Avodah Mailing List

Volume 25: Number 424

Wed, 17 Dec 2008

• 1. Re: City names after AZ (D&E-H Bannett)
• 2. Horaas Shaah (Prof. Levine)
• 3. Tamuz-Avodah Zarah-Mentioning Names only Asur if still Worshipped? [2nd posting] (Segal Ariel)
• 4. Re: We should all be Hirschians (T6...@aol.com)
• 5. Jewish Hyper-sensitivity (I. Balbin)
• 6. The Paytan of the Ten Martyrs (Meir Rabi)
• 7. Re: City names after AZ (Moshe Y. Gluck)
• 8. Re: Horaas Shaah (Moshe Y. Gluck)
• 9. Re: Horaas Shaah (Prof. Levine)
• 10. Re: Horaas Shaah (Micha Berger)
• 11. yosef (Eli Turkel)
• 12. Re: yosef (Zev Sero)
• 13. Re: Fwd: Source for yotzeir on parasahas Zachor (Yitzhak Grossman)
• 14. City named after AZ (Dov Kay)
• 15. Re: Did RSRH Write LH about Shimon and Levi (Moshe Y. Gluck)
• 16. Re: Did RSRH Write LH about Shimon and Levi (Joshua Waxman)
• 17. Popular Misconception About the Hirschian System (Prof. Levine)

Re: the discussion about Mumbai being the AZ for which 
Bombay
was renamed.

It should be pointed out that, in most far-eastern 
languages, there is no differentiation between "r" and "l" 
and also between "m" and "b".  They are otyot mit-chal'fot.

In world war two the American army used passwords with L's 
such as Honolulu.
The instruction was, if the person challenged answers 
Honoruru, shoot him.

I usually enjoy illustrating by examples:

In Bangkok, a local man explained to me that the building 
opposite was the "home of the lawyer famiry".  As I knew 
that Thailand was a kingdom, I managed to understand.

Many years ago, while in Kuala Lumpur, I learned to write my 
family name in Chinese. On the plane from there to Hongkng,I 
was handed a form to fill out before landing. The 
instructions were in English and Chinese and I wrote my 
family name in Chinese to see what would happen.  The 
official looked at the form and then took a long stare at 
me.  He then inquired, "Mr. Mannett"?  I replied, "That's 
right, David Bannett".

The Korean alphabet, despite the picture-like form, is a 
phonetic alphabet.  One symbol is used for both L and r and 
another single symbol for m and b. The M is a rectangle and, 
mostly to accommodate foreign transliteration, the B has the 
vertical lines of the rectangle stick out a bit above the 
top horizontal line.  Similarly, the L and R are a backwards 
S. The S has squared corners. Again to differentiate, the 
bottom corner of the R is rounded.

And what is the point of all this? Simply, that it seems to 
me that Bombay and Mumbai are evidently the same word. If it 
is an AZ, it's the same AZ in both versions.

And, as long as I am writing,  Re: R' Akiva Miller's 
question <<in Vayishlach -- we encounter a place whose name 
is "Beis El". This is clearly written as two words. My 
question: Is the second of those words kodesh, or is it 
chol?>>

Not so clearly. R' Wolf Heidenheim notes a machloket on this 
name and in the beginning of Lekh-l'kha brings sources that 
make him decide that the correct form is Bethel in one word. 
Look in any Roedelheim chumash.  All the Bethels are written 
as one word. Koren, Breuer, Netter, Leningrad codex, and 
most others have a makaf between the halves which some would 
say makes it two words.

In his list of kodesh vs. chol words R' Heidenheim notes 
that, in Bet El as two words, the second word is chol. This 
is shown by Onkelos and Yonatan who translate  Beth El, as a 
place name, unchanged from the Hebrew, and not as Bet Elaha. 
He does not mention the single-word form in the list because 
a piece of a word or name, can not be kodesh. But that was 
two hundred years ago.


k"t,

David 

At 05:13 PM 12/16/2008, Micha wrote:

>Original R' Schwab thought it was lechat-chilah. Then he asked R' Barukh
>Ber if he should learn full time, or follow mussar avikha and TIDE. RBBL
>was the one who convinced him that TIDE was a hora'as sha'ah. (RBBL's
>argument is found in Birkas Shemu'el.)

Rav Schwab changed his mind during his life time. See TIDE - A Second 
View that I have posted at 
http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/tide_second_view.pdf

In the end he did not think that TIDE was Horaas Shaah.


>Clearly RBBL didn't know German, and little of RSRH's writings were
>available in Hebrew.

I simply do not understand how anyone can decide something as 
important as TIDE being or not being Horaas Shaah without having read 
a fair amount of the writings of RSRH.

Yitzchok Levine 
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Hello everyone. My Dirshu Shiur just finished Masechet Avodah Zarah, but I couldn't find a full answer to the question I had about a year ago, reposted here:

I had a question about mentioning the
> names of idolatrous deities. In the Artscroll
> Mishnayot Avodah Zara, there is a footnote-I forget
> where-that says that the issur only applies when the
> avodah zara is still worshipped today. What is the
> source for this?
> 
> [Also, given that there are still small groups of
> neopagans that claim to worship ancient
> Greek/Scandinavian deities, does that remove the
> heter, if there is one, from mentioning them?]
> 
> This is not as relevant as it used to be for me, but
> when I was a teaching assistant in history of science,
> I would rely on this Artscroll footnote to say, for
> instance "Thales of Miletus (an early philosopher)
> held that the origin of the universe was from water,
> not through Zeus..."

I would very much like to see a definitive makor that one can mention the name of deities no longer worshipped.

Another question: Are there any sources for owning books which have photographs of idols for archaeological purposes?

Kol Tuv, Ariel Segal 

 
 
In a message dated 12/16/2008, llev...@stevens.edu writes:

>>Being a Hirschian is much, much more than having a secular  education and 
working.<<


>>>>
Yes, that is quite true.
 
My point was that even though the charedi community may /consciously/  reject 
TIDE, it nevertheless incorporates many elements of TIDE without  
acknowledging that it is doing so.  It is completely impossible to live in  the modern 
world without at least some of the elements of TIDE, which is why  TIDE was not 
a hora'as sha'ah but the blueprint for an ideal Torah life, and  even if you 
want to insist that it /was/ a hora'as sha'ah, well, we are still  very much in 
that same sha'ah for which TIDE was and is a hora'ah.  This is  certainly the 
case in America and is even the case in E'Y.
 


--Toby Katz
=============
Read *Jewish  World Review* at _http://jewishworldreview.com/_ 
(http://jewishworldreview.com/) 



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>
> Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:45:36 +1100
> From: "Meir Rabi" <meir...@optusnet.com.au>
>
> I wonder how we determine what is appropriate sensitivity LifNim  
> MiShuRas
> HaDin and what is just bizarre behaviour?


In a word Mesora; the mimetic tradition.

 

R Zev Sero explained that - None of this is supposed to be just or
legitimate; the paytan is just showing the wickedness of the king, that not
only did he kill these 10 tzadikim, but he dressed the murder up as some
sort of mitzvah.

 

I think Rabbenu Bachya suggests otherwise. See end of VaYeChi and in
Vayeshev [? I think]

 

Meir Rabi

 

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R' Dov Kay:?
This leads to the obvious question at this time of year as to whether there
is?a heter to pronounce the name of Xmas, as opposed to Kratzmach or some
other such corruption.? It is exceedingly difficult to function in the
modern workplace without uttering this word.? The final "t" at the end of
the "Chris" tends to be slurred or omitted anyway.? I wonder if this makes
a difference.? If so, I suppose that "Christopher" might be a problem, but
the shortened form "Chris" alright.? Of course, if the only problem is to
use the six-letter word on its own, without a suffix, there should be no
problem with any of these words.
--------------


I've noticed - and I don't understand it - that even people who don't say
"Christmas" but say instead "Xmas" or "Kratzmach" don't seem to have a
problem saying "Christian."

KT,
MYG

R' MB:
Clearly RBBL didn't know German, and little of RSRH's writings were
available in Hebrew.

R' YL:
I simply do not understand how anyone can decide something as important as
TIDE being or not being Horaas Shaah without having read a fair amount of
the writings of RSRH. 
------------



KT,
MYG 

At 08:52 PM 12/16/2008, Moshe Y. Gluck wrote:
>One can decide whether TIDE is or is not Horaas Shaah without 
>reading a fair amount of RSRH's writings by knowing lots and lots of 
>Shas, Rishonim, Acharonim, Poskim, Baalei Mussar and Baalei 
>Machshavah. I daresay that both RSRH and RBBL were well qualified in 
>that regard, and their disagreement (if, indeed, RSRH did not mean 
>TIDE as HS) is a manifestation of Shivim Panim, rather than, CV, 
>RBBL's implied ignorance/carelessness.

A person's pesak is based on the information the poseik has at hand 
at the time that he decides something. If a gadol is given incomplete 
or incorrect information, then one might expect that his pesak would 
be influenced by this.

I recall someone telling me that some of things that Reb Moshe 
decided about medical issues were based on incorrect of incomplete 
medical information that he obtained from others. I do not recall 
what the issues were anymore, nor am I asserting the Reb Moshe was 
"wrong." Still, unless one has accurate and complete information, 
then one can get an incorrect or incomplete picture. After all, don't 
we find that poskim disagree with each other at times based on the 
fact that someone who deals with an issue later says that the other 
poseik was not aware of this or that. Is not the fact that some 
paskened that one could turn on lights on Yom Tov an example of this.

I am not implying "ignorance/carelessness" on the part of RBBL. I am 
saying that he must have decided based upon what he knew about TIDE 
and thought that what he knew was accurate. This may well have been 
the case. On the other, without being familiar with much of RSRH's 
writings, it is difficult for me to understand how one can render a 
correct evaluation of TIDE.

YL

PS.  I do not understand the attitude that I think you and others 
have that if one asks a question about something that a gadol did 
that one is immediately implying that he made a mistake, was 
ignorant, careless or whatever. Cannot one ask in order to understand.

I used to ask Rav S. Schwab sheilos.  If I did not understand 
something, I would ask him to explain things. He would do this 
patiently. He never took the approach that I was challenging him or 
felt that he was wrong. Indeed, this is why I called him, because I 
knew that he would patiently explain things to me, not push me off 
with "You have heard my pesak, that is it."

When I lived in Elizabeth, NJ I recall at least one instance in which 
I asked Rav P. M. Teitz something. He gave me an answer and I then 
asked him a question about his reply. His face lit up at my question 
and he then proceeded to elaborate on his original response. He 
didn't dismiss me with "How dare you question what I told you!"


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On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 08:52:41PM -0500, Moshe Y. Gluck wrote:
: R' YL:
:> I simply do not understand how anyone can decide something as important
:> as TIDE being or not being Horaas Shaah without having read a fair amount
:> of the writings of RSRH.

: One can decide whether TIDE is or is not Horaas Shaah without reading
: a fair amount of RSRH's writings by knowing lots and lots of Shas,
: Rishonim, Acharonim, Poskim, Baalei Mussar and Baalei Machshavah. I
: daresay that both RSRH and RBBL were well qualified in that regard,
: and their disagreement (if, indeed, RSRH did not mean TIDE as HS)
: is a manifestation of Shivim Panim, rather than, CV, RBBL's implied
: ignorance/carelessness.

The difference between what I said and RYL's follow up is that I wasn't
questioning the eilu va'eilu, and RBBL's ability to hit the same sources
and reach his own conclusion. However, RBBL goes one step beyond --
he attributes the notion of hora'as sha'ah to RSRH himself -- that R'
Hirsch could only have meant TIDE as a hora'as sha'ah.

I agree with your critique of RYL's post, but do not think it's sufficient
to explain RBBL -- which is why I went with the theory that it was
probably due to little of RSRH's work being available at the time to
someone who didn't know German.

It's impossible to read very far in Hirsch and conclude that he was
describing anything but an ideal. (An easy citation is Letter #16
(of the 19), since it's entitled "Emancipation". Another easy one is
his commentary on NOach's berakhah "Yaft E-lokim leYefes". But really,
it's all over his works.) RSRH even goes so far as to call the lack of
TIDE until then a product of the abysmal limitations imposed on us as
part of ghettoization, and that now we have the freedom to be full Jews!

It was only this assumption about RSRH's position that I blamed on
ignorance.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It's never too late
mi...@aishdas.org        to become the person
http://www.aishdas.org   you might have been.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                     - George Elliot

On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 12:32:08PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
: The piyut doesn't say anything of the sort.  The wicked king claims to
: be exacting justice for the sale of Yosef, and says he would have killed
: the shvatim themselves if they were still alive, but since they aren't
: he'll kill these 10 as their proxies.  None of this is supposed to be
: just or legitimate; the paytan is just showing the wickedness of the king,
: that not only did he kill these 10 tzadikim, but he dressed the murder up
: as some sort of mitzva
Micha wrote
Midrash Mishlei 1:13 does say they were a kapparah for the sale of
Yoseif. See also Pirqei deR' Eliezer (p' 38).

I am completely lost. Besides the medrash that Micha brings the piyut
states explicitly that R. Yishmael Cohen Gadol went to Heaven and heard
from behind the curtain that they are trapped (nilkadim) by this claim that
the suffer for what the brothers did to Yosef

-- 
Eli Turkel

Eli Turkel wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 12:32:08PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> : The piyut doesn't say anything of the sort.  The wicked king claims to
> : be exacting justice for the sale of Yosef, and says he would have killed
> : the shvatim themselves if they were still alive, but since they aren't
> : he'll kill these 10 as their proxies.  None of this is supposed to be
> : just or legitimate; the paytan is just showing the wickedness of the king,
> : that not only did he kill these 10 tzadikim, but he dressed the murder up
> : as some sort of mitzva

> Micha wrote
>> Midrash Mishlei 1:13 does say they were a kapparah for the sale of
>> Yoseif. See also Pirqei deR' Eliezer (p' 38).

But the piyut does *not* say that.

> I am completely lost. Besides the medrash that Micha brings the piyut
> states explicitly that R. Yishmael Cohen Gadol went to Heaven and heard
> from behind the curtain that they are trapped (nilkadim) by this claim that
> the suffer for what the brothers did to Yosef

No.  It does not say that at all.


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
z...@sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                                                  - Clarence Thomas

On Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:12:57 -0500
"Richard Wolpoe" <rabbirichwol...@gmail.com> wrote:

...

> And so the plain text states that Esav gave away the Bechora for free.  His

No, it most certainly does not.  Ya'akov requested "michrah ka'yom es
be'chorascha li" and Esav obliged: "va'yimkor es be'choraso
le'Ya'akov".  Mechirah means sale, so there was obviously some
consideration, even if it was not the food.

> gluttony was focused upon satisfying his appetite and the Bechora was
> merfely discarded, not swapped.  Maybe the lentils or the golf ball would
> form a kinyan ch'lippin but certainly not a true quid pro quo.

> RabbiRichWol...@Gmail.com

Yitzhak
--
Bein Din Ledin - http://bdl.freehostia.com
A discussion of Hoshen Mishpat, Even Ha'Ezer and other matters

Having asking the question, shuv ra'iti that R. Y.H. Henkin in Bnei Vonim,
III, siman 35, page 119 (accessible online at http://hebrewbook
s.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=20024&;pgnum=119) deals with it. He
concludes:  1) there is no prohibition on saying the names of streets or
cities with names such as Christchurch, as they are mere names;   2) yesh
l'lamed z'chus on those who say the word Xmas (although it is best to
refrain from doing so) because it is now used by the great majority of
nochrim to refer to a holiday, rather than a holy day on which a mass is
held in honour of their saviour. The gist of his ruling, as I understand
it, is that where we are not pronouncing the name of the deity itself and
it is a "shem b'alma", there is no prohibition involved as we are not
giving any honour to the deity.  As already mentioned by other posters, if
it is the name of deity which is mentioned in Tanach or is no longer
served, it is also permitted.  
 On a humorous note, in the course of his teshuva, R. Henkin refers to a
 brand of canned fish on sale in Israel called Neptune which carried the
 hechsher of the Badatz Machzikei Hadass.  Clearly it couldn't be
 forbidden!  
 
R. Henkin also rules that it is permitted to say the name Jesus (without
"Christ").  One may also say San Francisco or St Louis, because that it
what the cities are now called, and no-one would misunderstand this as an
attribution of saintliness Francis or Louis. 
 
Kol tuv  
Dov Kay
 
 
_________________________________________________________________
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R' YG:
> Of course Ramban maintains that she was raped.  It's Rashi and Ibn Ezra
> who don't say anything about rape.

And R' Saadia Gaon seems even clearer that Va'y'ane'ha wasn't rape - he
translates Vayishkav Osah V'y'ane'ha: Vayishkav Osah Vayavoh Ale'ha. I'd
like to point out that even if the translation of Va'y'ane'ha doesn't
necessarily imply rape (unlike Ramban's understanding of the general usage
of the word), the implication of the verses is that it wasn't with consent
- he didn't speak to her with words of Piyus and Ritzui until after he
slept with her, usually an indication of a lack of willingness on the
woman's part. 
I was wondering why those who argue with Ramban would do so, common usage
seems to be like he translates it. I thought that maybe it's because
according to Ramban it should only have said Va'y'ane'ha, with the
Vayishkav part implied. Therefore they have to translate Va'y'ane'ha as a
term describing the Biah - which was painful, either by circumstance or
definition.

KT,
MYG

RTKatz:
>>
It was already established back from the time of Rivkah ("Nish'alah es
pi hana'arah") that Jews do not marry off a daughter or a sister
without her consent.
>>

Saul Mashbaum:
>>
It is a common misconception that the cited phrase indicates that
Rivkah's consent was necessary for the proposed marriage. As is clear
from the Biblical text, the cited phrase relates to something else:
the proposal that Rivkah leave her father's house immediately, as
Eliezer requested, rather than remain in his house for a while, as her
family suggested.
On the contrary, the text does not indicate at all that Rivkah
consented to the proposed marriage.
>>

Yet the interesting thing about this is that that particular Rashi is citing
a midrash where it is about a *brother and sister* marrying off the orphaness.
And the midrash uses the word Yetomah, so that it hooks into the midrash
about the disappearance of Betuel. And the key is that this is not what
you or I would label peshat, but what the midrash, and Rashi intends. Shadal
says like you about the meaning of the phrase, but Rashi indeed says it was
asking her about marriage. This is not misconception, but rather dispute
about the meaning of the term. (And I would agree with you as to the meaning
on a peshat level.)

Saul Mashbaum:
>>
Al pi halacha,  a father *may* marry off a minor daughter without her
consent. This well-known Talmudic principle  is the halacha, as stated
explicitly in Even HaEzer 37;1, without dispute. The Mechaber in 37;11
cites the statement in the g'mara that it is a mitzva for the father
not to exercise the right he has marry off his minor daughter. The
Rama there cites the opinion of Tosfot which justifies  marrying off
minor daughters without their consent, and concludes that this was the
common practice in Ashkenaz.
Thus, the statement " Jews do not marry off a daughter or a sister
without her consent" , when applied to a minor, is incorrect both in
theory and in widespread practice, up to modern times.
>>

But some, when discussing the Rashi, do hook it into the Mishna and 
gemara which state that it is forbidden for a father to do so. And the Rif
paskens that it is forbidden to do so. This is problematic anyway because
Rashi assumes that she is a minor at this point, so asking consent would 
not help.

I wrote about this a while back, here:
http://parsha.blogspot.com/2008/11/chayei-sarah-rashi-and-womens.html

But you are absolutely right in terms of the way halacha has developed and
has been codified.

KT,
Josh Waxman

 From 
<http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/Clarification%20of%2
0RSRH_danziger.pdf>Clarification 
of R. Hirsch's Concepts - A Rejoinder by Rabbi S. Danziger

There is a popular notion that, unlike Hasidism and Musar, which 
attempted to deepen the religious experience of the Jew, the 
Hirschian system aimed at merely preserving Judaism against the 
onslaught of Western culture. It is our conviction that this notion 
is erroneous. Study of R. Hirsch's writings and commentaries has been 
for many a most effective source of Musar, deepening our spiritual 
grasp of Judaism. At any rate, the deepening of spiritual experience 
is the very basis of R. Hirsch's conception, and the very result of 
the careful study of that conception.

This should be the goal, the task of all disciples of Rabbeinu 
Hirsch, who still are, with certain illustrious exceptions, far from 
the spiritual depth, in the study of Torah and in the observance of 
Mitzvot, which R. Hirsch demanded.

This article was written in 1963.

Yitzchok Levine
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