Avodah Mailing List

Volume 24: Number 16

Sun, 21 Oct 2007

• 1. Re: Mitsvat Sukkah is almost unique (Dov Bloom)
• 2. Vayeira Destroy What Needs To Be Destroyed (Richard Wolberg)
• 3. Re: May Kohanim visit the Rebbe's Ohel by means of a box (Elazar M. Teitz)
• 4. Re: May Kohanim visit the Rebbe's Ohel by means of a "box"? (T613K@aol.com)
• 5. Re: May Kohanim visit the Rebbe's Ohel by means of a box (Moshe Y. Gluck)
• 6. Re: Minhag Yisroel and Gra on 2 Matzos vs.3 Matzos (Arie Folger)
• 7. Re: Mitzvat Aseh (T613K@aol.com)
• 8. Re: Religion and Falsifiability (kennethgmiller@juno.com)
• 9. What happened to the nefesh asher asu b'charan? (Marty Bluke)
• 10. What did they learn in the yeshiva of Shem and Ever? (Marty Bluke)
• 11. Re: May Kohanim visit the Rebbe's Ohel by means of a (Chana Luntz)
• 12. Re: Minhag Yisroel and Gra on 2 Matzos vs.3 Matzos (Rich, Joel)

The mesorah of RSZA and his talmidim especially R Nebenzhal in the name of the GRA about Graf Potocki and Ruah Ra'ah in the morning is also mentioned by R Moshe Harari in Mikraei Kodesh Hil. YK p 157 (Perek Zayin in footnote 17). 

R Harari adds that true convert R. Avraham ben Avraham (the Graf Potocki) was tortured by the monks, who threatened to burn him unless he re-converted to Christianity, which he refused. The GRA offered to save him using Sheimot HaKedoshim, but the ger tzedek refused, preffering a "kiddush shem shamayim barabim" . 

Harari quotes R Nebenzhal saying that this mesora of the GRA is not found in any written source but alluded to in the book HaGaon HaChasid MiVilna p 18.

Does anyone know of any other sourcces about this mesorah from the GRA not coming from RSZA and his talmidim?

Adapted from an article by Rabbi Noson Weisz.

 

In the conversation between God and Abraham where God informs Abraham that
he is about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham challenged God's justice
and demanded Divine mercy with a ferocity that leaves the reader astonished
at his sheer audacity. Abraham then proceeds to demand mercy in terms that
are almost as insistent, declaring, "Behold now, I desired to speak to my
Lord although I am but dust and ashes. What if the fifty righteous people
should lack five? Would You destroy the entire city because of the five?"
[Gen. 18: 27-28] 

How does such a ringing challenge emerge from the mouth of a person who
regards himself as no more than a pile of dust and ashes? 

To appreciate the utter impossibility of this conversation, remember that we
are not Abraham. For us, God exists only in the abstract: He is a being we
have never personally met and in whose existence we only vaguely believe.
But to Abraham, God was a Being he knew and spoke to. Imagine that the
Almighty Himself came to inform you about His decision to destroy Sodom and
Gomorra on account of the great evil that He discovered there. Would you
presume to challenge His judgment, and with such force?

The point here is that God came to inform him about His decision to destroy
Sodom. If the proposed destruction was none of his business, God didn't have
to tell him about it in advance. So the fact that God told Abraham, then
that was Abraham's cue to respond.

 

Whereas your or I might have said to God: "Great! Destroy those evil people.
Who needs them? All they are is trouble." Abraham was on a much higher
level, so he asked for God's mercy, indicating a tremendous sensitivity to
all of God's creatures. In His great wisdom, however, the Almighty did what
needed to be done.

 

rw

 

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<Tefilin that are regularly worn have never needed any inspection; the
requirement of twice in seven years applies to those that aren't - SA
OH 39:10.>

     But the Magen Avraham says that nonetheless, it is proper that they be checked, because perspiration may cause a p'sul.

EMT    

 
 


From:  "Moshe Y. Gluck" _mgluck@gmail.com_ (mailto:mgluck@gmail.com) 

>>Would  someone kindly explain the Metzius of the situation? The Gemara talks
about  Ohel Zaruk, and boxes, so I assume that there must be something
else here  that makes R' RW raise this  question.<<

KT,
MYG


>>>>>
This whole thread has been puzzling to me, halachically, historically and  
sociologically. 
 
My whole life I have known that kohanim don't go to cemeteries.  I've  been 
married to a kohen for 30 years, and that's just how it is -- kohanim  don't go 
to lavayos, they don't go to cemeteries, they don't even go to their  own 
parents' graves.  In fact, kohanim are buried at the edge of the  cemetery so 
their kohen relatives can "visit" them from across the way without  having to 
actually enter the cemetery.
 
Now all of a sudden it turns out that kohanim do go to cemeteries, no big  
deal, and have always done so, and the Gemara talks about it.  All  they need is 
a box, a common priestly accouterment, readily attained, I would  assume, at 
the funeral home or at your nearest Kohanim-R-Us supply store.
 
Naturally I have to wonder if this is one of those things we have "always"  
known and "always" done that people really only started doing with the  passing 
of the last Lubavitcher rebbe.
 
And is it OK for kohanim to visit other kevarim or only those of their  rebbe?

 

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



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> On 10/19/07, kennethgmiller@juno.com <kennethgmiller@juno.com> wrote:
> > But other innovations have nothing to do with new technology.
> Previous generations could easily have done it. The claim is being made
> that these kohen-boxes are in this category. 
<SNIP>

Thanks R' ZS for explaining what this issue was all about. I'd like to
suggest that this is not much of an innovation. Doesn't the Gemara say that
people would be lowered into the Kodesh Kadashim to do maintenance in a
similar movable box? 

KT,
MYG 

I wrote:
> In conlusion, I do not believe that we can find a single overarching
> principle that explains all ma'hloqot in halakhah.

RJR wrote:
> Which is exactly what bothers the unified field theorists - ?then
> halacha seems arbitrary and the halachik process not reproducible.

That shouldn't bother us at all. Halakhah isn't one set of principles, but 
several layers. There is DeOraita, Derabbanan, splitting into asmakhta, 
gezeirah, taqanah, and there are various layers of minhag. The list isn't 
exhaustive, but does demonstrate that one overarching principle isn't called 
for.

DeOraita seems to have, at its core (OK, there are different approaches here, 
but this one is quite coherent and was used on this list repeatedly) the 
qabalah from Sinai. Derabbanans are made by people, responding to specific 
circumstances, and as such, might best be described again by qabbalot, but 
from 'Hazal. Same for minhag.

In addition, there are principles that modify a host of halakhot, esp. 
derabbanans, such as gezeirah she-ein hatzibbur yakhol la'amod bah, bettel 
hata'am - where sometimes we say batlah hagezeirah, while at other times we 
don't. In addition, there are the principles of 'et la'asot laShem, eivah, 
darkhei shalom etc. which can even modify a deOraita.

But besides the fact that halakhah is composed of several entirely different 
layers, I would like to make the following observation:
Halakhah - esp. derabbanans and minhaggim - should not be compared to 
mathematics, but rather to law, and law does not exist independently of its 
interpretation. Lo bashamayim hi. (Though I should add that Halakhah is 
always being interpreted, even when observed in the breach, possibly 
resulting in the Tokhekha becoming realized.) Of course, that does not mean 
that we are free to interpret it as we please, nonetheless, as long as we 
[meaning, the halakhic literature] do[es]n't look at it, it isn't defined. 
Perhaps the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle would be a good metaphor for the 
hard sciences people.

Anyway, this law, Halakhah, is subject to constant revision by posqim, who 
test whether our interpretations (practice, too, is a form of interpretation) 
are still within the bounds of the acceptable, and, sometimes, whether our 
interpretations are still within the spirit of the acceptable.

It is through the human agency of the posseq that these reevaluations take 
place, and it is through acceptance by the posqim community that a posseq's 
arguments stand or fall.

Lest all this bother still you, I strongly believe in the description of 
RYBS's "encounters" with Rambam or even more, feeling the Divine Presence. A 
posseq who sets out to pasqen with yirat shamayim and basing himself on Torah 
lishmah will have sayata diShmaya.

I am reminded of the story of a rav in a certain European city, where the rosh 
kollel, who was even more learned than the rav, once remarked that he does 
not understand how the rav can pasqen, having too little knowledge by the 
rosh kollel's standards. Nonetheless, said the rosh kollel, the rav has 
always pasqened correctly. (The story was related to me last year, as I 
visited that city after the rav had moved on.)

In short, the posseq who is pasqening is experiencing revelation. But just as 
only Mosheh benefited from aspaqlaria hameirah, so too, not every posseq's 
revelation is of equal stature, leading to the possibility of non acceptance 
of any given posseq's particular pessaq.
-- 
Arie Folger
http://www.ariefolger.googlepages.com

 
 
From: "Richard Wolberg" _cantorwolberg@cox.net_ 
(mailto:cantorwolberg@cox.net) 

>>....you are rewarded for the "lo ta'aseh" mitzvah in  proportion to
the amount of will it took to refrain from its  violation.

Regarding any mitzvah, only HaShem determines what the s'char  or onesh will
be, but it seems difficult to understand that the Rambam (as an  example of
many) would be greatly rewarded for not eating pork (unless, of  course, he
struggled with a desire for it).  <<





>>>>>
It does say in Pirkei Avos "lefum tza'ara agra" but it also says,  "Ratzah 
Hakadosh Baruch Hu lezakos es Yisrael, lefichach hirbah lahem Torah  umitzvos."
 
It seems that we do get reward even for those mitzvos that we find  easy to 
keep, including lo sa'asei's we wouldn't commit even if they were  permitted.  
I guess you don't get a separate, or a huge, reward, for each  and every 
separate cockroach you refrain from eating, but still, you do get  some reward for 
not eating treif, even if you didn't have much of a  struggle.  And the same 
with all mitzvos.
 
It would be a strange thing to say that a person who was such a great  
tzaddik, and who had so perfected himself, that he virtually no longer  had a yetzer 
hara, would not get much of a reward in Olam Haba.


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



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R' David Riceman asked:
> Suppose, however, that someone asked you for an example
> of evil behavior, and then produced a survey showing that
> observant Jews were evil in that way more than <picture
> your favorite control group here>. Would that affect you?

When I was first becoming a baal teshuva, I encountered many people who were supposedly frum, yet did things that I considered objectionable. For a while I simply considered them to be a negligible minority, but eventually it bothered me to the point where I could no longer consider them negligible. 

At that point I changed tactics, and decided that the behavior of a religion's adherents has no bearing on the truth of that religion itself. The truth of the religion can be judged only on evidence such as the types of revelation which are claimed, and the internal contradictions which it might have. Judge the religion by its beliefs, not by its believers.

Intellectual honesty forces me to accept this approach for non-Jewish religions too, and so I cannot write off Religion X simply on account of some awful things done by people of that religion. (In fact, I cringe when I hear other people doing so. Glass houses and all that, y' know?) Baruch HaShem, Torah triumphs again, for its truth is evident to me without needing to rely on stories of our tzadikim, which frees me also from needing to rely on stories of *their* reshaim.

Akiva Miller

Rashi states that Avraham and Sara were megayer many people. What
happened to these people? How come we don't hear anything about them?

The Gemara in Sanhedrin 59a tells us that a goy who learns Torah is
chayav misa. If so what were they allowed to learn in Shem and Ever's
yeshiva? What did they learn all day?

RRW writes:

> Rav Sachter's article seems to imply to me that one may NOT 
> exploit certain heteirim when those heiteirim lack a 
> tradition for doing so. That avoiding exploiting a certain 
> heter is proof that one SHOULD not exploit that heter.

Actually, to be fair to RHS, I think this may be slightly overstating
his case.  Rather RHS really seems to be arguing that where there is a
masorah not to use a certain heter, one should not use it, rather than
that their needs to necessarily be a tradition to use the heter (a
subtle difference but significant difference).  The real target of RHS's
article is the giving of aliyot to women.   Now that is a case where not
only is there a tradition of not giving aliyot even though it is mutar,
this particular tradition not to give aliyot is written up in the gemora
as kovod hatzibbur - so there is a positive articulation in the gemora
of a masorah not to use the heter.  His second example is of cohanim
going to medical school and doing dissection.  A certain Rav appears to
have argued that cohanim today could go to medical school, in part on
the basis that since they are all tamei meis anyway it does not make any
difference if they become even more tamei.  And Rav Moshe's response to
that was that we have a masorah that cohanim have avoided meisim
throughout the last couple of thousand years, despite it being true that
they are tamei meis anyway, so nothing has changed now.

Now that does seem a bit different to me to kohen boxes.  Cohanim have
asked over the years many many shilas in order to avoid being exposed to
a meis, despite being tamei meis anyway, all of which shialas would have
been unnecessary if this Rav was correct - in that sense there was a
postive, active masorah to preserve the cohanic status.  Similarly with
regard to aliyot for women, there is a postive, active statement
regarding not giving aliyot to women.  While with regard to boxes, we
have no positive tradition that cohanim were avoiding them - it just may
have all been too difficult to construct, and the circumstances in which
they were needed and wanted were too few.  So it is not clear that RHS
would have any problem with kohen boxes.

However couple more cases from our recent Avodah/Areivim threads might
tease out the question of RHS's position a bit more:

A) how about women coming to shul regularly?  As has been made clear
from the various discussions, it would appear that women did not come to
shul regularly historically (and to even strengthen that, there are some
sources regarding women coming when they are in nidah, at least during
the bleeding days).  Is it now assur, according to RHS for women to come
to shul at all [it would appear not, because why have a discussion about
women having aliyot if they cannot be in shul in the first place, unless
you say he was trying to deal with the most dangerous aspect first.  But
if not, on what basis is this masorah different from that masorah?].
It is possible that they did not come because, like the kohen boxes, it
was all too difficult, and it is easier to do so now, but on the other
hand, given the issues about building mechitzos in shuls for women there
is arguably a positive active masorah to exclude them by not building
for them.

B) A follow on question - think about the parshas zachor discussion.  We
clearly seem to have a masorah that women did not come to shul for
parshas zachor.  Maybe those shuls that encourage it and facilitate it
are being over on an issur?   

C) And another - think about the discussion about beating of children to
make them learn and put fear of heaven into them (even if they are
learning well).  We have a very strong masorah to do this, and anybody
from the old country (any old country, from Ashkenaz to Mizrach) will
tell you that it was a masorah that was extensively followed.  Is it
required for us to continue to beat our children - even if, as RMB has
claimed, our paradigms have shifted and nobody can quite believe that
this will in fact result in better learning?  Can we use our
understanding of modern human psychology to overrule a masorah rooted
firmly in the gemora, rishonim and achronim?  Once you start bringing
modern psychological thinking into such things, where on the slippery
slope is this going to end?  And if in past generations they did not
rely on heterim not to beat based in psychological analyses (some of
which are found in the gemora, as you have identified) on what basis can
we do so now?

> 
> -- 
> Kol Tuv / Best Regards,
> RabbiRichWolpoe@Gmail.com

Regards

Chana

I wrote:
> In conlusion, I do not believe that we can find a single overarching 
> principle that explains all ma'hloqot in halakhah.

RJR wrote:
> Which is exactly what bothers the unified field theorists - ?then 
> halacha seems arbitrary and the halachik process not reproducible.

That shouldn't bother us at all. Halakhah isn't one set of principles, but several layers. There is DeOraita, Derabbanan, splitting into asmakhta, gezeirah, taqanah, and there are various layers of minhag. The list isn't exhaustive, but does demonstrate that one overarching principle isn't called for.
<SNIP>

But besides the fact that halakhah is composed of several entirely different layers, I would like to make the following observation:
Halakhah - esp. derabbanans and minhaggim - should not be compared to mathematics, but rather to law, and law does not exist independently of its interpretation. Lo bashamayim hi. (Though I should add that Halakhah is always being interpreted, even when observed in the breach, possibly resulting in the Tokhekha becoming realized.) Of course, that does not mean that we are free to interpret it as we please, nonetheless, as long as we [meaning, the halakhic literature] do[es]n't look at it, it isn't defined. 
Perhaps the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle would be a good metaphor for the hard sciences people.

<snip>

In short, the posseq who is pasqening is experiencing revelation. But just as only Mosheh benefited from aspaqlaria hameirah, so too, not every posseq's revelation is of equal stature, leading to the possibility of non acceptance of any given posseq's particular pessaq.
--
Arie Folger
================================================
Bkitzur -the existence of several levels doesn't mean there isn't an algorithm. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle comparison interests me-can any of our physicists tell me whether the identity of the observer makes a difference(all other things being equal)

As a general rule I think your description is fairly accurate but then I would think it is disingenuous for one (not saying this of you) to say as a general rule "what can I do, my hands are tied?" -i.e. under this understanding there is SOME truth to the statement (i.e. the R' Willig story) that where there is a halachik will there is a halachik way, it's a question of issue,  and perception of severity  and people involved.

KT
Joel Rich

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