Avodah Mailing List

Volume 30: Number 82

Tue, 03 Jul 2012

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Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Message: 1
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2012 15:51:40 -0400
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Who is a Talmid Chacham


On Tue, Jul 03, 2012 at 02:54:09PM -0400, Rich, Joel wrote:
:> I don't think the comparison holds. 
:> Generating wealth is a matter of accomplishment. 

: I usually answer this with the following: 

: Imagine a parent had twins who he sent out on their own missions --
: the first he gave $1000 ....                        the second he gave
: $1,000,000 and gave him the same charge. In a year the first came back
: with investment income of $1000 and the second with $100,000....
:                The wise father would realize however that the first had
: ROI of 100% while the second had ROI of only 10%. Hameivin Yavin.

And in our nimshal, the Father only gave his children the "money" in order
to allow them to develop themselves. It's not how much is made or even the
ROI, it's the ability to produce returns that is the iqar.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha



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Message: 2
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2012 16:11:59 -0400
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Spontaneous Generation


On Sun, Jul 01, 2012 at 02:23:41AM -0400, cantorwolb...@cox.net wrote:
: The above statement regarding lice created only by perspiration has been disproven and is no longer controversial. 
: Would the above halacha permitting lice to be killed therefore be invalid? Or does any halacha which has been proven
: to be based on faulty information still have to remain? (lo plug)   

There are a number of approaches discussed here in the past:

1- The notion of nishtanah hateva, which by most understandings of the
phrase would be okay when the issue could be changed by breeding,
a stretch when it would require very rapid evolution, and very hard to
explain when the field isn't biology. (The sun now travels a different
path than 2 millenia ago?)

R' Avraham ben haRamabam undestands "teva" differently than the "most"
of the prior paragraph. He translates the phrase "our theories of nature
changed". And so halakhah changes as scientific theory does.

2- In order to be meiqil, you need every reason lequlah to be valid. But
in order to be machmir, only one reason needs to hold. The Vilna Gaon
suggests that whenever we are given the reason for a halakhah, there
are other, unstated reasons. Therefore, the while Vilna Gaon (and RAYKook)
would change the halakhah when our understanding of the realia changes --
they only accept doing so lechumerah.

3- In shiur, R' Dovid Lifshitz addressed the question of the kashrus of
maggots found within the meat. There are two causes for having a maggot
large enough (not microscopic) to be a kashrus issue: the egg, and the
meat the larva and maggot ate to allow it to grow to that size. RDL said
that since the initial maggot eggs are microscopic, they don't count. Leaving
one cause that does count -- the meat.

Leaving us at the same place as the gemara -- the maggots are "born from"
the meat.

(Over time, I spun this into a general theory about halakhah related to
the world as we directly experience it rather than the world as we can
scientifically understand it. Since Greek Natural Philosophy tends to
match the former, chazal's "science" is usually still valid for the sake
of pesaq.)

4- The Kesef Mishnah (Mamrim 2:2) says that halakhah lose malleability
with the closing of the gemara and the end of the Sanhedrin. By the
rules of the legal process, decisions made based on the old understanding
are still binding.

5- The CI (Yavamos 57:3 and on AZ 9a) also has a cut-off date where
malleability ends. But his is the year 4000, the generation of the
mishnah, at the end of the two millenia of Torah. Hashem wanted us
to decide the law based on how the world was understood during those
millenia.

(Citations by RGS
<http://www.aishdas.org/toratemet/science.html>. My exposition doesn't
match his, reflecting more conclusions reached during prior iterations
on the topic.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

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



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Message: 3
From: Doron Beckerman <beck...@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2012 23:12:08 +0300
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] confiscating property


We had a long back and forth on this in the lifnei iver/kanaus thread some
years back. R' Zalman Nechemia permits confiscation of a student's
property, "Shelo Yehei Mamono Chaviv Miguffo," and IMHO he has the upper
hand of that argument, by far.
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Message: 4
From: Doron Beckerman <beck...@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2012 23:18:07 +0300
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Who is a Talmid Chacham


>> If someone is claiming he has a patur from the way of the world, I
expect him to act like it. <<

By your own standards, you wouldn't absolve Eliyahu Hanavi either, since he
ran away from Izevel. Or Yeshayahu Hanavi who was actually killed by
Menashe. Or Zecharyah. Or anyone who was killed in the holocaust.

It means that he contributes to security by his full time learning, and
does not need to contribute in any other way. They are the literal Neturei
Karta.
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Message: 5
From: Arie Folger <afol...@aishdas.org>
Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2012 22:34:43 +0200
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Mechallel Shabbos to destroy a non-kosher phone


In your discussions of the Toldos Aharon Rebbe's statement to his
Chassiedim that they may destroy a non kosher phone on Shabbos, RMB
argues that the TA Rebbe has no authority to force his own view on the
unwilling owner of the internet capable smartphone, while RZS argues
that as a rebbe, he is accepted and empowered by his community to
issue such edicts.

The problem I see with RSZ's argument is that knowing what happens in
that neck of the woods, the TA likely did not mean that one may
destroy a non kosher phone found in the hand of one of his Chassiedim,
but rather, a la vaad mishmeres hatznius, that one may destroy it when
found in the hands of any renegade chossid (who obviously no longer
accepts the rebbe's authority and may have ceased to belong to TA), or
even in the hands of any stranger walking into "their" neighborhoods,
particularly American yeshiva bochrim.

So even if the rebbe has power in his community, that fails to answer
how he could have power over a neighborhood over which he has no
formal authority, or over people who are not within his community.

Kol tuv,
--
Arie Folger,
Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/
* Die Beschneidung ist im Judentum unentbehrlich
* Joe the Pumber, Guns Control and the Lethal Oppression of the Masses
* Offene Brief an die Redaktion von ?Die Zeit?
* Alle sind gleich vor dem Schabbat, dem hochmodernen Ruhetag
* Thoughts on a Polarizing Society
* Do we Owe Respect to Old Bones?



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Message: 6
From: Zev Sero <z...@sero.name>
Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2012 16:54:40 -0400
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Mechallel Shabbos to destroy a non-kosher phone


On 3/07/2012 3:36 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> I don't see how this addresses my question. Accepting someone as one's
> rebbe is different than walking into their court.

Yes, it's greater.  He's not a posek, he's a melech.

-- 
Zev Sero        "Natural resources are not finite in any meaningful
z...@sero.name    economic sense, mind-boggling though this assertion
                  may be. The stocks of them are not fixed but rather
                 are expanding through human ingenuity."
                                            - Julian Simon



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Message: 7
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2012 17:04:10 -0400
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Mechallel Shabbos to destroy a non-kosher phone


On Tue, Jul 03, 2012 at 04:54:40PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
> Yes, it's greater.  He's not a posek, he's a melech.

Not in any halachic sense.

You're using rhetoric to blur the legal precision of halachic discourse.
Much the way RnTK suggested about the original declaration. And I suggested
a couple of weeks ago about the Aseifah.

One effect of daas Torah or the Chassidishe rebbe-talmid relationship is
that by using similar mechanisms to obtain pesaq halakhah as to obtain
extra-halachic guidance, it becomes too easy to blur the line between
them.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha



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Message: 8
From: Zev Sero <z...@sero.name>
Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2012 16:58:55 -0400
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Who is a Talmid Chacham


On 3/07/2012 4:18 PM, Doron Beckerman wrote:
> It means that he contributes to security by his full time learning, and
> does not need to contribute in any other way. They are the literal
> Neturei Karta.

Historical question: had the security guards hired by the British been
shomrei shabbos, or at least respectful of the shabbos in public, would
there have been such resistance to the tax that paid for them, and would
NK ever have formed?

-- 
Zev Sero        "Natural resources are not finite in any meaningful
z...@sero.name    economic sense, mind-boggling though this assertion
                  may be. The stocks of them are not fixed but rather
                 are expanding through human ingenuity."
                                            - Julian Simon



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Message: 9
From: Zev Sero <z...@sero.name>
Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2012 17:13:06 -0400
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Mechallel Shabbos to destroy a non-kosher phone


On 3/07/2012 5:04 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 03, 2012 at 04:54:40PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
>> >  Yes, it's greater.  He's not a posek, he's a melech.
> Not in any halachic sense.
>
> You're using rhetoric to blur the legal precision of halachic discourse.

No, I'm being precise.  He has exactly the authority he needs to make
such a takanah.

-- 
Zev Sero        "Natural resources are not finite in any meaningful
z...@sero.name    economic sense, mind-boggling though this assertion
                  may be. The stocks of them are not fixed but rather
                 are expanding through human ingenuity."
                                            - Julian Simon



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Message: 10
From: Lisa Liel <l...@starways.net>
Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2012 16:14:08 -0500
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Mechallel Shabbos to destroy a non-kosher phone


On 7/3/2012 3:54 PM, Zev Sero wrote:
> On 3/07/2012 3:36 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
>> I don't see how this addresses my question. Accepting someone as one's
>> rebbe is different than walking into their court.
>
> Yes, it's greater.  He's not a posek, he's a melech.

Not halakhically.

Lisa



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Message: 11
From: Zvi Lampel <zvilam...@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2012 16:38:55 -0400
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Translation of Makkos, Rav Dovid Feinstein



Regarding Rav Dovid Feinstteins intent in writing "sheh-shofchim 
l'eebude ha-makkos": After writing a letter to the Rosh Yeshiva, vetted 
by the participants in this discussion (and available upon request), I 
waited a few days without receiving an answer. But I was at a simcha 
where I spoke to someone who happens to know someone close to the Rosh 
Yeshiva, and this is the reply I got:

Reb Zvi-
My friend spoke to Reb Dovid Shlit"a. All Reb Dovid would comment is 
that it is to be understood the conventional way that we spill the wine 
because of the suffering of the Egyptians. He will not respond in writing.
I hope this was helpful. Kol tuv.

Actually, I 'm surprised. I was actually getting convinced the original 
translation was wrong, but I was mistaken. Of course, this is not quite 
as solid as a written response, or a second-hand response; and I'm 
frustrated that it won't be put in writing. Also, I'm trying to find out 
if "understood the conventional way" was Reb Dovid's words or those of 
one of the others, and whether it refers to the "conventional way" of 
understanding the wording (unlikely, I think), or the concept of 
limiting celebration over the death/suffering of reshaim. And of course, 
the wide range of explanations being offered for what that concept 
means--feeling sorry for them, feeling sorry for Hashem, etc.) remains open.

But I still think the Hebrew should be edited to make the intention 
clear--unless, of course, it's purposely phrased to be ambiguous.

Zvi Lampel


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