Avodah Mailing List

Volume 16 : Number 015

Monday, October 31 2005

• RE: only one opinion.
• Re: rabbinic misconduct
• Naanuim
• RE: rabbinic misconduct
• RE: rabbinic misconduct
• techeles
• RE: rabbinic misconduct
• Re: Torah and communal sheleimus
• Re: colors in the gemara
• RE: Ikkare hashkafa
• An'im Zemirot
• Re: Gezerot Tovot?
• isolation - is it right or wrong?
• Re: only one opinion.

On October 30, 2005, Eli Turkel wrote:
>> The above is not addressed to me however I feel compelled to comment. If
>> Chazal say that Chofni and Pinchas did not commit any improprieties
>> relating to arayos, there can only be one opinion.

> However, there are many medershe chazal on pesukim where the rishonim
> and achronim give a different perush on the pasuk. Many of them state
> explicitly that one is not required to follow an aggadah pf chazal
> contrary to the simple pshat of the pasuk as long as it doesn't change
> halacha.

Your statement is too general. If the pasuk is sovel various pshatim,
fine. But an explicit maamar Chazal which relates to a matter of
historical fact is, IMO, incontrovertible (if there is unanimous
agreement amongst Chazal) and I am not aware of any Rishonim that state
differently. The oft-quoted Rambam on the mishna in chelek is no support
to your contention as I have illustrated here before.

Simcha Coffer

In message <001b01c5dcf2$6d371550$0100a8c0@server>, Moshe & Ilana Sober 
<sober@pathcom.com> writes
>RnCL:
>> why do you assume that according to the opinion that it is indeed
>> k'mashma'o, they were with married rather than single women?  If
>> anything, women who had time to congregate at the ohel moed would seem
>> to me to be far more likely to have been single women. .... In
>> which case you may well be struggling to find an actual issur and
>> certainly no mamzerim

>What kind of single women are you referring to?
>If not-yet-married, the Biblical term is "na'arot" not "nashim." Adult
>single women of the variety that are common today would have been a rarity
>then - I think girls generally married around bat mitzvah age, before which
>point they would not have been bringing their own korbanot.

Well you can argue that it is a segue between biblical and mishnaic
Hebrew, but the halachic understanding of na'arot is of a woman between
12 and a day and 12 and a half.

And while it was unquestionably the custom of girls to be married off
young (why say bat mitzvah, why not from three?) I think it highly
unlikely that everybody was indeed able to successfully do this.
In every society there are always people who fail to marry at the time
society designates or whose marriage falls apart - for various social
reasons, so I think it highly unlikely that a class of unmarried women
did not exist. However they would have been relatively unusual and far
more likely to be at a loose end than their married sisters. (BTW think
of the classic case of the girl orphan, rabbinically she can be married
off by a mother or brother, but not d'orisa - and dowries and such are
likely often to have been limited. She is unlikely to find a shidduch
very easily, and may well have been well past bas mitzvah before she
did so, if she was ever able to do so - it would not seem so surprising
that for such girls, the mishkan was the place to go to find a shidduch,
where else are you likely to find eligible young men from all over).

>I suppose it could have been almanot and grushot, but I see no particular
>reason to support this. In any case, such women would be particularly
>vulnerable, making the abuse of power that much worse.

>Why wouldn't married women have time to come bring korbanot? They didn't
>really have a choice, assuming that these were obligatory korbanot. If they
>were nursing infants, they could have brought them along. Other household
>duties could have been covered by other women in the household (co-wives,
>mothers in law, sisters in law, aunts, nieces, older daughters, etc) -
>nuclear families are also an anachronism.

I wasn't suggesting that married women did not have time to bring
korbanot. My assumption was that, according to the pshat of the Navi,
these were not women who just came up to bring korbanos but women who
gathered on a fairly regular basis at the ohel moed. And it is that
regular gathering that I suggested married women are less likely to have
time for. My assumption is that these women are linked to the women
referred to in Shemos 38: 8 ie "hatzoveos asher tzavu pesach ohel moed".

Unless one takes the view that the fact that women gathered at the ohel
moed at the time of Eli was a once off occurrence due to the fact that
the bnei Eli were deliberately holding up their korbanos - something
that the pshat of Shmuel Aleph would not seem to particularly support,
nor does the way the women are referred to in Shemos support such an
interpretation, one ends up rather with an idea that women, on a pretty
regular basis, seemed to come to the petach ohel moed - presumably to
daven, (what else does "tzavu" in Shemos mean?) - something that the
Navi regards as a commonplace. What seems not to be the commonplace is
the interaction between the Bnei Eli and these women not the existence
of the women themselves.

If in fact women gathering around the ohel moed was something known
throughout the history of the mishkan, then one has to ask oneself as
to who these women were - and it seems to me far more likely that the
sort of woman who had time to do any such thing is someone without
family commitments.

>I think the issur of relations with a penuyah after tevilah is z'nut.

Well, then you get into the question as to whether it is technically
z'nus if there is only one man involved, the man is a kosher, etc. etc.
A kedasha was traditionally one who was available to many, not necessarily
a woman who was seduced once by the most powerful man in the land (the
man in question may be obligated to marry her and never divorce her,
and pay her husband a sum of money, but is there indeed the issur znus
on top of that?). In addition, while there may be a prohibition on
giving one's daughter as a zonah, and even if you clearly define the
womenin question as such, It is not so pashut what the issur is on the
man visiting a zonah. For this of course you get into the question of
Yehuda and Tamar, and the extent to which Yehuda sinned by visiting what
he thought was a zonah (even if in fact she wasn't).

>RnCL:
>> Although note that that gemora (Shabbas 55b actually) does as its
>>conclusion appear to concede that at least Hofni sinned in some form,

>Even if you reduce the problem of the women to delaying them overnight (and
>I agree that there is textual support for doing so), I don't think anyone
>denies the bizayon kodshim, which is emphasized much more heavily in the
>pesukim.

The key thing about this gemora is that it does not focus on this at all,
but purely on the relations of the Bnei Eli to the women (that may be
because it is linked in with a series of other cases which also deal
with what appears on the face of it to be sexual impropriety) - so you
rather have to say the gemora is switching tack if it is suddenly talking
about bizayon kodshim. It may be that it is, because bli'ael is a term
associated with avodah zara, and there are certainly references in the
psukim to sinning against Hashem only, but you do have to do assume that
the gemora has gone off on a tangent to understand it in that way.

Regards
Chana
-- 
Chana Luntz

Better late than never.

R' Sperber in Minhagei Yisrael states the original was molich umeive
oleh vyored bur this was changed because of the similarity to making
the sign of the cross

kt
joel rich

On October 30, 2005 Chana Luntz [mailto:chana@KolSassoon.org.uk] wrote:
> >What kind of single women are you referring to?
> >If not-yet-married, the Biblical term is "na'arot" not "nashim." Adult
> >single women of the variety that are common today would have been a rarity
> >then - I think girls generally married around bat mitzvah age, before which
> >point they would not have been bringing their own korbanot.

> Well you can argue that it is a segue between biblical and mishnaic
> Hebrew, but the halachic understanding of na'arot is of a woman between
> 12 and a day and 12 and a half.

Irrelevant to the point above. Naarah in this case is simply a halachic
designation re monetary issues that relate to oness, mifateh etc. The
Sober's point is that whenever you find the word na'ara in tanach,
it refers to a young unmarried girl and thus if the "nashim hatzovos"
mentioned in Shmuel were young unmarried girls, the wrong term (nashim)
was used to denote this gathering.

> >Why wouldn't married women have time to come bring korbanot? They didn't
> >really have a choice, assuming that these were obligatory korbanot. If they
> >were nursing infants, they could have brought them along. Other household
> >duties could have been covered by other women in the household (co-wives,
> >mothers in law, sisters in law, aunts, nieces, older daughters, etc) -
> >nuclear families are also an anachronism.

> I wasn't suggesting that married women did not have time to bring
> korbanot.  My assumption was that, according to the pshat of the Navi,
> these were not women who just came up to bring korbanos but women who
> gathered on a fairly regular  basis at the ohel moed.  And it is that
> regular gathering that I suggested married women are less likely to have
> time for.  My assumption is that these women are linked to the women
> referred to in Shemos 38: 8 ie "hatzoveos asher tzavu pesach ohel moed".

Well, your assumption just proved the Sober's point. And all the tzovos at
the pesach of Moshe's tent were married women! (see Rashi.)

> Unless one takes the view that the fact that women gathered at the ohel
> moed at the time of Eli was a once off occurrence due to the fact that
> the bnei Eli were deliberately holding up their korbanos

Why once off? It happened over a period of time...obviously long enough for
rumours to start circulating.

> - something
> that the pshat of Shmuel Aleph would not seem to particularly support,

Or reject

> nor does the way the women are referred to in Shemos support such an
> interpretation,

Why not? On the contrary, the woman who gathered at the pesach of Moshe's
tent came there specifically to donate their mirrors for the kiyor. The
ohel moed wasn't even built yet.

> one ends up rather with an idea that women, on a pretty
> regular basis, seemed to come to the petach ohel moed - presumably to
> daven, (what else does "tzavu" in Shemos mean?)

You don't need to presume...the meforshim all say peh echad that they
came to donate their mirrors which is the biggest proof that it was *not*
the custom of women to merely hang out in front of the ohel moed or any
other public venue.

Simcha Coffer

On October 30, 2005 Elazar M. Teitz wrote:
>> Only married women are obligated to bring korbanos (the kivsei and kiney
>> yolayda Vayikra 12 6:8)

> I beg to differ -- a zavah is also obligated to bring a korban, and
> zivah is not restricted to married women.

You are right but obviously the kiney yolayda far outweigh the kiney
zavah in terms of frequency as the latter are only brought in unusual
cases of zeevah (bilo ess nidasah etc.)

Simcha Coffer

  >>>Clearly RSRH is saying that techeiles is blue, argaman is purple wool.
  >That said, I have no idea how he holds this, as the definition of
  >techeiles as blue wool is assumed by chazal in defining mitzvas tzitzis.

  I hope b"N to post on this soon in some detail, but for now will note
  that RSRH describes the symbolic meaning of all the colors in the Mishkan
  ((and the bigdei k'huna)
      lavan
      shani
      argaman
      t'chelect
  >>in his commentary to Shmot 25:8.
When I worked at the Temple Institute (Machon HaMikdash) in Yerushalayim
we often worked with the Techelet org. that produces its namesake. I was
shown that the process of making the techeles entails a number of steps.
Exposure to sunlight is part of that process. If it is exposed to sunlight
while still unprocessed, the dye changes from green to purple. see
this website (http://www.begedivri.com/techelet/HiddenBlue.htm) which
I quote here. It is still one opinion among many:

""...A thought occured to me: since Argamon and Techelet were both made
from the extract of a snail, could it be possible that both colors were
produced from the same snail? ... A seventeenth-century expert in the
dyeing process, William Cole, described the change in color which the
unprocessed extract of the purpura snail undergoes as it is exposed to
sunlight. It begins as a light green, then becomes a dark green. Soon
a hue of blue can be detected and the substance turns to sea-green. The
green hue fades and the color becomes blue. Continued exposure to light
results in a red hue, and the substance turns purplish until it becomes
a deep purple-red. In the nineteenth century, Drs. Lacaze-Duthiers and
Adrian Robert of the Zoological Laboratory of the Sorbonne experimented
with various species of murex and purpura and found that they, too,
undergo a very similar change in color. (Hebrew Porphyrology, Rabbi
I.H. Herzog, pp.28-29.)

[Email #2. -mi]

RAM:
> But if so, then where does "argaman" fit into this? If it's not the name
> of the fabric, then wouldn't it perforce be the name of the color?

RMB:
>Clearly RSRH is saying that techeiles is blue, argaman is purple wool.
>That said, I have no idea how he holds this, as the definition of
>techeiles as blue wool is assumed by chazal in defining mitzvas tzitzis.

Here is a quote from R. Leibel Reznick in an article about the dyes at:
http://www.begedivri.com/techelet/HiddenBlue.htm) :

"...since Argamon and Techelet were both made from the extract of a
snail, could it be possible that both colors were produced from the same
snail? .. A seventeenth-century expert in the dyeing process, William
Cole, described the change in color which the unprocessed extract of
the purpura snail undergoes as it is exposed to sunlight. It begins
as a light green, then becomes a dark green. Soon a hue of blue can be
detected and the substance turns to sea-green. The green hue fades and
the color becomes blue. Continued exposure to light results in a red hue,
and the substance turns purplish until it becomes a deep purple-red. In
the nineteenth century, Drs. Lacaze-Duthiers and Adrian Robert of the
Zoological Laboratory of the Sorbonne experimented with various species
of murex and purpura and found that they, too, undergo a very similar
change in color. (Hebrew Porphyrology, Rabbi I.H. Herzog, pp.28-29.) "

bk

On October 30, 2005 EMT wrote:
>> You are right but obviously the kiney yolayda far outweigh the kiney
>> zavah in terms of frequency as the latter are only brought in unusual
>> cases of zeevah (bilo ess nidasah etc.)

> I'm not so sure it "far outweighs." Certainly not according to the
> Rambam, who counts 7- and 11-day cycles regardless of the biological
> menstrual cycle; but even according to everyone else, is it so rare that
> it occurs to a woman in her lifetime _far_ less than the number of times
> she gives birth or miscarries?

Possibly not but if we are taking statistics into consideration, most of
an average Jewish woman's life who began to cycle was spent in marriage
during those times so even if the korban happened to have been a tor
zavah, my point (that the nashim hatzovos were married) would still
hold true. Besides, my gut feeling tells me that the kiney yolayda were
far more prevalent than the kiney zava. And although I can't prove it,
the fact that Chazal characterized the nashim hatzovos in this manner
(tzovos lishem kiney yolayda) seems to support my contention.

Simcha Coffer

I think that one needs to view total personality as a conisisting of
various levels. To grow a person rises from level to level. As an example,
one can use a ladder of physical, psychological, social, religious and
spiritual, or if you wish, nefesh, ruach, neshama, chaya/ yechida. At
each level one may leave unfinished business before beginning to work
on the higher level; however, such business needs to be ultimately
completed, or lese one can succumb to a much lower temptation than
the level on which one currently resides and spends most of his time
and awareness. A good layout of such a system is Beyond the Ego, see
http://www.judaicaenterprises.com/Product-Print.asp?product=bk-ci-beyond

When a great man fails in a most lowly way, it is often the failure
of fixing a perception, thought pattern or behavior pattern from a
much lower level. These may have been carried over form the past or
even be common to all humans. You can call it collective unconsciousm,
neuro-linguistic programming or plain netios and taavos. To those outside,
the matter apepars surprising and incomprehensilbe according to the
apparent stature of the man. However, this is only because we are aware
only of higher levels where he spends most of his time, but not of the
unfinished work which he left behind and which is what now tripped him up.

M. Levin

At 09:32 PM 10/22/2005 -0400, RMB wrote:
>  From RSRH, "Collected Writings" (Volume III page. 126):
>     We find only three terms to encompass the colors of the spectrum:
>     adom for red, yaroq for yellow and green, and techeiles for blue
>     and violet....

Rabbi Herzog writes in his thesis, (p92) as printed in "The Royal Purple 
and Biblical Blue":

"For practical purposes the Talmudists divided color into four classes:

1. Shachor, black
2. adom, red
3. yarok, green yellow and blue
4. lavan, white

I do not believe the Gemara uses techeiles as a color designation outside
of the context of actual techeiles. On the other hand, i think this may
be done by meforshim and midrashim. But we were talking about the Gemara.
Techeiles would be included in the classification of Yarok, and this
is why Rashi refers to techeiles as being yarok in one place, and the
color of the sky at dusk elsewhere. As such, i don't think techeiles is
used as a color category. I don't think this contradicts RSRH, since I
didn't get the impression that he was speaking strictly of the Gemara,
nor that he was identifying the color categories, merely key colors that
are discussed.

mendel

WRT to the issue of the purpose of creation, RDE cites the Hakdama to
the Perush Hamishnayot as as supporting the position that the world was
created for man.  However, severa; points.

1) Even here, the rambam is clear that he is refering to the sublunar
creation -as in the quotation -
You should understand that all things that exist beneath tbe orbit of
the moon
Not those above the moon - and therefore not all of creation

2) In here, he is reflecting a standard Aristotelian position

3) In understanding this, we also have to understand the notions of
causality in Aristotelian thought - which is quite different than that
in modern thought.  

4) IN MN 3:13, after describing this position, he specifically rejects
it (as in my previous quotation) as reflecting the true purpose -
because after all, even though in the current scheme, sublunar nature
exists for its greatest creature, man (in the traditional understanding,
and as in the PhM), man could have been created as not requiring them,
and so there must have been an idnependent reason for creating them.  MN
is his later work, and is meant for the more philosphically
sophisticated - unlike the Perush Hamishnayot.

Meir Shinnar

Artscroll says that there are communities that only say An'im Zemirot on
Yomtov, or only on Yom Kippur, or not at all. But is there any minhag
to say it every Shabbat but *not* on Yomtov that falls on a weekday?

-- 
Zev Sero
zev@sero.name

In a message dated 10/28/05 12:21:53pm EST,  zev@sero.name writes:
> Does the word "gezera" ever appear in Tanach or Chazal with a good
> meaning?

See Shabbos 33a (Ksubos 8b) Gzeira of 70 years Tova, any time there
are Myminim and Masmi'lim there is a requirement to give a Gzar Din,
(same for Rosh Hashanaz when Kol Boei Olom Yavrun...Mi Yichyeh).

Kol  Tuv,
Yitzchok Zirkind

I read my family a piece from RSRH on the chumash this past shabbos
where he writes that Chanoch was taken early from this world because
he kept away from a generation of base behavior. In Hirsch's opinion,
if so, he had nothing to offer the world and was already living a death
while still on this earth. He calls such behavior un-Jewish whether the
cause for this separation is sincere disdain of their bad behaviour or
just plain arrogance.

But then, after a heated discussion (you should have been there!) I
remembered that the Rambam at the beginning of Perek 6 (or is it 7?) of
hilchos dayos writes that if one lives in a place where the society is
bad, he should leave. And if there are no alternatives of where to move
to (and he adds such as in his time) then one must move to the caves
or desert...

Do I detect two divergent world views here? An this is *The Rambam* who is
so bandied about as being so open and integrated. (I'm curious if someone
from the TuM camp has a pshat in this Rambam that fits their approach

opinions? comments?

On 10/30/05, S & R Coffer <rivkyc@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>> However, there are many medershe chazal on pesukim where the rishonim
>> and achronim give a different perush on the pasuk. Many of them state
>> explicitly that one is not required to follow an aggadah pf chazal
>> contrary to the simple pshat of the pasuk as long as it doesn't change
>> halacha.

> Your statement is too general. If the pasuk is sovel various pshatim, fine.
> But an explicit maamar Chazal which relates to a matter of historical fact
> is, IMO, incontrovertible (if there is unanimous agreement amongst Chazal)
> and I am not aware of any Rishonim that state differently. The oft-quoted
> Rambam on the mishna in chelek is no support to your contention as I have
> illustrated here before.

First of all Rashi on the pasuk in Samuel 2:22 starts "ke-mashmao". Hence,
Rashi takes the pasuk literally. He then brings down the medrash. It
seems he does not consider the medrash as "pshat".

As to the principle many meforshim uncluding Ibn Ezra, Radak and others
explain pesukim in ways against aggadot. One simple example is various
genarot that identify people in Tanach in ways that does seem to be pshat
frequently equating people who don't seem to be the same person. Even when
no other opinions are cited in the gemara nevertheless most commentaries
do not accept these medrashim. Another trivial examples are th= e Ibn
Ezra on "Arami Oved Avi". Tosefot Yom Tov on Nazir 5:5 states that
when halacha is not affected that we need not accept the commentary of
chazal. Similarly comments appear in other commentaries.

kol tuv,
Eli Turkel
--
Eli Turkel

*********************


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