Avodah Mailing List

Volume 32: Number 47

Thu, 20 Mar 2014

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Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Message: 1
From: Lisa Liel <l...@starways.net>
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 16:55:59 -0500
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Esther


On 3/19/2014 1:38 PM, Eli Turkel wrote:
> Of course according to the archaeological and Greek records 
> Achashverosh is
> identified with Xerxes I (ruled 486-465 BCE).

This is a common misconception.  In fact, the only link between the two 
is that the name Achashveirosh is clearly a transliteration into 
Hebrew/Aramaic of the Persian Khshayarsha, and the name Xerxes is a 
transliteration into Greek of the same name.

So there's no question that Achashveirosh's name was Xerxes.  But 
identifying him with Xerxes I is jumping to conclusions on the basis of 
a single name.

Xerxes I was a Persian king, while Jewish tradition sees Achashveirosh 
as having been a Mede.  Both are sons of a king named Darius, but again, 
one was Persian and the other was a Mede.

Speaking of Darius the Mede, that's an example of something which isn't 
midrashic at all, but explicit in the text.  It isn't just Chazal who 
disagree with the conventional (Greek based) history of Persia.  Tanakh 
doesn't agree with it, either.

Lisa



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Message: 2
From: Zev Sero <z...@sero.name>
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 19:05:43 -0400
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Rav Elya Lopian: tefillin and radio


On 18/03/2014 5:10 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 07:08:54PM +0000, Kenneth Miller wrote:
> : In the past, we have discussed the situation of a person whose tefillin
> : have been checked and approved, and then a serious p'sul is discovered
> : which must have been missed in the earlier inspection. Does he get s'char
> : for donning such tefillin? I am NOT addressing that question here. And
> : it is possible that Rav Lopian was not addressing it either. He was
> : describing how*proper*  tefillin "work". It is possible that improper
> : tefillin work in a different manner.
>
> The nimshal for my position is that they work in the same manner. I
> suggested that mitzvos work by shaping the soul of those who do them.
> The nimshal for radio waves would be the psycho-spiritual state of the
> wearer. A pesul in the tefillin that the person didn't know about and
> has no culpibility for not knowing is like a break in the radio's case --
> it needn't have any impact on the function of the radio at all.

You keep ignoring an explicit gemara (Kiddushin 66b) which says otherwise.
We've discussed this before.   According to you if a mikveh turned out to be
passul, everyone who used it innocently should be considered tahor.  But
they're tamei, even if it's inspected regularly and they had no reason in
the world to suppose that it might be passul.  The fact is that it was passul,
and therefore they're out of luck.  They're not shogegim, they're anussim,
and yet they remain temei'im.  The rule that avodah done by a kohen who turns
out to be a chalal is still kosher is an *exception*, a gezeras hakasuv that
applies only to that case.

Similarly, according to you if a shochet checks his knife and it's 100% fine,
and then shechts and checks it again and finds it nicked, the animal should
be kosher!  After all, what more could he have done?  How could he have been
more careful than he was?


-- 
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: H Lampel <zvilam...@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 20:06:28 -0400
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Eitz HaDa'at



        

        

        

        



> RDR (Mon, 17 Mar 2014)
: Except that the Rambam also holds that place cannot be predicated of
> malachim, since they are disembodied.  So how could God place them in a
> particular location?
>
RMB is probably correct (Lisa, we're talking the Rambam's shittah) that
the location of a mal'akh according to the Rambam could [and would--ZL]
be the part of the world where it is charged to act.

But in any case, the original issue was not whether the end of the eitz
ha-daas episode, with the keruvim, must be understood as a mashal. It
was whether the Rambam's thesis about man's perceptionability of
melachim would necessarily put the entire eitz ha-daas episode, from the
beginning, exclusively into the realm of prophetic vision and mashal,
making the only question "what is the nimshal in the nevuah?", not "what
species is the tree?". I think not.

Zvi Lampel





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Message: 4
From: "Kenneth Miller" <kennethgmil...@juno.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 00:30:44 GMT
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Eitz HaDa'at


R' Micha Berger wrote:

> Actually, I am saying that what we think of as space is a kind
> of experienced caused by human perception, with human categories,
> interacting with whatever it is that spacetime models.
> ...
> And frankly, it could be a failure of imagination, but as far as
> I can tell, space and time are the span of olam ha'asiyah (or
> olam hazeh or whatever term you wish to use for the physical
> universe) by definition. A place is a coordinate that points to
> a part of this olam, and experimentally we know that time is
> linked to location, velocity, acceleration and gravity.

If I'm understanding you correctly, you're describing a "We are pixels in
God's imagination" sort of universe. (Or, for those who prefer it, "living
in The Matrix".) I'm totally okay with that, provided we keep in ind that
it is entirely different frame of reference, with a somewhat different set
of rules.

But it is easy to translate from this to that. Simply replace "time" and
"space" with "perception of time" and "perception of space". And rules like
"nothing can go faster than light" are replaced with "nothing can be
perceived as going faster than light (even though the reality is that it
really has no reality)". And so on.

Akiva Miller
____________________________________________________________
Fast-Growing Industry
A New Player In The Booming Bottled Water Market.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/532a37003cb7736ff51a7st04vuc



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Message: 5
From: Zev Sero <z...@sero.name>
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 22:35:09 -0400
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Esther


On 19/03/2014 5:21 PM, Eli Turkel wrote:
> It has since been pointed out to me that Daat Mikrah says essentially the same thing and
> so they interpret that Kish went into galut with Yechonya or else that anyone born in galut is as if they were exiled.

The latter makes even less sense.   If he was born in galus, how can he
have been exiled *with Yechonyah*?  Which babies born in Bavel were exiled
with Yechonyah, and which with Tzidkiyah?  Which babies born there in the
20th century were exiled with either of those two, and which were exiled
with the Amoraim, or at some other time?

-- 
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: 6
From: Arie Folger <afol...@aishdas.org>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 10:35:07 +0100
Subject:
[Avodah] Can Xerxes be Achashverosh - Jewish Chronology


RZS wrote:
> The first churban was in 421 BCE.  So either the dates for Xerxes are
wrong,
> or he was not Achashverosh.  We have our history, and if Greek historians
wrote
> otherwise then they were lying or mistaken.

I am rathet sure you have seen this topic discussed here before. There is,
of courcse, a third palatable possibility: that there is no real
contradiction. That is what Rav Shimon Schwab suggested, that initially
Chazal wanted to cover up history, in libe with ktov basefer vachatom of
Daniel, and now that the cat is out of the bag we are allowed to describe
history as it was. Another variant of the same is Rav Menachem Leibtag's
suggestion that Seder Olam is not a pure historical work, but a then
obvious manipulation of history,  which would have been transparent and
shocking to the audience, who was supposed to get the great mussar of the
idea of over a century being so meaningless in zekhuyot that it is as if it
wasn't lived. Chazal would have learned that from Ezra, who, according to
this view, did exactly that by equating Achtachshast the second with
Daryavesh the Great,  as if the intervening decades during which there was
a beit hamiqdash but people stayed largely in Bavel were thereby so sinful,
that it was as if they didn't happen.

I don't expect to convince you of those other views, but to say that " if
Greek historians wrote otherwise then they were lying or mistaken" is only
correct according to one view but not necessarily the only valid view.

--
mit freundlichen Gr??en,
with kind regards,
Arie Folger

visit my blog at http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/
sent from my mobile device
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Message: 7
From: Eli Turkel <elitur...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 10:07:31 +0200
Subject:
[Avodah] chassidaztion of halacha


<<Is it different in kind than some of the MB's chumeros? E.g. wearing one's
tzitzis out?>>

What bothered me was not the psak but the reason -
as a child's gender should remain the way God created it and specifically
that a boy/man has more mitzvot than a woman and so should not be clothed
in a woman's garb

In fact other poskim do not allow even young children to cross dress for
Purim but this is based on "lo yilbash" and chinuch not something about the
soul of the child

-- 
Eli Turkel
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Message: 8
From: "Kenneth Miller" <kennethgmil...@juno.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 10:01:13 GMT
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Rav Elya Lopian: tefillin and radio


R' Micha Berger wrote:

> The boss is imposing a consequence. But I'm convinced that sechar
> va'onesh can be explained in causal terms. ...
> A person should get what they deserve and what their life or
> afterlife requires. And spiritual mechanics gets in the way of
> that. The person who is wearing broken tefillin through no fault
> or knowledge of his own doesn't deserve anything different, and
> shouldn't require different life experiences to complete his path.

It's not clear to me whether you mean "he shouldn't be any different than
the one who wore kosher tefillin" or "he shouldn't be any different than
the one who did not wear tefillin at all." Either way, I'd like to propose
a middle path.

First, let me remind everyone that when someone deliberately violates a
halacha d'rabanan, he is not merely violating the words of human rabbis. He
is also violating the d'Oraisa to obey those rabbis. So too, when a person
obeys a mitzvah d'Oraisa, he is not only obeying *that* d'Oraisa, but he is
also obeying the various mitzvos about obeying Hashem and getting close to
Hashem etc.

In our case, I suggest that when one wears tefillin which he doesn't
realize are pasul, he is unfortunately unable to get any of the s'char
which kosher tefillin normally provide. But he does get all of the s'char
which normally go to a faithful servant of the Boss.

After all, we *do* have a principle that one who attempts to do a mitzva,
but is prevented from doing it, gets the s'char anyway. (I think the term
is "machshava mitztaref l'maaseh".) The above is my suggestion how this can
work in accord with R' Micha's approach (and mine) that "sechar va'onesh
can be explained in causal terms." All you need to so is to keep in mind
that there are two distinct mitzvos: the mitzvah itself, and the obedience
to do it.

Akiva Miller
____________________________________________________________
The #1 worst carb EVER (avoid)
This health food causes fat gain, wild energy & blood sugar swings
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/532abcc5a394b3cc55279st01vuc



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Message: 9
From: Zev Sero <z...@sero.name>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 07:57:26 -0400
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Can Xerxes be Achashverosh - Jewish Chronology


On 20/03/2014 5:35 AM, Arie Folger wrote:
> RZS wrote:
>  > The first churban was in 421 BCE.  So either the dates for Xerxes are wrong,
>  > or he was not Achashverosh.  We have our history, and if Greek historians wrote
>  > otherwise then they were lying or mistaken.
>
> I am rathet sure you have seen this topic discussed here before.

Of course we have.  And nothing said then changed the truth.

> There is, of courcse, a third palatable possibility: that there is no real
> contradiction.

Not possible.   The contradiction is explicit.

> That is what Rav Shimon Schwab suggested, that initially Chazal  wanted to
> cover up history

And you know very well, because it was brought up here, that he withdrew
this suggestion.  It's off the table.  Forget about it.


> Another variant of the same is Rav Menachem Leibtag's suggestion that Seder
> Olam is not a pure historical work

It's not just Seder Olam, it's every single gemara and maamar Chazal that
mentions it.  It's even hinted at in the Torah itself: "veshachanti" is
"veshachan TY" and "Vesheni TCh".   You can't get away from the fact that
this is our history, and we have no other.   To reject our history for that
of the Greeks is, if nothing else, demeaning.


-- 
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: 10
From: Arie Folger <afol...@aishdas.org>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 13:19:12 +0100
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Can Xerxes be Achashverosh - Jewish Chronology


On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 12:57 PM, Zev Sero <z...@sero.name> wrote:

> That is what Rav Shimon Schwab suggested, that initially Chazal  wanted to
>> cover up history
>>
>
> And you know very well, because it was brought up here, that he withdrew
> this suggestion.  It's off the table.  Forget about it.
>
> I already documented a few years back that he personally told a talmid
chokhom of note (who was actually dismayed by that), that he stood by his
comments, disclaimer notwithstanding. But it is also irrelvant. The view
was kosher enough to entertain it.

>
>  Another variant of the same is Rav Menachem Leibtag's suggestion that
>> Seder
>> Olam is not a pure historical work
>>
>
> It's not just Seder Olam, it's every single gemara and maamar Chazal that
> mentions it.  It's even hinted at in the Torah itself: "veshachanti" is
> "veshachan TY" and "Vesheni TCh".   You can't get away from the fact that
> this is our history, and we have no other.   To reject our history for that
> of the Greeks is, if nothing else, demeaning.


And Chazal were weaving Seder Olam through and through in their teachings.
No suprise here.


-- 
Arie Folger,
Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/
* Wieviel Feste feiern wir an Sukkot (Audio-Schiur)
* Die ethische Dimension des Schma Jissra?ls (Audio-Schiur)
* Ein Baum, der klug macht?! (Audio-Schiur)
* Podiumsdiskussion ?J?dische Religion zwischen Tradition und Moderne?
* Great Videos from the CER in Berlin
* A Priest Returns to his Faith
* The CER Berlin Conference in Pictures
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Message: 11
From: Eli Turkel <elitur...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 15:40:49 +0200
Subject:
[Avodah] Daas Torah and the Holocaust


<<First, the evidence is selective and anecdotal. There have been many
times when they were correct, but there were no flashy headlines. How about
the Chazon Ish's medical diagnoses?>>

It is clear that the Chazon Ish had read medical journals (in Hebrew) while
still in Russia.
One cant get modern medical facts from the gemara.
RSZA learned physics by reading material and talking with top scientists.
There are rabbis today in Israel who are consulted by many people including
the nonreligious about whom to choose to be the appropriate doctor. It is
not because these rabbis have daas Torah but rather because they have as a
layman learned the field by speaking to many people.

Nobody claims that gedolim are always wrong. They are smart people and so
their opinions carry that weight. The question is the value of the rabbi's
"psak" about fields where he is not an expert more than others.

-- 
Eli Turkel
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Message: 12
From: Lisa Liel <l...@starways.net>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 07:53:11 -0500
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Can Xerxes be Achashverosh - Jewish Chronology


On 3/20/2014 4:35 AM, Arie Folger wrote:
>
> RZS wrote:
> > The first churban was in 421 BCE.  So either the dates for Xerxes 
> are wrong,
> > or he was not Achashverosh.  We have our history, and if Greek 
> historians wrote
> > otherwise then they were lying or mistaken.
>
> I am rathet sure you have seen this topic discussed here before. There 
> is, of courcse, a third palatable possibility: that there is no real 
> contradiction. That is what Rav Shimon Schwab suggested, that 
> initially Chazal wanted to cover up history, in libe with ktov basefer 
> vachatom of Daniel, and now that the cat is out of the bag we are 
> allowed to describe history as it was.
>

I'm not sure it's appropriate to attribute an idea to a rav who 
subsequently retracted the idea.  The only reason this idea is always 
mentioned as having been suggested by Rav Schwab is to lend it weight, 
but Rav Schwab himself said that it was only a thought experiment of how 
we might try and answer if we had no other choice, but that since we 
did, he certainly didn't mean it as an actual possibility.


> Another variant of the same is Rav Menachem Leibtag's suggestion that 
> Seder Olam is not a pure historical work, but a then obvious 
> manipulation of history,  which would have been transparent and 
> shocking to the audience, who was supposed to get the great mussar of 
> the idea of over a century being so meaningless in zekhuyot that it is 
> as if it wasn't lived.
>

Perhaps, if the only source for this were Seder Olam, this might be 
argued.  But Chazal's chronology of this period is comprised of dozens, 
if not hundreds of maamarim, all of which form a consistent and coherant 
picture of the order of events.  It's clear to any unbiased eye that 
Chazal, at least, thought that the chronology was as presented in Seder 
Olam.  One can, if one wishes, argue against them, but it cannot 
honestly be argued that they didn't hold this way.


Furthermore, the idea that Baruch ben Neriya was the rav of Ezra 
HaSofer, who was the rav of Shimon HaTzaddik, who met Alexander the 
Great, and that this is a fundamental link in the chain of mesorah 
reaching back to Sinai, would require ages for at least some of these 
men which no one who actually supports the Greek-based chronology over 
the chronology of Chazal would ever consider possible.  So mima 
nafshach.  If the Greek chronology is right, we had men living and 
teaching well into their second century, and if that isn't possible, 
then either the Greek chronology is wrong, or our chain of mesorah is a 
fraud.  There's really no way out of this but denial.


> Chazal would have learned that from Ezra, who, according to this view, 
> did exactly that by equating Achtachshast the second with Daryavesh 
> the Great,  as if the intervening decades during which there was a 
> beit hamiqdash but people stayed largely in Bavel were thereby so 
> sinful, that it was as if they didn't happen.
>
> I don't expect to convince you of those other views, but to say that " 
> if Greek historians wrote otherwise then they were lying or mistaken" 
> is only correct according to one view but not necessarily the only 
> valid view.
>

So the whole maamar Chazal explaining why Ezra didn't return from Bavel 
until after the death of his rav, Baruch ben Neriya, is what?  part of a 
conspiracy?  I'd rather not resort to thinking that Chazal were that 
dishonest and manipulative, when the only real reason to do so is "the 
history books say so".


Lisa





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Message: 13
From: "Rich, Joel" <JR...@sibson.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 09:00:55 -0400
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Congregation B'nai Yeshurun Hosts First-Ever


R'ZS-I don't know what RHS says, but that they should get credit for tefilah
betzibur is no chiddush at all.   It's well-established that one who can't
make it to shul can fulfil tefilah betzibur by davening at home at the same
time that the minyan is doing so in shul.  For 2000 years Jews have been
doing this by guesswork, davening when they *think* the minyan is *probably*
doing so, assuming that they started on time, etc

----------------------------
Me-Yes, there is certainly a preference for davening at the same time (as
there is for davening in a shul) but I don't recall anyone claiming that
this is fulfilling tfila btzibbur. Perhaps you could provide a citation?
============================================




R'ZS-I don't know what "credit" exists for listening to kriat hatorah.  I have
never heard that there is any obligation on an individual to do so.  
----------------------------------------------------------------
Me- R' Chaim Soloveitchik held that the chiyuv is on the individual and arranged minch krait hatorah if he was trtavelling so he could hear it (so did R'YBS)
-------------------------------------------------------------


KT
Joel Rich
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Message: 14
From: cantorwolb...@cox.net
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 14:12:09 -0400
Subject:
[Avodah] Nadav and Avihu


I find it mystifying why Nadav and Avihu paid with their life for a sin we are not even sure of. It says strange fire,
whatever that means. Moshe Rabbeinu?s sins of smashing the Tablets and not speaking to the rock seemed quite
serious, and yet, he didn?t pay with his life, at least not immediately. I have seen explanations given which only
weakened the argument. 
Any new insights?




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Message: 15
From: Lisa Liel <l...@starways.net>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 07:41:36 -0500
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Esther


On 3/19/2014 9:35 PM, Zev Sero wrote:
>                                     If he was born in galus, how can he
> have been exiled *with Yechonyah*?  Which babies born in Bavel were exiled
> with Yechonyah, and which with Tzidkiyah?  Which babies born there in the
> 20th century were exiled with either of those two, and which were exiled
> with the Amoraim, or at some other time?

Bearing in mind that I think Mordechai was exiled, rather than his
great-grandfather Kish, let me try and explain this for you. The verse
says "And his name was Mordechai, son of Yair, son of Shim'i, son of Kish,
a Benjaminite man, who was exiled from Jerusalem..."

It's commas. As in the difference between "Let's eat grandma" and
"Let's eat, grandma". Since Hebrew doesn't have commas, the verse can
either be identifying Mordechai as the great-grandson of Kish, and then
saying Mordechai was exiled, or it can be identifying Mordechai as the
great-grandson of the exile Kish. The text supports either reading,
and the latter reading has been used by people who want to argue against
Chazal's chronology and place the Megillah long after the rebuilding of
the Beit HaMikdash.

The reason for the "or else that anyone born in galut is as if they were
exiled", which is an incredibly weak argument by any standard, is that
some people date the Megillah even later, to the time of one or other of
the Artaxerxes, which would mean that even Kish would probably have been
born after the Churban. The first argument at least works with the text,
but this one is more of a rationalization than anything else.

Lisa


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