Avodah Mailing List

Volume 28: Number 221

Thu, 03 Nov 2011

• 1. Re: Is there any issur here al pi halacha? - New York man pleads guilty to selling Israeli human organs (Joseph C. Kaplan)
• 2. Re: Birds & Fish in the Mabul (Zev Sero)
• 3. Re: Is there any issur here al pi halacha? - New York man pleads guilty to selling Israeli human organs (Rich, Joel)
• 4. dessau-er sources (Saul.Z.New...@kp.org)
• 5. Re: Is there any issur here al pi halacha? - New York man pleads guilty to selling Israeli human organs (Zev Sero)
• 6. Re: To Stand or Not to Stand for a Chosson and Kallah (Zev Sero)
• 7. Re: Birds & Fish in the Mabul (Chana Luntz)
• 8. Re: Birds & Fish in the Mabul (Chana Luntz)
• 9. Re: Status of Non-Jew born to Jewish Father (T6...@aol.com)
• 10. Status of Non-Jew born to Jewish Father (Allen Gerstl)
• 11. Re: Is there any issur here al pi halacha? - New York man pleads guilty to selling Israeli human organs (Moshe Y. Gluck)
• 12. Re: Is there any issur here al pi halacha? - New York man pleads guilty to selling Israeli human organs (Joseph Kaplan)
• 13. Re: Birds & Fish in the Mabul (Lisa Liel)

>> Me: RZS responded similarly; that this is the way of the world -- the 
>> rich have it better.  And that's true.  Bt the question I raise is 
>> whether that has to be the case. And thus, even if it is true that "every 
>> attempt to change it has failed," why does that stop us from trying to 
>> change again if that would be a better, fairer, more just and ethical way 
>> of acting.
>
> RZS: Because the way it is is right and just.  Hashem morish uma`ashir.
> That's why Rebbi honoured the rich -- if Hashem saw fit to bestow riches
> on them then they deserve honour.  It is also right and just for the rich
> to recognise where their money came from, and to be generous with it; but
> it's not as if it doesn't really belong to them, and there's something
> wrong with them spending it first on themselves.  On the contrary, since
> they got it from Hashem and not from other people, nobody else has any
> claim on it at all.  The `aniyim whom they help "mishulchan gavoah 
> ka-zachu".

Me: I'm not arguing (in this thread at least) that we should take money from 
the rich or force them to spend it on something they don't want to spend it 
on.  I'm arguing that society has the right to make decisions so that 
medical care can be allocated fairly.  And if the current system is one that 
is more fair and just than leaving organs to the highest bidder, whether 
it's right for someone to assist others to evade this system.  (Of course, 
some might not think the current system is more fair.  I'd be interested in 
hearing why.)  I understand that libertarians think otherwise, but that 
doesn't make it right.  IOW, the issue is not about the rich spending money, 
it's about society's right to regulate these types of matters. And that 
libertarian/liberal (if you wish) debate is not going to be resolved here, 
and our ipse dixits on that really don't move the discussion forward.  The 
question that is ripe for discussion is whether, assuming society can 
regulate, how it should regulate: medical necessity vs. highest bidder.

>> Me: And organ transplant is an area where maybe we can change it because 
>> it
>> is new so we have some control over how it is developing.  We've set up
>>  a system in the US that seems to be better; why defend someone who
>> violated it.
>
> Because you have no right to impose such a system on people who don't
> consent to it.  The organs don't belong to you, and you have no right
> to dictate who should get them and on what terms.  Hashem gave my organs
> to me, not to you, and only I can decide whether to give them to someone
> else, and for what reason.  If I decide to do it for money, that's my
> business, and if you try to interfere by force then you are no better
> than a highwayman.

Me: No one is forcing anyone to give up their organs; they're regulating the 
terms of how they are given up if the donor decides to do so. The same way 
society can regulate how one can sell the opium that they grow (to hospitals 
under certain conditions and not to drug dealers). Some are against that 
too; back to libertarian vs. liberal; you say tomato and I say tomato (it 
sounds better when sung, especially by Fred Astaire).

Joseph Kaplan 

On 2/11/2011 6:24 AM, Chana Luntz wrote:
> Even without this, do note that if the sky as we define it on earth is
> shamayim for the purposes of this pasuk, then due to the earth being round,
> we would have to say that earth is really enveloped in shamayim, meaning
> that all parts of the earth are both tachas the bit it is "underneath" and
> over the bit over the corresponding land on the other side of the globe.

> From the point of view of an Australian, the bit of shamayim on view in
> Eretz Yisroel is tachas where they stand (ie technically the most correct
> direction in order to face Yerushalim is straight down).  And so, since the
> bit of shamayim on view in Australia is tachas where Noach is standing

"Down" means towards the centre of the earth.  "Up" means away from it.
Thus all of the sky is above the land, not under it.


On 2/11/2011 11:34 AM, Lampel wrote:
> And the relevance of Hashem declaring that seasons would not cease,
> as they implicitly had during that entire year of the Mabul

Malbim understands this to mean that seasons didn't exist before the
mabul.  The earth's axis was perpendicular to the ecliptic, so each
place's climate was steady.  Rain fell every forty years, and the earth
produced enough food to last until the next rain.  Thus when Noach came
out of the tevah and it started raining again, he was frightened and
wanted to retreat back into it, thinking that the flood was starting up
again.  Then Hashem told him not to be afraid, because from now on there
would be annual seasons, and frequent rain, and rainbows.

> Chazal speak of the Mabul having been preceded by another major Flood
> in the generation of Enosh, that had flooded merely one third of the
> world. So whatever amount of land that involved, the Mabul involved
> three times as much.

That doesn't have to be the whole earth, though.  The first flood may
have destroyed a third of humanity, or a third of the area where people
lived, and this one covered the whole inhabited earth, and all its
inhabitants, but perhaps still not the entire earth.  "Kol ha'aretz"
may mean "all the people" as in "vayhi kol ha'arets safa achat" a few
chapters later.  The part of the earth where no people lived may simply
be irrelevant, just like the moon.

-- 
Zev Sero
z...@sero.name

On 2/11/2011 12:08 PM, Rich, Joel wrote:
> It's not so clear to me that "ownership" is the issue. For example, a
> poor talmid chacham/kohain and a wealthy woman/convert/am haaretz are
> drowning and you can only save one, the wealthy one offers a million
> dollars to save them. Can you do halachically do that?

Not only that, but even if nobody is offering money and you are donating
your water, you can give it to whomever you like. "Ve'ish es kodoshov lo
yihyu".  There are no rules.  How much more so that which you are not
makdish but are selling.  (Selling the water for a profit may reduce
your mitzvah but it doesn't erase it.  The person who goes fishing on
Shabbos and quite by accident happens to save a person still gets the
credit for hatzolas nefashos, i.e. his intended avera turns into a mitzvah.)

-- 
Zev Sero        
==============================================
R' Chaim disagrees with you - see the gilyonot on yesodei hatorah 5:1  in
the water case where he says you give it to the two of them and they both
die.  Poskim also talk about not cajoling one person in the city to give up
his life to save others.
KT
Joel Rich
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http://chabadrevisited.blogspot.com/2011/10/what-mendel
ssohn-did-wrong-part-one_24.html 


http://chabadrevisited.blogspot.com/2011/10/what-mendelsso
hn-did-wrong-part-two.html 

 on whether  the chatam sofer  wrote the final note  on  rejection of 
mendelson's peirush


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On 2/11/2011 3:23 PM, Rich, Joel wrote:
> R' Chaim disagrees with you - see the gilyonot on yesodei hatorah 5:1  in the water case where he says you give it to the two of them and they both die.

So what does he do with the pasuk?

-- 
Zev Sero        If they use these guns against us once, at that moment
z...@sero.name   the Oslo Accord will be annulled and the IDF will
                 return to all the places that have been given to them.
                                            - Yitzchak Rabin

                    
                

On 2/11/2011 10:58 AM, Prof. Levine wrote:
> If it is indeed the case that we stand when people are going to do a
> mitzvah,  then why don't we stand when the Baal Kriah gets up to lein,
>  when the Baal Shachris goes to the Amud to daven,  etc. ?

But we do stand for people who are carrying a body to its grave, or who
are carrying a baby to his bris.  (The Bartenura cited earlier in this
thread gives these two examples; apparently we do not stand for the meis
or the baby, but for the carriers who are going to do a mitzvah.)

-- 
Zev Sero        If they use these guns against us once, at that moment
z...@sero.name   the Oslo Accord will be annulled and the IDF will
                 return to all the places that have been given to them.
                                            - Yitzchak Rabin

                    
                

RZL wrote:

> Besides, 40 straight days and nights (a miraculous accurance, they say)
> of  torrential rain, not to mention the waters of the "fountains of the
> great deep," would seem to have to result in somewhat more of a local
> flood, no? And the relevance of Hashem declaring that seasons would not
> cease, as they implicitly had during that entire year of the Mabul,
> would also indicate a major, more than local-flood kind of occurence.
> Finally, Chazal speak of the Mabul having been preceded by another
> major
> Flood in the generation of Enosh, that had flooded merely one third of
> the world. So whatever amount of land that involved, the Mabul involved
> three times as much. (I don't buy the non-historical-meaning thesis, at
> least not in this case.)

If you recall, this was an old discussion between inter alia, RMB and myself
to which RMB alluded in his email on the subject (inter alia, one of my
postings on it can be found here
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol16/v16n155.shtml).

To recap, the point I was making there was that it was in many ways more
logical, to my mind, to understand "kol haaretz" as "all the known world" -
meaning known to Noach and the other members of the dor hamabul.  That is
not such a local flood, but nor is it global either, as it would seem clear
that at the time of the dor hamabul, people had not spread *that* far around
the globe, certainly never making it to islands like Great Britain etc, not
to mention further afield.  None of what you describe above causes any
problems for this approach.

Again to recap, amongst the problems that this approach solves is:

a) it focuses the moral message more closely - ie one can see Hashem judging
mida kneged mida.  People (who were corrupt and corrupted) were destroyed,
and so were those animals who were influenced by people and therefore became
corrupt.  But what did the animals who lived on islands (like Great Britain)
and who had no contact with people or with the animals that became corrupt
do to deserve this?  If we understand a global flood to deal with what was
essentially a relatively local problem (because people just had not spread
that far, relative to the size of the earth as we now know it - ie I am
using local in terms of the sheer size of the globe, as we now know it to
be), then you end up alleging a disproportionate G-d and undermining what
appears to me and the classic commentators to be the moral message of this
portion of the Torah.

b) it avoids one having to add in miracles not even whispered at in Chazal,
such as airlifting the animals to and from such islands pre and post flood
(ie first you have to get them to the ark in the first place - getting the
koalas, who only eats eucalyptus leaves and do not swim, to make their way
10,000 miles across land and sea to Noach even in 120 years requires yet
another miracle, and similarly with getting them back).

And all you need to do to avoid these problems is understand kol to be said
(as is not infrequently the case in the Torah) in the language of man, and
specifically the language of the people involved.  From Noach's point of
view, and all of the dor hamabul, it was unquestionably kol haaretz (except
maybe eretz yisrael and the other exceptions referred to in Chazal) - it is
just that today, what we know as kol haaretz is bigger than what they knew,
and includes Australia and England and indeed the moon.  That (to my mind)
doesn't make their understanding wrong, or the reference to kol haaretz
inappropriate, it just may be wrong to insist on our understanding of kol
haaretz (knowing what we now know about a much bigger area of land than the
dor hamabul was aware of) and impose it upon them and thus read it into the
Torah.  

Regards

Chana

RMB writes:

> But I think you're arguing in the wrong direction to make your own
> point.
> 
> Noach was told that everything under shamayim would be destroyed. That
> includes all of earth no matter which homonym is intended by "shamayim"
> here. Your ability to raise problems is tangential, unless you can
> prove
> that "shamayim" has yet another meaning that is yet smaller.

The position I have been consistently arguing is that kol haaretz and kol
hashamayim are terms that are most logically to be understood in the way
that Noach and the other members of the dor hamabul would have understood
them (and did understand them, or refused to believe them).  That excludes
anything completely out of their ken, like planets and galaxies from either
definition, but also Australia and England and other places that to them did
not exist. If you asked the dor hamabul for a definition of kol haaretz, you
would not get any references to Australia. Similarly if you would have asked
them for a definition of kol tachas hashamayim, they would not have included
the moon, or Australia.  When the dor hamabul came asking Noach what he was
doing, and he said that kol haaretz was going to be destroyed, because
people were corrupt, I do not believe that either of them understood that to
refer to Australia, nor would either of them have cared had they known about
it, Australia could flood or not flood for any impact it had on any of the
people involved, it was no different to them than the moon.  So yes, I
believe their understanding of shamayim was indeed smaller (physically) than
ours (even though it included the atmosphere visible to them and the moon)
as was their understanding of haaretz.  That does not mean that in fact
their spiritual understanding of shamayim may not have been greater than
ours (at least for the greats like Noach, not so sure about the rest of the
dor).  If in fact it was spiritually greater, than I would expect the
shamayim referred to refer to this, despite the fact that we today might not
truly understand what that means.  I don't think there is any requirement
that *we* fully understand this term in the Torah, but I do think, for the
punishment to be effective and appropriate, Noach and the dor hamabul had to
understand, or, in the case of the dor hamabul, be given a chance to
understand, precisely what was going on and what they were risking.  That is
basic yashrus and is precisely the reason the tevah building took so long.

You (and others) in contrast argue that kol haaretz has to be understood to
mean and include land that was unknown to the dor hamabul, like Australia,
ie you are insisting on *our* definition and understanding of what is
included in kol haaretz being read into the words in the Torah.  My comment
is thus that if you want to insert our definition of kol haaretz, then you
should be doing so properly, and including everything that we now understand
as kol haaretz, including the moon, otherwise you are arbitrarily stopping
the process - you are not prepared to define it the way the dor hamabul
would have defined it, but neither are you (when pushed) prepared to define
it the way we now understand it to be.  And exactly the same goes for
Shamayim.  By pointing out the inconsistency, I am trying to point you back
to what seems to me to be the more logical position.

> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha

Regards

Chana

 
From: Daniel Bukingolts _bukin86@gmail.com_ (mailto:buki...@gmail.com) 


>>My  father and non Jewish step mom just had a baby girl on Friday. This is
his  second non Jewish child from two different women. What is the status  
of
non-Jewish children born with Jewish fathers? Is there a different  or
easier geirus for them if they decide to convert? Are they given a  choice
at a certain age to simply be Jewish? Should we actively try to sway  them
towards Judaism? My father had a bris for my non Jewish half  brother
(details unknown, but I believe done by chabad rabbi). Would he  require
hatafas dam if he decides to be Jewish?<<

Daniel  Bukingolts

 
 
>>>>>
The child of a non-Jewish mother and a Jewish father is not  Jewish.  He is 
not half-Jewish.  He does not get to decide for himself  whether or not he 
is Jewish.
 
He is different from any other non-Jew only in this respect:  if he  
decides that he wants to convert to Judaism, he is not initially discouraged but  
is immediately encouraged and welcomed to join the Jewish people.
 
I find it hard to believe that a Chabad rabbi performed a bris on a  
non-Jewish baby.  Probably he merely performed a circumcision. (Were you  paying 
close attention to any brachos or prayers that were said?)  The  circumcision 
will certainly make it easier later on if that baby, when grown up,  
decides to convert.
 
He will, at that point, need a hatafas dam bris, as well as mikva and a  
bais din.
 

--Toby  Katz
================




_____________________  





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On Wed, 2 Nov 2011 18:25:35 +0200
R' Daniel Bukingolts <buki...@gmail.com>
Wrote: Re: Status of Non-Jew born to Jewish Father

"My father and non Jewish step mom just had a baby girl on Friday....What is the status of
non-Jewish children born with Jewish fathers? Is there a different or
easier geirus for them if they decide to convert?...My father had a bris
for my non Jewish half brother(details unknown, but I believe done by
chabad rabbi). Would he require
chatafas dam if he decides to be Jewish?   ..."My Comments:I have a good
friend who is a mohel.	His practice in such circumstances when the parents
indicate that they wish to have the child later converted to Judaism and
raise the child in accordance with halacha (and I assume that usually in
such cases the mother expresses an interest in herself converting in
accordance with halacha) has been to perform the mila in front of two Jews
who together with himself are constituted as a beit din so that the mila is
for the purpose of future conversion. He then writes out a teudat mila (a
certificate of conversion) in which he refers to the fact that the child is
not Jewish but that the mila was done for the purpose of future conversion.
He explains the facts to the parents beforehand,and emphasizes that tevilah
with conversion before a proper beit din is required. All of the latter
must be done pleasantly and diplomatically with sensitivity to the parents
feelings.The first volume 
 of the Yesodei Yeshurun by Rav Gedalia Felder, z"l deals with questions of
 conversion of babies and children when they are not bar/bat mitzvah age
 and who therefore have the right to decide at bar/bat mitzvah age as to
 whether they wish to be Jewish which can sometimes be ascertained from
 their behaviour at that age in keeping mitzvot. (Of course a qualified
 Orthodox rabbi would have to rule on each individual case as there are
 many very important nuances both of fact and of halacha in each case.)KT
Eliyahu


                                          
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> Me: Isn't there another downside (assuming full consent, no coercion etc. 
> which
> is an assumption that very well might not be justified); i.e., that rich
> people whose condition is not as serious as that of poor people will live
> and the poor people will die?
> -----------------
>
> RMYG: And this is different from every other illness, exactly how? Someone
> who can afford the Mayo Clinic will get better care than someone who comes
> to the emergency room at 3 AM. That's the way the world is. And every
> attempt to change that has failed.

R' JK:
RZS responded similarly; that this is the way of the world -- the rich have 
it better.  And that's true.  Bt the question I raise is whether that has to

be the case. And thus, even if it is true that "every attempt to change it 
has failed," why does that stop us from trying to change again if that would

be a better, fairer, more just and ethical way of acting.
----------------


Yechdal Evyon M'kerev Ha'aretz. Redistribution of wealth is not a Jewish
concept; charity and mercy are. So while a person himself or herself is
obligated to be merciful, I don't think society has to make rules that
require him or her to be.
But why should they not? As you write, "...why does that stop us from trying
to change again if that would 
be a better, fairer, more just and ethical way of acting." Because, I think,
history has shown that movements that attempted to make life fair - by
taking from the rich and giving to the poor - have invariably failed due to
corruption and other reasons. French Revolution, Socialism,
Communes/Kibbutzim, and so on, all come to mind. (That's what scares me
about Occupy Wall St., BTW.) 

KT,
MYG 







And organ transplant is an area where maybe we can change it because it is 
new so we have some control over how it is developing.  We've set up a
system in the US that seems to be better; why defend someone who violated
it.  IOW, my argument is that the problem is not that brokering organs 
violates the law, it is that it violates and undermines a good system which 
determines  who should get the organ on the basis of who needs it the most 
from a medical standpoint.

In sum, AISI it's not particularly relevant whether the rich have it better 
in every other area including medical issues or whether this type of 
societal action has or has not failed in the past.  My issues are (a) what 
is the best way to proceed now and (b) once that is determined, is it 
feasible to do so.

Joseph Kaplan 

> The point you make is a good one; but I DO think it has to be the case: Lo
> Yechdal Evyon M'kerev Ha'aretz. Redistribution of wealth is not a Jewish
> concept; charity and mercy are. So while a person himself or herself is
> obligated to be merciful, I don't think society has to make rules that
> require him or her to be.
> But why should they not? ...

To be clear: i'm not asking that wealth should be redistributed; I'm
not advocating taking anything from the rich and giving it to the poor.
The rich have the right to keep their money; they don't have a right
to buy whatever they want with it -- whether it's someone's organs, or
heroin or bombs or stolen property. A Robin Hood system which tries to
make life fairer and more just may not work, but that doesn't mean that
EVERY attempt to make life fairer and more just doesn't work. From the
article RMYG cited on an earlier response, it just may be that the nuS
organ donation system is one that will work.

Joseph Kaplan   

On 11/2/2011 5:04 PM, Chana Luntz wrote:
> To recap, the point I was making there was that it was in many ways more
> logical, to my mind, to understand "kol haaretz" as "all the known world" -
> meaning known to Noach and the other members of the dor hamabul.  That is
> not such a local flood, but nor is it global either, as it would seem clear
> that at the time of the dor hamabul, people had not spread *that* far around
> the globe, certainly never making it to islands like Great Britain etc, not
> to mention further afield.  None of what you describe above causes any
> problems for this approach.

Except that there's no reason to imagine that Bnei Adam existed in Great 
Britain or Australia.  Or even that those islands existed as they do today.

> b) it avoids one having to add in miracles not even whispered at in Chazal,
> such as airlifting the animals to and from such islands pre and post flood
> (ie first you have to get them to the ark in the first place - getting the
> koalas, who only eats eucalyptus leaves and do not swim, to make their way
> 10,000 miles across land and sea to Noach even in 120 years requires yet
> another miracle, and similarly with getting them back).

If Pangaea hadn't yet split up, this wouldn't be an issue.

> And all you need to do to avoid these problems is understand kol to be said
> (as is not infrequently the case in the Torah) in the language of man, and
> specifically the language of the people involved.  From Noach's point of
> view, and all of the dor hamabul, it was unquestionably kol haaretz

But the phrase "kol haaretz" isn't in Noach's dialogue. It's narrative.
As such, it's hard to imagine that Noach's perceptions were relevant.

Lisa



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