Avodah Mailing List

Volume 12 : Number 049

Tuesday, November 25 2003

• nursing and what fathers can do
• Re: questions re laining
• Re: questions re laining
• names of wives of taanaim and amoraim
• New survey
• Re: Winding tzitzis
• Tachanun or not
• berachah for women
• Re: sakkin
• Re: Sakkin M'din Kli Shareis
• Re: Tachanun or not
• Re: Winding tzitzis
• Do Listerine PocketPaks need a brocho?
• Do Listerine PocketPaks need a brocho?
• Do Listerine PocketPaks need a brocho?

[several posts bounced from Areivim:]

[ first post, from Chana Luntz <Chana@kolsassoon.net> ]

One matter I wanted to raise when I read your original post regarding
nursing, and which comes again here, - on the subject of why so few
charedi women nurse, is my personal observation that the way we set
up our households today, coupled with taharas mishpacha make nursing
exceptionally difficult for the frum mother.

To perhaps explain - I, like you, was absolutely determined (and managed)
to nurse both of my babies. Both boys nursed exclusively till 4 1/2
months (when they started solids)and continued with nursing as their
main drink - David until 7 months (when we started him on formula).
Eli has resolutely refused formula, and while he is eating full meals
during the day, and drinking water, he is still nursing at night (at 11
months - any tips on weaning a determined 11 month old!)

But, like you, I found the first six weeks complete agony. However, at
least unlike you, both boys thrived purely on mother's milk - so while
I used to find it very painful, I could see the good it was doing him.

But, it was painful when he latched on (which the books had lots of
advice about), it was painful when I was engorged (which the books all
recognised) - and it was painful when I was refilling up (something
none of the books talk about or seem to recognise, but as I felt the
milk starting to come back in again, and my vessels dilating, it was
just agony).

Of course the books all say that the best thing to do if you are cracked
or sore is to wander around the house with the area exposed to the
open air. Yeah right!

Don't forget that in the first six weeks, when the agony is most acute,
you are almost certainly in nidah (I never got to mikvah before the six
week check-up). So... that means your husband cannot see you in a state
of undress. That means when you are feeding. If your baby is feeding for
an hour every couple of hours, day or night, that means that you cannot be
in the same room as your husband basically the whole time, day or night.
Yeah, I know the experts can do it is a discrete way (I can now too) -
but not if you are learning how you can't, it was hard enough trying to
learn how, trying to do it and get him to latch properly and also being
fully covered, and not smother the baby, just not possible.

That is fine if there is somewhere to put him and baby apart. But if,
for example, your place is full up with eg your parents staying (as
ours was) there is nowhere to put him (the experts recommend baby sleeps
in your bedroom intially in any event). The only place you can go for
privacy is your bedroom, but that means husband can't be in your bedroom
for an hour, every couple of hours, day or night! And if you, like me,
find that the easiest way to nurse is lying down, and then what tends to
happen is that you fall asleep, and the baby falls asleep, and comes off,
and you are asleep exposed ... well, how is a husband to get anywhere
near his bed, which means you can't sleep at all.

SO, Rob phoned up our posek to try and find out what we could do, and he
wasn't exactly very simpathetic to Robert (I think he thought he was just
whinging), until I got on the phone (remember I am still days from the
birth) and told him that the situation was intolerable for me, and that
either something could be done about loosening up on the harchos or Rob
needed to move out for the six weeks or so until I could get to mikvah.

At that point we started to get - well the Ben Ish Chai has a heter that
women nursing is not considered ervah (apparently the custom was that used
to pop over to their friend's houses and nurse there - presumably with
men around) and it is OK if Rob is in the same room with me uncovered,
or possibly uncovered, if he makes a point of not looking in my general
direction, - which mean that I could nurse and Rob (and I) could sleep.
And we sort of battled through that way.

Now the one thing the posek did not suggest to me was that "surely
bottle feeding would solve all the problems", which I confess I rather
was expecting, but it would not surprise me if many other poskim would
not make that suggestion. And I wonder how many charedi mothers wouldn't
even try to ask, or would refuse such a heter (even if it were offered -
it's not great, it is just that I believed very strongly in a) nursing my
babies and b) having their father around and interacting with them from
a very early age and the two conflicted unless we relied on the heter),
or feel from the beginning that nursing is not tznius.

Because I genuinely think there was conflict between the absolute maximum
we could live with, with me continuing to feed and Rob anywhere in my
vicinity, and the standard halachic position. If we had proper women's
quarters, into which I would no doubt have retired on having a baby and
rarely emerged for six weeks(as many Muslim etc women still do) then
obviously this would not have been a problem. But we expect husbands and
wives to share a bedroom, and husbands to provide the second level of care
that in other societies come from sisters and grandmas and aunts, and very
often the bedroom is the only place available for any form of privacy,
and I just don't know how mothers in such housing could manage to nurse
if they also keep to the strict halacha. So, my guess is, they don't!

Regards
Chana

[ second post, from Akiva Miller <kennethgmiller@juno.com> ]

R"n Chana Luntz wrote about some of her problems nursing:

<<< ... in the first six weeks ... you are almost certainly in nidah
... that means your husband cannot see you in a state of undress.
That means when you are feeding. ... that means that you cannot be in
the same room as your husband basically the whole time, day or night.
Yeah, I know the experts can do it is a discrete way (I can now too) -
but not if you are learning how you can't ... well, how is a husband to
get anywhere near his bed, which means you can't sleep at all. >>>

I honestly don't see the problem. How do you make the logical jump from
<<< husband cannot see you in a state of undress >>> to <<< cannot be
in the same room as your husband >>> ???

Even in cramped quarters, how hard is it for him to simply keep his face
turned away from your bed?

I've never heard of any prohibition which says that when a woman is nidah
and uncovered, her husband is not allowed to be in the same room as her.
Sure, he's not allowed to look at her, or even glance, but that he can't
even be in the same room? I must have missed something somewhere. Are
there sources for such a halacha or minhag?

Later in her post, RCL writes that their posek came up with a solution
similar to mine, except that he describes it as <<< the Ben Ish Chai has a
heter >>> and I'm scratching my head trying to understand why they need a
"heter" at all.

Akiva Miller

PS: It just dawned on me that the arrangement of the furniture in
the room might be part of the Luntzes' problem. If the wife's bed is
located between the husband's bed and the door, that would indeed make it
difficult for the husband to enter or leave the room without glancing at
the wife's bed. It dawned on me a few months ago, that in every single
one of the places we've lived since we got married -- and this includes
when we are guests are friends homes -- I have taken the bed located
closer to the door, and my wife has taken the bed further from the door
This was probably a result of a long-forgotten conversation early in our
marriage, in which we commented that if I'd take the door by the bed,
my getting up for minyan would probably cause less of a disturbance to
her sleep. In retrospect, it would help the Luntzes' problem too.

[ third post, from Shoshana L. Boublil <toramada@bezeqint.net> ]

Chana, thank you for the source. I knew the halachic answer, but I
didn't know the source:

> At that point we started to get - well the Ben Ish Chai has a
> heter that women nursing is not considered ervah (apparently
> the custom was that used to pop over to their friend's houses
> and nurse there - presumably with men around) and it is OK if
> Rob is in the same room with me uncovered, or possibly
> uncovered, if he makes a point of not looking in my general
> direction, - which mean that I could nurse and Rob (and I)
> could sleep.  And we sort of battled through that way.

The reason I knew about this was simple, I have a friend who has many
sons, and I asked her how she coped with nursing boys (she nursed each
for at least 2 yrs) when she had older sons around.

That's when she quoted this psak (apparently the source is actually in
the G'mara), and she felt very comfortable with this -- and her sons
grew up considering nursing natural.

Shoshana L. Boublil

[ fourth post, from Chana Luntz <Chana@kolsassoon.net> ]

In message <200311190115.hAJ1Fn524695@heras.host4u.net>, RAM writes:
>R"n Chana Luntz wrote about some of her problems nursing:

><<< ... in the first six weeks ... you are almost certainly in nidah ...
>that means your husband cannot see you in a state of undress.  That means
>when you are feeding. ... that means that you cannot be in the same room
>as your husband basically the whole time, day or night.  Yeah, I know the
>experts can do it is a discrete way (I can now too) - but not if you are
>learning how you can't ... well, how is a husband to get anywhere near
>his bed, which means you can't sleep at all. >>>

>I honestly don't see the problem. How do you make the logical jump from
><<< husband cannot see you in a state of undress >>> to <<< cannot be in
>the same room as your husband >>> ???

>Even in cramped quarters, how hard is it for him to simply keep his face
>turned away from your bed?

Doesn't it follow? If you hold that a man is forbidden to see the body
parts of his wife that are normally covered when she is in niddah - why
would you think that the normal rules vis a vis uncovered body parts do
not apply?

Or do you disagree that when women go outside, or are otherwise in
the presence of other men, it is not enough that men are expected to
keep their faces turned away from them, but the women themselves are
required to dress in a way considered to be tzniusdik? It is certainly
not acceptable for women to undress in the streets because men could
turn their faces away and not look. But if not, why not?

Yes there is a *heter* that, given the general state of undress of many
women in the secular world today, a man is permitted to go out onto the
streets and into the subway/buses/trains etc and merely try and turn
his face away and avoid seeing what is uncovered. But it is still an
issur for the women themselves to expose themselves in that way.

Similarly, if it is assur for a man to see his wife with certain body
parts exposed in niddah, it is assur for her to uncover herself in
front of him. When trying to pin down the issur regarding exposing
oneself to the world, most poskim seem to fall back on a combination
of b'chuotechem lo techelu, lifnei iver,and lo yireh ba ervat davar.
The first might be difficult to apply to the situation here, but the
last two would surely have precisely the same application.

> I've never heard of any prohibition which says that when a woman is nidah
> and uncovered, her husband is not allowed to be in the same room as her.
> Sure, he's not allowed to look at her, or even glance, but that he can't
> even be in the same room? I must have missed something somewhere. Are
> there sources for such a halacha or minhag?

The truth is that as both Robert and I were taught in our respective
hatan and kala classes (his Sephardi, mine Ashkenazi) that I could not
get dressed or undressed in front of him when in niddah (we were told
he was specifically allowed to look at me when I was fully dressed,
and that hair was not within the general category, but that otherwise
one was required at all times in the presence of one's husband to keep
covered what one normally kept covered) we never questioned it.

However, as a result of your post I did a bit of research on the topic
over shabbas (being more in a state to do so than when having just
given birth) and discovered to my absolute amazement that the whole
din about a wife having to keep herself fully covered in front of her
husband is a machlokus rishonim, and that the Maggid Mishnah holds (and
is medayek from the Rambam) that it is only the makom toref that needs
to be kept covered - and, what is even more flabbergasting is that while
ROY holds that it is better to be machmir like those rishonim who hold
for full covering, he seems to hold, m'ikar hadin, by the Magid Mishna
(which would certainly mean this whole issue would go away). However,
the stam Shulchan Aruch seems not like this (see Yoreh Deah 195:7) - and
despite our posek being a big Rav Ovadiah fan, he never mentioned this,
not in Robert's hatan classes, and not when we spoke to him on the phone.

After checking out these sources, I noticed that our shul has a copy of
The Laws of Nidah by a R' Furst, so I thought it would be interesting to
see what he said on the subject. Of course these English books tend to
be machmir, and not to mention matters that might lead people to decide
to be makil on their own, but he certainly took what I would call the
standard line that a woman must keep herself covered with the parts she
normally keeps covered in the presence of her husband, and should avoid
wherever possible nursing in front of him ( - note that this is a blanket
prohibition, despite the fact that many women, at least when they become
more experienced at it, can in fact nurse very discretely, so that nothing
at all shows to the viewer). His footnote quotes the Shiurei Shevet Levi
(which I don't have in my seforim collection, so I couldn't check).

> Later in her post, RCL writes that their posek came up with a solution
> similar to mine, except that he describes it as <<< the Ben Ish Chai has
> a heter >>> and I'm scratching my head trying to understand why they need
> a "heter" at all.

Certainly if you phrase it "keep covered in the presence of her husband"
does that not imply to you that you need his absence (ie in another room)
in order to uncover, and not just his head turned away?

> Akiva Miller

> PS: It just dawned on me that the arrangement of the furniture in the
> room might be part of the Luntzes' problem. If the wife's bed is located
> between the husband's bed and the door, that would indeed make it
> difficult for the husband to enter or leave the room without glancing at
> the wife's bed. It dawned on me a few months ago, that in every single
> one of the places we've lived since we got married -- and this includes
> when we are guests are friends homes -- I have taken the bed located
> closer to the door, and my wife has taken the bed further from the door.
> This was probably a result of a long-forgotten conversation early in our
> marriage, in which we commented that if I'd take the door by the bed, my
> getting up for minyan would probably cause less of a disturbance to her
> sleep. In retrospect, it would help the Luntzes' problem too.

Actually, it is the Sassoons (or the Luntz-Sassoons, if you like),
but anyway. In our old place (where we were when my first child was
born) I did indeed sleep by the door. The reason for this being,
despite Rob coming to bed later than me, and often getting up earlier,
I invariably go to the bathroom more than he does in the middle of the
night (particularly when I am pregnant, when sometimes I am up every hour
or so, especially in the beginning and towards the end). In our current
house, we have an ensuite bathroom, so I sleep near the bathroom, and
he sleeps near the door. But I don't see that really helps, because
it is not unusual for Rob to roll over in his sleep, and if he wakes
up in that position, ie facing towards my bed, he might well see me,
and I wouldn't have thought (as above) that was an unacceptable risk
(would it be acceptable for a woman to lie down and go to sleep naked in
a bed next to a bed on which some stam man is sleeping, or was supposed
to sleep, even if when he went to sleep he was facing away from the bed
on which the woman lay, and even if the door is away from the woman's
bed? If not, why ought it to be different in this case?)

Shavuah tov
Chana
 - 
Chana Luntz

[ fifth post, from Akiva Miller <kennethgmiller@juno.com> ]

I was surprised that R"n Chana Luntz wrote that when <<< in nidah ...
your husband cannot see you in a state of undress. ... that means that
you cannot be in the same room as your husband basically the whole time,
day or night. >>>

So I asked <<< Even in cramped quarters, how hard is it for him to simply
keep his face turned away from your bed? >>>

She responded, in part <<< If you hold that a man is forbidden to see the
body parts of his wife that are normally covered when she is in niddah -
why would you think that the normal rules vis a vis uncovered body parts
do not apply? >>>

Oh, I agree that "the normal rules" still apply. The problem is that we
have more than one set of such rules.

The halachos which apply to a husband and his nidah wife are not the
same as those which apply to other arayos. And these differences go
both l'kula and l'chumra. For example, a man and his nidah wife are not
allowed to pass things to each other, though this is allowed for people
who are not married to each other. Yet a man and his nidah wife *are*
allowed to be in yichud together (except for the case of a chupas nidah),
which is not allowed for others.

I would certainly not want to be in a room with a woman who was not
properly clothed. But if I knew where she was in the room, and I was
careful not to look at her, and I could trust her to tell me if she'd
move, I don't know that it is actually *assur* for me to be in the same
room. I can see where it is *inappropriate*, and one could call it an
unacceptable temptation, but I don't know whether this makes it *assur*
or not.

If it was not merely "a woman", but was my own wife, there is less of
a temptation for me to "peek". Just as yichud is allowed as part of
a normal husband-wife relationship, I have never imagined that I'd be
exiled from my bedroom, provided I was careful to keep whatever halachos
apply. Dayenu that we have separate beds, chazal never told me to leave
the room entirely, did they?

RCL quoted a certain sefer as saying that a nidah <<< should avoid
wherever possible nursing in front of him >>>. Note the language: "in
front of him". Perhaps that author would allow her to nurse while in
*back* of him. I am not trying to be flippant or sarcastic, but am trying
to distinguish between what the author says and what he does not say.

 From a practical perspective, she wrote <<< it is not unusual for
Rob to roll over in his sleep, and if he wakes up in that position, ie
facing towards my bed, he might well see me, and I wouldn't have thought
(as above) that was an unacceptable risk (would it be acceptable for a
woman to lie down and go to sleep naked in a bed next to a bed on which
some stam man is sleeping, or was supposed to sleep, even if when he
went to sleep he was facing away from the bed on which the woman lay,
and even if the door is away from the woman's bed? If not, why ought it
to be different in this case? >>>

(From context, I presume that when you wrote <<< I wouldn't have thought
that was an unacceptable risk >>>, your use of the double negative was
an error, and your intention was that you did think it unacceptable,
or did not think it to be an acceptable risk.)

I think there are too many sfeikos piled up here: He might not roll over.
Even if he does, he might not wake up. Even if he wakes up, he might
not look up at you. Even if he looks up at you, you might be lying on
your other side, away from him. Even if you're facing him, you might
be covered up, not nursing. And after all is said and done, even if he
rolls over, wakes up, looks at you, and sees part of you uncovered --
if he is careful to react by quickly looking elsewhere, has he really
violated anything? Accidents happen, and there's a limit to how far we
need to go to prevent them.

I do think that it is different from the example of <<< a woman to lie
down and go to sleep naked in a bed next to a bed on which some stam man
is sleeping ... even if ... he was facing away from the bed >>>. Besides
the degree of nakedness/clothedness in the two examples, I think the
fact that the couple is married does make a big difference. There are
enough harchakos already on the books, we don't need to invent more
which Chazal could have given but opted not to.

I'll conclude with Rav Eider's Halachos of Niddah, page 249: <<< When
she is nursing and part of her body [is or] becomes uncovered, he must
be careful not to gaze. >>> (Brackets his.) Not "he must stay out of
the room". Not even "he must keep his back to her". Merely "he must be
careful not to gaze."

Akiva Miller

In  Avodah V12 #48 dated 11/23/2003 Yisrael Dubitsky <Yidubitsky@JTSA.EDU>
writes:
> How much latitude or leeway does a lainer have in how he reads the
> te`amim, that is, the melody used? ... To what extent may the reading of
> the Torah be considered an opportunity for supplication.... or drama?
> ...To read a story without any inflection or emphasis makes listening
> to it very difficult...and monotonous.

I don't know the halachic answers to your questions, nor do I know
whether there are different answers depending on whether you're leining
from Torah, Neviim or Megillah.

But this I do know: my father z'tl read Megillas Esther in a way that
was very dramatic and very moving. It has been quite a few years since
I heard my father lein the Megillah, but every year I hear his stirring
rendition in my mind. No one else comes close; I will have a feeling of
dissatisfaction with every other leiner for the rest of my life.

When my father leined the part that's read with the Eichah trop, he
did use the right trop (not that I know trop, but I know enough to tell
Eichah from Esther when I hear them), but he also conveyed a heaviness
and sadness. When he read Esther's words, "Ka'asher, avadti, avodti"
he read it slowly and very, very sadly--it was heartbreaking. And when
he got to her accusation, "Haman hara hazeh!" he shouted it so loud,
so booming, you would think, "That Haman, he's really done for now."

 -Toby Katz

R' Yisrael Dubitsky wrote:
> Exactly how old is that mesorah to read the melody of Ashkenazim? (Yekkim?
> Shirah? Yamim Noarim?) Sephardim? Yemenites? etc?? When, for example, did
> the minhag to read the few pesukim of Esther in Eikhah trup originate?
> or the pasuk beginning with Eikhah in Devarim? or the special trup for
> the shirah? etc. Or the special trup of Yamim Noraim?

In his sefer on ta'amei hamikra, R' Mordechai Breuer writes that there
was originally just one melody used for all books of Tanakh (with the
exception of Iyov/Mishlei/Tehillim, of course) and that the breakdown
into different melodies for different books came later. I once actually
came across a book that attempted to reconstruct this original melody,
but I cannot remember the title or author.

Nonetheless, some of these customs that you mentioned are pretty old.
For example, the Maharil (Hilkhot 17 Tamuz & 9 Av: 23) the haftarah
of "Asof asifeim" on 9 Av in the "regular mikra tune" rather than the
haftarah tune.

Perhaps our custom of reading it in the Eikhah tune derives from this...

> Is one permitted
> to -- and how likely will one be asked to repeat the reading if he went
> ahead and did -- read a ta`am of a word/phrase/pasuk in the melody from
> e.g. Rosh Hashanah on a regular Shabbat? For example, in last week's
> laining, if one wanted to read the Va-H' pakad et Sarah or Akeidah in
> the melody of RH -- may one?
...
> To what extent may the reading of
> the Torah be considered an opportunity for supplication.... or drama?

The same question could be applied to the nusach (in the musical sense)
used by a shaliach tzibbur for davening. In my gabbai days, I tried to
be makpid on shelichei tzibbur using the correct nusach. Most people
have no formal instruction in how to "daven for the amud," and simply
pick up the nusach from years of hearing others do it. Even in this
"textualist age," this one thing that is clearly transmitted primarily
through mimesis. For this reason, I felt that every person who gets up
there to daven is taking part in transmitting this mesorah.

I remember that once, a friend of mine was davening minchah on Rosh
Chodesh, and he used the nusach for Musaf all through the (regular
weekday) chazarat hashatz. When I asked him why, he answered that he
was excited that it was Rosh Chodesh, and he wanted to give expression
to that feeling (beyond adding Ya'aleh veYavo). I told him (nicely)
that while it was a nice sentiment, I felt that it was not appropriate,
since there could be others who were in that minyan who learned from this
that this is "the minhag." If every shaliach tzibbur would deviate from
the nusach as he saw fit, it would not be long until nobody knew what
the old custom was, and the whole system of having different nusach for
different days would be lost.

On the other hand, many of these customs that we practice today may stem
from the desire of one person, hundreds of years ago in Worms or Mainz,
to reference another text in order to evoke a certain emotion. See, for
one example, Maharil in Hilchot Purim: 13, where it says that R' Shalom
Katz used to raise his voice when he got to "Balailah hahu" in the megilah
in order to point out that this was the beginning of the salvation, and
the Maharil approved of this practice. Now, it is an accepted custom!
Perhaps, one might argue against my point in the paragraph above by
saying that if they could make their own creative references, so can we...

As an interesting note (and a bit of a tangent), I have found a few
interesting customs, which I have never seen in practice, in Abraham
Baer's "Ba-al T'fillah," first published in 1877, which is one of the few
"textual sources" (or the musical equivalent thereof) for these things.
One of them is that when laining on Ta'anit Esteir, the "kadma ve'azla"
on the words "asher attah bekirbo" is to be read using the Megilas
Esteir tune. It seems to make sense as a reference to the theme of Hashem
working "behind the scenes" to direct the events of the Megilah. There
are also a number of special "Lecha Dodi" tunes, one of them specifically
for Shabbat Shuvah. I think that it's a shame that many of these little
things have gotten lost. However, there is not much point in singing such
a tune nowadays if nobody else would recognize it, since the only point,
I would think, is that it's supposed to stir up memories of Shabbat
Shuvah in past years, with all of the (presumably teshuvah-related)
ideas that go along with them. Even with familiar melodies that I think
are inherently awe-inspiring, such as Kol Nidrei or "vehakohanim" in the
Seder haAvodah, a lot of the emotion that we associate with them probably
comes from the fact that we've heard them every year in the same context.

 -D.C.

>> How many names of wives of Tanaim or Amoraim can you name (off
>> the top  of your head, no encyclopedias, CD's etc.)?

> Rachel, R' Akiva's wife; and Bruriah, R' Meir's wife. That's all!
> Pretty sad. I guess you have a longer list?

The names of several wives of Amoraim are also known and also some
interesting stories of wives and especially daughters

Prof. Eli Turkel,  turkel@post.tau.ac.il on 24/11/2003
Department of Mathematics, Tel Aviv University

The results of the recent survey on names of wives of tanaim and amoraim
will be published shortly. In the interim, how many instances can you
cite of

1. People whom the malach hamoves could not take because they didn't
interrupt their learning.

2. Near death experiences-people who went to the olam ha'emes and came
back to talk about it.

As before, looking in compendia/CD programs is no fair.

Gershon
gershon.dubin@juno.com

> RGS brought the following Maharshah to my attention (Shut #6). The
> Mararshah paskens that one can not change the number of windings on one's
> tzitzis, even though it's "only" minhag. No one has greater authority
> than the minhag Yisrael. The Shach (YD 214:4) holds the same.

It seems that my lack of clarity caused some confusion. The Maharshal
(not Maharsha) does not discuss tzitzis at all. That was only my attempt
to apply the Maharshal's ruling to a simple case. His own application
was to the minhag of a nidah always waiting seven clean days even on
a tipas dam ke-chardel. Given the context in which I was writing, I
thought that application to be inappropriate. So, on my own, I applied
it to the number of knots and winds in tzitzis that add up to 613.

Gil Student

As I finished davening for the amud this morning, someone coming
in asked me if I had said tachanun. To the answer in the affirmative
he said something to the effect of "the molad" whence I deduced that
whatever source he was quoting (he didn't say but it clearly was not his
own invention) considered Rosh Chodesh to begin to some extent from the
time of the molad.

Has anyone ever heard of this? 

Gershon
gershon.dubin@juno.com

> However, Sukkah for women is not a matir. Which is why the Rambam,
> most Sepharadim and many Chassidim would not have her make a
> berakhah.

Having grown in a chassidic shul the women I knew all made berachot on
a mitzvah she-hazman grama. Which chassidim (most?) don't?

Prof. Eli Turkel,  turkel@post.tau.ac.il on 24/11/2003
Department of Mathematics, Tel Aviv University

> RCM
>>there is an interesting Ritva in Yoma (39) who says that even if
>>the only usage of a kli isn't considered an avodah, since it
>>is the only
>>way to use that item then that usage makes the kli into a kli
>>shareis.

> dibbur hamaschil please

found it! 39a d"h im ken

kol tuv, shlomo 

LAN"D REMT answered this correctly, I am enclosing copy from Encyclopedia
Taalmudis (Chelek 16 Omud 211) with arrows to Nidun Didan. Please point
to: <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/faxes/sakkin.pdf>.

Bkitzur Rambam requires Lchatchila both a Kli (Sakin) Shoreis (that was
niskadeish bPeh) Bdieved both are not Miakeiv.

Kol Tuv,
Yitzchok Zirkind

In a message dated 11/24/03 11:06:28 AM EST, gershon.dubin@juno.com writes:
> As I finished davening for the amud this morning, someone coming
> in asked me if I had said tachanun. To the answer in the affirmative
> he said something to the effect of "the molad" whence I deduced that
> whatever source he was quoting (he didn't say but it clearly was not his
> own invention) considered Rosh Chodesh to begin to some extent from the
> time of the molad.

See M"A O"C 457 s"k 3 (also Lkutei MaHaRYaCh) WRT to extending this to 
Tachnun see Taamei Haminhogim pg 56 (last paragraph on pg).

Kol Tuv,
Yitzchok Zirkind

In a message dated 11/24/03 11:06:23 AM EST, gil@aishdas.org writes:
> His own application
> was to the minhag of a nidah always waiting seven clean days even on
> a tipas dam ke-chardel. Given the context in which I was writing, I
> thought that application to be inappropriate. So, on my own, I applied
> it to the number of knots and winds in tzitzis that add up to 613.

There is a major Nafka Mina Linyan Dieved (see M"A O"C 11 s"k 19, S"A Horav 
11:32).

Kol Tuv,
Yitzchok Zirkind

Do Listerine PocketPaks need a brocho?

For product info, see <http://www.prodhelp.com/oral_care17.shtml>.

The PocketPaks are breath fresheners. They dissolve on your tongue.
FYI, they are kosher w/ Kof-K pareve certification.

Thank you,
Avroham

From: "Avroham Yakov" <avyakov@hotmail.com>
<<Do Listerine PocketPaks need a brocho?>>

Two recent issues of Daf Hakashrus make it clear that it needs a hechsher
(the hechsher is of recent vintage) because it is considered a ma'aseh
achila. Although they don't say explicitly that they need a beracha,
I'll check on that.

I don't understand the hava amina. Obviously, it *is* a good question
because several prominent rabbonim have been quoted here as responding
"I don't know". But it seems to me that it does need to be kosher and
does need a bracha.

It is an item which goes into the mouth and does not come out, and
for no medical reason that I can think of. It is taken purely for the
taste and/or to make one's mouth taste/smell/feel better. How is that
different than an candy mint? Or better, a sugarless candy mint (which
has no nutritional value).

Most of us use toothpaste and mouthwash without a hechsher and without
a bracha, but the intention is to spit it all out. It's a practical
impossiblity to really spit all 100% of it back out, but at least that's
the intention. With the pocketpak strips, the intention is for the whole
thing to dissolve in the mouth and stay there.

I'm not sure if the dissolved pocketpac ever gets down the throat, but
even if it doesn't, that would still be similar to a sip of very strong
liquor, no?

Akiva Miller

*********************


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