Avodah Mailing List
Volume 25: Number 69
Wed, 13 Feb 2008
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Message: 1
From: Saul.Z.Newman@kp.org
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:56:46 -0800
Subject: [Avodah] Reiat Akum
can anyone tell me who holds in practice, besides chabad , issues of goyim
seeing wine? are all chassidim makpidim on this?
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Message: 2
From: "hlampel@koshernet.com" <hlampel@koshernet.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:00:56 -0500
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Baruch Shelo Asani Eved
On Tue, February 12, 2008 3:53 pm, R Zev Sero wrote:
: An eved kenaani, who's not obligated in many
mitzvot, and isn't part
: of am yisrael. An eved ivri is obligated in all
mitzvot, and his
: master must allow him to practise them, he just
happens to be in
: temporarily straitened circumstances. That doesn't
fit the theme.
And R Micha Berger responded:
Back a step... RZS presumes you know that Rashi
explains R' Meir as
thanking HQBH for not being someone with fewer
chiyuvim. Back in
<
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol08/v08n094.shtml#12>
I bring a
ra'ayah from this from the Xian bible. (Not that
Rashi needs such
ra'ayos; but it's helpful in a da mah lehashiv
situation WRT "shelo
asani ishah".)<
If I too may hearken back to old posts, I once
pointed at that the source for this explanation of
the "shelo-assanni's" is not only Rashi, but the very
author of the nusach ha-brachah!
Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 17:16:43 -0400
From: "" <hlampel@thejnet.com>
Subject: Re: SheLo Asani Isha
...This is not only Rashi's explanation (Menachos
43b), but is part and
parcel of the very source for making this blessing!
The Yerushalmi on
Brachos 9:2 reads:
"Manni Rav Yehudah omare shloshah dvarim tsarich adam
lomar b'chol yom:
... barcuh shello assani isha, /she'ain ha-isha
metsuvah al hamitzvos/."
"A braissa teaches: Rebbi Yehuda said, 'Each day one
should say
... "Baruch the One Who has not made me a woman,"
/because a woman is
not commanded to perform [all] the mitzvos/."
Again, the very authority who originally proposed the
recitation of these
blessings gave this reason as his motive.
Zvi Lampel
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Message: 3
From: T613K@aol.com
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:24:51 EST
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Baruch Shelo Asani Eved
From: Galsaba@aol.com
>>In birchot HaShachar, the phase "Baruch Shelo Asani Eved"
does it refer to an Eved Kenani, or Eved Ivri?<<
>>>>>
I will ask a related question.
If a Jew happens to find himself in a condition of slavery (e.g., working in
a slave labor camp in Siberia under Stalin, or captured at sea and then sold
in a slave market in medieval Egypt), does he still say this bracha or does
he skip it?
--Toby Katz
=============
**************The year's hottest artists on the red carpet at the Grammy
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Message: 4
From: "Simon Montagu" <simon.montagu@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 12:23:55 +0200
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Baruch Shelo Asani Eved
On Feb 13, 2008 2:24 AM, <T613K@aol.com> wrote:
> I will ask a related question.
> If a Jew happens to find himself in a condition of slavery (e.g., working in
> a slave labor camp in Siberia under Stalin, or captured at sea and then sold
> in a slave market in medieval Egypt), does he still say this bracha or does
> he skip it?
>
This question was asked in the Kovno Ghetto, and Rav Ephraim Oshry's
psak was to say it. Shu"t Mima`amakim 3, 6
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Message: 5
From: "Michael Makovi" <mikewinddale@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:08:39 +0200
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Baruch Shelo Asani Eved
> On Feb 13, 2008 2:24 AM, <T613K@aol.com> wrote:
> > I will ask a related question.
> > If a Jew happens to find himself in a condition of slavery (e.g., working in
> > a slave labor camp in Siberia under Stalin, or captured at sea and then sold
> > in a slave market in medieval Egypt), does he still say this bracha or does
> > he skip it?
> >
> This question was asked in the Kovno Ghetto, and Rav Ephraim Oshry's
> psak was to say it. Shu"t Mima`amakim 3, 6
So what was the logic?
Mikha'el Makovi
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Message: 6
From: "Micha Berger" <micha@aishdas.org>
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 11:41:42 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Baruch Shelo Asani Eved
On Feb 13, 2008 2:24 AM, RnTK <T613K@aol.com> asked:
:>> If a Jew happens to find himself in a condition of slavery ... does
:>> he still say this bracha or does he skip it?
R' Simon Montagu answered:
:> This question was asked in the Kovno Ghetto, and Rav Ephraim Oshry's
:> psak was to say it. Shu"t Mima`amakim 3, 6
On Wed, February 13, 2008 7:08 am, Michael Makovi wrote:
: So what was the logic?
Well, we already established that the berakhah thanks Hashem for
having more chiyuvim. And from there someone already answered the
original question that the berakhah must refer to an eved Kanaani, not
eved Ivri.
The person the Nazis enslaved was an eved Ivri, and thus "shelo asani
eved [Kenaani]" it still true.
Presumably, had the berakhah been written particularly for this
person, I presume a less ambiguous phrasing would have been employed
than simply "aved". But since it's a general matbei'ah, there is
insufficient motivation (and no disused variant that I know of) for
utilizing a clearer nusach.
On Tue, February 12, 2008 7:00pm, RZL hlampel@koshernet.com quoted me
and dynamically disputed my choice of citing Rashi:
:> Back a step... RZS presumes you know that Rashi explains R' Meir as
:> thanking HQBH for not being someone with fewer chiyuvim....
: If I too may hearken back to old posts, I once pointed at that the
: source for this explanation of the "shelo-assanni's" is not only
: Rashi, but the very author of the nusach ha-brachah!
I got an "oh yeah!" experience. Thanks for the reminder, and my
apologies for not being a better student the previous time around.
That round, on Fri, 20 May 2005 17:16:43 -0400, RZL wrote:
...
: The Yerushalmi on Brachos 9:2 reads:
: "Manni Rav Yehudah omare shloshah dvarim tsarich adam lomar b'chol
: yom:
: ... barcuh shello assani isha, /she'ain ha-isha metsuvah al
: hamitzvos/."
That's the same source as the berakhah, but not the author. Rav
Yehudah haNasi was at most the author's talmid, given R' Meir also
lists these berakhos.
Why is he Rav Yehudah, and not Rabbi Yehudah? Is this really Rebbe,
one generation after the berakhos were written, or Rav Yehudah [bar
Yechezqeil], the amora, student of Rav and Shemu'el, and founder of
the yeshiva in Pumpedisa (Fallujah, Iraq)? In which case it's well
after the writing of the berakhos.
But still an amora would carry more authority than even my source, Rashi.
SheTir'u baTov!
-micha
--
Micha Berger "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight,
micha@aishdas.org and he wants to sleep well that night too."
http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yosef Yozel Horwitz, Alter of Novarodok
Fax: (270) 514-1507
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Message: 7
From: "Daniel Israel" <dmi1@hushmail.com>
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:20:11 -0700
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Baruch Shelo Asani Eved
On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:41:42 -0700 Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org>
wrote:
>The person the Nazis enslaved was an eved Ivri, and thus "shelo
>asani eved [Kenaani]" it still true.
Just to be nitpicky: is a Jew owned by a non-Jew called an eved
Ivri? Also, is a person who is at forced labor but not legally
considered "owned" an eved?
Regarding the latter: is the mitzvah of pidyon shivuyim different
from the mitzvah of pidyon of a eved sold to goyim? That would be
the nafka mina.
--
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1@cornell.edu
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Message: 8
From: "chana@kolsassoon.org.uk" <chana@kolsassoon.org.uk>
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:11:44 +0100 (GMT+01:00)
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Why Jewish Women should NOT wear a Burka
RKM Wrote
>: I doubt that the word tzeni'ut has two meanings...
And RMB then wrote:
>However, the word tzeni'us WRT covering ervah is used in teshuvos.
Even
>when speaking of how one comports oneself as alone. One isn't drawing
>the attention of the beams of one's home. So, while this is a derived
>rather than the original and mishnaic usage of the term, I didn't
simply
>dismiss it.
Well I am not sure of the Mishnaic use of the term, but certainly by
the time of Rava, we seem to have an alternative usage. Think of
Rava's usage of the term the tzni'os, in contrast to the pritzos, in
Kesubos 2b-3a. In that context we are discussing a situation where a
husband is prevented by ones (or not) from coming back and fulfilling
his tnai in the get. And the worry is that the tznios will be
concerned that in fact there is no get when in fact there is, and will
therefore not remarry (while in contrast the worry is that pritzos will
decide there is a get when in fact there is not, and will remarry). In
this context it has nothing to do with clothing and covering up, or
attention getting, but it does have to do with being (overly) choshesh
for a dvar erva.
In fact, are you sure that you have matters the right way around? Can
you give me an example where tznius is used vis a vis women in Mishnaic
Hebrew to mean not attention seeking as distinct from about covering or
being concerned with a dvar erva? Of course there is tzanua l'leches
in the Tanach - but where is that carried through into Mishnaic Hebrew
vis a vis women? Is it possible that you are imposing RHS's (and other
modern) understandings of women's roles via the concept of tzanua
laleches back onto Chazal, rather than the other way around? it
reminds me of this whole debate regarding perfumes and cosmetics and
jewelry and the like, where there appears to be a modern attempt to
suggest that such things are not tzniusdik - despite the importance
that Chazal clearly gave to such matters (I had - well half a letter
published in the Jewish Tribune the other day on this - they chopped
out my final paragraph that brought the sources on eye makeup
specifically, but they did publish enough of my sources to get the
message across - although to my amusement and my husband's outrage they
decided to publish it as "name and address supplied" - I don't know if
that is because they didn't believe it was written by (Mrs) C Sassoon
or they didn't want to admit that it was)
>-Micha
Regards
Chana
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Message: 9
From: "chana@kolsassoon.org.uk" <chana@kolsassoon.org.uk>
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:59:24 +0100 (GMT+01:00)
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Why Jewish Women should NOT wear a Burka
Further on the question of the meaning of the word tzenius, RMB wrote
in a earlier post:
:> tzeni'us has two meanings. Originally, it referred to not calling
:> undue attention to oneself, trying to avoid the spotlight.
And has in various posts suggested that this is understood, perhaps by
all, to be at least one meaning of the word today.
However even that I am not convinced is universal.
Take a modern day case: Recently in the Jewish Tribune (Charedi paper
here in England) there has been increasing coverage of what are often
called "gala concerts" or "gala performances", where, with the proceeds
going to charity, women perform for other women by singing, dancing,
acting etc etc. The numbers attending these performances appear to be
getting bigger and bigger, to the extent that they organisers are now
needing to hire out bigger and bigger halls - so that it sounds like
hundreds if not thousands of women are now attending these events. And
not only that, I have seen advertisements in the Jewish Tribune asking
women whether they "have a talent they wish to showcase" and if so, to
come along and audition for such events.
Now, attention seeking is a very negatively loaded term, but the
reality is that if you choose to step onto a stage in front of an
audience, you are seeking their attention, and you succeed if you get
it. The organisers would no doubt characterise what they are doing as
"sharing their G-d given talents" with other women - and the audience
would no doubt agree. However, one cannot get away from the fact that
the aim of any performer is to seek attention.
Now are these performances tznius? Clearly the Jewish Tribune and the
Charedi press think they are - they would never report on them if they
did not. So long as any potential issue of a dvar erva is eliminated
(which it is by having the audience consist solely of women), attention
seeking in and of itself is not considered to be not tznius.
Of course according to RHS's definition of tznius, which is one that
RMB appears to have adopted, one in no shape or form could consider
these gala concerts tznius. Nor for that matter would a male stand up
comic be considered tznius - and presumably such a person would not be
found in an ideal Torah society, except to the extent that they
reluctantly put themselves into the spotlight with the sole aim of,
say, teaching Torah. It is, ironically for somebody who is generally
more associated with a Torah "im" approach, more of a Torah only
perspective than even is found amongst those who are generally
considered to espouse Torah only - because while for a man it might be
bittel Torah, at least for a woman amongst women there is a recognition
and validation of a singing/dancing/performing gift and the desire to
draw attention to that gift, without it being considered against Torah.
> -Micha
Regards
Chana
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Message: 10
From: T613K@aol.com
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:20:30 EST
Subject: [Avodah] What are we to learn from Bereishis?
R' Yakov Homnick, a writer, a scholar, my neighbor and relative-by-marriage,
has written an outstanding article--"First Things First"--about science and
Torah. It appeared in last week's Jewish Press. Some of his themes will be
at least somewhat familiar to regular Avodah denizens, but this article is
well worth reading in full.
I have compressed his article, dispensing with ellipses for ease of reading.
==begin quote==
First we need to establish perspective by seeing how the Oral Law processed
the Bible?s presentation. One Mishna encapsulates the entire subject. It
begins the 5th chapter of Avot: "The world was created by ten Divine statements.
Why was this necessary? Couldn?t everything have been created in one
statement? It must be to punish the wicked who destroy a ten-part world and reward
the righteous who maintain a ten-part world."
In other words, the surprising part of the Bible?s Creation story is that it
has phases. In purely religious terms, we would presume that the world was
created at once, since an omnipotent Creator has no need for steps. Had
Creation not been mentioned in Genesis, the natural assumption would be that it was
done simultaneously. The purpose of the Bible story is to introduce a staged
process. This somehow raises the stakes on the table of existence, making
the righteous maintenance of the enterprise a more profound achievement.
We can extrapolate from this Mishna to the arena of time as well. The
intuitive sense would lead us to think that all of Creation would be accomplished
at once. Instead there is a span of development described as seven distinct
days, with new components added each day until the full architectural vision is
realized at the very end of this schedule.
Again, in the intellectual sense this version of events can be fairly termed
more scientific than religious. The faith system not only did not "need"
this information, it is to a significant degree undermined by it. Why impose
artificial limits on the Almighty and say He used stages and time periods? It is
just a weird and uncomfortable idea to posit an omnipotent Creator who chose
to limit the pace of His creating.
Even more mystifying is the insistence in the biblical text that a point
existed at which no observer could glean an inkling of where all this was
heading. By the eleventh word of Genesis, we have already been plunged into a dark
world of chaotic images that defy any decoding.
"A man seeing this vista would be utterly confused by the havoc," Rashi
(1035-1105) explains. (The Midrash says it would have been heresy to say this had
it not been written.) What possible purpose would there be in forcing
existence to pass through an amorphous state?
The point here is that the Torah is spending all its initial effort on
teaching you science rather than religion. The first sentence would have been
quite enough. "In the beginning the Lord created the heavens and the earth."
Instead, the Jew is being forced to train his mind to relinquish simplistic
constructs of how divinity meets humanity.
To review, the concept of creation taking time was introduced by the Bible,
only later ? much, much later ? to be echoed by scientists. The idea of
creation having distinct "ages" along the track to completion was taught here
first as well.
The next shock comes when the Bible teaches that all living creatures were
somehow fashioned out of the preexisting stuff of inorganic matter.
Creatures of the sea are said (Genesis 1:20) to be spawned from the water.
Animals emerge from the instruction (1:24) "Let the earth bring forth?" Then
man was fashioned from "dust of the earth" (2:7).
Once again the basic religious impulse is stood on its head. Every time we
are told that God made a new creature, the biblical text hastens to clarify
that He used available matter as his clay. No new material is added to make the
fish, the birds, the animals or even man. The introduction of life is
somehow accomplished without the addition of a single new element. All the
ingredients were built into the earth in its initial structure (as Rashi repeatedly
reminds us in his commentary).
There is no question that without these verses it would be sacrilege to
suggest such a scenario. How dare we suggest that God did not deliver these
creatures fully formed out of nothingness?
As startling as this approach must have been to the assumed orthodoxies in
other religions and secular systems, nothing can compare in bombshell status
to the biblically hinted, and Talmudically expounded, notion of prehistoric
man.
The Talmud in Shabbos (88b) indicates there were 974 generations of
prehistoric man. In Chagiga (13b) the Talmud sounds more like those generations were
never actualized. The Midrash Rabba (Genesis 28) says they were wiped out.
While it remains somewhat unclear exactly what these 974 generations
represent, this seems to be a matter of prime importance that is stressed in two
verses (Psalms 105:8, Chronicles I 16:15). These verses point out that the Torah
was given to the thousandth generation, which is explained by the Midrash to
mean the 974 prehistoric generations plus the 26 from Adam until Moses.
If geology and archaeology have indeed yielded specimens that are
indisputably prehistoric men (I am not expert enough to be certain of this), they are
substantiating one of the most mysterious parts of the Jewish intellectual
tradition. (The late David Brown makes this point in a work that received the
imprimatur of Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchak Ruderman, zt"l, considered one of the
supreme scholars of the last generation.[The book is called *Mysteries of
Creation* -- TK])
Even many Jews are not aware that the dating system existed before the seven
days of Creation. The tradition (Midrash Pesikta) is that the first day of
Creation was the twenty-fifth day of the sixth month, so that man emerged on
the first day of the seventh month: hence Rosh Hashanah is the anniversary of
mankind?s birth.
Another point relating to time is in the area of compression. Sometimes time
seems to accommodate much more than we would expect, as in the Talmudic
tradition (Sanhedrin 38b) that Adam was created on the sixth day, Eve two hours
later, and their two children were born an hour after that. On the other hand,
we find early man living eight or nine hundred years. However these things
are explained, the overriding message comes through: do not expect to compute
the early time frames for events with great retrospective accuracy.
All this being said, there is one other Mishna which holds another very
important key. That is in Chagiga (11b), where it states that the story of
Creation should only be taught to one student at a time, not in the classroom.
Creation is a matter that must be conveyed with great accuracy and subtlety.
The Talmud and Midrash explain that this is an area in which God hides more
than He reveals.
Furthermore, we encounter a phenomenon in the Creation story that is
inconceivable in other biblical tales. There are entire sections of the presentation
that are understood to be conceptual rather than actual.
The Talmud in Brachot (61a), Eruvin (18a) and Ketubot (8a) says the verse
(Genesis 5:2) "He created them male and female" refers to a "prior concept"
of Creation rather than to what happened in the end, where man appeared
without immediately having a companion. Rashi (ibid 1:1) seems to go much further,
understanding a Midrash to say that the entire first chapter of Genesis is
communicating a conceptual model.
Once again, this type of interpretation is never applied to any other part
of the Torah. It is clear that Creation is being transmitted in a unique
system, where the principle ? not the medium ? is the message.
In summation, the Bible does not claim to be presenting a complete version
of Creation. What we can derive from the first chapters of Genesis is a broad
outline with a few critical high points. Those keystones tend to be supported
by the clearer conclusions of science.
Long before modern science, we Jews said it took time to create the world.
Long before modern science, we said it was created in stages. Long before
modern science, we said living things were developed from preexisting matter.
Long before modern science, we said there was something encoded into the
evolving planet to drive it toward perfection. Long before modern science, we
said the most sophisticated creatures came last, with man as the climax.
The indications that these claims are accurate serve as a dazzling testimony
that our revelation, counterintuitive though it was, was indeed the truth.
==end quote==
For the entire article, please see
_http://w
ww.jewishpress.com/displayContent_new.cfmmode=a&sectionid=61&co
ntentid=29737&contentName=First%20Things%20First_
(http://w
ww.jewishpress.com/displayContent_new.cfmmode=a&sectionid=61&co
ntentid=29737&contentName=First%20Things%20First)
--Toby Katz
=============
**************The year's hottest artists on the red carpet at the Grammy
Awards. Go to AOL Music.
(http://music.aol.com/grammys?NCID=aolcmp00300000002565)
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