be attentive to his Rosh Yeshivah?
Is the purpose of this [useless] Tochacha to set the community tone?

Has anyone heard of the following being practiced or advocated in recent
times?
The sinner approaching 3 friends of the victim and persuading them to
approach the victim, together with the sinner,
that they appeal to their friend, the victim, to forgive the sinner?

In other words, the sinner must persuade the friends of his sincerity and
that his compensation offer is acceptable.




Best,

Meir G. Rabi

0423 207 837
+61 423 207 837
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20240918/0182d6ea/attachment-0001.htm>

"Response to a piece on Kamtza /Bar Kamtza:
The interesting question to me is whether there is self-awareness. If
your analysis of R. Zechariah b. Avkulas is correct, was he aware of the
deeper personality issue (paralysis of inappropriate humility) or did he
convince himself that the reasons he gave for his inaction(Offering up a
blemished animal could lead future generations to say that this is
permitted, and killing Bar Kamta could lead to a belief that blemishing a
sacrificial animal is punishable by death) were his true drivers, I would
suspect that it?s the former and, if so, wonder how you convince anybody to
step outside themselves and realize that they are rationalization a deeper
personality issue. This is especially true for leaders who are put on a
pedestal IMHO. Thoughts??

I think Joel hits the nail in his penultimate sentence. You probably can?t
convince anyone of a personality issue in the moment; it probably takes
serious therapy. And this is especially true of a leader. So you have to be
careful about giving to much deference to the pedestal and, indeed, ignore
when the situation demands and, if necessary, remove  from positions of
power the person making the inappropriate decision. I used to blame RZVA
for the churban, but in this regard he?s behind two groups of chachamim:
those who attended the party and were silent when Bar Kamtza was insulted
and those who were silent when RZBA made his decision and didn?t take
whatever actions were necessary to ensure that such detrimental decisions
were not permitted to stand.
 
J

.
I was listening to a shiur from Rav Shmuel Fuerst of Chicago. You can get
the shiur at https://torahanytime.com/lectures/307384

At approximately 42:51 in the audio version, or 42:43 in the video, he says
(referring to the 3rd bracha after Krias Shema in Maariv in Chu"l), "If you
daven b'yechidus you never say Baruch Hashem L'Olam."

Has anyone else ever heard that? Is it written anywhere? It certainly makes
sense if the *only* reason for that bracha is to delay the davening for the
latecomers. But I recall other reasons for that bracha, according to which
it should be said even b'yechidus. If anyone knows of published sources,
please share.

On a related point, does anyone know of a good article or sefer that
focuses on the changes when someone is davening without a minyan? I
remember seeing something during COVID which listed those changes. One of
them, for example, was about Hallel on Sukkos without a minyan. I had
always presumed that an individual at home would say the same things as the
chazan says in shul, but that article had some surprising nuances.
Unfortunately, I've been unable to find that article, and so I'm turning to
the chevra for ideas.

Akiva Miller
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20240918/8ee0a7a5/attachment-0001.htm>

.
R' Joel Rich asked:

> ... when one sees the eventual reward and punishment for each
> of their acts they will never sin. ...
>
> ... if this is so obvious why do people sin? I would submit
> that it may be related to what behavioral economists refer to
> as hyperbolic discounting where people give more weight to
> rewards or costs that are closer in the present than those that
> are farther in the future. (i.e. they?ll take a dollar today
> rather than $1000 in a year from now.) or is it that we don't
> fully believe in reward and punishment? Thoughts?

It's not binary. BOTH yetzer haras team up against a person. Not only are
the short-term goals more tempting than the long-term goals, but there is a
perceived risk in pursuing the long-term goals.

If reward-and-punishment was perceived as a "sure thing", then the yetzer
hara would be totally disarmed and free will would go out the window. Sure,
we CLAIM to believe in it, but how often in our lives does something good
happen, such that we can unambiguously point to the specific mitzvah that
led to it? And how often does something bad happen, where we are absolutely
sure that it was because of a specific aveira?

Our inability to see the cause-and-effect makes the short-term
exponentially more appealing than the long-term goals.

PS: I am finding more and more questions which can be answered with "It's
not binary." Gan Eden was a binary world, where Emes and Sheker were very
clear. But then we ate from the tree, and ever since, *everything* has
become muddied up and unclear, composed of both a little bit of this and a
little bit of that. The desire for clarity is just another example of our
innate desire to return to Gan Eden, and in *this* world, it just ain't
gonna happen.

Akiva Miller
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20240919/d53a18c1/attachment-0001.htm>

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



_______________________________________________
Avodah mailing list
Avo...@lists.aishdas.org
http://www.aishdas.org/lists/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://www.aishdas.org/lists/avodah/avodahareivim-membership-agreement/


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/lists/avodah/avodah-acronyms
(They are also visible in the web archive copy of each digest.)