Avodah Mailing List

Volume 23: Number 133

Thu, 07 Jun 2007

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Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Message: 1
From: "Micha Berger" <micha@aishdas.org>
Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2007 21:05:15 -0400 (EDT)
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] "Yeshivishe Payes"


On Wed, June 6, 2007 9:43 am, Marty Bluke wrote:
: Some want to say that growing each hair long is a hidur mitzva,
: however this is very difficult. Payists is a lav, by a lav it is
: difficult to say there is such a thing as hidur mitzva....

What about noi mitzvah, which is a qiyum of zeh Keili ve'anveihu?
People spend money on esrog boxes, and invest time decorating their
Sukkos -- even though it doesn't make the esrog or Sukkah superior.

Perhaps this is similar?

Tir'u baTov!
-mi




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Message: 2
From: "Micha Berger" <micha@aishdas.org>
Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2007 21:18:45 -0400 (EDT)
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] determining G-d's actions


On Mon, June 4, 2007 3:28 pm, Rn Sarah Green wrote:
: (By the way, I think ahavah-hav is from Michtav Me'Eliyahu).

It is in his Qunterus haChessed. I also found the idea in the Gra's
Peirush al Qama Agados, and in RSRH's Pentateuch. So, it's not REED's
chiddush.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi




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Message: 3
From: "Dr. Josh Backon" <backon@vms.huji.ac.il>
Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2007 07:17:28 +0300
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] animal that ingested poison



>No problem. I just pray that list members will understand why I sent in a post
>which was excessively simple for Avodah and didn't bother to quote two
>relevant gemarot in the 3rd chapter of 'Hullin, one about how an animal that
>ate poison and is going to die in 5 minutes is NOT a tereifah, and another
>one that explicitly states that we do not add to the tereifot.
>--

It isn't a treifa but it's still prohibited on account of sakana 
(Yoreh Deah 60:2).
That we don't add to the list of 70 treifot is in the Rambam Hilchot 
Shechita 10:12.
There is a machkloket whether the 70 treifot are halacha l'Moshe mi'Sinai (Pri
Megadim) or based on svara of Chazal on the general 8 categories (and 18
sub-categories) of treifot (Kreiti u'Pleiti).

KT

Josh





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Message: 4
From: Arie Folger <afolger@aishdas.org>
Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2007 09:22:58 +0200
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] animal that ingested poison


RDr. Josh Backon wrote:
> It isn't a treifa but it's still prohibited on account of sakana
> (Yoreh Deah 60:2).

First of all, that is irrelevant. I was trying to show how there are animals 
we know of that they won't survive for long, and yet, they are not tereifot. 
Furthermore, prohibiting a poisoned animal on account of skanah allows for 
the possibility that if we know the poison to be harmful to a certain animal 
but not to people, to permit the animal anyway in a particular case. I didn't 
check the teshuvot literature on this point, but it makes some sense.
-- 
Arie Folger
http://www.ariefolger.googlepages.com



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Message: 5
From: "Dr. Josh Backon" <backon@vms.huji.ac.il>
Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2007 13:28:30 +0300
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] animal that ingested poison


At 10:22 AM 6/7/2007, Arie Folger wrote:
>RDr. Josh Backon wrote:
> > It isn't a treifa but it's still prohibited on account of sakana
> > (Yoreh Deah 60:2).
>
>First of all, that is irrelevant. I was trying to show how there are animals
>we know of that they won't survive for long, and yet, they are not tereifot.

There are actually 3 time periods regarding treifot: treifot that *could* have
occurred a few seconds or minutes before shechita (e.g. nikuv krum ha'moach)
and thus the product (e.g. eggs in a chicken or cheese from a cow) is permitted
as it has a chezkat kashrut; treifot that need 3 full days (72 hours) to appear
(in this situation only those products made from the animal during the 72 hours
priort to shechita are assur, items taken before this 72 hour period 
are muttar;
and finally treifot like "chaser", "chalif", etc. which have the 12 
month period (all
food items taken during this period are assur).


>Furthermore, prohibiting a poisoned animal on account of skanah allows for
>the possibility that if we know the poison to be harmful to a certain animal
>but not to people, to permit the animal anyway in a particular case. I didn't
>check the teshuvot literature on this point, but it makes some sense.

That indeed is the halacha (YD 60:1) [if the animal ingests a poison that is
dangerous ONLY to the animal, then the meat is unconditionally permitted].

KT

Josh



>--
>Arie Folger
>http://www.ariefolger.googlepages.com
>
>
>
>--
>No virus found in this incoming message.
>Checked by AVG Free Edition.
>Version: 7.5.472 / Virus Database: 269.8.7/829 - Release Date: 
>6/2/2007 5:26 PM





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Message: 6
From: "Marty Bluke" <marty.bluke@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2007 10:23:44 +0300
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] "Yeshivishe Payes"


On 6/6/07, Danny Schoemann <doniels@gmail.com> wrote:
> Which doesn't quite match with YD 181:9 which says that the shiur of
> the Paye is from the [top of the] forehead till the [top of the]
> jawbone - and this entire width Lo Siga Bo Yad - shouldn't be touched.

You have to take the shulchan aruch's words lo siga bo yad in the
context of the overall sugya and the rishonim. The Rambam seems to
hold that Min Hatorah, you only violate the issur if you cut off all
the hair, if you leave even 2 hairs you are not chayav. M'drabbanan
you need to leave either 4 or 40 hairs. The Rambam also holds that you
only violate the issur with a razor. I think that it is these 2
Rambam's that the Shulchan Aruch is paskening against when he says Lo
Siga Bo Yad. Namely, don't do like the Rambam and completely cut off
some of the hair there because we are chosheh for the Semag that you
are chayav for even 2 hairs, and don't do like the Rambam and cut off
hair with misparayim k'eyn t'aar because we are chosheh for the Rosh
that even this is assur. Therefore he writes Lo Siga Bo Yad.

However, Lo Siga Bo Yad is not meant to be taken literally that you
cannot cut the hair at all. You can clearly cut the hair when it grows
too long. What is the shiur of hair? In other areas of halacha
(negaim) it is to bend back the hair on itself, therefore you can
certainly cut the hair to a reasonably short length according to the
Shulchan Aruch.



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Message: 7
From: "Jonathan Baker" <jjbaker@panix.com>
Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2007 14:47:56 -0400 (EDT)
Subject:
[Avodah] Yeshivishe Payes


Spelling Note: In the below, I try to distinguish between "payess" meaning
the tuft of hair growing from the "peiah" - the patch on the side of the 
head.

From: "Danny Schoemann" <doniels@gmail.com>
> On 6/6/07, Marty Bluke <marty.bluke@gmail.com> wrote:
> > With regards to the length of payists, the poskim point out that the
> > shiur of hair in general is to bend back the hair on itself, about a
> > half a centimeter.

Yes, that's the shiur I've heard, from a Karlin-Stoliner friend who
does have payes to put back behind his ear - but chasidim have various
hiddurim about hair, beards, etc. which go well beyond ikkar hadin.
So yes, the length of the hair growing off the peiah patch is about half
a centimeter.
 
> Which doesn't quite match with YD 181:9 which says that the shiur of
> the Paye is from the [top of the] forehead till the [top of the]
> jawbone - and this entire width Lo Siga Bo Yad - shouldn't be touched.

Um, I'm pretty sure you're  confusing the length of the hair, with the
area from which hair should not be shaved.  Remember the analogous usage
of peiah - the corners of your field.  It's about not cutting the stuff
out of the corners of the field (a measure of area), not about how much 
stuff to cut (a measure of length).  So too here, YD 181:9 is talking 
about the area on the head which is not to be shaved, rather than the 
length of hair growing out of that patch. 

And it's a smaller patch, and lower down, than you might think from
looking at chasidishe peyess.  Looking at the SA, and his sources in
Rashi and the Gemara stemming from the Mishna in Makos 20a-b, the patch
is really small, only about a square inch (each side) on my head - from
the base of the hair on the forehead (the bottom of the forehead, not
the top - see Rashi) to the top of the jawbone below the [top of the]
ear - which is about the middle of the ear. 

The peiah, according to Rashi, on the head, is where the hair tapers
to its minimum width.  The head is divided into two parts: the hair
part, and the face-beard part.  The peiah which is not shaved, is the 
point at which those two areas come together, which is quite small.
 
> But - as has been pointed out - there's no halachic point in having
> part of the area "long" and the rest short.

Well, that depends on how we define "long" and "short" and "area",
doesn't it?
 
RMi:
> Actually, Rav Dovid Lifshitz did it, so I would think the custom is
> Litvish, not merely a "growing trend". However, RDL's payos were thick
> blocks of hair swept back, not the strings one now sees.

Don't pictures of R' Moshe Soloveitchik, and the Chofetz Chayim, also
have bushy payess?
 
RDSchoemann:
> : Everything else is "fashion"; tucking behind the ear vs. let it hand
> : loose; curling them...

I'd also think that any kind of visible payess is "fashion", since as I
note above, ikkar hadin is small and quite short; i.e., any kind of 
mid-ear sideburns counts.
 
> Don't you find it interesting, though, that East Europeans and
> Teimanim have similar "fashions"? Just how old is the idea of wearing

Hungarians, not East Europeans in general.  Most non-Hungarian Chasidim
(Polish, Volhynia, Lithuania, Galicia/Podolia) have little strings of 
payess tucked behind the ear.

And could it be from kabbalah?  Or is it also prevalent among the anti-
Zohar Teimani faction?

Hair fashions can arise independently and repeatedly; I could tell you
stories about Deep Springs College, where my brother spent a summer.

--
        name: jon baker              web: http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker
     address: jjbaker@panix.com     blog: http://thanbook.blogspot.com




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Message: 8
From: "Yisrael Medad" <yisrael.medad@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2007 10:43:59 +0300
Subject:
[Avodah] Har Habayit


I was at a meeting yesterday and Rav Yisrael Ariel spoke about the criticism
the Hareidi world has against doing anything at all about the Har Habayit
and visciously criticising anybody who does.

In reading this:

*Concerning the issue of sinners coming to Israel. The Shomer Emunim
Rebbe once told me that the higher the kedusha of a place the greater is
midos hadin. He said he knows rabbonim who would not live in Jerusalem
because of this factor. It would follow from this that the consequences
of sinning while living in Israel are greater than for those living in
New York. On the other hand the consequences of doing a mitzva are also
greater. To put it another way, the chances of greater return on onc's
investment in doing mitzvos has to be weighted against the chances of
greater loss for sin.*

I thought I'd quote something he said.

The main opposition from a Halachic point of view is the possibility of
karet in entering certain areas within the present-day compound.  If karet
is the threat, RYA said, and we shouldn't do anything to investigate, to
review the literature, discuss with arceologists, etc., according to this
approach, then what are we do about getting married?  There are so many
karet issues, down to a mustard-colored drop of blood (or not as the case
may be), that this should put us off from getting entangled in the
possibility of violating a lo ta'aseh which carries the karet weight of
punishment not to mention other issues which marriage presents troubles
for.  But no one says 'don't get into any doubt'.  But with Har Habayit,
they all do say that.

Is the issue then halachic or...ideological haskafa?

Which brings me to the Shomer Emunim and the Muncatzcher approach.  In one
of his books, Pierkage (sp?)  traces this approach of "EY is too holy" but I
think we all know that history and the thinking of the Em HaBanim S'meicha
has shown how wrong-headed this was.  It is not a question of proper
analysis of sources but an attempt to fit the Halacha to an outlook.  The
same with the VaYoel Moshe who gets into exactly what the Sitra Achra knows,
wants, desires and forgets about HKBH and simple Torah.



-- 
Yisrael Medad
Shiloh
Mobile Post Efraim 44830
Israel
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Message: 9
From: "reuven koss" <kmr5@zahav.net.il>
Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2007 10:44:46 +0300
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] zeicher/zecher (was: Wording of Kaddish)




>
> It's older than the MB.  Lubavitchers say both, and even have a specific
> minhag as to the order (in Ki Teitzei zeicher is first, in Beshalach
> zecher is first), and they're unlikely to have got the minhag from the MB.
>
> -- 
> Zev Sero

There is no "zecher" in parshas amalek in beshalach.
reuven 





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Message: 10
From: Ari Zivotofsky <zivotoa@mail.biu.ac.il>
Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2007 11:11:21 +0300
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] kashrus of milk



My brother the vet who has done 3 of the 4 procedures, some 100s of 
times, disagrees. 3 of the 4 do NOT require puncturing with a nekev 
mefulash the keivah.


Micha Berger wrote:

>There are four different kinds of DA surgery, but all involve (1)
>puncturing the keivah to deflate it, and (2) sowing it to the proper
>location in the body.
>
>Tir'u baTov!
>-mi
>
>  
>



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Message: 11
From: MPoppers@kayescholer.com
Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2007 17:36:27 -0400
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] shelo osani ...


In Avodah Digest V23#126, Micha responded to RMK:
> : Are there sources that say that the soul
  : of the niftar is being comforted?
  : I'd be interested to see them.
> I do not recall. It was an idea that I picked up
on a previous iteration on Avodah. Perhaps
the person who posted it could be
troubled to repeat his sources. <
Without getting into whether Micha was thinking of this article, he 
recently was kind enough to send me the URL for the Mesukim miDevash 
article I wrote on the subject of "HaMakom yenacheim," 
http://www.aishdas.org/mesukim/5764/vayechi.pdf.  Those interested in a 
possible answer to RMK's question are directed to all (esp. the sentences 
beginning with "One" and "Moreover") of the "Eschem" stanza on p.4 and, in 
particular, to footnotes 16 and 18.  RaMBaM's Hilchos Aveil 14 is 
available online at http://www.mechon-mamre.org/i/e414.htm, and the words 
I'm drawing an inference from ("nichum aveilim g'milus chessed im 
hachayyim v'im hameisim") are in the halachah which quotes from the pasuq 
in Koheles.  Thanks.

A guten Shabbes/Shabbas Shalom and all the best from
Michael Poppers * Elizabeth, NJ, USA
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Message: 12
From: Zev Sero <zev@sero.name>
Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2007 17:40:11 -0400
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] zeicher/zecher


reuven koss wrote:
> 
>> It's older than the MB.  Lubavitchers say both, and even have a specific
>> minhag as to the order (in Ki Teitzei zeicher is first, in Beshalach
>> zecher is first), and they're unlikely to have got the minhag from the MB.
>>
>> -- 
>> Zev Sero
> 
> There is no "zecher" in parshas amalek in beshalach.

Yes, there is.  "Ki macho emcheh et zecher amalek mitachat hashamayim."

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev@sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas



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Message: 13
From: "Daniel Israel" <dmi1@hushmail.com>
Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2007 15:45:28 -0600
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Har Habayit


On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 01:43:59 -0600 Yisrael Medad 
<yisrael.medad@gmail.com> wrote:
>The main opposition from a Halachic point of view is the 
possibility of
>karet in entering certain areas within the present-day compound.  
If
>karet is the threat, RYA said, and we shouldn't do anything to 
>investigate, to review the literature, discuss with arceologists, 
etc., 
>according to this approach, then what are we do about getting 
married?  
>There are so many karet issues, down to a mustard-colored drop of 
blood 
>(or not as the case may be), that this should put us off from 
getting 
>entangled in the possibility of violating a lo ta'aseh which 
carries 
>the karet weight of punishment not to mention other issues which 
>marriage presents troubles for.  But no one says 'don't get into 
any 
>doubt'.  But with Har Habayit, they all do say that.

Three responses.

1) With TM we have a continuous mesorah on how to handle these 
issues.  WRT Har Habayis we do not.

2) The investigation he is talking about all involves non-halachic 
sources.  There does not appear to be any way to figure out the 
metzius of the various parts of Har Habayis from looking at our 
mesorah, one has to use non-halachic sources like archeology.  
True, in TM we sometimes rely on doctors, but we have clear 
halachic sources to tell us what we can and cannot rely on doctors 
for.  I don't think we have any clear mesorah to tell us what we 
can rely on archeologists for.

3) If marriage would cease, so would the Jewish people.  Perhaps if 
the issue at hand was geulah shleimah and rebuilding the Bh"M, one 
might argue that this is the same as marriage, because in either 
case we are talking about stopping klal Yisrael from fulfilling 
it's ultimate purpose.  But in that case we would have a Sanhedrin 
and a Moshiach to help answer the questions.  Here we are talking 
about walking around up there and davening.  Not even korbonos 
according to almost everyone.

--
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1@cornell.edu




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Message: 14
From: "Chana Luntz" <chana@kolsassoon.org.uk>
Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2007 23:01:40 +0100
Subject:
[Avodah] FW: [Areivim] Figs [was: Yet More About


Bounced from Areivim again (and I didn't even quote any sources ;-(  )

RZS writes:

> Shoshana L. Boublil wrote:
> 
> > Anything you can't see (without a magnifying glass!!!!) -- WAS NOT
> > THERE halachically.
> 
> And still isn't.  NOBODY claims that we have to worry about
> insects that are invisible to the naked eye.  The problem is 
> with insects that *are* big enough to be visible, but only if 
> you're looking right at them, and know how to distinguish 
> them from their background, etc.

Of course that raises the question as to whether there was a tradition
on how to distinguish them that has now been lost (if you need to learn
to be able to see them, then presumably you need to be taught) which we
are now "rediscovering" by means of magnifying glasses and such.  Is the
assumption that this was taught as part of the mimetic tradition handed
down between mother and daughter and that is why there is no mention of
such training in the classic texts?

Other factors to consider:  - what is the level of eyesight needed to be
able to see such bugs for them to count?  As our ancestors did not have
access to glasses, I doubt very much that the average, even young,
housewife necessarily had 20/20 vision and certainly not the more
elderly. Yet I never heard tell of taking one's fruit and vegetables to
the bodek of the town with the good eyesight.  Or can a household where
the wife is myopic be permitted larger bugs than those where her
eyesight is better?  Can we assume that 20/20 is the norm or
exceptionally good?  Does it matter that it seems to me, anacdotally,
that the Jews have a tendency towards myopia?  Did Leah imanu take all
of her vegetables to Rachel for checking?

To what extent does flurescent and other modern forms of lighting
provide better abilities to see such bugs that sunlight (which
presumably our ancestors used)?  Is it just that it is more comfortable
to use such light, or is there a real difference between the size of
bugs that can be seen by the (average?) naked eye in sunlight and under
modern lighting?

Even RSB writes "Hilchot bugs used to be much simpler:

Soak the vegetable in salt/vinegar water., "

Is it necesssarily true that vinegar was so easily available that it
could be used for soaking vegetables in days gone by? 


> Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with 

Regards

Chana> 


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