Avodah Mailing List

Volume 25: Number 331

Wed, 17 Sep 2008

• 1. Re: saying tehillim (Rich, Joel)
• 2. l'Dovid Hashem Ori (Alan Rubin)
• 3. Re: saying tehillim (Zev Sero)
• 4. Re: Question on parasha (Moshe Y. Gluck)
• 5. Re: HaShem as God's Name (David Riceman)
• 6. Re: bat mitzva "bo bayom" (Micha Berger)
• 7. Re: bat mitzva "bo bayom" (Micha Berger)
• 8. rape (M Cohen)
• 9. Re: bat mitzva "bo bayom" (Zev Sero)
• 10. Re: More Philosophy, If Anyone's Up to It (Micha Berger)
• 11. Re: bat mitzva "bo bayom" (Micha Berger)
• 12. fasting on RH (Eli Turkel)

 
A consequence: If the minyan is late, then Shabbos began before Lekha
Dodi, so aveilim can't be greated with HaMaqom Yenacheim.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
================================================================

Is this the practice lmaaseh? Do they do nichum earlier? I've always
wondered about it (and why the avel goes out for lcha dodi if we've been
mkabel shabbat before)
KT
Joel Rich
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> <<In this whole thread, I have not noticed anything about WHY some do not
> have this minhag, other than the idea that it was started by followers of
> Shabbetai Tzvi. Are there any other reasons? I mean, it's just a chapter of
> Tehillim; I can't imagine anyone saying that there's anything objectionable about
> the content!>>

> Nothing to do with the content.  The GRA objected to adding any extraneous
> perakim of Tehillim to the seder hatefillah, except for Shir Shel Yom.  Therefore,
> he also omitted Mizmor shir chanukas babayis, which was added on the
> recommendation of the Ari z'l.

Does anyone feel as I do, that the feelings expressed in Mizmor shir
chanukas babayis are a bit too strong for daily recitation? The
sentiment of reliance on Hashem are all very well but how many
mornings does one really feel that one has been lifted from the depths
of Sheol?

Alan Rubin

Eli Turkel wrote:
> As an aside it is generally recognized that kabbalat shabbat
> should be said before sunset but many communities dont make it
> on time

I know this is a common practise, because I've read about it on A/A,
but I had never heard about it before then.  I had been to shuls that
made a break between k"sh and maariv, but it never occurred to me that
this was so as to say k"sh before shkia, I just thought that was an
interesting place to have a break.

In L k"sh is said at that minyan's announced time for maariv.  It's
simply treated as the beginning of maariv for Shabbos.  E.g. when I was
in yeshivah, in winter we would have seder after mincha on Erev Shabbos
until IIRC 7:00 (or perhaps it was 7:30), and then we would start Lechu
Neranena; it's not that we "didn't make it" before shkia, because we all
had to be there on time for mincha, it just never occurred to anyone,
including the hanhala, that we should.

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

> From: R' Gershon Dubin
> The pasuk in this week's parasha tells us that one may not leave a body
> unburied overnight.  However, last week's parasha ended with a body being
> left for as long as 4 weeks while the ziknei Beis Din are informed of the
> need for them to come and then they actually come to measure.  How could
> this be?

Kiddush Hashem overrides Lo Salin - see Yerushalmi Kiddushin 4:1. 

KT,
MYG

SBA wrote:
> This thread reminded me of us as youngsters saying (when not davvening or
> making a brocho) "Adoshem" rather than "Hashem".
> I thought that this may have been a Hungarian thing (and the KSA 6:3 says
> not to use that term). Our Rav at the time, Rav Betzalel Stern zt'l, also
> used that word. 
> But in later years I noticed that so did the rav of Chabad, Rav Groner zt'l.
> So there must have been a far greater useage in earlier times.
>   
I had a friend from Worcester (Massachusetts, not England), also 
affiliated with old-school Habad, who said that.

David Riceman

The mishnah in Bameh Madliqin lists three mitzvos, which arguably
implies that they hold a unique concept of Jewish womanhood. Of them,
only hafrashas challah is appropriate, unless the party is Friday night
and the girl bentches licht herself.

I share R Prof YL's father-in-law's discomfort with spiritual
engineering. It seems somewhere betweeen "locheish al hamakah"
and "al menas leqabeil peras". (In The Lonely Man of Faith, RYBS
comments on the ad campaign that went "A family that prays together,
stays together." It's a testimony to the loss of Adam II (man seeking
redemption through community) that prayer needs to be sold in functional
terms, "what else can it get me?" The whole thing is very Adam I (umil'u
es ha'aretz vekivshuha), using religion not as an end in itself, but as
a way to control something.)

One of thse magickal formulae is hafrashas challah. Such as pooling women
together to get a shiur for a berakhah. There is the same good reason why
women found this one -- nidah and hadlaqas haneir can't be done on demand.

For similar reasons, I could see making hafrashas challah, when baking
enough for it to be deOraisa, to be a sane choice for a bas mitzvah
ritual.

Of course, given non-O Jews and their ritual committees, O is loathe to
think in terms of crafting rituals. We simply let them evolve and then
think they're miSinai. (If you want to get rid of bas mitzvah because
of its Reconstructionist heritage, you would also have to get rid of
the shabbos morning derashah, borrowed from the Lutherans by German R.)


While on the topic... Why are L the only ones who really push chinukh WRT
hadlaqas haneir?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "I think, therefore I am." - Renne Descartes
micha@aishdas.org        "I am thought about, therefore I am -
http://www.aishdas.org   my existence depends upon the thought of a
Fax: (270) 514-1507      Supreme Being Who thinks me." - R' SR Hirsch

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 08:01:19AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
: In a significant percentage of cases the sa`arot come before the shanim,
: in which case the ba[rt]-mitzvah day really is the day they become chayavim
: mid'oraita.

An ever increasing percentage, if the warning in the media is true.

However, we discussed this already recently WRT geir qatan and the time
for QOM (or whatever it is he is doing). DeOraisa, all you need is 2
sa'aros. We require waiting for the child's age in order to be sure
they're really pubic, and not a mole or some other random hair. (And for
deRabbanan we wait for the age instead of bothering to check
altogether.) IOW, it's not when they are chayavos deOraisa, it's when we
know they're chayavos. E.g. WRT zimun (assuming you're not a Sepharadi
who will count for zimun any child who can understand what benching is;
Rambam, Rif).

The halakhah deOraisa has no significance to a particular age, and is
entirely about the individual's rates of development.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A sick person never rejects a healing procedure
micha@aishdas.org        as "unbefitting." Why, then, do we care what
http://www.aishdas.org   other people think when dealing with spiritual
Fax: (270) 514-1507      matters?              - Rav Yisrael Salanter

On Sun, 14 Sep 2008 9:49am +0300 Rn "Ilana Sober Elzufon" repeated in the
name of R' Moshe Sober, "mainly based on Drashot haRan":
: > But setting punishments, and defining specific criteria for imposing
them,
: > is very dependent on the specific society. This is an area of law that
is
: > entrusted by the Torah to the melech and should be applied appropriately
in
: > each era.

On Sun, Sep 14, 2008 at 4:10pm EDT, R Yitzhak Grossman wrote:
: Note, though, that the Ran's theory is innovative, and not necessarily
: the consensus view.

I always thought that the Ran's theory was pashut, obvious, and necessary.

Obviously Jewish society/melech/rabbis must set up rules and legislation 
to handle the criminal cases that occur on a regular ongoing 
basis that do not have 2 witnesses and a warning, etc

theft, rape, murder, sexual assault, etc etc

ie what will be considered valid evidence, court rules, defense etc
for those cases that the society/melech/rabbis will 'send to the kipah'


where do you see that 'the Ran's theory is innovative, and not necessarily
the consensus view'
(the fact that other rishonim don't speak about it is not indicative that
they disagree with 
something so obvious and necessary)

Mordechai cohen

Micha Berger wrote:

> However, we discussed this already recently WRT geir qatan and the time
> for QOM (or whatever it is he is doing). DeOraisa, all you need is 2
> sa'aros. We require waiting for the child's age in order to be sure
> they're really pubic, and not a mole or some other random hair. (And for
> deRabbanan we wait for the age instead of bothering to check
> altogether.) IOW, it's not when they are chayavos deOraisa, it's when we
> know they're chayavos. E.g. WRT zimun (assuming you're not a Sepharadi
> who will count for zimun any child who can understand what benching is;
> Rambam, Rif).
> 
> The halakhah deOraisa has no significance to a particular age, and is
> entirely about the individual's rates of development.

I'm sorry, what is your source for this?  AFAIK shanim are absolutely
required, and any hair before the appropriate age *is* shuma.  We're
not "unsure" whether it's shuma, it's shuma by definition.


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

On Sun, Sep 14, 2008 at 07:41:07AM -0500, Ira Tick wrote:
: I'm beginning to see what you mean in your understanding of holiness
: and religious commitment, especially since I see that you seem to
: understand my questions and the dichotomy I made between metaphysics
: and psychology, between objective and subjective definitions of
: religious truths....

:                                                  ... I have trouble
: believing that by your definition of religious truth and commitment, a
: more abstract or absolutely simple definition of G-d's unity is
: necessary.  It's only necessary that G-d be personal, indivisible, and
: individual, like a human being, only with a very different
: relationship to the world than human beings.

The fact that you're interested in one topic doesn't mean the other
doesn't exist, and isn't Torah. The question of G-d's unity is about the
other, scholastic-ontological, domain of hashkafah. It's real, and if
you want to discuss RSG, that's the domain you're discussing.

If it's not the plane on which you develop your own motivation and avodas
Hashem, so be it. You're in good company. See the introduction to the
Chovos haLvavos's Shaar haYichud by the Leiv Tov (R' Pinchas Yehudah
Lieberman). RPYL explains why he doesn't cover Sha'ar haYichud in the
LT by listing many acharonim who recommend not studying [ontological]
philosophy.

(RDE, you asked about sources where R' Nachman's shows an antipathy
for studying philosophy; RPYL lists some.)

: I still agree with my frustration with the medieval philosophers for
: their ontological, rather than moral or religious, discussions and
: depictions of G-d....

Again, you're frustrated because you're annoyed with an apple for not
being an orange. It's like being frustracted with the Qitzur for not
giving a phenomonological explanation of reality. It's just that the
topic is more similar to an existential description when looking at
Emunos veDei'os vs the KSA, and therefore your expectations of the topic
were misplaced.

: Regarding RSG, I think that your reference fits well with what I said
: about the difficulty in understanding the unity of the soul and how
: the Unity of G-d can be defined similarly to the unity of the soul --
: i.e. that qualities of "Life," "Ability," and "Knowledge" are all
: really one existence in the individual person, despite our inability
: to describe or depict this...

I disagree. I think that in a person, there is a single process in which
chaim, yekholes and chokhmah interact to produce intentional activity.
WRT HQBH, they are all one thing; not different parts necessary for a
single whole.

: ideas crept into their thinking and colored the way they approached
: religious and philosophical questions...
:                                     But you are correct that many of
: their concerns were in refuting challenges to Torah presented by Greek
: thinkers.

Not what I meant.

They had all these questions not addressed by chazal because they
lived among the Moslems in an era when the Qalam et al held sway,
and Aristotle's perspective on the universe shaped how people looked
at everything.

They then found answers to those questions as implied by what was stated
in mesorah.

: As far as Christian nations and Kabbalah, one must keep in mind that
: Kabbalah as we know it today began in the Arab countries as a backlash
: against philosophy after the Expulsion from Spain and only later
: migrated from Israel and Italy into Eastern Europe (I guess the
: Maharal would be a strong exception to this)....

Qabbalah as we know it is like lomdus as we know it, by which I mean
(for ease of parable, despite my own proclivities). We could say it
was invented by R' Chaim Brisker. But lomdus seeks answers to new
kinds of questions from already existing shitos. Did the Rambam mean
what R' Chaim said? Quite possibily not. But is the pattern that R'
Chaim describes real, and thus his theory sounds -- almost always yes
(a few curiosities caused by shibush grisaos aside).

In that sense, it's no different than RSG's or the Rambam's philosophy.
Just answering different kinds of new questions.

For that matter, so are Chassidus, Mussar, and today's post-Kantian
existential phenomenological descriptions of reality. (Sorry for dumping
all those polysyllabic words in one sentence, but I couldn't think of
good synonyms that didn't loose part of what I was trying to say.)

REED speaks of Qabbalah's olamos in terms of the Alter of Kelm's maxim
about how the tailor sees a crowd as a see of suits, and a shoemaker, by
their shoes. He speaks of a phenomology; the world as it appears to us.
Is that likely to be how the Zohar or the Ari meant the concept? No. But
it "works" in the sense of using their idea to explain the questions
a 20th cent Jew would be bothered with. Standing upon the shoulders of
giants, REED looks in a new direction.

Without knowing what the ontologists say, there is little one can do
with the new existential questions.

: kabbalah shares elements with the Greek philosophic tradition (think
: Neo-platonism, Pantheism, etc) and at the same time Oriental
: mysticism.  It is true, of course, that Ashkenazim were exposed to
: European pagan mythology and Christian mythology--demons, devils,
: ghosts, etc--in a way that the Sephardi philosophers often balked at.

Qabbalah is not pentheistic, the Chassidic version is panentheistic
[the universe is of G-d, but He is more than the universe]. In that
sentence is a language quibble (panentheism, rather than pantheism,
is the word for what I think you mean) and a real correction. The Gra's
version of qabbalah is not panentheistic. This is a major point of the
difference -- arguably the point from which everything else derives --
between the Chassidim and the Misnagdim.

: (BTW, we know that much of the discussion of mysticism in the Talmud
: comes from Persian and Zoroastrian mythology; Lilith for example, who
: has a large role in Kabbalah, comes from ancient Persian demonology).

Or the Persians got it from us. Remember that after churban bayis
rishon, they imported our nevi'im to become their court sages. Despite
the prejudices of current academic circles (their need to "debunk" the
"Judeo-Xian tradition"), it is more likely ideas flowed from us to them
than the other way around.

: I must also point out that in your translation of RSS, he mentions
: that "His Holiness is greater than ours," seemingly in an objective,
: qualitative fashion that does not easily conform to the explanation of
: holiness as commitment...

: I don't even want to get into the problems with the postulate that G-d
: must be benevolent because "nothing can be added or subtracted from
: Him."  But for starters:  Certainly, G-d's knowledge and desire could
: be for malevolence, G-d forbid, or for any random goal imaginable,
: without having to change with human action...

RSS wasn't trying for a polemic. Hashem's being good is a given, the
question RSS was asking is for whom or Whom was He being good. Given the
assumptions of Judaism, it's clear G-d made us for our good, not His own,
since He has no need to be addresssed by making us.

(However, the real question is defining benevolence. If providing us with
existence is benevolent, and everything He does is One, then every facet
of that existence must also be part of that benevolence. An Evil Deity
could not be Absolute Unity, because creation would be at least partially
good. The whole thing is sketchy, as I said, without defining good. But
that's the general direction I would argue in, if we were to go there.)



I blogged quite a bit on the relationship
between emunah and philosophy. E.g.
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2004/11/emunah-peshutah-vs-machashavah.shtml
>.
There are different ways of dealing with the problem that the more we
analyze the concept of G-d, the further we have pushed Him from us.
In that blog post I describe my own approach:
> When thinking about this further I realized that I assumed a different
> stance when writing AishDas?s charter. I think it warrants mention
> because I believe it?s the position of the Mussar Movement. It
> reflects the approach I see utilized by Rav Dessler in Michtav
> MeiEliyahu.

> R' Lopian defines mussar as dealing with the space of an amah --
> getting ideas from the mind to the heart. We often think things that
> don't reflect how we feel and many of the forces that influence our
> decision-making. Akin to RYBS's dialectic, we embrace different ideas
> and motives in different modes of our consciousness.

> As for our contradiction, the question is one of finding unity between
> mind and its ability to understand and explain, to philosophize about
> G-d and His governance of the universe, and the heart and how we feel
> and react toward Him.

> Emunah, bitachon, ahavas Hashem, yir'as Hashem, etc... are middos. They
> are not acquired directly through study, but through the tools of tiqun
> hamidos. (With the observation that constant return to a subject operates
> on both levels.) There is a reason why the kiruv movement is built on
> the experience of a Shabbos, and not some ultimate proof of G-d. (Aish
> haTorah's "Discovery" program, the only counter-example that came to
> mind, is intended to be a hook, to pique people's interest to get them
> to that Shabbos, not kiruv itself.)

> Rather than seeing this as a dilemma, I saw it as a need. We can embrace
> both because each involves a very different component of self. And since
> avodah must be bekhol nafshekha, we actually MUST study both machshavah
> and mussar. Meaningful avodas Hashem must require involvement of both
> mind and heart.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "As long as the candle is still burning,
micha@aishdas.org        it is still possible to accomplish and to
http://www.aishdas.org   mend."
Fax: (270) 514-1507          - Unknown shoemaker to R' Yisrael Salanter

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 01:28:16PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
:>The halakhah deOraisa has no significance to a particular age, and is
:>entirely about the individual's rates of development.

: I'm sorry, what is your source for this?  AFAIK shanim are absolutely
: required, and any hair before the appropriate age *is* shuma.  We're
: not "unsure" whether it's shuma, it's shuma by definition.

Shuma means mole. We don't define a mole by age; we're obviously (to me)
talking about assumptions. If the kid is too young for pubic hair to be
likely, we assume it's a wart.

(Pulling my head out of the web version of the Bar Ilan CD.)

The relevent gemara is Niddah 45b. 

Looking at tengential references... Niddah 48a doesn't mention a minimum
age. Nor Y-mi Yevamos, Y-mi Kesuvos...

According to the Shitah Mequbetzes (BB 56b, "veli ani") writes that the
2 sa'aros cause the halachic chalos, that aren't merely indicators of it.

The Rosh (Gittin 9:11), citing Rabbeinu Chananel, says that it's
intelectual maturity that causes adulthood. If we could measure that, it
would define adulthood. Since we can't we use simanim.

The Rosh (Gittin 9:11), citing Rabbeinu Chananel, says that it's
intelectual maturity that causes adulthood. If we could measure that, it
would define adulthood. Since we can't we use simanim.

All of the above define adulthood by sa'aros alone. I would say that's
consistent with age being derivative.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik,
micha@aishdas.org        but to become a tzaddik.
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507

<<Scholarly opinion holds that fasting on RH was a prevalent minhag of
EY in times of the geonim, opposed by Geonei Bavel.  The vast majority
of Rishonim opposed it, however there are threads of the practice in
Ashkenaz during Rishonim times, not too surprising if one follows the
theory that minhag EY influenced minhag Ashkenaz.>>

Actually fasting on Rosh Hashana is already a machloket geonim
(brought in teshuvot hageonim). The prevelant minhag is like R. Hai
Gaon not to fast on RH as many others have brought

-- 
Eli Turkel


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