Avodah Mailing List

Volume 27: Number 173

Mon, 13 Sep 2010

• 1. Re: Selichos and Kinnos (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 2. slichos skipping (s newman)
• 3. Re: Selichos and Kinnos (Ben Waxman)
• 4. Re: [Areivim] piskei halacha (Chana Luntz)
• 5. Re: Which way to Jerusalem? (Zev Sero)
• 6. Which way to Jerusalem? (Dov Kaiser)
• 7. Re: slichos skipping (Zev Sero)
• 8. Re: slichos skipping (Yitzchak Schaffer)
• 9. Which way to Jerusalem? (David Riceman)
• 10. Selichos and Kinnos (David Riceman)
• 11. Re: Selichos and Kinnos (Micha Berger)
• 12. Re: Which way to Jerusalem? (Zev Sero)
• 13. Re: Which way to Jerusalem? (Danny Schoemann)
• 14. Re: Which way to Jerusalem? (Micha Berger)
• 15. Re: Which way to Jerusalem? (David Riceman)
• 16. Re: Which way to Jerusalem? (Simon Montagu)
• 17. Re: Which way to Jerusalem? (David Riceman)
• 18. Kel Erech Apaim/Kel Melech (Gershon Dubin)
• 19. Truth and the Rambam, (was: How game theory solved a religious mystery) (Micha Berger)

R' Moshe Y. Gluck asked:

> Why did the writers of Selichos and Kinnos do so in such difficult
> to understand language?

This bothered me for many years. (Yom Tov piyutim are another example.) It
is particularly strong when we compare these prayers with the various
Amidahs of the year, which (in my opinion) are mostly quite at the other
end of the spectrum.

The answer I came up with is that different people are moved by different
styles. Most people, if they can understand Hebrew at all, need the
simplicity of the Shemoneh Esreh or the Shema. Others need the delicacy of
the sort of poetry found in Selichos and Kinnos. (I'd stress word "need";
there's no accounting for taste, and for some people, prose is simply
inadequate to the task.) Both styles are important, and both had their
authors throughout the ages.

My wild guess - which I have absolutely no evidence for - is that the
People collectively accepted flowery tefilos only if they were to be said
only on rare occasions, and insisted on simpler prose for
frequently-recited tefilos. If a tefila was too complicated, it simply
didn't get accepted as a daily prayer. On the other hand, there were indeed
some simple prayers which were accepted for Yamim Noraim -- two examples
which come to mind are Unesaneh Tokef and V'chol Maaminim.

Akiva Miller

____________________________________________________________
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1--  with nusach  ashkenaz being  longer  than sfard  or  chabad, [the
latter only  until gedalia], curious  if  anyone sees  shuls  skipping
parts of  slichos , and if so  which?

2---  other than some large MO  shuls, is any other places  doing  slichos
after maariv [ ie  pre-chatzot]?



saul newman
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What I am about to write isn't an answer, but maybe it will give some 
context.

The language in any section of the Tanach which is prose is much simpler 
than the poetic, shir portions. The writers of the slichot and the tefilot 
may have followed this style. For the everyday prayer, you make it simple. 
But something which is rarely said, whose purpose is not a simple (well 
whatever the purpose of prayer is, be it asking for something or connecting 
to God or whatever), you use a different style of language.

Ben
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <kennethgmil...@juno.com>



> R' Moshe Y. Gluck asked:
>
>> Why did the writers of Selichos and Kinnos do so in such difficult
>> to understand language?

RET wrote:

> > Many have quoted his psak that ashkenazim in EY should in general
> > follow the Mechaber.
> >

And RSM then questioned:

> I have seen this "quoted" many times recently on Avodah/Areivim, but I
> don't recall reading it anywhere in ROY's teshuvot. He frequently cites
Maran
> HaBeit Yosef as "mara de'atra be'eretz yisrael", but I don't know of
> anywhere where he says that Ashkenazim should follow him against their
> own minhag avot. Can someone give a citation?

I am responding on Avodah, given the citations.

What ROY actually says, in his klalei hahorah at the end of the first volume
of Yachavei Daat in klal 10 of the klalei Maran Shulchan Aruch is:

Ashkenazim who are lenient in Eretz Yisrael like the opinion of Maran,
against the opinion of the Rema, they have on what to rely [yesh lo al ma
l'smoch].  But in any event it is correct that they should conduct
themselves in Eretz Yisroel like the opinion of the Rama.

The citation there is given to Yabiat Omer chelek 2 chelek Orech Chaim siman
37, but I think it is a misprint and the citation should be to chelek 5
chelek orech chaim siman 37, as there is no siman 37 in chelek 2, and the
siman chelek 5 is right on point.  It also says see Chelek 5 chelek Yoreh
Deah siman 3.

Note this this particular klal though is only discussing chumras of the Rema
(in the case of the teshuva in chelek 5 chelek orech chaim siman 37, the
substance of the discussion is kitniot on pesach).  Where we are discussing
chumros of the Shulchan Aruch over the Rema (which is what is at issue in
chelek 5 chelek Yoreh Deah siman 3, notably glatt meat), then he appears to
be suggesting that indeed Ashkenazim in Eretz Yisroel should be strict like
the Shulchan Aruch.

Note by the way with regard to the topic we are discussing on Areivim,
namely sheitels, there is yet another issue involved.  If you hold that the
issue of a married woman going out with hair uncovered has to do with issues
of ervah, rather than some sort of chok that devolves upon the woman, then
at stake is not (or not just) what the woman does, but what is seen by the
onlooking man.  Assuming that in Eretz Yisroel that women is going to be
seen by Sephardim (and somebody cited a statistic that 60% of Jews in Eretz
Yisroel are Sephardim), then arguably, even if one did in general regard
oneself as not poskening for the other community, one might feel it
appropriate or compelled to do so in this case, to prevent one's own
community from sinning.

Oh and to answer yet one further question that was raised on Areivim, ROY
clearly does believe that sheitels are a step up from no hair covering at
all, as that was his solution in Yabi'at Omer Chelek 4 Even HaEzer siman 3
for a young woman who is a widow or divorcee  on the grounds that as she was
not a married woman, there was room to be lenient and to permit a sheitel in
a case of great need (but unlike Rav Moshe in Iggeros Moshe Even HaEzer
Chelek 1 siman 47, he was not prepared to go as far as permitting a widow or
divorcee to go bareheaded in a case of great need).

Gmar Chatima tova

Chana

On 8/09/2010 9:58 PM, Simon Montagu wrote:
> article here at aishdas: http://www.aishdas.org/articles/mizrach.htm.
>Apparently it's a mahloket aharonim whether we use rhumb lines or great
> circles.

The article claims that the Levush appears to support a rhumb line;
Over yomtov I learned through this Levush, and I can't see how this
conclusion was reached.  He doesn't address the issue; all he says is
that the correct direction "in these countries" is SE rather than E.
The Levush lived in Prague, where the difference between a great circle
and a rhumb line is a mere 7.8 degrees, and in Posen, where it's even
less, so the issue was irrelevant to him.


> I'm still curious to know what Jews in Alaska do lema'ase.

They probably do just like Jews elsewhere; build the shul in the most
convenient way and then rationalise why that direction is more-or-less
correct.

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

R. Simon Montagu wrote:
: It's easy to see from a globe that the same is true, lehavdil, for the
: distance from Alaska to Jerusalem. Does anyone happen to know in which
: direction Jews in Alaska pray?
 
See R. Elozor Reich's article at http://www.aishdas.org/
articles/mizrach.htm.  From his article, it appears that the Emunas
Chachamim (R. Aviad Sar Shalom), the Yaavetz and the Baal Hatanya favoured
the Great Circle over the Rhumb Line in determining which way to face.	The
Levush (who was "an expert in mathematics and astronomy" - RYLevine:
there's another one to add to you list!) apparently favoured the Rhumb
Line.  Ayen sham.
 
G'mar tov
Dov Kaiser                                        
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On 9/09/2010 4:01 AM, s newman wrote:

> 2---  other than some large MO  shuls, is any other places  doing
>  slichos after maariv [ ie  pre-chatzot]?

Spanish & Portuguese say selichot after maariv.  According to R Gabbay,
of Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia, the reason was simply because it was
hard to get a minyan in the morning.

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

On 9/8/2010 14:01, s newman wrote:
> 1--  with nusach  ashkenaz being  longer  than sfard  or  chabad, [the
> latter only  until gedalia], curious  if  anyone sees  shuls  skipping

My working man's yeshiva skips on ERH and as needed to have a minyan and 
still end davening on time. During 10YT we schedule 45 minutes for 
selichos, and 1.5 hours ERH.

-- 
Yitzchak Schaffer

  RMB:

<<

We use plumb line directions, meaning -- you get to Israel by heading east
then south, or south than east, without looking at diagonals.

 >>

When I was young I was told that we use the reverse of the course our 
ancestors took to get here, which is why we don't use the great circle 
route.

David Riceman

  RMYG

<<Why did the writers of Selichos and Kinnos do so in such difficult to 
understand language?>>

Rabbi Soloveitchik as transcribed in the new set of Kinnos suggests that 
it was a response to persecution; the bad guys [presumably the Byzantine 
Empire] banned or restricted Torah study, so the Jewish response was to 
summarize midrashim in byzantine (lower case b) poetry.

RMB:

<<This is largely an Ashocentric question.>>

No, the Kallir and his contemporaries predate the migrations to Ashkenaz 
and Sefarad (actually there were Jews in Ashkenaz and Sefarad before his 
time, but the cultures we think of by those names came later).

David Riceman

On Sun, Sep 12, 2010 at 01:59:46PM -0400, David Riceman wrote:
> RMB:
>> This is largely an Ashocentric question.

> No, the Kallir and his contemporaries predate the migrations to Ashkenaz  
> and Sefarad (actually there were Jews in Ashkenaz and Sefarad before his  
> time, but the cultures we think of by those names came later).

Still, the byzantine nature of selichos, qinos and piyutim in general
is far more true of those that found their way into minhag Ashkenaz than
those said by Sepharadim.

I don't think a Sepharadi would wonder why piyutim are so complicated
and opaque, and thus I considered the question "Ashkocentric".

GCT!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow
mi...@aishdas.org        man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries
http://www.aishdas.org   about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                       - Rav Yisrael Salanter

On 13/09/2010 3:52 AM, David Riceman wrote:
> RMB:
>
> <<
>
> We use plumb line directions, meaning -- you get to Israel by heading east
> then south, or south than east, without looking at diagonals.
>
>  >>
>
> When I was young I was told that we use the reverse of the course our ancestors took to get here, which is why we don't use the great circle route.

 From which direction did Jews (let alone "our" ancestors -- whose?) arrive
in San Francisco?  Did they come from the east or the south?  Should shuls
in Texas and surrounding states point towards Galveston?


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

From: R' Jonathan Dickson <Jonathan.Dick...@blplaw.com>

> Simon Montagu's query about which way to face when davening is,
> of course, relevant wherever in the world you are - there will always
> be at least some divergence (and it could be quite significant) in
> which way to face depending on whether you use a rhumb line
> or great circle path to calculate where Yerushalayim is.

One advantage of living in Yerusholayim is that you can be 100% sure
your shul is facing the correct direction. Just go onto the roof and
check. :-)

From: R' Liron Kopinsky <liron.kopin...@gmail.com>:

> "East" from anywhere:

In Yericho and the dead-sea area they daven West. Hard to believe
anyone would argue.

We daven South-East with each shul having a slightly different
direction, and all of them pointing directly in the correct direction.
:-)

Actually, IIRC, it's mentioned in Halocho that one should not daven
directly "East"; since the idol worshippers tended to daven facing the
sunrise.

See also KSA 18:10 that "by us we daven S-E" - and those in the South
should daven North,etc.

- Danny

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 11:04:06AM +0200, Danny Schoemann wrote:
: We daven South-East with each shul having a slightly different
: direction, and all of them pointing directly in the correct direction.
: :-)

To further muddy the waters:
Which way do you face for the last verse of Lekhah Dodi?

My take is that the original cadre saying it in Tzefat would have turned
90 deg, from facing south to west.

R' Moshe Cordevero's Shaar haKavanos says that the Queen is greeted
when facing west because the Shechinah is om the west. Nothing about
the back of the shul, facing the door, etc... 

GCT!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A sick person never rejects a healing procedure
mi...@aishdas.org        as "unbefitting." Why, then, do we care what
http://www.aishdas.org   other people think when dealing with spiritual
Fax: (270) 514-1507      matters?              - Rav Yisrael Salanter

  Me:
>>
>> When I was young I was told that we use the reverse of the course our 
>> ancestors took to get here, which is why we don't use the great 
>> circle route.
>
> RZS:
> From which direction did Jews (let alone "our" ancestors -- whose?) 
> arrive
> in San Francisco?  Did they come from the east or the south?  Should 
> shuls
> in Texas and surrounding states point towards Galveston?
>
>
I asked those same questions, and was told that the bulk of American 
Jewry arrived via the east coast, and the bulk of Jews in the west came 
via the east.  I don't know how this explanation would hold up in the 
era of migration via airplane, but it does explain, for example, why 
Bavel and EY are each north of the other.

But we were talking about Bostonians (before the high tech migration).

David Riceman

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 6:05 AM, David Riceman <drice...@optimum.net> wrote:

>  Me:
>
>>
>>> When I was young I was told that we use the reverse of the course our
>>> ancestors took to get here, which is why we don't use the great circle
>>> route.
>>>
>>
>> RZS:
>>
>> From which direction did Jews (let alone "our" ancestors -- whose?) arrive
>> in San Francisco?  Did they come from the east or the south?  Should shuls
>> in Texas and surrounding states point towards Galveston?
>>
>>
>>  I asked those same questions, and was told that the bulk of American
> Jewry arrived via the east coast, and the bulk of Jews in the west came via
> the east.  I don't know how this explanation would hold up in the era of
> migration via airplane, but it does explain, for example, why Bavel and EY
> are each north of the other.
>
> But we were talking about Bostonians (before the high tech migration).
>
>
In hachei namei. I don't know about the first Jews on the east coast of the
USA, but the large-scale immigration at the end of the 19th century came by
ship from Northern Europe, and would have come in a direction closer to the
great circle than the rhumb line to Jerusalem.
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  On 9/13/2010 10:28 AM, Simon Montagu wrote:
>
> In hachei namei. I don't know about the first Jews on the east coast 
> of the USA, but the large-scale immigration at the end of the 19th 
> century came by ship from Northern Europe, and would have come in a 
> direction closer to the great circle than the rhumb line to Jerusalem.
>
>
On reflection, I don't know how much of what I wrote is actually 
relevant.  With the admirable exception of Habad, most new Jewish 
communities in the US were not set up by religious scholars, and most 
shuls were not founded by them.  By the time scholars got there the 
local custom was already established, and changing an established 
direction of prayer is a different issue from establishing one (see MB 
94 SK 10 and see BH ad. loc. for a dissenting opinion, though admittedly 
they're not talking about the desireability of redesigning the synagogue).



David Riceman

Does anyone have an explanation as to why we start with Kel Erech Apaim and
go to Kel Melech?  If so, can you also explain why, for Yom Kippur Katan,
the order is reversed:	all Kel Melech, and then one Kel Erech Apaim at the
end.

Second question:  why do we ask "Avinu Malkenu Pesach shaarei shamayim lisfilasenu" AFTER Avinu Malkenu Shema kolenu?


Gershon
gershon.du...@juno.com
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On Wed, Sep 08, 2010 at 02:46:24PM +0200, Arie Folger wrote:
: RMB wrote:
:> If we buy into the Rambam's model of what halakhah is
:> -- which, again, has Aristotelian foundation -- not only
:> did the chassidim bend the halachic process into a
:> pretzel, there are NO observant Jews today. And thus
:> the contrapositive, if we accept the halachic process as
:> practiced by acharonim and arguably most rishonim,
:> then what do we do with what the Rambam describes?

: Can you elaborate, please?

First, an overall observation about the role of Truth in the Rambam's
perspective. Leshitaso, Yedi'ah is everything -- it's the means that
makes a homosapien a ben adam WRT hashgachah peratis (Moreh 3:18), the
key to olam haba, the essence of avodas Hashem (3:50), mitzvos exist
to remove falsehood and teach the truth (3:26), etc... All mediation
between Hashem and the universe is via intellects (mal'akhim) and active
intellects, and many more examples.

The goal of life is to apprehend the Truth. Which is ultimately,
apprehending HQBH and how He runs the world. (As in the Rambam's peshat
in Moshe's requesting to see Hashem.)

In all this he is very Aristotilian. As I put it before, Hil' Dei'os
becomes proof that one truly mastered Yesodei haTorah, but the basic
Truths of Hil' Yesodei haTorah are to the Rambam's mind, the essence of
man's tafqid in this world. To Aristo, behaviors follow knowledge and
opinion, middos are consequences of knowledge.

And so, I find it unsurprising to assume the Rambam views pesaq as
a pursuit of truth rather than as a legal process. Now to explain
what I mean by that...

As I already cited from the two igeros RMShapiro translated (as part
of his argument against the historicity of Brisker derekh), the Rambam
consciously chose to understand the gemara as it read to him, and
abandoned his previous approach, which he credits to his predecessors
as well, of reading the gemara through the prism of the geonim. He felt
the latter was too error-prone.

Similarly, there are numerous cases in which Rashi explains the mishnah
as understood by the gemara, even if it's not the most straightforward
read, whereas the Rambam explains the mishnah kipeshuto. (Rashi fits the
mishnah to the gemara, the Rambam is more likely to fit the gemara to
the mishnah.) One example we discussed here in the past is chatzi nezeq
tzeroros. Another case is the Rambam on Tamis 5:6, which understands
the mishnah to be discussing the requirement for mechuserei kaparah to
stand outside the sha'ar niqanor. In contrast to Rashi (Pesachim 82a)
which says it's about actual full temei'im who were standing by a gate
to Har haBayis. The Maharsha in Pesachim asks about this Rambam, as he
seems to be conflicting with the gemara there. Re'ei sham. Yes, there
are teirutzim; I'm just showing one example among many about where the
Rambam is willing to place his dochaq -- on the interpreter, not the
primary source.

I once contrasted three approaches to texts:

The classical academic tried to find the original meaning of a text.

The deconstructionist realizes that that pursuit is futile, that we
never encounter a text with a purely clean slate, and therefore shifted
the game to being an analysis of the reader's encounter with the text.

I suggested that the way halakhah is viewed (with the Rambam as an
exception) is somewhere in between. What Rav Meir meant when he said
something in the mishnah might be of historical interest, but what is
relevent is how Rebbe understood it when recording it. And that in fact
is only relevent in how R' Yochanan and Reish Laqish, Abayei and Rava,
Ravina and Rav Ashi, etc... understood Rebbe. And they in turn are
understood in terms of how the geonim and rishonim explain them, and we
really care more about the interpretations of the Shach and the Taz, R'
Aqiva Eiger, R' CO Grozinsky, RMF and RSZA el al of the rishonim than
some historical pursuit of the rishon's original intent.

Halakhah is an oral tradition -- the intent is for a checked evolution,
for progressive interpretation.

Rather than original intent or final encounter, we take a historical
flow, a middle path. And it's the weight of that momentum that should
impact the reader.

This is valid because the pursuit of pesaq is the interpretation of law.
And law allows for multiple valid interpretations that the decisor must
select among.

The Rambam, OTOH, is a classicist. He learned texts looking for
original intent. HQBH's, if it's a din de'oraisa, the beis din who
enacted a law, if a derabbanan, the oldest copy of a recorded pesaq, if
neither. Therefore, if his read differed from the weight of historical
interpretation of the gemara, he simply found the geonim to be "wrong",
and thus relying on them was an error-prone approach to studying gemara.

By the Rambam's system, there is far less established law, since his
only concept of precedent is that of the Legislator, legislators, or
pre-Ravina clarification of unknowns. So one has personal decisionmaking
space in many questions we would consider decided.

OTOH, he also doesn't allow for reinterpretation of existing law. One
doesn't follow a dochaq (objectively or by personal taste) read in the
gemara because "that's how the world holds".

I therefore think that the Rambam would consider all of us "off the
derekh".

Does your wife wash mayim acharonim? Do you allow someone who claps in
shul take the amud -- or is he a mechalel Shabbos befarhesia? Think of
all the shifts in nusach between the gemara and ALL of our contemporary
siddurim. The Rambam doesn't allow for shift from anything set by
Chazal -- as he personally felt was the correct way to read chazal. At
least if you followed your own read uninfluenced by subsequent pesaq and
their popularity, you would be following his version of the halachic
process. You would be wrong in the perat, but at least on the right
derekh.

And therefore conversely... If what we're doing is that far from the
Rambam's notion of how halakhah works, what does that say about the Rambam
in comparison to the rest of the halachic mesorah? And so, I was led to
a very uncomfortable place, one where I wonder how the SA -- and we --
can use the Rambam as a halachic source is he is "playing a different
game" than we are? (I know intellectually you can; I have an open kasha
[qushya] that I personally find pressing.)

GCT!
-Micha

Cc: RZLampel

-- 
Micha Berger             A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure.
mi...@aishdas.org        It preserves health, promotes convalescence,
http://www.aishdas.org   and helps us cope with adversity.
Fax: (270) 514-1507         - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei"


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