Avodah Mailing List

Volume 31: Number 41

Sun, 10 Mar 2013

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Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Message: 1
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2013 21:36:40 -0500
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Fwd: BeisDin Errs Who Brings the Chattos?


Along the same lines, see
    On the Nature and Future of Halakha in Relation to Autonomous
    Religiosity
    Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo
    http://www.jewishideas.org/print/539

and the response at
    Halacha and Autonomous Religiosity: What's the Problem?
    by Gidon Rothstein
    http://j.mp/WU8R2C - shortened from
    http://text.rcarabbis.org/h
    alacha-and-autonomous-religiosity-what%E2%80%99s-the-problem-by-gidon-r
    othstein/

RNLC invokes the Maharal under discussion, as well as the Yam shel Shelomo,
and suggests:
    ...
    By all means, we should continue to study the works of Maimonides and
    Rabbi Joseph Karo and possibly even live by their directives. They
    belong to the best which Judaism has to offer. But we should be
    careful not to create an impression that there are no alternative
    ways. We must make our young searching people aware that halakha is
    much more than what these works represent. Above all, we should see
    these works as sublime commentaries on the Talmud. Specifically,
    Maimonides' Mishneh Torah offers us profound insights into how
    his genius mind read and understood the Talmud. It is in this, and
    not in his attempt to codify Jewish Law, that Maimonides made his
    greatest contribution to Jewish learning. Ultimately, it is only by
    the discussions in the Talmud that we, with the help of our rabbis,
    should decide how to live our religious lives.

    Judaism is an Autonomous Way of Living

    The question we now need to ask is how to bring Judaism back to its
    original authentic "self" in which the halakhic tradition of "elu
    ve-elu," is once more recognized and applied. Can we reactivate this
    concept in order to bring new life into the bloodstream of Judaism
    for those young people who are in dire need? Surely the principle of
    "elu ve-elu" is not a blank check that anything goes. The principle
    should only be implemented if it will stimulate greater commitment
    to Jewish religious life while simultaneously responding to the many
    drastic changes which have taken place in our modern world. The
    need for human autonomy as well as spirituality and meaning which
    are sought by so many young people will have to be addressed.

    We must realize that Judaism is an autonomous way of life. While the
    need for conformity within the community must constantly be taken into
    consideration, ultimately one is expected to respond as an individual
    to the Torah's demands. Each human being is an entire world, and
    no two human beings are identical in their psychological make up,
    religious needs or experience of God. One can only encounter God as
    an individual. What, after all, is the purpose of my existence if
    not to relate to God differently from my neighbor?...

RGR replies (also, only in part):

    I stress the unequivocal aspect of this precisely because R. Cardozo
    (and he is not the first) assumes that Judaism records so many
    alternate approaches as to preclude any such well-accepted core.
    In this view, if we only shed the shackles of the attempt to impose
    codification the Talmud never intended, people could find their way
    to a more productive and more personal experience of the religion.
    One of the points of my posts was that, with all the debate in the
    Talmud and beyond -- R. Cardozo, to my mind, grossly exaggerates the
    extent to which works of codification have stifled multiple voices,
    the concerns of Maharshal notwithstanding -- there is an unarguable
    set of ideas and practices that are not only obligatory on all Jews,
    but that necessarily and centrally shape any Jewishness worthy of
    the name.

    Truth is, R. Cardozo should have been forced to realize this,
    to some extent, simply as a result of his casual assumption that
    the religion focuses on worship of God. Both the words 'worship'
    and 'God' need some sort of definition, no matter how broad, and
    going outside of that definition will be the same as going outside
    the acceptable parameters of Judaism. My Mission posts show that
    Scriptural, Talmudic, and post-Talmudic sources evince broader
    agreement than his article recognizes.

    What he is noticing, I believe, is not the results of codification
    per se, but of a more recent phenomenon, in which our community
    focuses only on certain sections of those works, warping the picture
    those works themselves presented. That we can confuse the entirety
    of the religion with observing Shabbat and kashrut, or with wearing
    certain clothing to the exclusion of other clothing, or with whatever
    subset we have turned into "real Judaism" is distressing, but not
    a development we can or should blame on Rambam or R. Yosef Caro.

    A Problem and Its Solution

    Diagnosing the problem correctly affects the solution we will pursue.
    R. Cardozo argues for a return to a Talmudic era in which Judaism let
    a thousand flowers bloom, in which the ethos of elu va-elu, these
    and these are the words of the Living God, offered a broader range
    of religious options to those seeking God. I think he misrepresents
    the Talmudic era itself, but more than that he reaches unnecessarily
    far for his remedy.

    as to Talmudic times, the Tosefta in Sotah 14;9, cited in Sanhedrin
    98b, blames the multiplicity of debates on students' failure to study
    properly, hardly an encomium for diversity of opinion in the halachic
    world; turning to elu va-elu itself, while Kabbalists did, indeed,
    find an interpretation in which it meant that all those opinions were
    right, most rishonim (and R. Moshe Feinstein, in his introduction
    to Iggerot Moshe) understand the phrase as allowing us to tolerate
    a wrong opinion as long as it was reached through valid process.
    Indeed, the general understanding of the mitzvah to follow majority
    rule -- and the largely-ignored obligation of lo titgodedu, not to
    have Jewish communities be split by multiple forms of practice --
    seems to prefer avoiding precisely the kinds of splits R. Cardozo
    wants to uphold as an ideal.

But I think my reply to RGR's post might email RMR understand my position
better (if not why I think the Rambam, Maharal and RCV aren't saying what
he attributes to them), so I'm including it in full:
     I think there is a major failing in not clearly distinguishing
     between codification and the need for codification. When we say that
     Rebbe's decision to codify the mishnah was an instance of overturning
     a specific law for the sake of the whole, we're clearly saying the
     situation was a step down. BUT, that doesn't mean that codifying
     -- whether the Mesrashei Halakhah, the Bishnah, the Tosefta, the
     Talmuds, the Beha"g, the Rif, the Rambam, the Tur, the Shulchan
     Arukh, the Levush, the Rama, the Shulchan Arukh haRav, the Chayei
     Adam, the Qitzur, the Arukh haShulchan, the Mishnah Berurah, the Ben
     Ish Hai, etc, etc, etc.. were themselves a bad idea. It is sad when
     we reach an impasse that requires a new round of codification. But
     when we do need it, producing a code is the right response.

     The formula the Rambam uses to describe the what gave the Talmud
     Bavli its binding nature is that it was accepted by "all of
     Israel". Not in every one of its rulings, but as the point of
     origin for further study. And today, across the gamut, semichah
     studies center around the Shulchan Arukh (with the exception of
     Bal'adi Teimanim who center their pisqa on the Rambam). The same
     concept which gives the gemara the authority R' Angel attributes
     to it gives the Shulchan Arukh its authority.

     I also find an interesting point of commonality between the two
     positions. R' Marc Angel questions the binding nature of evolution
     to halakhah since the gemara. R' Gidon Rothstein questions the
     significance of the evolution of aggadita since the rishonim. Both
     are therefore calling for some sort of roll back to an earlier
     state that was more to their liking.

     All this said, I am afraid that R' Angel, by going further than
     most of his audience would be willing to, loses that audience with
     respect to the primary problem. Orthodox Jews today are under
     the impression that the job of religion is to provide answers;
     and moreso, easy-to-understand answers that can resolve life's
     dilemmas in one sitting -- all tied up with a nice bow.

     In reality, life's problems are hard. Let me give a story
     from personal experience. Someone close to me is a baalas
     teshuvah. The only one in her family in a few generations to embrace
     observance. And she, like most baalei teshuvah, was presented a
     worldview in which, if you just believe enough, the only airplane
     one would miss is the one that was going to crash. (Many of you are
     familiar with this genre of story that I'm trying to portray.) But
     she, alone among all her siblings and cousins, went through the
     crashing pain of losing a daughter. So, where is the "better life"
     the kiruv professionals led her to expect? Life is not simple,
     and we do ourselves a disservice pretending it is.

     Religion's job isn't to resolve life's struggles, but to give us
     a meaningful way to grapple with them. Whether we're talking about
     our perspective on life, or about pesaq halakhah.

     Quick and cut-and-dry one-size-fits-all rulings isn't how halakhah
     is supposed to work. While I'm arguing that a ruling that "all of
     Israel" accepts is binding, we have gone well beyond that with the
     current proliferation of English halachic guides. There is a feel to
     the give-and-take of halakhah, to its responses to the costs to the
     individual, to their personal talents and emotional proclivities,
     where they stand spiritually and how they view life, that one really
     not only needs a human halachic decisor, but preferably one who
     knows the asker and can help them coordinate a spiritual journey
     through life.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
mi...@aishdas.org         'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
http://www.aishdas.org    'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
Fax: (270) 514-1507                     - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l



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Message: 2
From: Zev Sero <z...@sero.name>
Date: Sat, 09 Mar 2013 21:36:04 -0500
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] carrying an ID card on shabbat


On 9/03/2013 7:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 08, 2013 at 03:49:10PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
>> >                                        First I made the argument you deal
>> >with, that the ID card can't be batel to the garment (unlike a Jew-patch
>> >which is, because it's just a bit of fabric).
> To which I asked about the shaatnez checker's plumba. Or extra buttons
> sown onto the garment.

Because they are insignificant; they're just part of the coat.

> Or, for that matter, why cloth is different.

Because the coat is made of cloth!

> AFAIK, a manufacturer's
> label or one from a shaatnez checker sans plumba is only batel because
> it was made an integral part of it with stitching.

No.  The Jew-badge, for instance, does not have to stitched on.


> Unlike something pinned on, like a non-ornamental key.

No.  A key is not batel to the garment it's pinned to, and never can be,
even if you stitched it on.   The only thing you can do is make it a
tachshit on its own (for women) or else make it an integral part of a
belt, and even this doesn't work lechol hade'os, but the minhag is to
be lenient.


>> RMB cited the case of gloves as one where me'ikar hadin we pasken that
>> there's no gezera of "shema yishlof", and it's only a chumra to attach
>> them to the coat.  He wants to say that the same applies to the ID card.

> Well, since the SA says that mei'iqar hadin "shema yishlof" doesn't
> apply to gloves, yes.

How do you get from A to B?  Why should its non-application to gloves
have any effect on its application to ID?


> And Shemiras Shabbos Kehilchasa says the same about a non-ornamental
> watch, explicitly stating that an ornamental one (which you would
> wear even if it weren't working) is under the original gezeirza, since
> it's a tachshit.

I haven't got the sefer, but I believe you have this backwards.


> Thus, there is reason to hold that the gezeira only includes those
> situations that the gozerim included, no more.

Again, *where* are you getting this notion from?


> What does an extra button sown into the inside of a garment do? It's
> neither batel-able nor enhance the garment (until removed for use). It's
> just an easy way not to lose it before you need it. RSZA says it's the
> permanent attachment. I don't see any of this other sevara in the SSK.

Is the sefer online anywhere?  Or can you upload a scan of the page in
question?  Because AFAIK if you regard the spare button as something that
you will use one day, and its attachment to the coat is "just an easy way
not to lose it before you need it" then you may *not* wear it no matter
how firmly it's attached.


-- 
Zev Sero               A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and
z...@sero.name          substantial reason' why he should be permitted to
                        exercise his rights. The right's existence is all
                        the reason he needs.
                            - Judge Benson E. Legg, Woollard v. Sheridan



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Message: 3
From: Zev Sero <z...@sero.name>
Date: Sat, 09 Mar 2013 21:37:44 -0500
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] kitniyot


On 9/03/2013 4:02 PM, Ben Waxman wrote:
> On 3/8/2013 5:33 PM, Micha Berger wrote:

>>> One of the best known advocates of this lenient position was R' Yitzchak
>>> Elchanan Spektor (Be'er Yitzchak OC 11), who makes the case that "ein
>>> mevatlin issur lechatchila" does not apply to kitniyos, and thus permits an
>>> alcoholic beverage whose majority ingredient is honey, and whose
>>> minority ingredient is buckwheat .

> Therefore bourbon (minimum 51% derived from corn mash) should be OK?

You have that backwards.  If the kitniyos is the majority then how can it
be batel?  On the contrary, the other ingredients are batel to it!


-- 
Zev Sero               A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and
z...@sero.name          substantial reason' why he should be permitted to
                        exercise his rights. The right's existence is all
                        the reason he needs.
                            - Judge Benson E. Legg, Woollard v. Sheridan



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Message: 4
From: Eli Turkel <elitur...@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2013 10:59:31 +0200
Subject:
[Avodah] kitniyot


Zev writes

<<It's an explicit Rama. He permits lighting kitniyos oil, not eating it,
and his reason is that if it should happen to fall into the food it will
be batel.  IOW he is explicitly saying that the oil itself, in its non-
batel state, may not be eaten.  Given that I don't understand how anyone
could have permitted it.>>


I already pointe dout last year that the Marcheshet said that kiniyot oils
are no problem and Ramah means only oils made on Pesach. I find it strange
that Zev still insists that no one could permit it.
R. Elchanan Spektor and Rav Kook explicitly allowed using kitniyot oils
that had no mixture of water added. I believe that was the common custom in
South Africa. .see also Minchat Yitzchak  (IV:114:3) and also Mikra?ai
Kodesh, Pesach II:60:2. Rav Frank also allows peanuts and certainly peanut
oil. He brings down that he heard that Rav Chaim Soloveitchik allowed
cottenseed oil and agrees with that psak

I would also point out that RMF explicitly states that using peanuts (or
peanut oil) on Pesach depends on one's family minhag. As such (as far as I
know) all Ashkenazi communties do not use corn or soya or their oils sice
corn is used for bread and soya is a bean. Evewn though these are not
included in the original gezerah they were nevertheless accepted by minhag
as kitniyot.

The OU allowed cottenseed oil. In Israel Rav Landau gave a hechsher for
many years until it was withdrawn under charedi pressure. see the OU
bulletin available at http://www.kashrut.com/Passover/Kitniyot/ for other
information.

BTW the Rema (467:8) cites customs to not eat honey, raisins, dried fruit,
sugar, saffron and cloves which I beleive most communities do not follow.


Eli Turkel
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Message: 5
From: T6...@aol.com
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2013 03:02:54 -0400 (EDT)
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] carrying an ID card on shabbat




 
From: Micha Berger _micha@aishdas.org_ (mailto:mi...@aishdas.org) 

> I don't  believe that would change anything; it adds nothing to the
> clothing so  the fact that it's sewn on doesn't stop it from being
> a burden. Just as  one can't just pin a key to ones clothing and
> call it a button, but must  either make it genuinely decorative (and
> gender-appropriate) or an  integral part of a garment, one would have
> to do the same with the ID  card...[--RZS]

>>So you remove the manufacturer's and shaatnez  inspector's labels before
the first time you wear a garment on Shabbos?  Unlike a key pin, this
is permanently attached to the garment and thus batul  to it.
According to SSK pg 215 RSZA says this is why extra buttons  sewn
onto a garment can be worn as well. (I am told RMF and RSYE  hold
similarly.)<<


Micha  Berger              
mi...@aishdas.org         





>>>>>
 
If a needle and thread are actually pushed through the actual ID card and  
the card is sewn onto a garment the same way a label or a button is sewn on, 
you  might have a point.  But I think an ID card may be hard plastic and 
would  have to be sewn in by being enclosed in some kind of holder or pocket 
or frame,  so that the pocket or holder is what is sewn onto the garment 
while the actual  card is readily removable from this pocket or frame.  So 
wearing a garment  with an ID sewn in this way would not really be comparable to 
wearing a garment  with a label or a spare button sewn in.
 
The Dutch Jewish community should make an outcry against a law that  
requires chillul Shabbos and the whole Jewish world should make an outcry about  
this.  And I agree with RZS that until the law is changed, the official,  
publicly stated position of the Dutch community should be that they will not  
carry on Shabbos outside an eruv and that the community as a whole will pay 
the  fines of any individual who is arrested for refusing to be mechallel  
Shabbos.
 
If there is an eruv somewhere but not everyone uses the eruv, then  that 
becomes a bit stickier, but the community should still reject this law  
altogether as incompatible with the principle of religious freedom, held so  dear 
by western democracies. 
 

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


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Message: 6
From: T6...@aol.com
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2013 03:45:42 -0400 (EDT)
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Starving children juxtaposed with a picture of




 

From: Marty Bluke <marty.bl...@gmail.com>
Subject: Starving  children juxtaposed with a picture of the first Beracha 
of Bentching

This  photo 
(_http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CI2uCSW0tXs/UTNM6oQUasI/
AAAAAAAAAFk/KDZnlMoRwHs/s400/Untitled.png_ 
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CI2uCSW0tXs/UTNM6oQUasI/
AAAAAAAAAFk/KDZnlMoRwHs/s400/Untitled.png) )
was  shared around Facebook last week, juxtaposing the first beracha of
Bentching  (which states that Hashem "gives food to all flesh, for His
kindness is  everlasting") with starving children somewhere in Africa. How
do we deal with  the obvious contradiction? Similarly how do we explain what
we say in Ashrei  every day "poseach es yadecha umasbea lol chai ratzon" in
the face of  starvation?

 
>>>>>
 
There is more than enough food in the world to feed every hungry child, and 
 there is also knowledge in the world of how to grow crops even in arid 
places  under adverse circumstances (the Israelis are masters at this).  So 
Hashem  has provided both the food and the human intelligence to produce more  
food.
 
The reason children are starving in Africa is that human beings, using  
their own bechirah, have deliberately created the conditions in which  children 
starve.  There are evil economic arrangements, like totalitarian  
Communism, which result in entire countries, like North Korea and Mugabe's  Zimbabwe 
(or the old USSR under Stalin), starving for decades.   Similarly, 
socialism, with its attendant political corruption and massive  inefficiencies, 
causes mass hunger in many countries.  
 
Then there are political and military realities, primarily wars, civil  
wars, guerilla wars, terrorism -- warfare being the second most  common 
producer of starving children.  
 
Sometimes adverse weather causes local food shortages, and when western  
countries step in and try to deliver food, local corrupt governments or local  
gangs either steal the food or for political reasons, prevent it from being 
 distributed.
 
But in every case, it is evil human actions that prevent food from reaching 
 starving children.  Hashem has provided enough food to feed everyone.
 
My daughter's professor of Environmental Science told the class that there  
are too many people in the world -- the current world population is  
unsustainable -- and that plagues, droughts, tsunamis, earthquakes and  hurricanes 
are Mother Nature's way of bringing the world population into  sustainable 
balance, and humans should not take steps to thwart Nature.   According to 
this professor, vaccinations, antibiotics, food aid in  drought-stricken 
areas, and pretty much all efforts to ameliorate human  suffering, are Bad for 
the Planet.  So as you can see, human evil is  everywhere, even in the 
seemingly benevolent form of a simple professor in a  Florida college.  Professors 
may be the most evil people of all, because  they use their G-d-given 
brains and power of speech to justify and  rationalize evil.  I conclude that 
most human suffering is caused by  the evil that lurks in the heart of man.
 

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


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Message: 7
From: T6...@aol.com
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2013 03:23:46 -0400 (EDT)
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] bal tashchit


Someone wrote:
 
"The RY giving our shiur thought that throwing out the food is baal  
taschit."
 
Time once again to explain that this should be "bal tashchit" -- "Do not  
destroy."    "Bal" is spelled bais-lamed.
 
It should not be written "baal tashchit" -- a nonsense phrase that if  
translated literally would mean "Master of you-will-destroy."



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


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Message: 8
From: "Kenneth Miller" <kennethgmil...@juno.com>
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2013 10:15:34 GMT
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] ADHD and Havinenu


When I consider various situations and the propriety of saying Havinenu, here's the roadblock I run into:

The full Shemoneh Esray is so familiar to me,  and Havinenu is so
unfamiliar, that - to my regret - Havinenu is of little or no advantage.
But clearly, Chazal must seen the advantage to be significant,	at least on
occasion,  or else it would never have been composed. So let's work with
that.

Now let's remember that for the entire winter,	the inability to say Tal
Umatar puts Havinenu out of reach, despite the significant advantage it
provides. Amazing! Would it have been so difficult to add a word or two, to
enable it for the winter? Why was this denied in the winter, to those who
benefit from it in the summer? 

Perhaps there is something special in this text which brooks no
modification. If so, then we're out of luck, because Tal Umatar can't be
added, and its absence is m'akev even b'dieved.

But then what about Atah Chonantanu? Someone who needs the significant
advantage of Havinenu on Motzaei Shabbos must forego that advantage, and
daven the full Shmoneh Esray because there's no room in Havinenu to add
anything about havdala --- even though the lack of havdala is NOT m'akev!

This is what confounds me about Havinenu. We often determine the b'dieved
acceptability of an act based on whether or not it contains all the
otherwise-meakev elements. (For example, under pressing circumstances, one
could deliberately omit Pesukei D'zimra from Shacharis, but never Sh'ma.)
Yet here we have a tefilla which was specifically designed for pressing
circumstances, and it is unavailable on Motzaei Shabbos even if pressing
circumstances arise.

This throws a monkey wrench into my entire logical thought process. R' Micha asked:

> I read a blog where the author admits that he wasn't davening
> regularly anymore, and so decided to switch to a shortened
> "Siddur" that starts with Birkhos Shema and uses Havinenu --
> "because it's better than not davening at all."
> ...
> But I was wondering if he would be yotzei at all. Okay,
> lekhatchilah it can't be advised, perhaps not in general,
> perhaps not even one-on-one to people like this blogger, but
> bedi'eved? ... Would they be yotz'im?

So, I suggest the following as a yardstick with which to answer the
question at hand: The halacha is very clear that Havinenu is unavailable on
Motzaei Shabbos. Even for one who needs the significant advantage that
Havinenu provides, he may not use it. But what if he DID? Is he yotzay or
not? My logic says that he ought to be yotzay, because he is not missing
any elements which are meakev. But if that is true, then why was he
specifically told NOT to do it?

Akiva Miller
____________________________________________________________
How to Sleep Like a Rock
Obey this one natural trick to fall asleep and stay asleep all night.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/513c5d8014c245d7f6088st02vuc



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Message: 9
From: Marty Bluke <marty.bl...@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2013 13:38:48 +0200
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] partnership minyanim


R"n Chana Luntz wrote:
"Now Rav Freundel appears to be trying to suggest that there might be a
position which says that tephila is purely d'rabbanan, and yet while women
are obligated in it (since the gemora in Brochos 20b states this explicitly)
somehow the rabbis made up a different way of davening for men and women,
without telling us what the differences are at any point.  However let us
think this through.  If we can say this about this, surely we can say this
about any rabbinic mitzvah under the sun.  Eg that the rabbis instituted the
mitzvah of the four cups, and they included women, but maybe they didn't
include women in the details, and the details and the times are completely
different for women - or pick whatever other rabbinic mitzvah you like in
which women are included."

In fact, this seems to be the shita of the Behag regarding women and
Megilla reading. The Gemara says explicitly that women are chayavos in
Megilla because of af hen hayu b'oso hanes, yet the Behag claims that women
are only obligated in hearing the Megilla and not reading it and therefore
cannot be motzi men. In other words, according to the Behag, women and men
have fundamentally different chiyuvim when it comes to Megilla, women have
a chiyuv to hear and men have a chiyuv to read even though we find no
explicit mention of this in the Gemara.
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Message: 10
From: cantorwolb...@cox.net
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2013 21:57:29 -0500
Subject:
[Avodah] THE STILL SMALL VOICE


Next week's portion begins with "Vayikra el Moshe" -- "And He called to Moses..."
This is the only time the word Vayikra is neither followed by Hashem, nor has its antecedent.
It is true that the first three words are followed by "vay'da-ber Hashem..." but that's for another
lesson. It still doesn't explain why "Vayikra" is alone, so to speak.

The word "vayikra" appears 90 times throughout the Torah and 14 of those times it refers to
God and of the 14 times, this is the only time it appears by itself. In addition, this is the only
time the last letter of "vayikra" [aleph] is in miniature. Several reasons have been put forward,
but I wish to propose a new reason. The letter "aleph" can refer to God. In fact, the aleph has 
a yud on top, a vov in the middle, and a yud underneath the vov. The gematria of those letters 
is 26, corresponding to the gematria of the 4 letter word, Hashem (the tetragrammaton). 

In the entire Book of Esther, the name of God never appears even once. This is not by accident. The
absence is a deafening silence. It shows God at work, even when not apparent. The miniature
aleph in this case also shows God's contraction (tzimtzum). Rashi points out that the call came 
exclusively to Moshe. God's voice is powerful enough to shatter trees and be heard throughout the
whole world, but it was the Divine will that it be heard only by Moshe. 

Now here comes the fun part: The gematria of "vayikra" is 317. The following phrase has an exact 
gematria of 317: "Ani Hashem Elokechem. Ani Hashem y'chida."  "I am the Lord Your God. I am the Lord alone." 

Who Says There Are No Coincidences?
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