Avodah Mailing List

Volume 25: Number 150

Mon, 28 Apr 2008

• 1. Re: newspapers and LH (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: western wall (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: makom Ha'Mishkan (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: When does mixed swimming mean? (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: When does mixed swimming mean? (Micha Berger)
• 6. Tfillin?chol hamoed (Rich, Joel)
• 7. Re: mixed swimming (T613K@aol.com)
• 8. Re: When does mixed swimming mean? (SBA)
• 9. prof sperber (Saul.Z.Newman@kp.org)
• 10. Re: When does mixed swimming mean? (SBA)
• 11. Re: letter of RSRH (T613K@aol.com)
• 12. Im ANi Latzmi Ma ani (Rich, Joel)

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 10:31:12AM -0700, Liron Kopinsky wrote:
: The end of the 3rd perek of Megillah (25b) seems to say that if it is known
: that someone is an adulterer that it is permissible to embarrass them in
: public....

: Unless I'm understanding the Gemarrah incorrectly, it seems that there are
: some halachically permissible ways for spreading news about people in this
: way...

It could be the pesaq is bedi'eved -- you shouldn't have been told,
but if you were... Hil' geneivah have many laws about what to do with
stolen objects; that doesn't imply that there is a case where theft
is permissable.

This too implies a loophole in hil' shemiras halashon, just a much
smaller one. Limited to a case where one may believe it once someone else
(even if wrongly) spread it.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 8th day, which is
micha@aishdas.org        1 week and 1 day in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Chesed sheb'Gevurah: When is holding back a
Fax: (270) 514-1507                           Chesed for another?

On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 08:15:58PM +0200, Arie Folger wrote:
: On Thursday, 17. April 2008 15.22:33 Eli Turkel wrote:
:> nevertheless Chazal seem to praise Herod for rebuilding the Temple and
:> say that it was the most beautiful building.
:> After killing the chachamim the remaining ones seemed to encourage him to
:> redo the Temple as a "kapparah"

: Yes, but I doubt that he would be our rebbe in determining what the makeup of 
: the work force should be like.

So let's pick a better rebbe, Shelomo haMelekh. Was Chiram a tzadiq?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 11:18:39PM +0300, Goldmeier wrote:
: Is there such a limitation by the makom ha'mishkan? I seem to remember 
: learnign once, but cannot remember where or when, that the makom 
: hamishkan is not kadosh, and only the binyan itself was. That would mean 
: the place could be tread upon by anybody. Is that correct though or do I 
: remember incorrectly?

Megillah 10a has a machloqes between R' Yehoshua (lo qidshah) and R'
Eliezer (qidshah) as to whether bayis rishon was qidsha lesha'ata veqidsha
le'asid lavo.

The Rambam (BhB 5:16) and Ra'avad (Terumos 13:13) write that
bayis sheini IS qidshah le'asid lavo. The Seiver haTerumah
(Hil' EY) and the Or Zarua (AZ 299) both hold it isn't. In
<http://www.aishdas.org/mesukim/5764/devarim.pdf>, pg 2 note 3 I argue
that the Meshech Chokhmah must hold that there is no qedushah today from
bayis sheini either. My case is that the RMShKmD already argued that the
medrash must hold like R' Yehoshua when it counts the sanctification of
Yehoshua separately than that biymei Zerubavel. And the medrash he is
studying refers to three givings of the land. Thus implying that the
third, biymos hamashiach, would have to be also a sanctification of a
har habyis which is chol.

The pasuq specifically tells us that after Maamad har Sinai, the
mountain returned to chol.

I do not know of anyone who goes even further than the R' Eliezer, and
groups any of the places the mishkan stood with bayis sheini rather than
with har habayis in this regard. The Mishkan has specific connotations
of diras arai to begin with.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 8th day, which is
micha@aishdas.org        1 week and 1 day in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Chesed sheb'Gevurah: When is holding back a
Fax: (270) 514-1507                           Chesed for another?

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 10:48:50PM -0700, Liron Kopinsky wrote:
: This is a common problem of people caring too much about the letter of the
: law and not enough about the spirit of the law...

I thought that not using sexuality to draw attention WAS the letter of
the law. In fact, it is the very name we use for the law -- tzeni'us.

It's that people get caught up in shiurim, and thus spend more time
discussing the quantifiable.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 08:29:32AM -0400, Rich, Joel wrote:
: CLOR but technically why would it be (I suppose we could branch into our
: meta discussions like does everything require a heter or is down time
: assur  or are concerts assur or does halacha frown on family seating or
: should we be choshesh for the pregnancy in ambatya issue discussions )?

Merianbad was frequented by many of the gedolim of a century ago. The
Agudah's Mo'etzes Gedolilei Yisrael even met in the health/swimming
resort in 1937!

OTOH, RHS holds that just the fact that the clothing would get wet and
clingy makes any form of tzeniusdik swimming improbable.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 8th day, which is
micha@aishdas.org        1 week and 1 day in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Chesed sheb'Gevurah: When is holding back a
Fax: (270) 514-1507                           Chesed for another?

IIUC The Beit Yosef in O"C 31 (IIRC) notes that the minhag during the
time of the earlier rishonim was to wear tfillin on chol hamoed but he
came across a statement by R"SBY (Zohar) that it was a seriously bad
thing to do and so the minhag changed.
 
Question- How could it be that the earlier rishonim were unaware of the
severity of the "prohibition"?
 
KT
Joel Rich
 
PS w/r/t an earlier discussion the MB in 31(60) notes the reason that
the shatz takes off his tfillin before hallel on chol hamoed is because
of the congregation will be taking out their lulavim and etrogim so
shatz will have time to take off tfillin
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From: "Meir Shinnar" _chidekel@gmail.com_ (mailto:chidekel@gmail.com) 


WRT mixed swimming
This discussion has come up in the past, and, as I  previously
documented, it was common practice for rabbanim and rebbitzens to  go
mixed swimming at least through the 1950s -  including names that  are
well known - 
 
>>>>>
In one of the previous iterations of this thread, I once wrote, on Areivim,  
a parody passage based on MOAG ("Making of a Gadol" -- the inspiring and  
fascinating biography of R' Yakov Kaminetsky).  In my parody I wrote that  the 
roshei yeshiva of Slabodka and their wives used to go mixed swimming.   I thought 
that this was so obviously over the top, such obvious parody, that  everyone 
would see immediately that I was making fun of the notion that mixed  swimming 
was ever accepted in the old yeshiva world.  However, to my dismay  and 
distress, many people did NOT realize that it was meant as a parody and  actually 
took my post seriously.  They really thought that I was quoting an  actual 
passage in MOAG!   Of all the hundreds (make that  thousands) of posts I've 
written on A/A over the years, that is the one I most  intensely regret having 
written.  In Slabodka they did NOT go mixed  swimming.  I need to put that on the 
record, as partial expiation for my  past wrong-doing.  Some things are just 
not properly the subject of  attempted humor.

 



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






**************Need a new ride? Check out the largest site for U.S. used car 
listings at AOL Autos.      
(http://autos.aol.com/used?NCID=aolcmp00300000002851)
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From: "Meir Shinnar" <chidekel@gmail.com>
WRT mixed swimming
This discussion has come up in the past, and, as I previously documented, it
was common practice for rabbanim and rebbitzens to go mixed swimming at
least through the 1950s -  including names that are well known - and the
standards of tzniut were comparable to what is seen at most family friendly
beaches and pools.
===

And how do you (and those well known rabbanim and rebbitzens) explain the
gemara that I just quoted?
 
"Middas adam ra sheroeh es ishto...verochetzes im bnei adam."
"Im bnei adam salka daatach!?"
[Peirush Rashi: "Im kein raglayim ledavar shezonah hi, ve'asurah lo".
Tosfos: "Afilu adam ra eino sovel zeh me'ishto...afilu kala shebekalos eino
oseh ken.."]
"Ela bemakom shebnei adam rochtzin - zu mitzva min haTorah legarsho"
>>

Pretty RW/Charedi language wouldn't you say?
"Afilu Adam ra eino sovel", "Zonah", "kalah shebekalos" !!


>>It has become unacceptable - but that doesn't necessarily 
mean that it is assur 

The above-quoted language seems pretty assur to me.


>>(one can argue about making a new issur shehachadash assur min
hatorah...:-)

No need for the smiley. 
Believe it or not, the CS uses it also for newly invented chumros.
But mixed swimming definitely isn't one of them.

>>but there is little basis for forbidding, for example, mixed swimming,

Only if one holds that Chazal and Rishonim are "little basis".

SBA

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/977278.html    1]  on  ivory tower 
psak       2]  on use of new data [manuscripts etc]  in psak 


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From: "Rich, Joel" < >
"Middas adam ra sheroeh es ishto...verochetzes im bnei adam." "Im bnei adam
salka daatach!?" [Peirush Rashi: "Im kein raglayim ledavar shezonah hi,
ve'asurah lo".
Tosfos: "Afilu adam ra eino sovel zeh me'ishto...afilu kala shebekalos
eino oseh ken.."]

"Ela bemakom shebnei adam rochtzin - zu mitzva min haTorah legarsho"
SBA

 ==============================================
Vrochetz means to swim? One might posit that mixed sponge bathing or
microwave cleaning would be assur due to the bodily contortions involved
in cleaning one's body, not the medium of water.
>>

Al achas kamo vekamo, leisure and relaxing activities in the water.

SBA

 
 
From: "SBA" _sba@sba2.com_ (mailto:sba@sba2.com) 

 

>>(Actually, I wonder if were he alive today, he might simply  be
the very mainstream Agudat Yisrael/non-Zionist; [--RMM]

Maybe in  Chul. 
But mainstream Agudah in EY? I strongly doubt it.

>>given  that his son-in-law and the descendants thereof were extremely
involved in  the Agudah, this seems like a safe assumption until someone
takes the time to  do a detailed analysis.)

But how many of his descendents are/were  involved in Israeli Aguda?

>>In any case, his Zionism wasn't a  promiment part of his hashkafa

Only as much as and when necessary. He was  busy dealing with the main
Shoresh Poreh Rosh veLaano of Germany at the time  - which was Reform.


SBA
 
>>>>
It is a bit anachronistic to speak of Zionism, whether Religious Zionism or  
the secular variety,  in Germany in the nineteenth century.  There  was no 
such animal.  Hirsch loved Eretz Yisrael.  His writings  are full of the ancient 
yearning and love for the Holy Land which has  accompanied us Jews throughout 
the centuries of galus, whether bitter galus or  benign galus.  
 
Had he been alive when Zionism really got under way, he would have followed  
the majority of gedolim and majority da'as Torah, and would not have been a  
Zionist. (I take it for granted that everyone knows the difference between  
political Zionism and ahavas ha'aretz.)   He would however have  cooperated with 
the institutions of government, once a medinah was a fait  accompli.  He would 
NOT have agreed with the Satmar Rebbe or the  Lubavitcher Rebbe that it is 
preferable, when given a choice, for Jews to davka  remain in chutz la'aretz 
until Moshiach comes.  OTOH where there is already  an established kehilla in 
chutz la'aratz, like the Yekke community in America,  he would not counsel them 
to dissolve their kehilla and reconstitute it in  E'Y. 
 
In the absence of a navi, it is extremely difficult to know where any  
individual Jew is supposed to be.  Overall, it seems to me (I am not  channeling 
Hirsch now, but expressing my own opinion) that the Hashgacha has a  plan for the 
Jewish people that includes both a strong Torah-only community in  Eretz 
Yisrael AND a Torah-plus-work community in chutz la'aretz. Even DL --  to the 
extent that they adhere to halacha and are idealistic and make a kiddush  Hashem 
in their daily lives (but not when they ostentatiously distance  themselves 
from the charedi community) are doing G-dly work.   That is the Torah Im Derech 
Eretz of our day -- different purposes for the  communities of E'Y and of 
chu'l.  Some who learn full time -- and may  Hashem bless them and increase their 
numbers -- and some who work and are kovea  itim and engage in rabbanus, 
chinuch and kiruv and just plain parnassah, and  philanthropy and tzedaka and 
chessed -- who support the full-time Torah  learners.  And may Hashem bless them and 
increase their numbers too.   Zareinu vechaspeinu yarbeh kachol.
 
Hirsch's descendants and followers in Eretz Yisrael mostly identified with  
the PAI party (Poalei Agudas Yisrael) in the early decades of the Medinah.   
That party now seems to be defunct.  Hirschians in  E'Y were /not/ Satmar and 
were /not/ Neturei Karta.  They even  built a kibbutz, Kibbutz Chofetz Chaim.
 
 
A sign of the essential yiras Shamayim of Yekkes in general and Hirschians  
in particular is that when they do (unfortunately) deviate from TIDE  
philosophical purity, they tend usually to head right rather than left.  I  speak of 
their Torah affiliation, not their political views.  
 
RMB wrote a post to which I didn't respond for lack of time when he wrote  
it, but he said that whatever I wrote about what Hirsch would have  thought 
about E'Y was just wishful thinking, that I was putting words in  his mouth and 
making him out to be some kind of Zionist because I myself have  some Zionist 
leanings, but that in reality RSRH was closer to Satmar in his  thinking. R' SBA 
agrees with RMB on that last point.
 
I am totally and absolutely convinced that they are both wrong.  
 
What has happened in E'Y in the last hundred years simply cannot be  ignored, 
cannot be gainsaid, and cannot -- chas vesholom even to say such a  thing -- 
all be attributed to the workings of the Sitra Achra.  We have  seen miracles 
upon miracles in Eretz Yisrael, and even if the Zionists hijacked  Hashem's 
gift and tried to uproot Torah in the Holy Land,  it is still  Hashem's gift and 
not some kind of a Satanic trick.  Like everything in  this post-Eden world 
of ours, everything in E'Y is ohr vechoshech mishtamshim  be'irbuvya.  Even the 
most rabidly anti-Torah secular Zionists  have some zechus for the 
infrastructure they built, which makes possible the  beautiful Torah communities we have 
today in E'Y.  We owe them hakaras  hatov as well as fierce and determined 
opposition to their secular ideals.   We have to be able to hold complexity in 
our minds.
 




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






**************Need a new ride? Check out the largest site for U.S. used car 
listings at AOL Autos.      
(http://autos.aol.com/used?NCID=aolcmp00300000002851)
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I found the following of great interest especially as it parallels some
of R' Amital's writings.
KT
Joel Rich
Ha-Rav Shlomo Aviner 

Rav Kook's approach -vs- focus on the individual

[From "Be-Ahavah U-Be-Emunah - Parashat Acharei Mot 5768 - Translated by
Rafael Blumberg]


Question: Perhaps, with our generation being so focused on the
individual, Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook's approach, which focused on the
good of the group at large, has become outdated? Perhaps he's no longer
so relevant and Chabad or Breslav (which focus more on the betterment of
the individual) are better? The fact is that those two groups are
winning over the youth. 


Answer: Your analysis is correct except for one detail: It applies not
just in this generation but throughout all the generations. People have
always been more interested in themselves. They've always had an
exaggerated self-love, and they've always had an evil impulse which
said, "Me! Me!" I am not against self-love. After all it says, "Love
your neighbor as yourself" (Vayikra 19:18). That's a sign that you've
got to love yourself, too. Yet I'm talking about exaggerated self-love. 


What has changed, however, is that this proclivity has become a central
ideal, replacing the ideal of extricating oneself from egocentrism.
Indeed, during the past 200-300 years, the individualist bent has been
becoming stronger in the West, and we are being dragged along, like a
tail, as we proclaim, "I set MYSELF before me always." We forget that
there is only One Being who can truly say "I", and that is G-d, and we
are supposed to respond to Him, "Here we are!" 

 

Obviously, it isn't so that Rav Kook only focused on the group. Only
people who haven't learned his writings make this claim. Rav Kook was
not just interested in the group, and not just interested in the
individual, but in the Torah, which is concerned with them both, for
each needs the other. Or, more precisely, as Rav Kook's son, Rav Tzvi
Yehudah put it, "the individual, from within the group and for the sake
of the group". See Mesillat Yesharim at the end of Chapter 19. 


Individualistic worship of a divinity existed before Avraham. Idolatry
is likewise individualistic, and similar to the contemporary language of
the New Age, flowing out of the pagan Far East, which makes reference to
"the god within me". Avraham represents the focus on the group. His
worship constitutes an enormous step upward. Slowly we ascended from the
private altars to the universal Beit Ha-Mikdash. Whoever talks now about
individualism in worship is regressing to the primitivism of before
Avraham. 


The truth is that the Exile involved a focus on the individual as well.
Mine is mine and yours is yours. Even its spirituality was private, with
people thinking, "My place in Heaven is mine alone (see Rav Kook's Orot
111). My worship is mine alone. My emotions are mine alone." Yet that
approach represents sickness, not health, a band-aid, not an ideal
approach. The Master of the Universe decided that we should be returning
to the concern with the aggregate. Out of that concern, we have done
many things: building up the Land, the return to Zion, the establishment
of a Jewish State, and especially our army, the epitome of concern for
the public good. When there is the brotherhood of fighters, the one is
ready to die for the other. 


We are becoming more and more concerned with the general fate. Some
explain our Sages' utterance that "the son of David will not come until
money disappears from pockets" (Sanhedrin 97a) as meaning, "until focus
on the individual ceases." How very fortunate we are that we have come
back from the concern for the individual! 
How forlorn the western world - and those amongst us who ape it - for
being so focused on the individual. Things there are so bad that people
don't get married, let alone stay married. Marriage is likewise man's
main way of extricating himself from focus on the individual.  

 

Indeed, it is seemingly a pleasant thing to be focused on oneself. The
ancient Greeks have a legend about a fellow named Narcissus who stared
at his reflection in the water, and he was so enchanted by it that he
couldn't take his eyes off it. Ultimately he put down roots and became a
flower - the narcissus. Freud created from this an emotional prototype,
the narcissist, who finds all his satisfaction from preoccupation with
himself. By contrast, our holy Sages told about a boy who came to fill a
pitcher of water from a spring. His evil impulse took hold of him and
showed him his beautiful hair, seeking to deprive him of the World to
Come. He immediately took on the vow of a Nazir so that at the end of
the month he would cut all his hair off (Nedarim 9b). 


Indeed, focusing on the public good is harder than focusing on one's own
needs, as Rav Kook taught, "True, public-welfare-oriented Torah
observance is much harder than individual-focused observance" (Ma'amarei
HaRe'iyah, page 174). Yet such is the unique divine service of the
Jewish People. Therefore, "a person must constantly extricate himself
from his individualistic mindset which fills his whole being, rendering
him totally preoccupied with his individual fate. Such is the opposite
of the way of G-d, imprinted on the Assembly of Israel...When a person
focuses constantly and totally on his own interests and welfare that
counts as 'following the ways of the Amorites'. It is not Jewish, and we
are better off viewing it as something forbidden and out of bounds "
(Ein Aya, Shabbat 2, 127-128). 


"When we were in our Land, and the Temple stood, it was our center, our
place of unity, hence private altars were forbidden, even though they
could have served as a means of Jews uniting in smaller groups. Yet that
desire by a small group would bring separation from the larger center,
and the nation's unity would be nullified. Only from that national unity
can G-d's ultimate will be realized." (Ein Aya, Berachot 1, 76).

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