Avodah Mailing List

Volume 31: Number 39

Fri, 08 Mar 2013

• 1. Re: ein mazal l'Yisrael (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: carrying an ID card on shabbat (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: Fwd (JID): "Who Says There Are No Coincidences?" (Rich, Joel)
• 4. Re: Fwd (JID): "Who Says There Are No Coincidences?" (Lisa Liel)
• 5. Starving children juxtaposed with a picture of the first Beracha of Bentching (Marty Bluke)
• 6. Re: carrying an ID card on shabbat (Zev Sero)
• 7. Definition of death (Noam Stadlan)
• 8. Re: partnership minyanim (Chana Luntz)
• 9. kitniyot (Eli Turkel)
• 10. Re: kitniyot (Micha Berger)
• 11. ADHD and Havinenu (Micha Berger)
• 12. Re: ADHD and Havinenu (Micha Berger)

On Thu, Mar 07, 2013 at 08:28:13PM -0600, Lisa Liel wrote:
> But ein mazal l'Yisrael comes from Avraham and the stars that Hashem  
> showed him.  So it wouldn't apply to the chasid umot ha'olam...

But that just means that this particular quote doesn't apply to
nakhriim. It does not support your claim that their win would necessarily
be sheer randomness. Nor does it contradict it -- the HP afforded Jews
(MOTs in good standing) has nothing to do with its presence or absence
among anyone else.

(That's just a rephrase of what I said about the truth of a proposition
having nothing to do with the truth of its converse.)

E.g. the Rambam makes hashgachah peratis contingent on knowledge of
G-d. Something open to anyone. In fact, he picks three Arabic names,
not Jewish ones, as his examples in Moreh 3:18:

   ... [I]t must further be admitted that the result of the existing
   Divine influence, that reaches mankind through the human intellect,
   is identical with individual intellects really in existence, with
   which, e.g., Zeid, Amr, Kaled and Bekr, are endowed. Hence it follows,
   in accordance with what I have mentioned in the preceding chapter,
   that the greater the share is which a person has obtained of this
   Divine influence, on account of both his physical predisposition and
   his training, the greater must also be the effect of Divine Providence
   upon him, for the action of Divine Providence is proportional to the
   endowment of intellect, as has been mentioned above....

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When you come to a place of darkness,
mi...@aishdas.org        you don't chase out the darkness with a broom.
http://www.aishdas.org   You light a candle.
Fax: (270) 514-1507        - R' Yekusiel Halberstam of Klausenberg zt"l

On Thu, Mar 07, 2013 at 05:41:14PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
>> According to SSK pg 215 RSZA says this is why extra buttons sown
>> onto a garment can be worn as well. (I am told RMF and RSYE hold
>> similarly.)

> Those are batel to the garment.  The permanent attachment is irrelevant;
> they'd be just as batel if they weren't permanently attached.  They have
> no independent metzius, they're just part of the garment.

I don't know why you say a label is batel if its not fully attached,
but whatever you're saying about shaatnez labels would be true of
ID cards, no?

...
>> This was discussed widely WRT gloves. The gezeirah was about jewelry,
>> and few say it includes anything but. (This ties to the discussion of
>> whether qitniyos includes more than the original list of legumes.)
>
> Where are you getting this from?....

R' Ovaida Yosef.

I didn't find the citation, now that you asked for a location for
something I remember from a shiur, but SSK 18:27 fn 109 invokes this
line of reasoning for watches that you would not wear when run down. In
contrast to a watch you wear even when it isn't telling time is a
tachshit, and under the original gezeira.

While unsuccessfully looking for the mar'eh maqom, I found the SA OC
301:37, "mutar latzeis beShabbos bebatei yadayim". And when noting the
"yeish mi shemachmir", the chumerah is to require sowing them to your
sleeves. The SA says it's better to be machmir -- although it's not his
iqar hadin. The MB shares this preference but notes in the Biur Halakhah
that most are indeed meiqil because we have so few rh"r deOraisa nowadays.

So we already see the mechaber considers applying the gezeira beyond its
initial limits is a chumerah, not din, but still no one applies it to
things permanently attached to your coat, as in my suggestion.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
mi...@aishdas.org         'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
http://www.aishdas.org    'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
Fax: (270) 514-1507                     - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l

Personally, I don't believe in them because of Chaos Theory, as often
illustrated by "The Butterfly Effect". If there were anything whose
final outcome wasn't influenced by HQBH, how could there be anything
whose final outcome was? All events interact and interplay.

=================================================
Perhaps because HKB"H could "accept" a result  gotten to in different ways.
A simple example might be a bet between 2 people on the roll of the dice.
If the roll is 7 or less a wins, 8 or more B wins.  Hkb"h wants A to win,
he only "interferes that the roll not be 8 or more, but the roll could be 5
or 6 etc. Say they played twice and both times a 5 was rolled - that would
be "coincidence"?
KT
Joel Rich
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On 3/7/2013 4:51 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> Personally, I don't believe in them because of Chaos Theory, as often
> illustrated by "The Butterfly Effect". If there were anything whose
> final outcome wasn't influenced by HQBH, how could there be anything
> whose final outcome was? All events interact and interplay.
>    
This differs on micro and macro levels.  For example, take a closed jar 
filled with air.  The location of any particular molecule or atom at any 
given time isn't easy to calculate, and you actually *can't* calculate 
both the position and velocity of a particle.  But the aggregate, 
contained in that jar, is easily determined.

Lisa

This photo (
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CI2uCSW0tXs/UTNM6oQUasI/
AAAAAAAAAFk/KDZnlMoRwHs/s400/Untitled.png)
was
shared around Facebook last week, juxtaposing the first beracha of
Bentching (which states that Hashem "gives food to all flesh, for His
kindness is everlasting.") with starving children somewhere in Africa. How
do we deal with the obvious contradiction? Similarly how do we explain what
we say in Ashrei every day "poseach es yadecha umasbea lol chai ratzon" in
the face of starvation?
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On 7/03/2013 10:37 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 07, 2013 at 05:41:14PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
>>> >>According to SSK pg 215 RSZA says this is why extra buttons sown
>>> >>onto a garment can be worn as well. (I am told RMF and RSYE hold
>>> >>similarly.)
>> >Those are batel to the garment.  The permanent attachment is irrelevant;
>> >they'd be just as batel if they weren't permanently attached.  They have
>> >no independent metzius, they're just part of the garment.

> I don't know why you say a label is batel if its not fully attached,

Why should it be fully attached?  I say it because the yellow Jew-patch
doesn't have to be fully attached, and also a pin (with a plain head)
used as a fastening doesn't have to be fully attached.

Note in the Biur Halacha that you quote later on, he notes that it
should make no difference whether gloves are sewn on to the coat, tied
with a permanent knot, or with an impermanent knot, and quotes the Pri
Megadim that the only reason an impermanent knot is no good is that it
might get undone.  While it's done up it is indeed just as good.


> but whatever you're saying about shaatnez labels would be true of
> ID cards, no?

No.  Why would it be batel?  It's not part of the garment, it's its own
metzius, that you put there for its own purpose.  How can merely attaching
one thing to another make it batel to that other thing?


> SSK 18:27 fn 109 invokes this
> line of reasoning for watches that you would not wear when run down. In
> contrast to a watch you wear even when it isn't telling time is a
> tachshit, and under the original gezeira.

I haven't got the sefer, but surely you've got that exactly backwards.
A watch that you would wear even if it weren't running is an ornament,
and therefore you *can* wear it, unless you're likely to take it off.
A watch that you wouldn't wear if it weren't running is not an ornament
at all but a burden, so you *can't* wear it, not because of the gezera
lest you take it off, but me'ikar hadin!


> While unsuccessfully looking for the mar'eh maqom, I found the SA OC
> 301:37, "mutar latzeis beShabbos bebatei yadayim". And when noting the
> "yeish mi shemachmir", the chumerah is to require sewing them to your
> sleeves. The SA says it's better to be machmir -- although it's not his
> iqar hadin.

Yes.


>  The MB shares this preference but notes in the Biur Halakhah
> that most are indeed meiqil because we have so few rh"r deOraisa nowadays.

Um, that's not in the BH, that's in the MB.


> So we already see the mechaber considers applying the gezeira beyond its
> initial limits is a chumerah, not din

Where are you getting that from?  He doesn't say that at all; you're just
reading it in.  The obvious basis for the matirim is not that gloves weren't
included in the gezera, but that one isn't that likely to remove them and
walk four amos without them.  It's a machlokes about metzius, not principle.
Should we be worried about it or not?   In the case of an ID card (even if
one made it into a garment or ornament in its own right), the only purpose
of carrying it in the first place is in *order* to take it off and hand it
to a policeman on demand, so of course we have to worry about it.


> but still no one applies it to
> things permanently attached to your coat, as in my suggestion.

And you think that's because they become batel to the coat?!  Look in the
MB you quoted.  He says the reason this helps is simply because it makes it
impossible to carry them.  The Taz's objection to this is that we should
still worry that one will walk four amos with the empty glove flapping from
the sleeve, and since it's *not* batel to the coat it will be carrying.
The Biur Halacha quotes two answers: 1) The Eliyahu Rabba says that gloves
attached to the sleeve are indeed batel, because they become part of the
sleeve; what you have now is not a coat with gloves attached, but a "handsie"
coat (like "footsie" pyjamas).  In other words they're batel because they
extend the functionality of the coat. (This is very different from the label,
or the Jew-patch, which are batel because they are mere *non*-functional
pieces of fabric that one has no intention of ever removing.)  2) The Nehar
Shalom and [TVSh?] answer that since this is not a derech of carrying gloves
it would be kil'achar yad, so banning the gloves altogether for fear that
one will carry them in this way would be a gezera lig'zera, while the Taz
and the GRA must hold that this is a derech of carrying gloves.  The MB
doesn't quote him, but the Machtzis Hashekel gives the same answer.  Note
that nobody suggests the mere attachment itself makes the glove batel to
the coat.  The purpose of the attachment is to physically prevent carrying.

To review: something can become batel to a garment in one of two ways:
it can be an insignificant bit of stuff that one never thinks about and
will never remove, *or* it can be functionally integrated into the garment,
as the key on a key belt is integrated, or as attached gloves might be said
to be integrated into a coat's sleeves.  Obviously the first way cannot
apply to an ID card, so the only option would be the second way, to make
it an integral link in a belt, with the same strictures as a key belt
(which as you will have seen in the se'if just above, is not as glattik
as people think).  Once you've done that, you *then* have to deal with
"shema yishlof", which in the case of an ID card seems insurmountable,
unless we say that the mere presence of the unusual shabbos contraption
will remind one to put it back on as soon as the policeman hands it back.

-- 
Zev Sero               A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and
z...@sero.name          substantial reason' why he should be permitted to
                        exercise his rights. The right's existence is all
                        the reason he needs.
                            - Judge Benson E. Legg, Woollard v. Sheridan

Rav Micha wrote: 

'Only if you think that "life" is an empirical term.

If one deduces from "vayipach be'apav nishmas chayim" that life is
defined by some metaphysical relationship between body and soul that
occurs with breathing, how can we know what makes sense?

A body can be dead by any empirical measure, but still chayim in the
sense halakhah uses the term, and one still commits retzichah by stopping
its breath.'

When I stated that defining life as the presence of circulation did not
make sense- what I meant is that when you apply the criteria to all
situations, the results do not cohere with our usual common sense and
halachic ideas of life and death. 

You can define life and death however you want, and base it on all sorts of
concepts including the mystical. However, you have to be willing to accept
the results of its application to all situations. Defining life as
circulation, no matter how you got there, results in an embalmed body
hooked up to a pump being am alive human being.  Unless you have some sort
of definition of what makes up a human body, you have to accept that an
isolated beating heart or isolated kidney that has blood flowing in it is a
human being.  I assume that most if not all would agree that these results
do not make sense and do not cohere with established halachic
determinations in these cases.	

The underlying point is that there needs to be a definition and an accompanying acceptance of the results of its application to all situations. 

Noam Stadlan 


Sent from my phone. 

RMB writes:
>I wonder, though, if the comparison is valid. Perhaps rather than there
>being no kavod hatzibur issue in giving a qatan the amud for Pesuqei
>deZimra, the conclusion was reached that chinukh was a higher priority
>than kavod. And then, a situation like nidon didan where the is no
>chinukh element, there would be no parallel matir.

In order to possibly have this discussion, you need to have some
understanding of what kovod hatzibbur is.

Not that that is easy, because the meforshim appear to differ in
their understanding. It seems to me that there are in essence three
understandings of kovod hatzibbur:

a) the Bach's understanding (in Orech Chaim siman 53) -- which is the
things that are required or assured mipnei kovod hatzibbur are just
ordinary takanos or gezeros of the hachachamim, except that they were done
for this reason -- the same way that the chachamim required or assured
mipnei darchei shalom or eiva or other reasons. Ie these are rabbinical
requirements that cannot (generally) be waived -- although when faced with
the extremely common minhag of rolling the sefer torah when one only has
one sefer torah in order to read the various maftirim on rosh chodesh or
yom tov or the like -- the Bach tries to say that when the Chachamim made
the gezera of not rolling the sefer torah, they only meant where it was
possible to fulfil the obligation to read these passages in another way,
as in, there was another sefer torah, but when there wasn't the Chachamim
never made their takana (see Orech Chaim siman 144).

b) the idea that kovod hatzibbur is like kovod haRav or kovod haAv or
alternatively like kovod haMelech. Therefore you get into the question of
whether one is permitted to waive one's kovod -- the general rule being
that a Rav or a parent is permitted to waive their kovod, while a king
is not. There is some discussion about whether there is a distinction
between a small tzibbur and the entirety of the people in this regard
-- some suggest that the entirety of the people or the majority of all
Israel at least is like the king, and cannot waive, but that what we
generally think of as a tzibbur can. Thus the Beis Yosef quotes the
Rambam and the Rashba as permitting the tzibbur to waive their kavod
(see Orech Chaim siman 53 and also 144) -- as well as the Mordechai and
Rabbanu Yerucham -- while he quotes the Rosh as holding that it cannot.

c) There are two different kinds of kovod hatzibbur -- one that is really
about tircha d'zibbura -- what we might define as the hassle of the
tzibbur, which the tzibbur is allowed to waive, and one that is really
about kovod Shamayim, which the tzibbur is not. While this also really
comes from the Bach in Orech Chaim siman 53, it is brought particularly
by the Taz (Orech Chaim siman 53 si'if katan 2). There he brings the
Bach regarding having a shaliach tzibbur whose beard has not filled out
"since indeed the kavod of the tzibbur in this is really the kavod of
Shamayim that he is intending to honour HaShem may he be blessed with
a Shatz that is fitting to be an advocate on behalf of the community
opposite HaShem... [and so rather learn] that indeed there is no mechila
in matters that concern kavod Shamayim." The actual language of the Bach
is as follows: "rather the explanation is that this is not kavod of the
tzibbur that they send before them to go up one who does not have beauty
of face [meaning a beard -- Shabbat 152a -- the beauty of the face is
the beard] to be an advocate for the tzibbur that even before a king
of flesh and blood we do not send to advocate for the community even if
he is a great chacham unless he is also of goodly stature and there is
to him a beauty of face that he has a full beard and all the more so
before the king of kings the Holy One Blessed be He and according to
this there is no place at all to say that they can appoint whomever the
tzibbur wants so as to be mochol on their kavod". One of the clearest
articulations of this twofold position I have found is in Shut Tzedek
u'Mishpat chelek Orech Chaim siman 4 (Rabbi Tzadkah ben Saadiah Chutzein
was a Rav in Syria 1699-1773) in the context of discussing the common
Sephardi custom of having more than seven aliyot when there is a simcha --
he raises the question as to whether the (interminable) shabbas morning
services thereby violates kovod hatzibbur if. And his comment is --
"but in our case that we multiply the readings [in the Torah] where it
is not necessary there is no blemish on the kavod of HaShem since what
blemish is it to HaShem if they remain in the synagogue one more hour,
but there is in this a trouble of the tzibbur while it does not touch
the matter of the kavod of HaShem..."

Now on that basis you might be able to try and analyse the question you
asked. But you have something of a problem -- because nowhere does anybody
apply kovod hatzibbur regarding psukei d'zimra. So if you follow the
first approach you have to postulate a takana that nobody knows about
which was then waived for Chinuch reasons without any comment in the
sources, so it is all castles upon castles in the air, and I personally
think we can safely discount it.

If you hold that the tzibbur can waive it kavod when it feels like it,
well it can waive it when it feels like it whether for chinuch or other
reasons, and if it cannot, it cannot -- but without specific instructions
that kavod that is otherwise unwaivable (like for a king) can be waived
when chinuch comes into play, then I don't think you can get off the
starting blocks using this approach either.

And if the question is whether or not there is any kavod shamayim there --
if there is kavod shamayim in the issue, then I can't see chinuch as a
heter to allow the honour of HaShem to be impugned for chinuch purposes
(nor can anybody else, the whole point is not to send somebody who is
not grown up enough to have a full beard). If the test is, as the Bach
suggests, whether or not you would send such a person before a king of
flesh and blood -- I think we would all agree that if President Obama
were to sent a child, or even a teenager, to negotiate a sensitive
diplomatic matter, a modern day king or authority would most likely send
such ambassador packing and ask for somebody with a bit more gravitas and
authority. On the other hand, if President Obama were to send Hillary
Clinton or Condoleezza Rice -- would anybody today dare say, "send me
somebody with more authority, like a man ...?" On the other hand, it is
certainly true that this has only been the case at most for the last
50 to 100 years. Before that, I can well such a diplomatic authority
refusing to take the ambassadorial services of a woman. So rather this
appears to play the other way -- if the question is really about kavod
shamayim, not about kavod hatzibbur itself -- then the question becomes
is HaShem's kavod impugned by sending a woman, or a child -- and does
this change if the mores of kings of flesh and blood in the world change?

> Also, I'm wondering if the following paradox holds: Chinukh is a
> derabbanan. What about the chinukh of teaching a qatan that he must
> grow up to conform to minhag? Could it be that according to the Rashba
> the qatan has a greater chiyuv (derabannan of chinukh) to say PdZ than
> the men do (minhag Yisrael)?

I can't see how the Rashba can hold that a chiyuv on a child due to
chinuch could be greater than his ultimate chiyuv on becoming a gadol -
that would mean that he was moridin b'kodesh and not ma'alin. Surely the
rabbinic obligation in chinuch is to fulfil rabbinic and d'orisa mitzvos,
and the one is mechanech in minhagim based in minhag only.

[Email #2. -micha]

RMB says
> I see [R/D Barry Freundel] makes this point in his latest
> installment <http://torahmusings.com/2013/02/partnership-minyanim-v>:

>> Second, many of the commenters have it completely backwards. By
>> all accounts that is a relatively recent (no more than a decade or
>> two) innovation. What halakhic sources allow it? I have indicated that
>> I was always uncomfortable with the practice precisely because
>> it seemed to diminish the importance of significant parts of the
>> service.

So now we have a global Sephardi conspiracy to institute the saying of
psukei d'zimra by katanim amongst their shuls - a practice that according
to RBF is only a decade or two old!

This is a practice that can be found by the Moroccans in England, by
the Moroccans in France, by the Gibraltarians, by the Iraqis who came
to England via India, by the Iraqis that came to England straight from
Iraq, by Iraqis that came via Israel, by Syrian Egyptians and I believe
amongst the Lebanese.

We have also heard on here this is the practice in the minyan in Rav
Ovadiah's home (which minhag does he daven - Yerushalmi?).

Please others out there - can you post (and ask your Sephardi friends)
where around the world you have seen this practice, and amongst which
communities. I am fully confident we will get an extraordinarily wide
spectrum of Sephardi practice, one that makes a conspiracy theory to
bring in a new halachic innovation over the last decade or two almost
impossible.

Now, I totally agree, the practice of *women* saying psukei d'zimra is
extremely new, and I guarantee it was not occurring in Sephardi communities
around the globe.  On that basis this is legitimate:

> That is also true for those who continue to raise the fact that in some
> communities young boys lead Kabbalat Shabbat and Pesukei  De-Zimrah.

First that fact alone does not mean that women can lead even if the
practice is halakhically fine. One needs to  do some work to make that
connection and no one that I have seen has.

That is a fair enough.  What is NOT fine is to come out halachically against
common Sephardi minhag.

>New practices are almost always subject to challenges like this that
>must be met. Again, such is the way of Torah. As such the  defenders of
>this practice have the burden of proof. If you change things you need to
>find support for the innovation.

Agreed, and this applies as much to assuring common Sephardi minhag as to
allowing partnership minyanim.  More so, here because we have a widespread
and established minhag Yisrael - and if RMF want to go assuring that, he
needs to have solid halachic grounds on which to do so.

>In my review of the literature I found only Rav Uziel's hesitant
>defense. Again, he bases the practice on the mitzvah of chinukh  (which as
I have shown is weak here), and which cannot be used to justify women
leading that service.

No, what he does is assurs katanim doing other things, like leading Shachrit
from Yishtabach, and understands that what is left from a chinuch point of
view is psukei d'zimra.

Again, you cannot divorce this from the reality of common Sephardi minhag
across the globe, which it is completely impossible is a new innovation.
Too many people from too many very diverse communities are practicing this
minhag for this conspiracy theory to work.

And NOBODY in the Sephardi line of psak raises this as problem - even a
problem that needs chinuch as a reason to permit.  Now either you need to
take the patronising view - and I think that is part of what is so irksome
about RMF's piece, is its implication - that the Sephardim poskim
throughout the generations had this dubious practice going on under their
noses (including Rav Ovadiah who on the testimony of this list has this
practice going on in his very own house, and in his very own minyan), and
yet were too stupid to realise the halachic implications and assur it, or
even discuss it.  If there really is a kovod hatzibbur issue, or a kovod
shamayim issue or whatever other halachic issue one might identify which
perhaps can be waived due to a chinuch justification, then this is something
that any competent halachic authority who permits such a practice to occur
in his minyan might be expected to write about - even if after bringing both
sides he says that chinuch is docheh whatever other issue it is that he
identifies.  Rav Ovadiah has many many teshuvos about these kinds of
questions. Silence in the face of common minhag, including that of minyanim
under one's direct supervision, does have implications.  And the implication
that actually there are serious halachic problems, but that those problems
are pushed aside by chinuch without as much as a nod from leading halachic
authorities, is not one of them.  I really seriously do not see how anybody
can conclude other than that having katanim lead psukei d'zimra is perfectly
mutar halachically.

> Also, I had a chance to talk to R' Jack Love, my rebbe-chaver who is
> the Chair of the Dept of Halakha at YCT. He said his recurring theme
> talking to talmidim out in the field is that "halakhah has to be
> evolutionary, not revolutionary." You need to have this back and forth,
> rather than charge ahead with changes even ones you are convinced are
> correct ideologically, or appropriate heterim because they are the only
> way to get most of the people into the shul and davening, learning
> about Shabbos, etc... (He said the latter is the more common
> motivation.)

This is of course a completely different discussion. Innovating things
that feel new to people is an issue. You can also get into questions
of minhag. The minhag amongst Ashkenazim is not to have katanim say
psukei d'zimra. Should Ashkenazim innovate this for chinuch purposes?
Maybe yes, maybe no. Chinuch might be a good reason to innovate it,
but it is not something that has been commonly done. Even if it is not a
matter of pushing aside any halachic consideration one can still consider
precisely this evolutionary issue about changing things that may bother
people, and whether it will get more or less people into shul, and whether
they are the right sort of people. That is very different to trying to
halachically trash existing widespread minhagim that differ from yours.

You can have the same sort of debate about the innovations of partnership
minyanim. I don't have a problem with that. You can also have the same
debate about having women as presidents of shuls, or machgichim or (a
generation ago) whether a woman doctor could be allowed to practice in
a Jewish community - since this involves wielding a level of authority
that originally was the province only of men. It is not clear to me
how many women are not learning about shabbas because there are no women
presidents or women machgichim. I suspect there are far more women who
do not go to shul because they don't feel involved, and therefore get
a far more limited halachic education including learning about shabbas
(halavai that the average Rabbinical drasha in shul involved teaching
some real tachlis halacha - it generally doesn't) than don't go to shul
because there is no woman president and certainly because there is no
woman mashgiach in the OU.

> I didn't think to ask him what he would have said to Rn Sarah Schenirer
> (who was certainly revolutionary, not waiting for evolution) until
> after I got out of his car. Sorry.

Once you start invoking eis la'asos you are into different territory.
Basically the Chaftez Chaim equated the Beis Yaa'kov movement with Eliyahu
haNavi on Har Carmel offering a korban outside of the beis hamikdash
because of the drastic needs of the people, or of writing down the torah
shebaal peh.

I don't think that most people are prepared to assume that the needs
are quite that great. As far as I can see, partnership minyanim are
in fact grass roots, rather than being put in place by an individual
with revolutionary fervour such as Sarah Schenirer. Part of what is
frustrating RMF with his "halacha as the silent partner" objection is
precisely that these seem to be being put into practice by lay people,
without the reasoned halachic debate that one might expect from halachic
heavyweights. When I was living in Jerusalem around 15 years ago, I
was vaguely aware that there existed one minyan there that was espousing
these principles - suddenly they are all over. I have been told they are
here in England (although I don't know where) and also that they are in
my home town of Melbourne (hardly a bastion of revolutionary fervour -
they never even managed to get a Conservative movement off the ground).
These are, as best I can tell, not about existing shuls allowing things,
these are about people going off and forming their own, new shuls, with
tenuous links to existing shuls - and the question then becomes, do you
let them just go off into the ether, or try to and bring them within your
existing shul as a valid separate minyan. I don't know what R' Jack Love
would say about things such as women saying kaddish and bat mitzvahs -
both of which are closer to this debate over partnership minyanim - -
except that they involve bringing (or not bringing) women to existing
minyanim. If anything the issue with these partnership minyanim is that
once you start raising this as question of a tzibbur being mochel on
its kavod you are suggesting a secessionist tzibbur, one that no longer
wants to have anything to do with existing communities which is not
prepared to be mochel on their kavod. That is why I am not sure that
this is a totally ideal line of reasoning. But I don't think this is
being generated by the psukei d'zimra issue, but by the reading from the
Torah one. The psukei d'zimra discussion really seems to be a sideshow.

Shabbat Shalom
Chana

<<Where do you see this?  The only norm he is reporting is the metzius that
in many places they ate peanuts.  The rest is his explanation for that
metzius.  Other explanations could also be proposed.>>

R Frank allowed cottenseed because it was a new product since in the old
days it was not edible.
As mentioned RCS also allowed peanuts and other such products

However, in general I dont understand the whole issue. RMF has many
chiddushin.
RSZA states that the "Sar shel Torah" of his generation is RMF since he can
find the solution to new problems and not just quote old opinions.

Hence, if this is a chiddush of RMF thast is good enough for me.
However, as noted several other poskim made similar claims and many present
day poskim follow RMF's pask

-- 
Eli Turkel
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On Fri, Mar 08, 2013 at 03:25:41PM +0200, Eli Turkel wrote:
: RSZA states that the "Sar shel Torah" of his generation is RMF since he can
: find the solution to new problems and not just quote old opinions.

Although in this case, that's exactly what he does. "We used to eat
peanuts in Eastern Europe, why should people from similar arears start
prohibiting it now?"

And peanut oil... Here we have something that requires being machmir on
the scope of qitniyos, combined with being machmir not only on mei qitniyos
but on shemen qitniyos (which some who don't use mei qitniyos permit, since
it won't mix with water)! How did that ever get accepted as assur.

Me, my ancestors consumed mei qitniyos in Litta. (And go not that much
further back, qitnios too.) So shouldn't it (in theory) be mutar for me
to consume all those "OU Kitniyot" products that only show
corn syrup or corn oil?

As for relying on the ingredients list, qitniyos are batul berov, and
to quote R David Cohen from last year
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol30/v30n010.shtml#07>:
> One of the best known advocates of this lenient position was R' Yitzchak
> Elchanan Spektor (Be'er Yitzchak OC 11), who makes the case that "ein
> mevatlin issur lechatchila" does not apply to kitniyos, and thus permits an
> alcoholic beverage whose majority ingredient is honey, and whose
> minority ingredient is buckwheat .  He was disputing the conclusion of the
> Nishmas Adam (Shabbos uMoadim 119: 33) who maintains that this beverage is
> forbidden.  What is interesting, though, is that the Nishmas Adam does not
> actually base his opposition on "ein mevatlin isur lechatchila" at all, but
> rather on the fact that in this particular beverage, the
> kitniyos ingredient is what gives it its taste  ...

So, if it's not a similar issue of noticing the taste, we really have
no one choleiq on SYES. RDC reported that when he asked, the OU invoked
common practice, not din.

-Micha

So, I read a blog where the author admits that he wasn't davening
regularly anymore, and so decided to switch to a shortened "Siddur" that
starts with Birkhos Shema and uses Havinenu -- "because it's better than
not davening at all."

This is at best a "halakhah ve'ein morin kein", since we don't want to
lower general standards. And I'm not sure the tactic would even work --
would the person really end up davening more often if Shacharis was less
burdensome? Or is it psychologically more like the hurdle of getting
into the car, but once you're leaving the house, it's no big deal to
run multiple errands?

But I was wondering if he would be yotzei at all. Okay, lekhatchilah it
can't be advised, perhaps not in general, perhaps not even one-on-one
to people like this blogger, but bedi'eved?

And then I wondered. Apparently, we now have a veritable epidemic of
people with ADD or ADHD, who every day are afraid that they couldn't
possibly say the full tefilah with kavanah. Would they be yotz'im?

The SA (OC 110:1) writes
    Beshe'as hadechaq, such as
        1- when he is on the way, or
        2- he is standing in a where he is preocupied (tarud) and is
           worried that
            a- they will stop him, or
            b- that he will be unable to to daven a long tefillah with
               kavanah
    one should daven after the first 3 berakhos "Haveineinu"...
    and he does not say "Havineinu" in the rainy season [because "vesein
    tal umatar is THAT important, see Taz s"q 1, and MB s"q 5] or on
    motza"sh or [motza'ei] Yom Tov [Taz - havdalah].

That might also be 1, 2, 3 rather than 1, 2a, 2b. I laid it out the way
others appear to be reading the se'if, that there are two basic matirim.
I saw it as three.

The MB s"q 1 backs off from this, emphasizing "she'as hadechaq" rather
than the examples. Because Abayei was against saying Havineinu.

So, what about the guy whose attention span peters out at 10
min. Havenineu - lekhat-chilah because ".. ve'echad hamam'it ubilvad
sheyechavein libo", yotzei bedi'eved, or not even that because there is
no she'as hadechaq?

Thoughts?

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Brains to the lazy
mi...@aishdas.org        are like a torch to the blind --
http://www.aishdas.org   a useless burden.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                 - Bechinas HaOlam

On Fri, Mar 08, 2013 at 01:13:21PM -0500, Micha Berger wrote:
: And then I wondered. Apparently, we now have a veritable epidemic of
: people with ADD or ADHD, who every day are afraid that they couldn't
: possibly say the full tefilah with kavanah. Would they be yotz'im?
...
: The MB s"q 1 backs off from this, emphasizing "she'as hadechaq" rather
: than the examples. Because Abayei was against saying Havineinu.

I just found the AhS (OC 110:2), who sites the Smag and the Hagahos
Maimonios that limits Abayei's objection to those who make a routine
of it "belo shum oneis".

The Rif also focuses on "she'as hadechaq".

But the AhS believes the Rambam holds like R' Aqiva "im segurah tefilaso
befiv mispallel 18, ve'im lav -- mei'ein 18. And the gemara does conclude
the line "vehalakhah keR' Aqiva".

Now in 110:3... The AhS notes that the Tur talks about she'as hadechaq and
not qatzrah leshono. Also, with printed sidurim, "segurah befiv" is a
non-issue.

So it would seem so far that Havineinu is only an option for Teimanim with
ADHD...

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
mi...@aishdas.org         'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
http://www.aishdas.org    'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
Fax: (270) 514-1507                     - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l


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