Avodah Mailing List

Volume 16 : Number 071

Friday, December 23 2005

• Re: Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky and Length of Maaseh Breshis
• RE: Length of Maaseh Breshis has no impact on halacha
• Re: Length of Maaseh Breshis has no impact on halacha
• Re: Length of Maaseh Breshis has no impact on halacha
• RE: Length of Maaseh Breshis has no impact on halacha
• Bugs?
• Re: Jerusalem Compass Hoax
• Re: Learning on Nittel Nach
• Learning on Nittel Nach
• Re: Edom=Rome
• Re: Length of Maaseh Breshis has no impact on halacha
• RE: Length of Maaseh Breshis has no impact on halacha
• Re: Being exposed to minus
• RE: Plato (was Rambam on reinterpreting ma'aseh breshit)
• RE: Length of Maaseh Breshis has no impact on halacha (science of origins is speculative and suspect)

From: Daniel Eidensohn <yadmoshe@012.net.il>
>You are right of courrse. Simple solution would be for others to ask Rav
>Kaminetsky the same question - "Is it required to believe that the world
>is less than 6000 years old?"

Wrong question. They would have to ask, "Is it l'chatchila to believe
that the world is *more* than 6000 years old". RSK could very well hold
that one is not an apikorus if one believes that the world is older,
and at the same time hold that it's not a l'chatchilatige belief.

Furthermore, the whole solution is not practical. Let us overlook
the people (like myself :-) who won't be calling a GH anytime soon to
discuss hashkafa. We will focus on the (few) people who will call. So
now we're back to "broken telephone"! True, if my neighbor told me the
phone conversation that he had with RSK, then I would know; but wouldn't
the person that I repeat to in Yeshiva still have the problem of it
being hearsay that is k'negged contrary *published* statements? It would
have to reach a "critical mass" before it would be considered a "known"
statement from RSK. To reach it through individual people calling and
speaking to him is not practical.

The real solution is for you, or someone like you, to get RSK to
disseminate (or at least sign a paper that could be disseminated) his
views in a public fashion.

KT,
MSS  

On December 21, 2005, Harry Maryles wrote:
> Zvi Lampel <hlampel@thejnet.com> wrote:
>> "Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common
>> sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between
>> science and the supernatural.

> Of course I could say the same thing about your view: Your willingness
> to accept Masoretic claims that are against common sense is the key to an
> understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural.

Which masoretic texts does RZL accept that are against common sense? 

> I think you raise a good point: Common sense.
> RSC (...or was it RJO?) actually conceded that if not for what he now
> understands the correct Mesorah to be, he would hold exactly as does
> RMB. His problem is that he refuses to trust the now forbidden Mesorah
> of Gedolei HaAchronim like the Tifferes Yisroel and instead denies his
> own intellect because certain Gedolim in Israel have "ordered" him to.

I never said that I would hold like RMB in the field of science. I said
that I would hold like him in the sense that the idea that the chukey
hateva differed during MB includes time itself too. There is nothing in
science that conclusively illustrates either which way so this is purely
an issue of messorah. RMB understands the Ramban and Rav Dessler to be
stating this and I do not. Sof Pasuk. It's easy to knock straw men down
but you don't make any substantial advance with empty arguments.

Simcha Coffer

In Avodah V16 #70, RZL responded to Micha:
>>> R. Saadia Gaon... says that a professed navi who claims that Hashem
>>> took ONE YEAR, rather than six days, to create the world, is a navi
>>> shekker)...

>> But that was argued as being about the navi sheqer's sevarah, not the
>> maskanah.

> I don't have a clue what you mean. Perhaps the erroneous citation I
> gave led you to this comment. Rather than Emunos V'Dei'os 3:6, my source
> was 3:8.....he says that if a prophet says something that cannot be ("mah
> sheh-lo yi'ta'chein" -- KPH) such as "if he would say my G-d commanded
> you to commit z'nus [Ibn Tibbon has: adultery -- ZL] and to steal, or
> inform you that he will bring a [global] flood of water, or inform you
> that He created the Heavens and the Earth in the duration ("meshech"
> -- KPH) of a year, literally -- we should not seek a miracle from him
> [to prove he is a true prophet], since he called us to something which
> is not possible, neither through seichel nor mesorah."
> What can be plainer?

Precisely: if someone claims to know precisely how long the "shaishes
yamim" of MB is, he's disqualified himself. Couldn't have said it
better myself.

BTW, why are all youse guys working so hard over "shaishes yamim" anyway
-- don't y'all know that the main focus of the week should be on Shabbos?

Forgive the interruption. We now return you to our regular schedule of
contra-Maseches-Chagiga programming....

All the best from
 -Michael Poppers via RIM pager

S & R Coffer wrote:
>"One may want to introduce new, unheard of interpretations of the psukim
>and chazal, but this is not Torah following a mesorah. Such methods
>were used to buttress Christianity, Islam and Shabbzai Tvi-ism, and
>have no place among bnai Torah. As Rambam says regarding the Karaites,
>once they rejected the mesorah of Chazal, they were free to interpret
>the Torah at will."

I find this statement incredible. Try Ramban, Ohr HaChaim, Netziv, Ramban,
Meshech Chochma etc etc. - chiddushim are only apologetics? This is
in fact the view of Rav Dessler which you never got around to discussing

>"Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l, is known to have commented that he was aware of
>so many shittos of individual authorities, that he could find combinations
>that would create a form of Conservative "Judasim." The point is that
>one must also be guided by the overall sense of the mesorah. A radical
>chulent of ideas based on dismembered shittos of various authorities
>may produce efficacious, if dubious, explanations that satisfy the
>unreligious of a certain bent, but they have no place among b'nay Torah
>who know better."
>The quotes belong to none other than our very own RZL.

Source for above would be greatly appreciated

On December 22, 2005, Daniel Eidensohn wrote:
> S & R Coffer wrote: 
>>"One may want to introduce new, unheard of interpretations of the psukim
>>and chazal, but this is not Torah following a mesorah. Such methods
>>were used to buttress Christianity, Islam and Shabbzai Tvi-ism, and
>>have no place among bnai Torah. As Rambam says regarding the Karaites,
>>once they rejected the mesorah of Chazal, they were free to interpret
>>the Torah at will."

> I find this statement incredible. Try Ramban, Ohr HaChaim, Netziv,
> Ramban, Meshech Chochma etc etc.  - chiddushim are only apologetics?

That is not what he means. Within context, the quote obviously means that
whenever someone comes up with chidushei Torah, they must be advanced
in a responsible format such that they reflect the general traditions
of our collective messorah. If a person veers from this format, he must
necessarily suspect that his chiddush may be flawed. If he habitually
gravitates to these type "chiddushim", his approach is definitely flawed.

> This is in fact the view of Rav Dessler which you never got around to
> discussing

What are you talking about? Which view? I hope you're not referring to
his view on MB because if you are you must be caught up in some quantum
mechanical flux that has tossed you into an alternate reality (multi-verse
interpretation). RMB and I have exhausted every possible angle on this
Rav Dessler. For a 13 page article delineating his view with scientific
notations by me, please see toriah.org. Choose Rav Dessler (on the left)
and then choose my article on Sefer haZikaron.

Simcha Coffer

A well known blog contained the following excerpt:
> All agree that there is only an obligation to check for bugs if
> infestation is a mi'ut ha-matzui. This is generally assumed to be 10%.In
> other words, if bugs are found in 10% or more of the vegetable under
> question, every single vegetable must in turn be checked to ensure
> that it is free of bugs. However, if bugs are found in less than 10%,
> then one can eat the vegetables relying on the vast majority of bug-free
> vegetables.

> But how do you determine the ratio of infestation? The general position
> is to determine the overall statistical existence of bugs in the
> number of vegetablee, e.g. the number of heads of lettuce. The Star-K,
> following R. Aharon Kotler's personal ruling to R. Moshe Heinemann,
> does it differently. They look at each particular serving and determine
> whether there is a probability under 10% that any given serving will
> contain a bug. If there is, then even if it is of a vegetable that is
> generally infested at a rate of more than 10% they do not require further
> checking (this was all explained to my rabbi by a source in the Star-K).

I had a few questions which I'm hoping someone can help me with (I'm sure
I'm missing something so please be gentle in correcting me):

Am I understanding this correctly - the Star K would say that if the lettuce
is mixed in with other veggies for a salad so that the bugs would be less
than 10% then it's OK? If I take the same lettuce and make a pure lettuce
salad then the OK says that it's not OK. Why then isn't this mvatel issur
lchatchila?

IIUC the din is that if the "bad" is < 10% you are not required to check for
it and can rely on a chezkat kashrut.

If so, then if for some reason you decide to check and do find, are you
allowed to say it doesn't count because I didn't have to check?(I think not)
What is the category of checking (e.g. is it for a baal nefesh, a midat
chassidut or bad form?)

If one relies on it and eats a bug is there timtum halev?

KT
joel rich

On Arevim, Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org> wrote:
> Yes, that would work, although the text of the ad would still be
> overselling it. However, even that doesn't match the picture of
> the compass in the ad at <http://tinyurl.com/8kh2e>.

Wow. $25 for a novelty item?  List price $30?  That's outrageous.  The
patent application makes a point of saying that it can be sold for a
few dollars, or given away.  In that context, perhaps people can be
expected to understand that it's not real.

I wonder, what is the law and/or the halacha with regard to novelty
items?  How much obligation is there on the seller to make the buyer
understand that an item is a novelty and not to be taken seriously?
Generally they do have written somewhere on the package and advertising
that it is a novelty, but in small print.  Though in this case, the word
"novelty" doesn't appear anywhere in the ad, which seems like clear
genevat daat.  But suppose it did say "novelty", all the way at the
bottom, in small print, but it's priced like a real item, and someone
buys it thinking that it's real.  Is the seller liable?  Even if nobody
has actually come and complained, is the seller engaged in fraud merely
by advertising it like this?

-- 
Zev Sero
zev@sero.name

Markowitz, Chaim wrote:
>I am looking for mareh mekomos regarding learning the night of Dec 25th.
>If you know of any could you email me. Thanks.

Marc Shapiro has a comprehensive article on this.
I no longer remember where it appeared.

From: "Markowitz, Chaim" <cmarkowitz@scor.com>
> I am looking for mareh mekomos regarding learning the night of Dec 25th.

Nite Gavriel - Channukah
last years Mishpacha magazine in English
This years/this week's HaModia magazine
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=518438

and I have a book called "Nittel umoraysav" from Israel Baruch Messinger
published in 5760 in Spring Valley, NY 251 pp. with agados etc.

HG

From: <mlevinmd@aol.com>
>> Does anyone know the origin of the identification of Edom with Rome?

> The rabbinic identification of Rome with the Biblical figure of Esau is
> <snip>
> It is somewhat unclear, though, what supports this identification.

It doesn't solve the problem, but compare 1 Maccabees 12:20-23 with 1 
Maccabees 8:23-30.

David Riceman 

>I don't have a clue what you mean. Perhaps the erroneous citation I
>gave led you to this comment. Rather than Emunos V'Dei'os 3:6, my source
>was 3:8.....he says that if a prophet says something that cannot be ("mah
>sheh-lo yi'ta'chein" -- KPH) such as "if he would say my G-d commanded
>you to commit z'nus [Ibn Tibbon has: adultery -- ZL] and to steal, or
>inform you that he will bring a [global] flood of water, or inform you
>that He created the Heavens and the Earth in the duration ("meshech"
>-- KPH) of a year, literally -- we should not seek a miracle from him
>[to prove he is a true prophet], since he called us to something which
>is not possible, neither through seichel nor mesorah."
>What can be plainer?

I haven't followed this conversation closely. Long ago I wrote that the 
majority opinion is that the world is not precisely 5766 years old, and 
this remains pashut k'bei'asa b'kutcha.

But to address the citation from RSG, it is certainly not evidence 
either way. Aderaba, it can be interpreted just as well to mean (As RMP 
stated) that anyone who believes MB is k'peshuto as stated in Chumash is 
clearly a buffoon.

KT,
YGB

S & R Coffer[mailto:rivkyc@sympatico.ca] Sent : 12/21/2005:

ZL:
> (And please remember my focus in this post from beginning to end is on the
> suggestion that by ""day"" in Beraishis, Hashem meant something other than a
> regular earthling-perspective day. I'm not here discussing other proposals,
> such as concerning the situation between Beraishis 1:1 and 1:2.)

RSC:
: Why not? Let's discuss it. There are no such proposals and even if there
: were, they would be few and far in-between (Rashbam ...

I meant proposals by Avodah posters, not by Chazal or rishonim.

Zvi Lampel 

From: <kennethgmiller@juno.com>

> Can anyone offer a third example to this category? Is there any other
> case where Nach has such a strong relevance to a halacha d'Oraisa?

How about the issur of bamah gedolah (i.e. Shiloh) after the establishment 
of the beith hamikdash in Jerusalem?

David Riceman 

Some definitions:

Necessary cause: X is necessary for Y to occur. No X means no Y.

Hashem is a necessary cause for the universe. Therefore, the universe's
existence speaks of the existence of the Creator. Also, it means that since
the universe is contingent on Him, Hashem is ontologically superior to the
universe.

Sufficient cause: X, regardless of anything else, is enough reason for Y to
occur. Thus, if X is true, then we can conclude Y will occur.

Hashem is sufficient cause for the universe. Therefore, if He existed an
infinite amount of time in the past, there was enough reason for the universe
to have existed an infinite amount of time in the past, and therefore it
existed.

As I mentioned earlier, the flaw in this argument is that Hashem is lama'alah
min hazeman. Not infinitely old, but totally outside of the concept of age.
The time in which the substance exists is also ne'etzal from Hashem. Atzilus
doesn't happen within time, and has no "when". But back to seeing things from
within Plato as explained by the Rambam...

So, the universe can't exist without G-d, and he is saying that G-d couldn't
exist without the universe -- because once He exists, sufficient reason for
the universe exists, and therefore it must. Dependency in only one direction
even though the result is a claim that neither would ever exist without the
other.

However, both have qadmus, because both are infinitely old. Qedem as a term of
age, in this case infinite age. It does not speak of sequencing or dependency.

-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Rescue me from the desire to win every
micha@aishdas.org        argument and to always be right.
http://www.aishdas.org              - Rav Nachman of Breslav
Fax: (270) 514-1507      	      Likutei Tefilos 94:964

R Jonathan Ostroff wrote some things that IMHO reflect a lack of
understanding of some basics of the underlying science. I'm assuming
here a position of "science is wrong", not "pre-aged universe" or
"science is accurate" positions.

> We don't know what the nuclear decay rates were in the early universe; if
> you take away untestable uniformatarian assumptions, scientists today can
> only speculate what the early state of the universe was....

Actually, the consequences of non-uniformitarian assumptions can be
tested. First, it can be seen in the behavior of distant stars, in what
we see of stellar activity and how it redshifted during its travel here.

Second, Emily Noether proved mathematically that every conservation law
maps directly to a symmetry within our universe. This is a mathematical
proof, not scientific, just a straight conversion of one equation to
another; a theorem, not a theory. The fact that the laws of physics work
regardless of where you stand is identical to the law of convervation
of momentum. Just an algebraic rework of one differential equation gives
you the other.

And similarly, had the laws of physics changed over time, energy would
not be conserved today. Since we have witnessed the convervation of
energy many many times in our lives, I think it's safe to say that the
laws haven't changed. For c to change would mean that there is a law
by which c changes, and therefore the greater laws of physics including
that rule is constant. Still a "uniformitarian assumption".

In fact, as I suggested in the past, this alone is sufficient reason
for Hashem to have created a pre-aged universe. Otherwise, physics today
wouldn't work. But neither of us follow that shitah, so it's not really
on the table in this conversation.

> If it is admitted in the published scientific literature that fundamental
> laws and constants could have been different in the early universe,
> on what basis can one assert with conviction that nuclear fission was
> always constant?

Because we can watch the fusion of many years ago occuring in stars whose
light first reaches us today. I know your objection, hold on a second...

Ah, but you will answer that the light isn't from billions of years
ago, but rather it moved faster than it does today? Well, then you have
pretty much every fundamental constant changing value so that everything
is decelerating in sync in order for the light to have been faster and
yet stars, quasars, galaxies to still work just as they do with later
physicses. But decelerating compared to what? One you have changed the
clock of everything, on what grounds are you saying that it used to be
"faster"? If every process in the universe performed what it now takes
a year to perform, it was a year.

(And if they were all out of sync with eachother, and didn't even stay
in the same proportions from one moment (i.e. dt) to the next, nor even
follow any pattern in their interactions, what is time altogether? That's
why I do not believe any of our notions about time make sense during
the beri'ah of the laws of teva.

(And recall that the speed of light can't change, any more than the ratio
of a foot in the up-and-down direction can change in proportion to a
foot in the left-and-right. Rather, it's shorthand for saying that some
other fundamental constants changed that if we consider them constant,
would imply a decelerating value for c.)

...
> Yet it was discovered in 1996, that in in a storage ring, the half life
> is 33 years!
> 33 years vs. 42 billion years!

Did you read the literature on this? Particles move very rapidly
in storage rings. What was the half life after one takes relativity
into account? Findings like these are the norm, and fit expectation --
not disprove it! Cosmic rays generally involve particles that survive
FAR longer than their half-lives -- but only in our frame of reference,
not theirs.

Claims like these hurt your cause, as it makes it hard for the
scientifically informed to pick through the blatantly mistaken to find any
real arguments you may have in your support. They are far more likely to
dismiss your case out of hand, seeing it as being the work of ingnorami.


And, while I'm violating my self-imposed silence, there is a clear ra'ayah
from those from within the young universe camps that an old universe can
be supported by mesorah. As R' Elyashiv recently told R' Aharon Feldman,
"They can say it, but we can't." (Trans. R' Feldman) He doesn't deny that
there were rishonim and acharonim found support for an old universe from
within mesorah. Rather, he pasqens that that derekh is no longer mutar.

So the entire question of whether the idea is tenable isn't really on
the table amongst the gedolei haposeqim. The question they were asking
is whether or not it's mutar -- theoretically supportable is a given.


Last, I noticed a couple of posters who, judging from their posts,
seem to straddle the fence between the "scientific theory is wrong"
and "pre-aged universe" camps. The two ideas conflict. The notion of a
pre-aged universe presumes that science is correct about how it measures
age, and Hashem intentionally copied it "artificially". Those who hold
one or the other should think through which they truly find convincing --
or take the time to realize their own uncertainty as to which is correct,
rather than conflating them accidentally.

:-)BBii!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to
micha@aishdas.org        suffering, but only to one's own suffering.
http://www.aishdas.org                 -Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949)
Fax: (270) 514-1507

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


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