Avodah Mailing List

Volume 25: Number 145

Thu, 24 Apr 2008

• 1. Lying to protect the simple of faith (Akiva Blum)
• 2. Re: Daas Torah (Richard Wolpoe)
• 3. Re: Lying to protect the simple of faith (Michael Makovi)
• 4. Re: Lying to protect the simple of faith (kennethgmiller@juno.com)
• 5. Re: Lying to protect the simple of faith (Richard Wolpoe)
• 6. ge'on yaaqov (SBA)
• 7. Re: Austritt, TIDE, and Israel (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer)
• 8. Re: Austritt, TIDE, and Israel (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer)
• 9. HQBH speaks through History [was R' Angel & Geirus Redux] (Richard Wolpoe)
• 10. Re: Violate Shabbat to Save a Jentile (Richard Wolpoe)
• 11. Re: Hallel at the seder (Richard Wolpoe)

 "Michael Makovi"  <mikewinddale@gmail.com> wrote (quoted):

>>>>
 Most importantly, the Gemara
itself opines that Yehoshua wrote the end of the Torah - surely Rambam
cannot declare Chazal to be heretics!
<<<<

What's the question? Moshe Rabeinu couldn't have written them because that
would have been not true. But he certainly could have instructed Yehoshua
on the exact text to write. So the entire Torah is the direct prophecy of
Moshe Rabeinu.

Akiva

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 3:20 AM, <T613K@aol.com> wrote:

>   RRW wrote:
>
> >>Example: I was taught in junior high that vinegar is Acetic Acid AND
> that aspirin is made from acetic acid and salicylic acid. On that basis I
> used to assum that aspirin was a product of  hametz!  But I was corrected
> by  practical chemists and pharmacists who explained that using grain
> vinegar was prohibitive in the manufacture of aspirin!  So a little learning
> can be dangerous and misleading.<<
>
>
> >>>>>
> For that reason, one should not consult a rav who only has a little
> learning.
>
> Also one should not consult a posek who is still in junior high school.
>
>
> *--Toby Katz
> =============*
>

That's not my point
My point is one should not consult any Rav in any area in which he is not
expert even if he is k'ven shiv'im shana ....
UNLESS
That Rav will himself be wiling to consult experts.

So my point is that Da'as Torah is really quite limited to the sphere of
Torah itself and only to the areas in which that Rav knows what he is
talking about!

OTOH, it is often a good idea to consult a Rav for his insight anyway.

=====================================================================

Maa'seh shehaya #1:

A frum Jew drowned off the GW Bridge.
Police Ruled it a suicide.
The fellow involved was somewhat involved with the mob
I was talking to a "Gadol BaTorah" and he discussed the fellow's suicide as
a fact.
I corrected that Gadol and said that we cannot be sure and that al pi
halacha we MUST give him the benefit of the doubt!  The Gadol concurred with
my hochachah

What I did NOT tell that Gadol was that the fellow had a mob connection for
obvious reasons of LH etc.  Anyone aware of that connexion would realize
that a suicide is not ALWAYS a suicide and that the fellow may have been
either

   1. murdered in a way to  APPEAR as a suicide
   2. OR he was told to jump off the bridge at the point of a gun or
   similar coercion [like hurting the family]

Point? That Rav was probably not so aware of how the mob works. I won't go
into how I know but suffice it to say that I am more worldly.

Given a realistic probabilty that said suicide was never a suicide we
generally give the niftar the benefit of the doubt, and the Gadol would
probably concur. Just that he could not fathom WHY it was a feasible reality
IOW what's the safeik? The police and the M/E ruled it a suicide!  But I had
exposure to entire sets of facts that this Gadol Lacked.

==================================================================

M'aseh #2. A Rav with Semicha - but not practicing - was lecturing that we
cannot consider the case of a woman who is to shy to ask sh'eilos about
taharas hamishpacha.  He was talking BOOK LEARNING. I have heard anecdotal
evidence hat there are many sizable communities in which the one-Rav town
gets a VERY low number of queries.   POINT? Despite  this Rav's intentions
to  uphold  book halacha the reality on the ground is that women ask in far
fewer numbers than would normally be expected.  They don't print those
sociological stats in the Mishnah Brurah!  But Rabbonim in the know - know
what they are up against.

Therefore, Da'as Torah of the ivory tower nature can be downright misleading

OTOH a very dear friend had a shidduch prolbem ironed out by Hassidc Rebbe
about 25 years ago in Boro Park,  Rebbes are often well-trained and
well-versed in personal and family issues. They not only know halacha but a
lot about family dynamics and human nature. Their "da'as" can be very
effective, far more than any assimilated social worker would have been.
However, how much of that is pure Torah and how much of that is plain
"seichel" coupled with years of intense experience I don't know. as far as
Siyyatta Dishmaya goes, Rabbonim do not have a monopoly. Doctors have it,
too. Ever watch House?  He is a Kofeir who gets Siyyata dishmaya!

=====================================================================

Da'as Torah to me is a function of using good judgment on gray areas.
Illustration: equating Electricity to fire [or not] is the kind of halachic
judgment a Poseik would do better than an engineer or physicist - because it
is not a function of what happens on the molecular level but on the visible
Halachic level.

-- 
Kol Tuv / Best Regards,
RabbiRichWolpoe@Gmail.com
see: http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/
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> > Most importantly, the Gemara
> > itself opines that Yehoshua wrote the end of the Torah - surely Rambam
> > cannot declare Chazal to be heretics!
> > Mikha'el Makovi

> What's the question? Moshe Rabeinu couldn't have written them because that would have
> been not true. But he certainly could have instructed Yehoshua on the exact text to write.
> So the entire Torah is the direct prophecy of Moshe Rabeinu.
>
> Akiva

The Gemara says Moshe could in fact have written them - that's one of
the two (AFAIK) answers the Gemara gives - G-d dictated and Moshe
wrote with his tears.

And yes, Moshe could have instructed Yehoshua on what to write. But
could this Gemara not be read just as well that Yehoshua himself wrote
them independently of Moshe? Unless you can refute my reading, it's
still a valid one. In fact, I'd say my reading is more valid than
yours:

Javing Yehoshua write them literally sitting next to Moshe is
certainly possible, but it is too similar to Moshe himself writing
them, and so I see no reason why the Gemara would offer this as an
alternative to Moshe himself writing it. The Gemara is trying to solve
the difficulty of how a Moshaic Torah could describe Moshe's death -
an obvious problem of chronology; one answer is that Moshe wrote down
his own death at the dictation of Hashem (hence the tears as he wrote,
and with which he wrote), and the other answer is that Yehoshua wrote
it down after Moshe's death (cf. that the end of sefer Yehoshua
describes several deaths, each of which was written by the successor
of the deceased according to the Gemara) - this second answer totally
answers the chronology problem because it says there are post-Moshe
additions to the Torah! Now, if we say that the second answer is
really that G-d dictated to Moshe who dictated to Yehoshua, how is it
a meaningfully different answer, vis a vis the question asked? It IS
possible that Moshe dictated to Yehoshua, but it's really not a
different answer than the first answer, much as saying that Moshe
wrote the pesukim wearing purple boxer shorts is not a different
answer than just saying he wrote them stam, even though it may be true
that he had such boxers.

Mikha'el Makovi

R' Michael Makovi wrote:
> All I said was that for the sake of the simple and
> ignorant, sometimes you can't tell the truth.

I would accept that phrasing as a valid translation of the principle "Halacha v'ayn morin kayn".

Akiva Miller
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On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 2:31 AM, <T613K@aol.com> wrote:

>   From: "Michael Makovi" <mikewinddale@gmail.com>
> and all the Jews who have ever said to a deceased relative, "Be a melitz
> yosher for us" set a precedent that you can pretty well pray to anyone and
> anything you like  -
>
> *
> *
> *--Toby Katz
> =============*
>

What about doreish el hameisim?
Even the Kitzur SA warns us NOT to address the dead at a cemetery -
according to you why not?

Not ALL returns to fundamentals all wrong, inacurate or arrogant,. Plenty of
mis-understandings DO creep in to the fray.

It is the highly persnikketty investigators who often dig up the original
intent of a given passage.  The struggle for truth includes higher levels of
accuracy and better definition of fuzzy concepts.

After all the Talmud is replete with hair-splits.

-- 
Kol Tuv / Best Regards,
RabbiRichWolpoe@Gmail.com
see: http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/
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From: Micha Berger < >
does ge'on yaaqov exist during galus? 
>>

Actually not. 
At least not the 'geon yaakov' that I know of, mentioned in Tehillim 47:5.

The Metzudos says it means the Bes Hamikdosh while the Redak says it refers
to the EY of the 'good old days'.

(Unless, of course, you and RZS are talking about some different geon
yaakov.)

SBA

My understanding (confirmed by Breuer family members) is that he did not 
attend the Agudah conventions, and never joined the Mo'etzes or the 
Nesi'us, out of respect of the breach between the Breuer Mishpocho and 
the Agudah (in the guise of Jacob Rosenheim). This kepeidah was not 
maintained by Rabbi Gelley, who did join the Nesi'us.

KT, GM,
YGB

Prof. Levine wrote:
> At 11:53 PM 4/21/2008, SBA wrote:
>> Thus I would suggest that the had RSRH lived in our - post 
>> establishment of
>> the Medinah - days, there is more than a probability that he would have
>> lined up with the EH/Satmar team rather than Agudah..
>
> Rav Shimon Schwab, ZT"L, took essentially this approach. Indeed, for 
> many years he would not attend Agudah Conventions, because the Agudah 
> had originally been part of the Israeli government at the time of the 
> founding of the State.
>
> However, after a number of years he was prevailed upon to attend. Some 
> Baalei Batim said to him, "True, you do not agree with their 
> philosophy regarding Zionism. However, is it appropriate to deprive 
> them of your Torah." I cannot vouch for the preciseness of this 
> recollection, since I no longer recall whom I heard it from.
>
> YL
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Avodah mailing list
> Avodah@lists.aishdas.org
> http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org
>   
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Unlikely. Dr. Isaac Breuer initally took the EH path, as a rational 
outgrowth of RSRH's philosophy - as suggested here by RSBA - but saw it 
was actually /*not*/ a rational outgrowth and renounced the EH position 
(which, in itself, became a distortion of the original RYCZ position, 
but that is for another time...).

KT, GM,
YGB

SBA wrote:
> Thus I would suggest that the had RSRH lived in our - post establishment of
> the Medinah - days, there is more than a probability that he would have
> lined up with the EH/Satmar team rather than Agudah..
>
> SBA
>   
>
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On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 11:52 PM, Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org> wrote:

> This thread went all over the place.
>
> II - Austritt, TIDE, and Israel
>
> But arguing for your perception doesn't make it the position of the
> movement to which you wish to align. They forced RAYK out over the
> Zionism issue.



> RYBS chose to leave (according to 5 Derashos) because he
> felt that HQBH spoke through history and told us Mizrachi was correct.
>
> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha
> --
> Micha Berger
>

And imho when HQBH made the USA the Torah centre [Post-wWII until at least
recently]  I believe that HE did not want a simple trnsplantation  an
Eastern European Ghettoi-ized Torah community but a more open Westernized
TIDE or TuM style Torah community

During Galus Bavle the Roshie Yeshiva left 11 years before the amcha.  This
should have been the case in the USA but the Roshei Yeshiva left Europe by
and large quite reluctantly.  Had they left en masse early on and done real
forward looking Keiruv instead of backward looking circling of the wagons a
generation might have been saved for Torah. That was the ideal of the early
Young Israel movement.

Agudah is OK per s. But the lements of Agudah and others tha are tying to
turn the clock back to pre-emanicaption Eastern Europe are imho hot heeding
G-d's imperative to move forward with a Torah that will survive and thrive
in the West and reach more people.

Those groups that do do outreach are of course to be commended. Aside from
the aforementioned Young Israel - NCSY, Habad,  YU's JSS,  Or Samey'ach and
others come to mind as getting out the message. Even Agudah in America has
given up on Yiddish as the "Mother Tongue" at this stage.  Had they jumped
AHEAD of the bandwagon [as did Habad] they might have been leaders of the
keiruv movement instead of relative late-comers.

A college/university education [or something similar] is a neccesity imho
for most Ortho's in the West who are involved with community leadership.
Rav Perlow [Novominsker] is a classic paradigm of what I mean by that.  R.
Dr. Twersky aslso comes to mind, not to mention the entire YU community.
-- 
Kol Tuv / Best Regards,
RabbiRichWolpoe@Gmail.com
see: http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/
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On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 9:00 AM, Michael Makovi <mikewinddale@gmail.com>
wrote:

> > It was Jesus who said, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for
> the
> > Sabbath."  It's in the New Testament.  Not exactly a halachic source.
> > --Toby Katz
>
> But maybe we can drink to the hava amina? But seriously...
>
> http://www.aishdas.org/student/shabbat.htm
>
> Yoma 85a-b
> R. Yonatan ben Yosef[46] said: "For it is holy to you" (Exodus 31:14)
> -- It is given to your hands and not you to its hands.
> [46 Mekhilta has R. Shimon ben Menasia]
>
> Mikha'el Makovi


An acquaintance of mine was reading the gospels [not necessarily the rest of
the new testament] and he found an amazing parallel to MANY midrashim and
Aggados.  and therefore It seems obvious that the early Xtians spoke in the
dialect of  Pharisaic Judaism and not Sadducean dialect [ and probably not
the Essene either].  They were immersed in midrashic style mindset.

-- 
Kol Tuv / Best Regards,
RabbiRichWolpoe@Gmail.com
see: http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/
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On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 8:38 PM, Zev Sero <zev@sero.name> wrote:

> Richard Wolpoe wrote:
>
>  Question: What does habbad do when a yachid says Hallel on Rosh Hodesh? Do
>> they still say a Bracha?
>>
>
> There are different and conflicting sources on that question, and so
> in practise there is no one minhag.  One source suggests that it
> depends on the individual's state of mind on that day: "oib es hallelt
> zich" he should say the bracha, and if not not.
>
>
> --
> Zev Sero
>

AIUI,.the Rema might say: if you have 2 answering then say the bracha, but
if you are TOTALLY alone don't! and that might explain the lack of a minhag
due to lakc of a minyan.
Because the opposite of Yachid is rabbim and that USUALLY implies a minyan
of ten, but the Rema is saying 2 answering might still be NOT-Yachid...

Thus, Thus from 3-10 is a gray area, brahca is viable but not required
1 alone, no bracha at all/

Whether this is aliba l'ma'aseh I like th Hilluk anyway! --smile--




-- 
Kol Tuv / Best Regards,
RabbiRichWolpoe@Gmail.com
see: http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/
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