Avodah Mailing List

Volume 24: Number 96

Fri, 14 Dec 2007

• 1. Re: Having a boyfriend equivalent to being married? (Zev Sero)
• 2. Re: A shemitta miracle story (Zev Sero)
• 3. Re: Having a boyfriend equivalent to being married? (Josh E.)
• 4. Re: Women Lighting menorahs (kennethgmiller@juno.com)
• 5. Re: Fables and Lies (saul mashbaum)
• 6. Re: The Kuzari, vindicated (Arie Folger)
• 7. Re: All transgressions are sins? (kennethgmiller@juno.com)
• 8. Re: All transgressions are sins? (Yitzhak Grossman)
• 9. Re: Having a boyfriend equivalent to being married? (Zev Sero)
• 10. Re: Having a boyfriend equivalent to being married? (Micha Berger)
• 11. Re: Having a boyfriend equivalent to being married? (Zev Sero)
• 12. candle lighting (Eli Turkel)

Micha Berger wrote:

> I would think that RYBS's response to R' Rackman's beis din would be
> loosely applicable. RYBS says that tav lemeisiv is inherently true
> based on Chava's qelalah and is an existential reality regardless of
> how society changed.
> 
> This opens the door to saying something parallel for other chazaqos.
> Perhaps it's a deep human truth, that no matter how much she consciously
> is willing to be a perutzah, her yetzer hatov is thinking "this is *the
> real thing* and we're going to be together forever", justifying it in
> context of marriage.

No.  It's explicit (I don't remember an exact source, though) that this
chazaka doesn't apply to prutzim.  And anan sahadi that this is true.
Just look around you and you can see that plenty of people are boel
leshem znus.  And in any case, "this is the real thing" is *not* the
same thing as "hareini boel lesheim kidushin, kedas moshe veyisrael".
Leshem kidushin has to be a specific intent; the chazaka lets us assume
that this specific intent was there, but when it's obvious that it
wasn't then it doesn't apply.


> RZS's notion that any eidim could probably assumed to be pasul

When did I say that?  I said that the people who know them, being
21st-century people, wouldn't assume they were married, thus they
are not eidim at all.  They may be perfectly kosher for eidus, but
they haven't seen anything.

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev@sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas

Micha Berger wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 03, 2007 at 02:46:08PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> : Dov Bloom wrote:
> :> Anyone in Eretz Yisrael who looks at agricultural economics knows that
> :> last year (5767) was not a great year at all! Certainly it did not give
> :> a threefold yield ( VeTziviti et haBracha beShana HaShishi VeAsat et
> :> HaTevuah LeShalosh HaShanim). 
> 
> : And yet it did for the people of Mevo Horon, who put their trust in it.
> 
> Anyone who explains an event as reward for a particular mitzvah is
> assuming the burden of explaining tragedy in terms of sin, explaining
> why one person gets reward and another not, etc....

Tzadik vera lo and rasha vetov lo are questions that are asked and
dealt with, but I've never heard of anyone asking about tzadik vetov lo
or rasha vera lo...

When you hear hooves think horses, not zebras - even if the last time
you heard hooves it turned out to be an escaped herd of zebras after all.

When the Torah says that a particular mitzvah earns a particular
reward, and someone does that mizvah and lo and behold gets that
reward, are we supposed to think that's a coincidence?  When there
are people all around who say that the promise isn't guaranteed,
and the person commits to doing the mitzvah regardless; when more
than that, the person first does the mitzvah and doesn't get the
reward, and suffers for it, but the next time the mitzvah comes up
he commits to doing it again, and this time explicitly davens for
that reward to come, and it comes, isn't the reason obvious?

And because these stories get mocked so often, here's another one,
that I heard about a month ago, directly from the person to whom it
happened.   He had decided to give a certain amount a month to
tzedaka, but hadn't decided on a place to give it, so he picked a
"temporary" address for the monthly donations, intending to stop
giving there as soon as he found a cause that spoke to him with its
need for his money.  About a year later he did come across a cause
that he liked, and decided this was where he would start sending
the monthly donation instead of the temporary place.  But on the
spur of the moment, he decided not to cancel the payments to the
old place, and to give to the new place as well as the old,
rather than instead of it.  Within a week he had a windfall -
some money came in to him that he hadn't expected to show up for
several years if ever, and whose maaser more than made up for
the extra tzedaka he'd just decided to give.

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev@sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas

Zev Sero wrote: 
>The chazakah would have to apply to both.  Both would
>have had to be acting leshem kiddushin.  How likely
>is that, in our situation?

This seems to be asking about what their intentions
were. But their intentions are irrelevant in the face
of a chazakah..

>And then there's still the question of witnesses. 
>AIUI the witnesses are supplied by their living
>together openly and notoriously, which
>makes everyone who knows them a witness.  But this
>depends on their social circle being not only kosher
>eidim, but also themselves assuming that since "ein
>adam..." the couple must have been married.

Why does it matter what the eidim assume? IF the
chazakah is operational, then as long as they are
witnesses to the actual biah (or, I suppose, to a
yichud that is equivalent to witnessing biah?), the
chazakah should apply. Just like we don't take into
account the couple's intentions, we shouldn't take the
eidim's assumptions into account either. Even if the
eidim think it was biah zenut, the chazakah should
hold.

Furthermore, why do we require that they be living
together openly and notoriously? What if there were
eidim who simply witnessed them being in a yichud
setting where there was sufficient time for relations.
Again, the chazakah should apply in this case too.

Josh


      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Never miss a thing.  Make Yahoo your home page. 
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

Here's my understanding of the three levels, based on Rav Shimon Eider's Halachos of Chanukah, page 8:

According to Ashkenazim:
Halacha: For the entire household, one candle is lit each night.
Mehadrin: Each person lights one candle each night.
Mehadrin Min Hamehadrin: Each person lights one candle the first night. Each person lights two candles the second night. Etc.

According to Sefaradim:
Halacha: For the entire household, one candle is lit each night.
Mehadrin: Each person lights one candle each night.
Mehadrin Min Hamehadrin: For the entire household, one candle is lit the first night. For the entire household, two candles are lit the second night. Etc.

Of the above six configurations, three refer to "each person". (Namely, M and MMH for Ashk, and M for Sef.) This thread seems to be about how to apply the concept of "each person" to girls and women.

Rav Eider, on page 10, brings two customs as valid: In some communities, the minhag is that if the wife is not lighting her own, then it is improper for the daughters to light. In other communities, the daughters light too.

My personal practice is that in most cases, I light, but my wife does not, and both my sons and daughter light. This follows Mishne Brura 671:9, that because of "ishto k'gufo" (that husband and wife are two halves of a whole), one of them can light and still be following the "each person" rule. It seems to me, though, that my unmarried daughter is unable to rely on this concept until she gets married, and so she must light for herself in order to follow the "each person" rule.

[I began the previous paragraph by specifying "most cases". The exceptions are when I am unable to get home at a reasonable time for whatever reason. In those cases, my wife lights but I do not.]

Akiva Miller
_____________________________________________________________
Need cash? Click to get a loan.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2121/fc/Ioyw6i3mKis70KEuPNLRuPYQmjTgnURca5P32OjbkBnp1RXo6SJwTY/

RMB
>>
I was taught (somewhere in my childhood) that Yoseif relented because
he saw the brothers had done teshuvah. After all, here was Binyamin,
another son of Rachel, who had just gotten better treatment than them --
a gift 5 times their size from the viceroy in Egypt. But unlike last time,
rather than their jealousy taking over, Yehudah places Binyamin ahead
of his own welfare. And the language used, "aval asheimim anachnu",
is the template for a key element of vidui.
>>
Rav Amnon Bazak, in Nekudat Pticha, short essays on all the parshiot of the Torah, also sees t'shuva as a central theme in the story of Yosef and his brothers. Going futher than the above, he sees Yosef as not only responding to tshuva, but actively taking measures to engender it. Yosef originally proposes that all but one of the brothers be imprisoned, and one return to Canaan to bring Binyamin.  After three days, he without explanation changes the plan, and keeps one in prison, sending all the others back to Canaan. The latter plan means that the returning brothers would essentially recreate the scenario of many years before, returning to their father with one of the brothers missing. It is precisely at this point, that the brothers, still in Egypt, but realizing what awaits them when they return to Yaakov, say "Aval asheimim anachnu al achinu, asher rainu et tzarat nafsho, b'hitcan'no aleinu v'lo shamanu, al ken baa aleinu hatzara hazot."
Saul Mashbaum
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RMB wrote
> Whereas I have been arguing that the beris in Shemos is with individuals,
> and the national aspect is the second beris in Devarim. IOW, mitzvos
> acheive personal redemption, AND creates a nation entrusted with bringing
> redemption to the world.
>
> I would not deny the role of a national covenant. I just can't fit much of
> what I was taught to the notion that there is *only* a national covenant.

Which exactly what I am saying. The notion of national covenant does not 
supplant the individual obligation and value of Torah and mitzvot, but is 
rather an additional aspect.

> I learned something similar to RRW's in RYLeibovitz's writings. That
> mitzvos need not work for every individual because they are laws created
> for a society. They therefore address norms.

Which is exatcly what I am up in arms about. For an eloquent statement of the 
problems with Reb YLeibowitz's  idea, see
Negative Theology and the Meaning of the Commandments in Modern Orthodoxy,
by R.Daniel Statman, in Tradition of spring 2005.

Essentially, he argues that YL's position is untenable. It is excessively 
rationalistci, robbing qiyum mitzvot of all their inherent meaning, making it 
also unlikely to maintain long term commitment to halakhah. Similar to 
Mendelsohn's failing. Such a position is also unprecedented historically 
(well, before Mendelsohn, if you'd count him as a precedent).

That ties in to the thread we had a while ago, that even the philisophical 
Rishonim also have some mysticism, just not necessarily Spanish qabalah. (now 
that I think of it, isn't this the same thread? I am not sure)

KT, good Shabbos,
-- 
Arie Folger
http://www.ariefolger.googlepages.com

R' Daniel Eidensohn asked:
> I am looking for a clear source that every transgression
> of a negative comandment is a sin which requires teshuva.
> ...
> Where does it say that violation of every negative
> commandent constitutes a sin which causes spiritual
> degradation that requires teshuva? Obviously a negative
> commandemnt means don't do it. But is it a spiritual
> blemish?

I can't imagine what could possibly lead someone to think that one might violate G-d's Word and not have to apologize to Him for it.

"Is it a spiritual blemish?" How can it NOT be? Maybe we need to define our terms. I've been led to understand that a "spiritual blemish" is something which separates me from the Source of sprituality. It seems to me that disobeying Him would meet that criterion.

"Where does it say...?" -- Lamah li k'ra? Sevara hu!

Please forgive me if any of the above sounds flippant and insulting. I do not mean to insult the question nor the questioner. My intention, rather, is to underscore how very basic this quesion is, and to remind everyone (myself included) that it is the most basic questions which tend to have the most difficult answers.

> In particular I am studying the prohibition of ona'ah -
> fraud. It is prohibited for someone to overcharge by a
> sixth. If he overcharges more the sale is invalid while
> if he overcharges less than a sixth it is assumed that
> the buyer is mochel - and presumably there is no sin.

I personally have NOT learned this topic in depth, so what I suggest may be totally off-base. But I'll suggest it anyway.

Why would there be a presumption that the buyer is mochel and that there is no sin? That is certainly an innacurate description of how *I'd* feel if I was overcharged "only" 10%. Or even if I was overcharged "only" 2%.

My understanding is that the buyer is NOT presumed to say, "It's only a small amount; I'll be mochel." Rather, what he probably says is, "It's only a small amount; Not worth making a fuss over." These two are VERY different. (In the former, an offense was forgiven; in the latter, the offense was *not* forgiven.)

As I said, I have not learned this topic in depth, and so I pose this question to those who have done so:

Suppose I sell something to you. The facts of the case are that I overcharged you by 10%, but neither of us realizes this. The halacha is very clear that the sale is valid; the object is yours and the money is mine. There is no question who owns what. Later, one of us, or both of us, realizes that I overcharged you. There is *still* no question about who owns what. But other questions arise: Do I need to apologize to you? Can I really keep the extra money, or should I return it?

It might not be ona'ah, but there are a whole bunch of Bein Adam L'Chaveiros which I *have* violated and need to do teshuva for. At the very least, I've hurt your feelings. I probably wasted some of your time too. I've deprived you of whatever it was that you would have otherwise spent that money on. And so on.

(It seems that this next paragraph is regarding the case where the overcharging was *above* the 1/6 cutoff point. Or maybe it was exactly *at* the 1/6 mark?)

> Is it necessary to do teshuva for overcharging by a
> sixth? The halacha is that if you are overcharged you
> have a finite amount of time to complain and then go to
> court to collect the overcharge. After that time has
> passed you can not collect in court. If you don't
> complain by that time it would seem to be assumed you
> are mochel. If you are mochel how can there be a sin?

Please consider the word "mochel". One cannot be mochel, unless there is something for that mechilah to apply to. Regardless of whether the mechilah is for an offense or for a debt, the thing is very real. In the case at hand, I'd say that if the victim chooses not to exercize his right to a refund of the overcharged money, this clearly demonstrates that he does *have* a right to that money. And if he does have a right to the money, it can only be because the seller got possesion of it on illegal grounds.

> Basically I am asking whether there is a group of
> prohibitions which when violated do not constitute sins
> even though they do require payment.

Good question. May I suggest mining the sugya of "chetzi shiur" for further evidence. "Chetzi shiur" is an odd case which might fit some of the characteristics of what you're looking for. It is clearly forbidden, and does require teshiva, even though it is not punishable. At least not by the Beis Din Shel Mata, though I'm not sure about the Beis din Shel Maala.

Perhaps a comparison of Chetzi Shiur and Ona'ah will show similarities to demonstrate that Ona'ah does cause spiritual blemish even when below the 1/6 cutoff. Or perhaps it will show differences to demonstrate that Ona'ah does not cause spiritual blemish provided that it is below the 1/6 cutoff.

Akiva Miller
_____________________________________________________________
Click to make millions by owning your own franchise.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2121/fc/Ioyw6i3m6eMAfyT1XxLRNtZDSDqS2PPIFWk6nYzLAHKhH8P5CEjC1E/

On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 00:20:21 +0200
Daniel Eidensohn <yadmoshe@012.net.il> wrote:

> I am looking for a clear source that every transgression of a negative 
> comandment is a sin which requires teshuva.
> 
> In particular I am studying the prohibition of ona'ah - fraud. It is 
> prohibited for someone to overcharge by a sixth. If he overcharges more 
> the sale is invalid while if he overcharges less than a sixth it is 
> assumed that the buyer is mochel - and presumably there is no sin.

The Rosh, cited by SA (HM 227:6), is uncertain if one is permitted to
overcharge by less than one sixth; see also R. A. Eiger and the Imrei
Baruch on the SA.

> Daniel Eidensohn

Yitzhak
--
Bein Din Ledin - bdl.freehostia.com
An advanced discussion of Hoshen Mishpat

Josh E. wrote:
> Zev Sero wrote: 
>> The chazakah would have to apply to both.  Both would
>> have had to be acting leshem kiddushin.  How likely
>> is that, in our situation?
> 
> This seems to be asking about what their intentions
> were. But their intentions are irrelevant in the face
> of a chazakah..

Huh?  The chazakah doesn't make them married, it's just a tool to
let us presume their intentions.  But a presumption can't override
the metzius.  If we knew for certain that their intentions were
*not* leshem kidushin, then we could not presume what we knew not
to be true.  In our case we're not telepathic, but the evidence is
strong against this presumption.  


>> And then there's still the question of witnesses. 
>> AIUI the witnesses are supplied by their living
>> together openly and notoriously, which
>> makes everyone who knows them a witness.  But this
>> depends on their social circle being not only kosher
>> eidim, but also themselves assuming that since "ein
>> adam..." the couple must have been married.

> Why does it matter what the eidim assume?

If they don't know or assume that it's leshem kidushin then how are
they eidei kidushin?   It's the chazakah that lets them "know" this
without actually being told.


> IF the chazakah is operational, then as long as they are
> witnesses to the actual biah, (or, I suppose, to a  yichud
> that is equivalent to witnessing biah?)

When would there ever be witnesses to that?


> Just like we don't take into account the couple's intentions

Where do you get this?


> Furthermore, why do we require that they be living together openly
> and notoriously? What if there were eidim who simply witnessed them
> being in a yichud setting where there was sufficient time for relations.

Because we can't assume there were ever eidim for that.   How many
people could testify that about you and your wife (assuming you're
married), apart from the eidei yichud at your wedding?  And in any
case, there has *never* been a chazakah that any two people who were
together long enough to do it must have done so.  Eidim for kidushei
biah must be *told* of the couple's intentions, or they're not eidim
of anything.  But when people live together as husband and wife, "anan
sahadi" that they have sex, and that they must have intended this
leshem kidushin.   Nowadays the presumption that they're having sex
is even greater, but the assumption that they must have both intended
leshem kidushin is simply not tenable.


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev@sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas

RZS just replied to RJE:
:> This seems to be asking about what their intentions
:> were. But their intentions are irrelevant in the face
:> of a chazakah..

: Huh?  The chazakah doesn't make them married, it's just a tool to
: let us presume their intentions.  But a presumption can't override
: the metzius.

To rephrase, chazaqah is a din birur, which means it is only relevant
when there is a safeiq that requires birur.

I just wrote the following to someone who commented off list. (The
rest of the discussion was off-topic for Avodah, so I didn't ask him
to post here.) I related the question of whether we can question the
chazaqah in light of rov to RYBS saying that tav lemeisiv holds even
if contemporary sociology seems to make it true only in a mi'ut of
cases.


Ve'el isheikh teshuqaseikh sure seems like a maqor for tav lemeisiv.
If you do not believe tav lemeisiv is a universal, you need to explain
why this part of Chavah's onesh ended, or how it doesn't mean what it
seems to. The connection seems inescapable. (With 20:20 hindsight once
someone pointed it out.)

The question is whether chazaqah disvara is a variant of ruba deleisa
leqaman or a different principle altogether. (Or maybe sometimes one
sometimes the other, just as chazaqah is sometimes sevara and
sometimes mei'iqara, and rov is sometimes leqaman and sometimes leisa
leqaman.) Perhaps it means that we are supposed to assume that laws of
nature apply until proven otherwise, even if in most real life cases
today, other laws of nature come into play to modify the result more
often than not. In which case, a chazaqah would apply even when the
law of human nature only is the determining factor in a mi'ut of
cases.

Back to RZS's email:
:> IF the chazakah is operational, then as long as they are
:> witnesses to the actual biah, (or, I suppose, to a  yichud
:> that is equivalent to witnessing biah?)
:
: When would there ever be witnesses to that?

Witnesses to yichud? If they're "a couple", it's quite likely.

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One who kills his inclination is as though he
micha@aishdas.org        brought an offering. But to bring an offering,
http://www.aishdas.org   you must know where to slaughter and what
Fax: (270) 514-1507      parts to offer.        - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv

Micha Berger wrote:

> Ve'el isheikh teshuqaseikh sure seems like a maqor for tav lemeisiv.
> If you do not believe tav lemeisiv is a universal, you need to explain
> why this part of Chavah's onesh ended, or how it doesn't mean what it
> seems to. The connection seems inescapable. (With 20:20 hindsight once
> someone pointed it out.)

Only if you interpret "ve'el isheich teshukateich" that way in the
first place.  RYBS's interpretation is not muchrach.  Rashi on chumash
understands it differently.  (Rashi's explanation is also difficult
to understand as an eternal and universal statement of human nature,
since it seems contradicted by the metziut, but that's another
discussion.)

It seems to me that RYBS would have difficulty explaining why, at
least among USAn goyim, the majority of divorces are initiated by the
wife.  According to him this should be quite rare, and certainly far
from a majority.

 

> Back to RZS's email:
> :> IF the chazakah is operational, then as long as they are
> :> witnesses to the actual biah, (or, I suppose, to a  yichud
> :> that is equivalent to witnessing biah?)
> :
> : When would there ever be witnesses to that?
> 
> Witnesses to yichud? If they're "a couple", it's quite likely.

Really?  Since your wedding, how many people do you suppose could
testify that they'd seen you and your wife isolated together for
8 consecutive minutes?  In the ordinary course of events that's
not something people usually see.


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev@sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas

<<The BY (OCh 671) quotes the Ri, and is usually taken as holding like him.
Sepharadim follow this position -- and Ashkenazim generally follow the
Rambam. (With a possible exception of the Katzes?)>>

I thought it was conceded that Ashkenazim do not follow the Rambam.
According to Rambam only the head of the household lights but the number is
equal to the number of people multiplied by the number of days
According to Ramah each individual lights

BTW RYBS had his wife and daughters light which seems to make the most sense.
Ishto ke-gufo seems a stretch. Why should daughters be different than sons
The Brisker Rav ties some of this to the question whether the chiyuv is on
the household or on the individual (see also shiur of R Asher Weiss)

-- 
Eli Turkel


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