Avodah Mailing List

Volume 26: Number 234

Thu, 19 Nov 2009

• 1. This is your chance to join a musser vaad of your peers. (Yosef Skolnick)
• 2. Re: Bereshit 23: 6-16 (Zev Sero)
• 3. Re: yishmael v. the mitzri??? (Zev Sero)
• 4. halachic attitude to the convicted (Eli Turkel)
• 5. Re: halachic attitude to the convicted (rabbirichwol...@gmail.com)
• 6. Yeish E'echol, Yeish Le'esor (rabbirichwol...@gmail.com)
• 7. praying for a convict (Eli Turkel)
• 8. Re: halachic attitude to the convicted (Samuel Svarc)
• 9. Re: Bereshit 23: 6-16 (T6...@aol.com)
• 10. Re: Was Esav a Rasha in the womb? (T6...@aol.com)
• 11. Was Esav a Rasha in the womb? (Dov Kaiser)
• 12. Re: Minhag Avos and Sephardim (Michael Makovi)
• 13. Re: Minhag Avos and Minhag haMaqom (Michael Makovi)
• 14. Re: [Areivim] Are there halachic issues with using the Mormon fmaily history website? (Zev Sero)
• 15. Re: Minhag Avos and Sephardim (Michael Makovi)

Dear Areivim and Avodah members,

We would like to invite you to join a new endeavor - we are calling for
members to join a new AishDas e-Vaad.

For over a year, we have been running an AishDas e-Va'ad with tremendous
success. The AishDas model for an e-Vaad  is a bi-monthly telephone
conference call . The format which we found most successful is based on
Sefer Alei Shur from R' Shlomo Wolbe. The outline of each Vaad generally
follows this format: Members first report on their progress working on the
"homework" from the previous Vaad,  then a new Vaad  in Alei Shur is
presented by the (rotating) leader for that evening, and then a new task is
presented for the following weeks.   Between Vaadim,  members interact via a
chavrusa system and a Vaad-wide  email list for mutual feedback and support.
(We are also exploring other options for Vaad-member communication, such as
using various social networking sites.)

We are glad to report that after over a year of running this Vaad, the vaad
members have agreed that it is a successful endeavor. All of us have noticed
improvement in our middos, and, in many cases, so have our wives.

Now that we have experience with this kind of program and the loose details
have been worked out we would like to invite you, in the name of AishDas, to
join a new Vaad, patterned after the successful format of the original Vaad,
which still continues. (We are not expanding the original  e-Vaad, as we
have reached the optimal size).

Please email Yosef Skolnick (yskoln...@gmail.com) or Moshe Yehuda Gluck (
mgl...@gmail.com) if you are interested in finding out more.

We will probably be starting within the next few weeks. We will be
beginning, IY'H, with the middah of Hislamdus, followed by the middah of
Chessed.

Kol Tuv,

Moshe Yehuda Gluck and Yosef Skolnick
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Micha Berger wrote:

> I once saw the first Rashi explained in similar terms. Why did R' Yichaq
> assume the nations that challenge our claim to EY would care what *our*
> scriptures say about Who owned the land and had a right to distribute
> it?

There are several gemaras from which it appears that Chazal believed that
all the nations believe in Hashem ("but they call Him the gods' God"),
and are familiar with and accept the truth of the whole Tanach.  This
statement of R Yitzchak seems in line with those gemaras.

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
z...@sero.name                 eventually run out of other people?s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher

It's worth bearing in mind that Moshe was not a beis din.  He was an
individual in a position to kill the Mitzri, and he had every right to
do so (as everybody in such a situation does) but he had to decide
whether he *should*.  A beis din would have no choice: they are charged
with the obligation to convict and execute anyone whom the evidence shows
to have committed a capital crime, even if they believe him (against the
evidence) to be innocent (e.g. R Shimon ben Shatach's son).  They must
also do their duty even if it's dangerous: "lo taguru mipnei ish".  But
an individual has a choice: he need not put himself in danger of getting
caught and punished by the government, and he's also entitled to exercise
mercy, or decline to act for any other reason that seems good to him.
Moshe, with the power of ruach hakodesh, would have chosen to let the
Mitzri live had he seen any future tzadikim destined to come from him.


-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
z...@sero.name                 eventually run out of other people?s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher

> On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 11:35 AM,  <Saul.Z.New...@kp.org> wrote:
>> should the general rule be that if someone , is jailed , for whatever
>> reason,  we should  be praying  for  his release?
>> is there any crime where that is NOT  true?
>
> Sure. Any person that halacha feels should be imprisoned.

Do you mean where he is actually sentenced k'halacha (i.e., by beit
din), or where the facts, were they to be heard by a beit din would
warrant his imprisonment? >>

A simple case would be where the bet din itself refered the case to the police.
I have heard from R. Zilberstein that there have been cases where the
local bet din
felt that they could not handle some cases and caled in the police. I
assume that such
a convict should stay in jail. The last thing the bet would want is
for this dangerous person
to be let loose.

Imagine that a serial murderer is sentenced to a long prison term.
Would you want to pray for
his release to come back to the community?

As several have mentioned many gedolim as the Steipler and RSZA have said that
in some cases the person deserves to be in jail for their crimes

-- 
Eli Turkel

RDE:
> Rav Sternbuch told me a story about the Chazon Ish. There was a secular
> Israeli who was thrown in jail on some questionable charge. People came
> to the Chazon Ish and asked him whether there was a mitzva of pidyon
> shevuim. The Chazon Ishe asked whether the man kept taharas mishpacha?
> When he heard the answer was negative he told them that it was for his
> own good that he stay in jail

I'm presuming an Israeli Jail so let's concede ein hachi nami to CI's p'saq.

What Would CI have paskened re:
    A. A secular American Jail
    B. A Czarist Jail?

IOW is the fact that his shivyon was by means of Yehudim a mitigating
factor - or not?

KT
RRW
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

See SA Orach Hayyim 673:2 in Rema
Yeish omrim she-yeish le'chol g'vinah ba-hanukkah

Also YD 87:6 
V'lachein yesh le'esor

What is the best way to translate 
Yesh le'echol?
And
Yesh le'esor?

KT
RRW
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

<<There is also a famous story about R' Chaim Brisker raising money on
Yom Kippur for the release of a Bundist from the Czar's prison. The
prisoner was caught with handouts or maybe not-yet-hung posters on his
person. R Chaim delayed Kol Nidre until the 10,000 rubles needed to get
him released was raised. The guy actually was guilty the charge, he was
a Communist. And he was an apiqoreis, halachically guilty. And yet R'
Chaim invoked pidyon shevuyim to get the entire city of Brisk "violating"
(in quotes in case it's hutrah) Yom Kippur.
.....
WADR, the steipler's opinion  must be an extreme daas yachid,  because we
see  the worldwide protest for  many tried or convicted  for crimes
ranging  from  child abuse to larceny to smuggling etc . and it  seems
that the only difference between whether it's secular states or israel is
whether  the protestation is respectful or derisive.....>>

The case with R. Chaim was a political crime. The fact that the bundist was not
religious is irrelevant.
One can also argue about smuggling and it depends on the details. As I quoted
RSZA felt that smuggling using tefillin was beyond the pale.

I can't believe that anyone would protest on behalf of a child abuser.
The cases of
recent riots centered on the claim that the person was not a child abuser and
was framed by the police. However, if the local community knows the person is
a child abuser anyone working on behalf of the person is severely harming the
children and is committing themselves a serious crime. Such a person
must be kept
away from society.

-- 
Eli Turkel

On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 5:50 PM, Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 4:16pm EDT, R Samuel Svarc wrote:
> : On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 11:35 AM, ?<Saul.Z.New...@kp.org> wrote:
> :> should the general rule be that if someone, is jailed, for whatever
> :> reason, we should be praying for his release?
> :> is there any crime where that is NOT true?
>
> : Sure. Any person that halacha feels should be imprisoned.
>
> Does that include people incarcerated under secular law? The existence
> and enforcement of civil law is one of the 7 mitzvos benei Noach. So
> what if they prohibit something we don't, and set the punishment to
> be imprisonment?

========================

R' Daniel M. Israel:
Do you mean where he is actually sentenced k'halacha (i.e., by beit
din), or where the facts, were they to be heard by a beit din would
warrant his imprisonment?

If the former, given that there is no such beit din that is authorized
to sentence people today, then this will never occur.

If the latter, so who gets to decide that the court's sentence was
okay k'halacha?

And are you allowing for the possibility that a particular crime might
not be subject to imprisonment by beit din (after all, imprisonment is
not a penalty in the Torah), but the halacha would be maskim to the
malchus imprisoning the person?

I tried to raise this issue several month ago, and IMO no one really
was willing to speak to the ikar issue.
=========================

(Disclaimer: The following are my thoughts only.)

1. All that I meant was the following, "If there was a person
presently incarcerated, who poskim tell you shouldn't be; in that case
100% percent we should be davening for the release, regardless through
which process put him there."

2. All those ways that were mentioned above, are ways that someone can
be incarcerated al 'pi halacha'.

3. Who decides if something is OK l'halacha? Hint, hint: Whoever
decides all the other halacha shailos.

KT,
MSS

 
From: Zev Sero _zev@sero.name_ (mailto:z...@sero.name) 

>> Using the same  word repeatedly through a story, and especially using it
in more than one  sense, is common in Tanach. << 
 
 


>>>>>
 
The most striking example of that is the many times variants of "tzachak"  
and "sachak" occur in connection with Yitzchak.  Avraham laughing, Sarah  
laughing, the whole world rejoicing for her, Yishmael mocking, Avimelech 
seeing  Yitzchak and Rivka "playing."  Etc.
 

--Toby Katz
==========



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From: Marty Bluke <marty.bl...@gmail.com>
>> If  Esav's innate nature in the womb was to worship Avoda Zara
how can he blamed  for his actions, likewise if Yaakov's innate nature
was for kedusha why  should he be rewarded for that? See the Rambam in
Hilchos Teshuva the  beginning of Perek 5 where the Rambam states
clearly and unequivocally that  there is no predisposition,  every
person has choice what to  be.<<

 
 
 
>>>>>
 
I don't agree that a person has "no predisposition" and if you are quoting  
Rambam correctly, then he is contradicting Rashi.  
 
But even if people are born with certain predispositions (as Rashi  says 
and as common observation clearly shows), that doesn't mean they lack  
bechirah.   A person may be hardwired to have a quick temper or to  have a huge 
appetite for arayos, but he still has bechira whether to act on his  
proclivities or not. A human court can judge only deeds but Hashem judges a  person 
according to how difficult the nisayon was that he passed (or failed to  pass).
 
Hirsch says that Yitzchak's mistake was trying to raise his twins exactly  
the same way, and failing to make allowances for their different natures.   
A chinuch that was appropriate for Yakov's quiet and contemplative nature 
was  not at all appropriate for Esav's active and maybe ADD nature.
 

--Toby Katz
==========



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R. Marty Bluke wrote: <<This Maharal seems to contradict a
fundamental principle of Judaism that every person has free will and can
choose to be a Tzadik or a Rasha. If Esav's innate nature in the womb was
to worship Avoda Zara how can he blamed for his actions, likewise if
Yaakov's innate nature was for kedusha why should he be rewarded for that?
See the Rambam in Hilchos Teshuva the beginning of Perek 5 where the Rambam
states clearly and unequivocally that there is no predisposition, every
person has choice what to be.>>
 
The Rambam doesn?t say that there is no predisposition.  He states that
there is free choice and anyone has the ability to become as righteous as
Moshe Rabbeinu or as wicked as Yeravam.  However, it is obvious that we are
not all born with exactly the same inclinations and temptations, whether
due to our innate characters or the environment in which we are raised.  I
therefore feel forced to assume that the Rambam means that these
inclinations and temptations are never so great as to overwhelm a person
and remove his free choice.  We always have free choice, but some of us
will encounter more difficulties in exercising it properly than others.
 
This means that Esav could have been a tzaddik, but he would have needed to
work much harder at it than Yaakov.  I can?t see anything in the Rambam
which contradicts that.

 
Kol tuv
Dov Kaiser                                        
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> Several Sephardic rabbis have told me point blank that while Talmud
> has several references to minhag hamaqom, there is no talmudic basis for
> minhag avos.
>
> R' Rich Wolpoe

See Professor Menachem Friedman's ?The Changing Role of the Community
Rabbinate?, his ?The 'Family-Community' Model?, his ?Halachic Rabbinic
Authority in the Modern Open Society?, his ?Haredim Confront the
Modern City?, his ?Life Tradition and Book Tradition?, and his ?The
Market Model and Religious Radicalism? for analysis of the differences
between traditional geographically-constituted communities and the new
un-traditional selective voluntary communities. All of his essays are
available at http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/so/mfriedman.html.

Also, see Rabbi Marc Angel, "Thoughts About Early American Jewry"
(Tradition 16:2, Fall 1976.):

"The [Judeo-Spanish Sephardi] kehillot did not see themselves as mere
synagogues, serving only segments of Jewry; rather they viewed
themselves as the communal governments of all the Jewish people WITHIN
THEIR DOMAINS [emphasis added]. ? It is nevertheless clear that the
idea of the kahal as a communal government .was central among the
Sephardim. ? They also indicate the central authority which was
relegated to the kahal. ? The, constitution of [Congregation] Beth
E-lohim [in Charleston] (1820), states that all Israelites who have
lived in the CITY [emphasis added] for at least one year shall be
bound to..."

Michael Makovi

> The question that always bothered me is when (and why)  did the nature
> change from primarily community based to family based? I say primarily
> because IIRC the chatam sofer and R' Moshe allowed a ben Yeshiva to
> change his minhag to that of the Yeshiva.
>
> R' Joel Rich

See the post I just made to "Minhag Avos and Sephardim"
(http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=M#MINHAG AVOS AND
SEPHARDIM), the references to Professor Menachem Friedman.

Professor Friedman sees the rise of the higher yeshivot as one of the
THE primary causes of the rise of Haredism, and I might note that
Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits's article "Review of Recent Halakhic
Literature: Rabbis and Deans" (Tradition 7:4-8:1, Winter, 1965-Spring,
1966) seems to agree with Professor Friedman. (I saw the reference to
Rabbi Jakobovits in Professor Marc Shapiro's review of The Uses of
Tradition, Tradition 28:2, Winter 1994.)

Professor Friedman notes that traditionally, the yeshivot were part of
the community, and the rosh yeshiva was also the local communal rabbi.
Also, students would eat and sleep with local families. By contrast,
in the new Volozhin-type yeshivot, the rosh yeshiva was distinct from
the local rabbi, and the students rarely met the local townspeople.
Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan (the son of the Netziv) notes that there was
almost no relationship between the townspeople and students of
Volozhin.

The result, says Professor Friedman, is that students lived in an
ivory tower where the realities of real life meant little. One could
double his double cup size, because he wasn't confronted with any
living tradition to the contrary. The real traditions of Judaism were
in the common people, but the yeshiva students were not exposed to
these. Thus, a hyper-textual anti-mimetic Judaism evolved.

Your discussion of roshei yeshiva allowing students to adopt the
yeshiva's minhagim over that of their parents would bear all this out.

However, Professor Haym Soloveitchik disagrees, in footnotes 68 and 85
of "Rupture and Reconstruction"
(http://www.lookstein.org/links/orthodoxy.htm).

Michael Makovi

Avroham Yakov <avya...@hotmail.com> asked this question on Areivim.

I don't see why there should be.

I'm not even sure that Mormonism counts as avoda zara; as near as I can
tell they *believe* in many many gods, but only worship One, the one of
the Tanach, Whom they believe to be the God of this particular world.
The other gods, according to them, each has a world of his own, and it
is right and proper for the people of those other worlds each to worship
their gods, but it's not right for us in this world.  Or something like
that; I don't really know that much about it and have never cared to
investigate it in depth.

But even if it was mamash AZ, their geneological research isn't itself AZ,
it's just a tool that they use to find people to recruit and "save" (with
or without their knowledge).  It's neither AZ nor tashmishei or meshamshei
AZ, it's more like a priest's car with which he gets around to his various
AZ-related appointments; the car isn't assur behana'ah, and AFAIK there's
no problem in accepting a lift from the priest, even if he's on the way
to his temple, let alone if he's on the way to the supermarket.


-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
z...@sero.name                 eventually run out of other people?s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher

I might add: when I davened at Congregation Shearith Israel (the
Spanish-Portugese congregation), and I didn't put on a tallit, one of
the officials came over to me and asked me to put on a tallit. He
didn't ask me whether I'm married or not; he didn't care what my own
personal minhag or minhag avot was.

Michael Makovi


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