Avodah Mailing List

Volume 43: Number 66

Wed, 29 Oct 2025

• 1. 1960 de Sola Pool Edition of the RCA Siddur (Aryeh Frimer)
• 2. Where was Dan? (Akiva Miller)
• 3. Ben sorer et al (Joseph Kaplan)
• 4. Re: Where was Dan? (Micha Berger)
• 5. re Names in Aramaic and other languages (Martin Brody)
• 6. Re: Names in Aramaic and other languages (Simon Montagu)
• 7. Names In Different Languages; Exceptions Don't Prove Rules (Jay F. Shachter)
• 8. Are We to Humiliate Sinners as Mitzvah Tochacha? (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi)

I thank all those who answered my query.    Interestingly, there were two
1960 editions of the de Sola Pool Edition .   The First had the "son of
God" translation for "bar E-lahin" in "Brikh Shmei".  This caused a bit of
a ruckus.  Later that year, a second edition appeared in which the
translation became ?a created being?. It also included a introduction to
the translation, though Brikh Shemei is not mentioned therein.	 Most
modern translations (Koren, Artscroll) use "angel", which is the meaning of
"bar E-lahin"  in Sefer Daniel 3:25. [See also	the Mesorat HaRav Rosh
Hashana Machzor p. 395 note 1, and Introductory material,  Hanhagot haRav,
no. 57. p. Lv]
 Kol Tuv
Aryeh

--------------------------------------------------
Professor Emeritus Aryeh A. Frimer
37 Hanassi Harishon
Rehovot 7630306, ISRAEL
E-mail (Preferred): Aryeh.Fri...@biu.ac.il
Cellphone: 972-54-7540761
Tel: 972-8-9473819/9470834
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryeh_Frimer
E-mail (alternate): Frim...@zahav.net.il



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.
Avram went searching for Lot, and Bereshis 14:14 tells us that he went as
far as "Dan". Where was this place?

Radak writes on this pasuk, <<< It was named based on its future. When
Moshe Rabenu wrote this, it was not yet called such, but it was called
"Leshem". When the Bnei Dan conquered it, they called it "Dan" after their
ancestor. (Shoftim 18:29) And it is possible that it was some other place
that was called as such in those days. >>>

To me, Radak's second thought (that there was a place called Dan even in
Moshe's days) is much more reasonable than the first. Why would Moshe write
down a word that was meaningless to the people of his generation? When they
learned this parsha, what did it mean to them?

There are many words in the Torah which WE do not understand. A great
example is the names of certain species, especially the birds. But I've
always presumed that "Dibrah Torah b'lashon bnei Adam" means (among other
things) that the vocabulary used by the Torah consisted of words
understandable to the people of Moshe's generation. Even if a particular
species was extinct or foreign to the area, the Jews of the time must have
had at least some understanding of the names.

This should have been true of place names as well. If the Torah is meant to
be learned, then it must be learnable, to everyone since the day it was
written. I find it hard to imagine someone telling his chavrusa, "No one
knows where this 'Dan' is, but someday, there will be a place with that
name, and then we'll know far Avram went." Really? Moshe could just as well
have written that Avram went to Kiryat Shmonah!

Can anyone explain Radak's first answer to me? advTHANKSance!

Akiva Miller
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RJR asks: ?Has anyone heard a good explanation as to why the gemara sanhedrin does not
say that the argument is resolved by the fact that there is testimony that
each case (ben sorer, bayit hamenuga) did actually occur??

It always seemed to be that the witness was not being literal because what
is the likelihood that he actually saw all the things he said he saw which
none of his contemporaries had	heard of. Seeing both a Ben sorer and an
ihr hanidachat?!? Really?  Rather, he was making his point ? of course
there were such things if the Torah spends so many pesukim describing how
to deal with them ? in a very string though metaphorical way. 

Joseph
Sent from my iPhone

On Wed, Oct 29, 2025 at 09:21:18AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
> To me, Radak's second thought (that there was a place called Dan even in
> Moshe's days) is much more reasonable than the first. Why would Moshe write
> down a word that was meaningless to the people of his generation? When they
> learned this parsha, what did it mean to them?
...
> This should have been true of place names as well. If the Torah is meant to
> be learned, then it must be learnable, to everyone since the day it was
> written...

There are many place names in the Chumash that we today can't locate.

Why do you consider his contemporary generation a more important audience
than later ones? If you aren't bothered by the Chumash referring to places
we can't identify, why are you bothered by the Dor Dei'ah having to settle
for "the place where Dan will live, whereever that is"?

This reflects my basic problem with a lot of modern commentary that take
a similar approach. Assuming the Torah only made sense to the Yotz'ei
Mitzrayim, eg the Mishkan was a corrective response to an Egyptian temple,
or tefillin to their headgear, creates more problems than it resolves.
Why would Hashem be speaking a code only the first generations can
understand and not the hundreds, or thousands, or infinite generations
after them?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 It's nice to be smart,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   but it's smarter to be nice.
Author: Widen Your Tent                      - R' Lazer Brody
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF

"At this keyboard: Hebrew: Akiva, English: Kenneth"
Akiva, this might come as a surprise?to you, but Akiva is not Hebrew, but
Aramaic for Yaakov.
So much nicer than Yankel, though.Consider yourself lucky.
Cheers
Martin Brody
310-562-9789 Mobile






[data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=3D]
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On Mon, Oct 27, 2025 at 2:29?AM Akiva Miller via Avodah <
avo...@lists.aishdas.org> wrote:

> .
> The world accepts the idea of different names for places, but people don't
> seem to accept anything beyond minor pronunciation adaptations.
> Moshe/Moses, Carlos/Charles, and Ya'akov/Yankef are all seen as variants of
> the same name, *not* as translations. Does anyone know of exceptions to
> this rule? Can anyone give me examples (in Hebrew, Aramaic, or any other
> language) of translated names which are totally unrelated?
>

Benedict/Baruch Spinoza
Azariah Rossi/Min Ha'adumim
Pinhas Feldman/Sadeh (lots of other Hebrew writers changed their names to
Hebrew names, but most of them are not translations, but Hebrew words that
sound similar to their original names, or unrelated)

And then all the pairs of Hebrew/Yiddish names like Aryeh Leib, Dov Baer,
Zeev Wolf etc. etc. etc.
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Centuries ago, Nostradamus predicted that avodah-requ...@lists.aishdas.org would write on Tue Oct 28 23:05:26 2025:

> 
> In my learning of On[q]elos, I have noticed that it is not unusual
> for a place to have one name in Hebrew, and a seemingly unrelated
> name in Aramaic....
>
> I began to wonder if this also happens with names of *people*....
>
> I do not recall seeing any examples of such people.  But then I
> realized that this too is universal. The world accepts the idea of
> different names for places, but people don't seem to accept anything
> beyond minor pronunciation adaptations.
>

Moshe ben Maimon is usually called "Rambam" by Jews, and usually
called "Maimonides" by non-Jews.

I think the controlling factor is from whom you learned the name, and
I think that this factor controls all names; proper nouns are just a
special case of the more general phenomenon.  The English words for
sushi and kimono are sushi and kimono, because English-speaking people
first learned of sushi and kimonos from people who called them sushi
and kimonos.  In contrast, in seems that the English-speaking people
of North America who first encountered caribou did not know what
reindeer were, or if they had heard of reindeer they did not know that
they were looking at them, otherwise they would have called them
reindeer, and not caribou.  That's how language works.  Words do
change, gradually, over time, but people don't completely change the
name of a thing for which they already have a familiar, well-known
name.  That's how we know that gematria is not mid'oraitha.  If
gematriya was from Sinai, there would be a Hebrew word for it.  We
call gematria gematria because we learned of it from people who called
it gematria.  The non-Jews who call Rambam Maimonides do so because
they learned of him from people who called him Maimonides.  We call
Abraham ibn Ezra Abraham ibn Ezra because that was the name he used in
his commentaries and piyyutim; his non-Jewish contemporaries who knew
him only for his drinking songs and love poems probably called him by
his Arabic name.  The same is probably true of the non-Jews who knew
of Shmuel HaNagid only as Isma`il ibn Naghrilla, and who knew of Yosef
only as Tzafnath Pa`aneax.


> 
> .... yesterday I came across an anomaly which might count as "the
> exception that proves the rule."
>

Exceptions don't prove rules.  Exceptions disprove rules.  The
expression "the exception that proves the rule" comes from the
principle of legal construction that the existence of an exception
proves the existence of a rule.  Thus, when we see in halakha that
everyone must light Xannukka lights, and everyone must drink four cups
of wine on Passover, even if it must be paid for by charity, we learn
the existence of the rule that one is forbidden to ask for charity to
pay for any other mitzvah, like waving the arba`ah minim, or getting
married, or learning Torah, because otherwise there would be no need
to state that Xannukka lights and four cups of wine are an exception.
The "exception" in the phrase "the exception that proves the rule"
denotes an exception stated in the law, to a rule of law, which is
proven to exist, from the existence of the stated exception; it does
not denote an exception in fact, to a rule of fact.


               Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter
               6424 North Whipple Street
               Chicago IL  60645-4111
                       +1 773 7613784   landline
                       +1 410 9964737   GoogleVoice
                       j...@m5.chicago.il.us
                       http://m5.chicago.il.us

               When Martin Buber was a schoolboy, it must have been
               no fun at all playing tag with him during recess.

Brent Kaufman wrote:
The commandment is to admonish, not to ensure the sinners repent.

It seems this is inaccurate. We are commanded to continue to admonish until
they accept or are readying to strike the admonisher.
[RaMBaM DeOs 6:7] One who notices a co-religionist who has sinned or has
taken an unhealthy life-path, has a duty [Mitzvah] to repair ? Holech
BeDerech Lo Tova, Mitzvah LeHachziro LeMutav
Furthermore, he must continue to rebuke until the sinner is ready to strike
https://rambam.alhatorah.org/Main/Deiot/6.1#m7e_he_he_n6
Sounds pretty much like it's our duty to ensure they do the right thing,
no?
And to continue even though the sinner clearly rejects our advances and is
V angry and aggressive.

As for humiliating the sinners - as I posted earlier, the RaMBaM in
Teshuvah Ch 4, 2:5 writes - one who hates receiving rebuke loses
opportunities to repent because when one is advised of his evil deeds and *is
humiliated* ? https://rambam.alhatorah.org/Main/Teshuvah/4.1#m7e_he,en_he_n6
one presumes this means that we begin without humiliating but as the sinner
refuses to make corrections we intensify our approach

As for ?Just as it is a Mitzvah to say that which will be listened to,
    so it is a mitzva to not to say that which will not be listened to?,
and ?Do not reprimand a scoffer lest he hate you?,
Rabbenu Yona [ShTeshuvah 3:196] rules that these apply only to the sinner
who will not listen EVEN to his Rav or RY. If he MIGHT listen to his Rav or
Rosh Y we all must chastise even if we are certain that we will be
dismissed or ignored. He writes ? if it is [A] revealed to all, [B]
known, [C] tested
and [D] analysed [he appears to be V determined that there is absolutely
not even the slightest chance that he may listen] that the sinner hates
rebuke and will not listen [even] to the voice of his teachers and will not
bend his ear [even] to his instructors - about this is it stated (Proverbs
9:8), ?Do not rebuke a scoffer, for he will hate you.? And they said
(Yevamot 55b), ?Just as it is a commandment to say something that will be
heard, so is it a commandment to not say something that will not be heard.?
And they said (Beitzah 30a), ?It is better that they be inadvertent, and
not be intentional.?

As for the Rama (OC 608:2) this is a most curious case. The women are
eating on Erev YKippur, all the way until it starts to get dark, which is
prohibited by Torah Law, as we must add MeChol, from the day which is
definitely not YK, before twilight, to the Kodesh.
Now the Rama does say, Mutav Sheyihyu Shogegim, but only AFTER they have
already been advised in a public rebuke that they must light earlier. Well
in that case, they're no longer Shogegim inadvertent but deliberate sinners.
Perhaps the case is where the women argue they are doing as their mothers
and grandmothers did and all this protesting that they must stop eating
earlier is but the noise of fanatics and extremists.
Even so there is an obligation to rebuke once but only once, PUBLICLY
[does this mean every year? Have they not already heard this last year or
some years back?]
And the duty to rebuke PRIVATELY remains upon every individual.
Perhaps the PUBLIC reprimand is made but once a year in order to prevent it
becoming a farce and eroding the authority of the town Rabbonim.


Best,

Meir G. Rabi

0423 207 837
+61 423 207 837
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