Avodah Mailing List

Volume 26: Number 19

Sun, 25 Jan 2009

• 1. Re: Birkat Hachamah (Gals...@aol.com)
• 2. Rachel Immeinu and Gaza: Doreish Issues (Harvey Benton)
• 3. Re: Birkat Hachamah (Zev Sero)
• 4. Open Door Policy (Harvey Benton)
• 5. Currency and Bond Trading; Ribis and Shabbas Issues (Harvey Benton)
• 6. Re: Open Door Policy (Rich, Joel)
• 7. Re: Is Smoking Mutar? (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 8. Re: Titles Before Names (Micha Berger)
• 9. Re: Currency and Bond Trading; Ribis and Shabbas Issues (Micha Berger)
• 10. Re: Threats Against A Judge (Micha Berger)
• 11. Re: Rachel Immeinu and Gaza: Doreish Issues (rabbirichwolpoe@gmail.com)
• 12. Re: tehillim at night (Chanoch (Ken) Bloom)
• 13. Honor of Parent v. Honor of Torah (Harvey Benton)
• 14. Re: Rachel Immeinu and Gaza: Doreish Issues (Zev Sero)
• 15. Skip Ya'aleh Veyavo on purpose? (Danny Schoemann)
• 16. Re: Rachel Immeinu and Gaza: Doreish Issues (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer)

I am curious to know what is the first source about saying Birkhat Hachama on 
April 8 (Greorian Calendar) which is March 3rd (Julian Calendar). It is clear 
to me that the calculation is based on the fact that the first Tekufat 
Nissan, Shenat Tohu was on Adar 22nd (Tosafot, Rosh Hashana Daf 8 amud 1).
Indeed, March 3rd (Julian) was Adar 22nd in Shnat Tohu.
 
If I try to calculate by Tekufot, I do not get the same date.
If we say Tal Umatar 60 days after the tekufa, then the tekufa (tekufat 
Tishrei) is Dec 4th minus 60, whcih gives us - October 6th. To those that count 
just 59 less (if 60 days after Tekufa includes the day of the tekufa, and the 
60th day), then Dec 4th - 59 = October 7th.  Tekufat Nissan is 1/2 year later, 
which is October 7th + 365.25 / 2 = April 6th. I am still missing two days here, 
as Birkat Hachama is April 8.
 
galsaba
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I could not access some of the links in the posting by Yitzhak Grossman,
but there is a short (3 minute) audio?Teshuva by R. Zev Leff (link below).?
Basically R. Leff makes distinctions between doreish of a nefesh or body of
a niftar, vs. doreish of a neshama or ruach.? He says that according to
most poskim, contacting neshamas of meisim is ok; he brings a maiseh of the
Arizal,?and then says that according to?some, to even entreat the neshamas
of tzadikim buried at a kever, is ok.?There?are problems of davening to
anyone?but Hashem, and he brings down mekoros (no exact citations) on?both
sides of?the issue.
KT, HB???
?
Question R. Leff responds to:
The Lubavitcher Rebbe wrote the following: "You ask, isn't it now no longer
possible to ask the [Previous] Rebbe, my father-in-law, of blessed memory,
when one is in doubt which course of behavior is correct? [This is not so,
for] if you stand firm in your Hiskashrus [bond] with him, and pay no
attention to the lures of the evil inclination, and you send the request to
the gravesite of the [Previous] Rebbe, my father-in-law, of blessed memory,
the [Previous] Rebbe will find a way to answer you." [Igros Kodesh, Vol. 3,
page 266] Isn't this a problem of Doresh el Hamaisim? ?Yoni, New York, NY
?
Audio link: (question 1576), [category Halacha (General Jewish Law)]
http://www.rabbileff.net/shiurim/ask/index.htm
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Gals...@aol.com wrote:
> I am curious to know what is the first source about saying Birkhat 
> Hachama on April 8 (Greorian Calendar) which is March 3rd (Julian 
> Calendar).

No, it's March 26.  The difference between Julian and Gregorian is
13 days.


> If I try to calculate by Tekufot, I do not get the same date.
> If we say Tal Umatar 60 days after the tekufa, then the tekufa (tekufat 
> Tishrei) is Dec 4th minus 60, whcih gives us - October 6th. To those 
> that count just 59 less (if 60 days after Tekufa includes the day of the 
> tekufa, and the 60th day), then Dec 4th - 59 = October 7th.  Tekufat 
> Nissan is 1/2 year later, which is October 7th + 365.25 / 2 = April 6th. 
> I am still missing two days here, as Birkat Hachama is April 8.

Tekufat Tishri, according to cheshbon Shmuel, is always on 24-Sep Julian,
or 7-Oct Gregorian.  Last year it was at 0300, this year it will be at
0900, next year it will be at 1500, and in 2011 it will be at 2100.
We start saying Tal Umatar at Maariv of the 60th Jewish day; this year
7-Oct will be 19 Tishri, so the 60th day will be 18 Kislev, which is
5-Nov, so we start at Maariv of that day, i.e. on 4-Nov.  In 2011, 7-Oct
will be Erev Yom Kippur, but the tekufah will be at 2100, so it will
already be Yom Kippur, so the 60th day will be 10 Kislev, or 6-Dec, and
so we will start Tal Umatar at Maariv on 5-Dec.

Tekufat Nissan this year be on Tuesday 25-Mar (7-Apr Gregorian) at 1800,
i.e. the very beginning of Yom Revi'i, just as it was, according to this
cheshbon, at the creation, and just as it is every 28 years.  We say the
bracha on Wednesday morning, 8-Apr.


-- 
Zev Sero                    A mathematician is a device for turning coffee
z...@sero.name               into theorems.                   - Paul Erdos

Sometimes a married woman finds herself in a situation where she may need
to be secluded with a man who is not her husband.? For instance, if she
visits a doctor or dentist, or has a repairman over her house to fix
something.? From my understanding, the policy is to leave a door open so
that others can walk in (or see in through a window?) at any time -- thus
alleviating or obviating?any potential yichud problems.? 
?
My questions are:
?
1. Is there a minimum shiur, like a tefach, that?a door has to be open?
2.?If there is traffic on the street, and people?can?look in through the
window to see activities in the house (or specifically into the room being
worked on), would leaving the blinds open be enough? or does?a door have to
be actually open?
3.?Are these comings and going halachas similar to kashrus halachas
involving non-Jewish cooks, where the cooks have to be constantly in fear
of a Jew entering, thus they will be careful to not do anything
against?halacha??
4. What if someone lives in a totally secluded area, where there is no
street traffic at all, would leaving the door open be any help at all??
Or?do we say that there is always a possibility of a visitor coming, which
would alleviate the problem?
Thanks much, HB
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A. Do currency (or bond) traders who buy, sell, structure, restructure,
finance, etc.foreign and domestic currencies (or? bonds)?run into problems
of ribis?? Are there special arrangements, heterim, etc., that they?need to
effectuate in order to alleviate any ribis issues?? If they work for a
Jewish-owned currency or bond trading company,?and/or buy?and sell from
Jewish traders (possibbly worldwide), are there any special issues that
they must deal with (ribis; and/or?shabbas -- due to overseas transactions
where it might be Shabbas in London, but not New York for example).??
?
B. For the purposes of halachas relating to ribis, can currencies?(or
bonds)?be considered to be commodities? And thus perhaps enjoy some
leniences in halachic applications?
?
Three?excerpts that may have bearing on the issues:?? 
1.? Tosafot (snip)..... (in contemporary times, gold, platinum, anything
traded on a commodity exchange) may not be discounted on the basis of early
payment. On the other hand, anything that has no precise price (Tosafot's
example - a cow, a cloak) may be implicitly discounted. Under no
circumstances may the terms of trade be explicitly mentioned.?[pg 2, Part
1, Section A; http://www.jlaw.com/Articl
es/ribis1.html, Rabbi Joseph Stern]
?
2.?.... Furthermore, as previously discussed, commodities without a set
market price are permitted to be sold at a small premium (up to 1/6 for
delayed payment). [(pg 4, Section E; http://www.jlaw.com/Articl
es/ribis1.html, Rabbi Joseph Stern]?
?
3.? Rav Pinchas Teitz, writing in Hapardes some 30 years ago, rationalizes
the practice of selling Israeli bonds without a Heter Iska on the basis
that Ribis implies a known creditor and debtor. Here, however, one cannot
identify the individuals backing the bonds. Nor at the time of the
transaction does the lender know the debtor's identity. Furthermore, it
could be argued that all bonds are sold through a broker, invoking Rashi's
opinion that is not prohibited. And: However, a respondent in the
periodical Hamaor (Jubilee Volume) strongly disputes Rav Teitz's assertion
and requires a Heter Iska for bonds.?[http://rebeltraderpopcolla
r.blogspot.com, posted by Rebelwithacause]
?
Kol Tuv, Harvey Benton
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Sometimes a married woman finds herself in a situation where she may
need to be secluded with a man who is not her husband. My questions are:
 
1. Is there a minimum shiur, like a tefach, that a door has to be open?
2. If there is traffic on the street, and people can look in through the
window to see activities in the house (or specifically into the room
being worked on), would leaving the blinds open be enough? or does a
door have to be actually open?
3. Are these comings and going halachas similar to kashrus halachas
involving non-Jewish cooks, where the cooks have to be constantly in
fear of a Jew entering, thus they will be careful to not do anything
against halacha? 
4. What if someone lives in a totally secluded area, where there is no
street traffic at all, would leaving the door open be any help at all?
Or do we say that there is always a possibility of a visitor coming,
which would alleviate the problem?
 
 
=============================================================
Answers are all on this audio (except 3)

 
 
http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/730321/Rabbi_Zvi_Sobolofsky/
Hilchos_Yichud
 
KT
Joel Rich
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R' Micha Berger wrote:
> In calculating the added risk caused by smoking a cigarette
> one must take into account the fact that it's addictive....
> I don't know if halkhah recognized such second order effects.

In Igros Moshe, Yoreh Deah 3:35, Rav Moshe Feinstein writes that smoking
marijuana is forbidden. He gives several reasons for this, one of which is
that it leads to a desire (addiction?) which some are unable to keep in
check, which is the prohibition faced by the Ben Sorer uMoreh.

(I wrote much more about this teshuva in Avodah Digest 25:301.)

Akiva Miller

____________________________________________________________
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On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 01:25:58AM -0500, T6...@aol.com wrote:
: I can also think of a couple of examples to support what you say, that  the 
: title can precede the name in Tanach -- e.g., "Hamelech Dovid zaken ba  
: bayamim."  So scratch the "foreign influence" theory.

Appositives go either way. "My teacher, Mrs Cohen" or "Mrs Cohen, my
teacher". I am more and more inclined to believe that Tanakh doesn't
have titles in that sense of the word, and they really are complimentary
parallel descriptions.

If it were a title, would the "ha-" of "hamelekh" be grammatical?

In any case, I think that the shift in frequency from usually being
after the name to usually being before could still be a foreign influence.
Regardless of the reality of thinking of "hamelekh" as an appositive to
using "Rabbi"/"Rav", "Mar" or "Rabban" as titles.

We'll find out when we call the next king "XYZ hamelekh" or "Melekh
XYZ", bb"a.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Rescue me from the desire to win every
mi...@aishdas.org        argument and to always be right.
http://www.aishdas.org              - Rav Nassan of Breslav
Fax: (270) 514-1507                   Likutei Tefilos 94:964

On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 04:15:55AM -0800, Harvey Benton wrote:
: A. Do currency (or bond) traders who buy, sell, structure, restructure,
: finance, etc.foreign and domestic currencies (or? bonds)?run into problems
: of ribis?...

Is it exchange traded or OTC? If the exchange isn't Jewishly owned, there
wouldn't be an issur ribbis. So I think we can limit the discussion to
OTC (over the counter) trades.

Stocks are pretty much what a heter iska is trying to imitate. Dividends
are profit share, not ribbis.

OTC Bonds are only an issue if you own the company making the coupon
payments, and again you're selling to a given counterparty who is Jewish.
Structured products that have interest coupons (rather than profit-linked
cash flows) are more often OTC, and since you're grouping any incoming
interest and making a new interest payment, I can see them also posing
halachic issues. But assuming you owned the investment bank repackaging
the product.

I don't know if any of this would be lemaaseh, as Jewish to Jewish OTC
trades of anything fancy are rare. Are any firms of that kind of size
that they issue these kinds products held by a Jewish majority -- on
both sides of the trade?

I think Israeli bonds are the only real example, as RPTeitz noted.
However, I think the argument is stronger than the way you repeated his
words. It's not just unknown, there is a non-Jewish middle party. The
Bank of NY Mellon, the actual issuer, presumably does not have more
shares held by Jews than non-Jews.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur
mi...@aishdas.org        with the proper intent than to fast on Yom
http://www.aishdas.org   Kippur with that intent.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                       - Rav Yisrael Salanter

On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 03:11am GMT, kennethgmil...@juno.com wrote:
: I wrote: 
:> 1) It seems to me that the prohibiton against murder DOES
:> require mesiras nefesh by its very nature: "Who knows whose
:> blood is redder?"

: R' Micha Berger commented:
:> I fail to undertand what you're saying. How does your
:> question make shefichas dam more about mesiras nefesh than AZ
:> or gilui arayos? What the question you quote shows is why one
:> should be moseir nefesh, why this made it to the list of 3.
:> But how does it define the very nature of refusing to kill?

: It is because both murder and mesiras nefesh involve a loss of
: life. Therefore one can easily get into a logical discussion about when
: they conflict.

That's not mesiras nefesh. Milkhamah requires risk to one's own life,
therefore it must be permissable to risk one's life to do it -- otherwise
the mitzvah couldn't exist. Murder is another person's life. Whose blood
is redder is a different argument than the one we're making. It could
be that the 3 yeihareig ve'al ya'avor are for three different reasons,
and shefichas damam is about weighing lives.

But the list apparently does not include mitzvos that require
self-sacrifice by their very definition.

: RZS is treating self-preservation as an important factor in these
: decisions. I don't. Self-preservation is a desire and an instinct,
: not a moral imperative.

I think RZS is an Objectivist, so I'm not surprised.

: The case of a rodef is different. His actions cheapen life, and it is
: not unfair to value his life according to his valuation. The result is
: that yes indeed, my life *is* more valuable, and he forfeits his.

Al sheloshah devarim ha'olam omeid, and anyone who takes an axe to any
of the pillars is cheapening life. I think that's the real meaning of the
3 yeihareig ve'al ya'avor list. The Maharal (Derekh haChaim 1:2) shows how:

The opposite of Torah, self refinement, is gilui arayos. (To put it in
my own thoughts, the only one harmed when conducted "by two consenting
adults behind closed doors" are the two people themselves. Second,
the mussarist I try to be appreciates this definition of Torah.)

Avodah vs AZ is self evident, as is gemillus chassadim vs shefichas damim.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It's nice to be smart,
mi...@aishdas.org        but it's smarter to be nice.
http://www.aishdas.org                   - R' Lazer Brody
Fax: (270) 514-1507

" Hiskashrus [bond] with him, and pay no attention to the lures of the evil
inclination, and you send the request to the gravesite of the [Previous]
Rebbe, my father-in-law, of blessed memory, the [Previous] Rebbe will find
a way to answer you." [Igros Kodesh, Vol. 3, page 266] Isn't this a problem
of Doresh el Hamaisim? ?Yoni, New York, NY"


Consider the thread of harchakos re: yichud and the blatant lack of
harchakos re: Doreish el hameisim.  Even if one pilpuls that this
halachically OK;  how can this be haskafically OK?

Think too of bassar bechalav and Micha's erev shabbos mentality - not to mention histaleik min hasafeik!

Kt RRW
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

On Mon, 2009-01-19 at 19:52 -0500, Moshe Y. Gluck wrote:
> R' Eli Turkel:.
> Birkei Yosef also brings the Ari that one shouldn't learn mikrah at
> night except for thursday and friday night(?) (or hashishi)
> -------------------
> 
> I always thought that the Gemara towards the top of Berachos 4b was a
> pretty decent R'ayah that one may learn Torah Sheb'ksav at night...

Are you talking about "im ragil likrot, kore, im ragil lishnot, shoneh?"
I would say that shoneh means to review mishnayot, and kore means learn
Mikra. There's no issue here since kore could apply to one who doesn't
know TSBP.

This one's my own reasoning, but ROY discusses many possible objections
to this minhag of the Ari in Yabia Omer v.6 OC 30.

--Ken

-- 
Ken (Chanoch) Bloom. PhD candidate. Linguistic Cognition Laboratory.
Department of Computer Science. Illinois Institute of Technology.
http://www.iit.edu/~kbloom1/

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The Rambam writes:
> (Mishnah Torah, Laws of Mamrim, chapter 7): ?And how great
> is the requirement to fear [one?s parents]? Even if one is
> wearing fine garments and sitting [in honor] at the head of
> a community gathering, and his father or mother comes and
> tears his clothes and hits him on the head and spits into
> his face, do not embarrass them, but rather remain silent
> and feel the proper fear of the King of kings Who commanded
> you thus.?
> 
> My question is:  If a parent (or Rosh Yeshiva, Magid Shiur,
> etc.) publicly makes a statement on what you believe to be
> an error in Torah, is there an obligation (or permission) to
> respond publicly with a possible correction (in a kovadik
> manner of course).  Do we hold the potential honor of the
> Torah higher than that of a parent or Magid Shiur?  HB

rabbirichwol...@gmail.com wrote:
> " Hiskashrus [bond] with him, and pay no attention to the lures of the
> evil inclination, and you send the request to the gravesite of the
> [Previous] Rebbe, my father-in-law, of blessed memory, the [Previous]
> Rebbe will find a way to answer you." [Igros Kodesh, Vol. 3, page 266]
> Isn't this a problem of Doresh el Hamaisim? ?Yoni, New York, NY"
> 
> 
> Consider the thread of harchakos re: yichud and the blatant lack of
> harchakos re: Doreish el hameisim.  Even if one pilpuls that this
> halachically OK;  how can this be haskafically OK?

1. Because it's part of the Jewish mesorah, going back to Yosef and Kalev;
it's what Jews do and have always done, and the wonder is at those who want
to turn it into some sort of issur.  As the Zohar says explicitly, when the
world needs rain, you take a sefer torah and go to the cemetery and wake up
the dead to ask them to intercede for the living; and if you don't do that,
they won't know you need help and won't be able to do anything for you.

2. What's the comparison to giluy arayos, from which we are explicitly
commanded to keep far away?  How many harchokos do we make from basar
bechalav?  Only those that are practically necesary.  Two strangers can
eat meat and milk at the same table, and think nothing of it.  No harchaka.


-- 
Zev Sero                    A mathematician is a device for turning coffee
z...@sero.name               into theorems.                   - Paul Erdos

Can one purposely skip Ya'aleh Veyavo at Ma'ariv on Rosh Chodesh, in order
to catch the final Borchu.

Relevant to those who miss the first Borchu, and it's the last Maariv
available.

Gut Chodesh,

- Danny
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There is a very significant detail missing from "Yoni"'s inquiry to
Rabbi Leff.  The Rebbe in that famously controversial sicha
distinguished between any meis, who would be a memutza ha'mafsik, to
which it would be forbidden to daven (i.e., make requests), and his FIL,
who was a memutza ha'mechaber, from which it would be permitted to make
requests. This was on account of a LR's status as a yechida kelalis. It
would be interesting for a knowledgeable Chasid to assess whether Rachel
Imenu might be regarded as a YK.

KT,
YGB

Harvey Benton wrote:
> I could not access some of the links in the posting by Yitzhak
> Grossman, but there is a short (3 minute) audio Teshuva by R. Zev Leff
> (link below).  Basically R. Leff makes distinctions between doreish of
> a nefesh or body of a niftar, vs. doreish of a neshama or ruach.  He
> says that according to most poskim, contacting neshamas of meisim is
> ok; he brings a maiseh of the Arizal, and then says that according
> to some, to even entreat the neshamas of tzadikim buried at a kever,
> is ok. There are problems of davening to anyone but Hashem, and he
> brings down mekoros (no exact citations) on both sides of the issue.
> KT, HB   
>  
> Question R. Leff responds to:
> The Lubavitcher Rebbe wrote the following: "You ask, isn't it now no
> longer possible to ask the [Previous] Rebbe, my father-in-law, of
> blessed memory, when one is in doubt which course of behavior is
> correct? [This is not so, for] if you stand firm in your Hiskashrus
> [bond] with him, and pay no attention to the lures of the evil
> inclination, and you send the request to the gravesite of the
> [Previous] Rebbe, my father-in-law, of blessed memory, the [Previous]
> Rebbe will find a way to answer you." [Igros Kodesh, Vol. 3, page 266]
> Isn't this a problem of Doresh el Hamaisim? ?Yoni, New York, NY
>
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