Avodah Mailing List

Volume 27: Number 64

Sun, 07 Mar 2010

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Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Message: 1
From: Zev Sero <z...@sero.name>
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:28:23 -0500
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Who First Said it?


T6...@aol.com wrote:

> My father said that the Vilna Gaon's opposition had ultimately been very 
> good for chassidus, because it forced the chassidim to rein in their own 
> extreme, non-normative, anti-nomian elements, and to stay on the 
> straight and narrow (aka the strait and narrow).  Had the Vilna Gaon not 
> acted, it is quite likely that the entire chassidic movement would have 
> gone off the rails.

Well, that is, to use your own words, scurrilous nonsense.  If your
father thought that, then shame on him.


> The early chassidim had a lot of strange fringe 
> elements, and not all the reports that were brought to the Gaon's ears 
> were false.

Even the strange fringe -- Kalisk -- never broke halacha or showed
any signs of doing so.  They just behaved strangely, rather like the
stories about Novardok in its day.  And they were suppressed by the
Maggid without any prompting by the GRA.


> The story about "cutting off  the roots of his soul" -- that the Gra 
> would have converted to Christianity if not for the Ba'al HaTanya 
> -- is scurrilous nonsense.  Where do you get this stuff?

Start with Likutei Dibburim vol 2 p 516, Reshimas Hayomon p 177, 


R Micha wrote:
> For that matter, your father's sentiment about how the Gra saved
> Chassidus is also attributed to the Rebbe Rashab.

Attributed by whom?  Before just now, I mean.

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
z...@sero.name                 eventually run out of other people?s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher



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Message: 2
From: rabbirichwol...@gmail.com
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 22:05:17 +0000
Subject:
[Avodah] Who First Said it? 3


Tradionally several halachah s'farim have told us to hang on to EG the
lulav - in order to use it as fuel with which to bake Matzos

Nowadays this has morphed into using lulavim as fuel with which to
burn Hametz.

Who was the first source to suggest this transition?

Zissen Pesach
RRW
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile




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Message: 3
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 13:47:57 -0500
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Who First Said it?


On Fri, Mar 05, 2010 at 12:28:23PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
: R Micha wrote:
: >For that matter, your father's sentiment about how the Gra saved
: >Chassidus is also attributed to the Rebbe Rashab.

: Attributed by whom?  Before just now, I mean.

I posted this so many times, and for that matter you replied, so if you
were getting enough sleep you wouldn't have written "just now". Ba
Shabbas, ba menuchah -- ba zikaron (consider that a birkhas hedyot).

Attributed by a number of misnagdim, including R' Avraham Elya Kaplan.
But I believe I first heard it from a Caploun (L, for those who don't
know the kehillah) at one of the "Chazak" concerts for the Moses and
Aaron Foundation.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Feeling grateful  to or appreciative of  someone
mi...@aishdas.org        or something in your life actually attracts more
http://www.aishdas.org   of the things that you appreciate and value into
Fax: (270) 514-1507      your life.         - Christiane Northrup, M.D.



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Message: 4
From: Zev Sero <z...@sero.name>
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:52:13 -0500
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Who First Said it? 3


rabbirichwol...@gmail.com wrote:
> Tradionally several halachah s'farim have told us to hang on to EG the
> lulav - in order to use it as fuel with which to bake Matzos
> 
> Nowadays this has morphed into using lulavim as fuel with which to
> burn Hametz.

The obvious reason is that most of us no longer bake our own matzos.

But another reason would be that the same sefarim also say to save
the hoshaana for burning the chametz, and I for one have trouble
remembering which is which.  I speculate that others over the years
have had similar trouble, and end up just using whichever is handy
for whichever mitzvah they're up to.  (I have humorously speculated
that this is why the people of Y'm were out on the street with lulavim
and hoshyanos a few days before Pesach, when Yoshke made his grand
entrance.)


-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
z...@sero.name                 eventually run out of other people?s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher



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Message: 5
From: Zev Sero <z...@sero.name>
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:56:37 -0500
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] tefillin in the right place


Eli Turkel wrote:

> of Shut Divrei Chaim opened to the Teshuvah which refers to looking in
> a mirror to adjust one's Tefillin as a "custom of ignoramuses."
> Ha-Griz said to the people there: "I will use a Chasidic story (since
> the Divrei Chaim was Chasidic, while he was a Mitnaged). Reb Moshe
> Leib Sasober

Sosover.

FWIW, the Alter Rebbe was once given a silver snuff box as a present.
He said that he had one sense that was not controlled by taavos, and
now he should deliberately cultivate one for it?!  So he removed the
box's lid, and used it as a mirror to adjust his tefillin.

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
z...@sero.name                 eventually run out of other people?s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher



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Message: 6
From: David Riceman <drice...@att.net>
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:35:57 -0500
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Who First Said it?


>
> : R Micha wrote:
> : >For that matter, your father's sentiment about how the Gra saved
> : >Chassidus is also attributed to the Rebbe Rashab.
>
>   
RZS
> : Attributed by whom?  Before just now, I mean.
>
> RMB:
> Attributed by a number of misnagdim, including R' Avraham Elya Kaplan.
> But I believe I first heard it from a Caploun (L, for those who don't
> know the kehillah) at one of the "Chazak" concerts for the Moses and
> Aaron Foundation.
>   
Also in Sefer M'kor Baruch (I don't own a copy so I can't cite a page, 
but there's a section in which he mentions discussions he or his father 
had with TRR [I'd appreciate help with the appropriate acronyms] about TVG).

David Riceman



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Message: 7
From: rabbirichwol...@gmail.com
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 19:51:40 +0000
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] [Aodah] tefillin in the right place


Plz post
Micha:
>   Without the mirror, the only way to fulfill the mitzah of tefillin
>   correctly is through areivus, each person in the minyan taking
>   responsibility for each other's tefillin. Tefillin actually
>   underscored the unity of the minyan...

La davka EG I know a blind man who can shave

A sighted person can feel with their hands...

FWIW The problem I had with mirrors was the fad, the obsession. Many were
staring rather than glimpsing

GS
RRW
Sent ia BlackBerry from T-Mobile



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Message: 8
From: "Prof. Levine" <llev...@stevens.edu>
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:29:47 -0500
Subject:
[Avodah] The Mission of the Jews


The Mission of the Jews
Mar 5, 2010
David Klinghoffer

You will often hear Jews say, with pride, that 
Judaism rejects a missionary or evangelizing 
stance. This is true in the narrow sense that 
Jews do not pursue converts to Judaism, but it is 
deeply misleading in another. The German Orthodox 
rabbi, polemicist, and scriptural expositor Rabbi 
Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808?1888), a towering 
figure in modern Jewish thought, taught 
insistently that God brought the ?Abrahamitic 
nation? onto the stage of history for ?the 
salvation of the world through Judaism.? As he 
wrote in his Torah commentary, this was to be 
accomplished ?by example and admonition,? with 
the Jews as ?God?s messengers on earth? (on 
Genesis 12:1, 11:8, 18:17?19). In Orthodox 
Judaism today, Hirsch remains a household name. 
But the most important aspect of his legacy, 
which deserves urgent practical consideration by 
the Jewish community, is insufficiently appreciated.


Please see 
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/03/the-mission-of-the-jews 
for the rest of this article. YL
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Message: 9
From: Meir Rabi <meir...@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 09:33:11 +1100
Subject:
[Avodah] What is Hard Matza - Difference between Baking and


The ShO 461:3 discusses the point at which dough is baked. If there are no
Chutin NimShoChim, no stringy threads of dough stretching between the two
parts of a Matza that has been broken apart it is then considered to be
baked. Obviously this standard is far less than the standard we have today
of our Matza being baked to the point that it is rock hard.
How can one determine if the Matza if adequately baked without tearing it
apart?
The MBerura suggests that one can poke the Matza with a finger and if it
emerges from the Matza without dough stuck to it, we can be confident that
it is adequately baked. He then warns that this test only works when the
Matza is still warm from the baking, after it has cooled down this test is
not necessarily accurate.
Question 1: why is this so?
Is it because by that time such sticky dough would have already dried out?
In SK 14 the MBerura says the same about the test of tearing the Matza apart
and observing such threads.
So we do not have a reliable test upon which we can rely when the Matzos are
cool.
Question 2: do Matza bakeries randomly apply this test to warm Matzos?
Question 3: When we eat Matzos, are we actually at risk of eating Chamets
since we get them cold and they are untestable?

It seems that in order to avoid problems we bake Matzos from very dry dough,
rolled extremely thin, baked in very hot ovens and baked until they are rock
hard; this ensures that they bake very thoroughly without risk of any doughy
threads remaining.
But perhaps this is not the case. Perhaps what we are doing is not baking
the dough at all. Perhaps we are just drying it out very rapidly and we are
eating not baked dough but just dried out dough.
Is dried out dough Matza?
Is Matza perhaps only a dough that has been baked?
The MBerura discusses baking Matza on paper. Paper burns at 451 degrees
Fahrenheit, or 233 degrees Celsius. It appears that Matza was baked at
temperatures below the flash point of paper. This is not the case to day as
best I can determine through limited investigation. In fact some told me
that today the ovens are heated to double that temperature.
If the ovens were cooler and consequently the Matza was in for longer (and I
also am led to believe that their Matza was not quite as thin as is ours
today) it is very likely that the Matza was in fact baked and not just dried
out.
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Message: 10
From: Zev Sero <z...@sero.name>
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:10:44 -0500
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Who First Said it?


David Riceman wrote:

> Also in Sefer M'kor Baruch (I don't own a copy so I can't cite a page, 
> but there's a section in which he mentions discussions he or his father 
> had with TRR [I'd appreciate help with the appropriate acronyms] about 
> TVG).

I believe that book is indeed the origin of this silly story.  But the
rebbe he attributes it to is the Tzemach Tzedek, who was already in the
Next World and unable to personally contradict it.

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
z...@sero.name                 eventually run out of other people?s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher



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Message: 11
From: "Akiva Blum" <yda...@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 23:29:14 +0200
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Who First Said it?


 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: avodah-boun...@lists.aishdas.org 
> [mailto:avodah-boun...@lists.aishdas.org] On Behalf Of David Riceman
> Sent: Friday, March 05, 2010 9:36 PM

> > : R Micha wrote:
> > : >For that matter, your father's sentiment about how the Gra saved
> > : >Chassidus is also attributed to the Rebbe Rashab.
> >
> >   
> RZS
> > : Attributed by whom?  Before just now, I mean.
> >   
> Also in Sefer M'kor Baruch (I don't own a copy so I can't 
> cite a page, 
> but there's a section in which he mentions discussions he or 
> his father 
> had with TRR [I'd appreciate help with the appropriate 
> acronyms] about TVG).


It's in the Mekor Baruch vol. 3 Chap 20.  I would translate it but the hebrew
there is too flowery.

He quotes the Rebbe reb Mendele (Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, Zemach Zedek) in
conversation with the Aruch haShulchan, that the Rebbe said to his father-in-law
and grandfather-in-law that the chassidim owe an enormous debt of gratitude to
the Gra, and they agreed with him. The Rebbe explained the chassidus might have
gone 'off the tracks', and the Alter rebbe, due to the Gra's battling, kept it
straight. In addition, he wrote the Shulchan Aruch haRav to keep the chassidim
connected to halachah.

It also appears in the English "Recollections'.

Akiva




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Message: 12
From: "SBA" <s...@sba2.com>
Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 16:57:47 +1100
Subject:
[Avodah] Does a BT have to say Asher Yotzar 25,000 times??


http://tinyurl.com/ya7mvyr

 

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Message: 13
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 03:48:47 -0500
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Who First Said it?


On Fri, Mar 05, 2010 at 03:10:44PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
: I believe that book is indeed the origin of this silly story...

Given the fact that the Baal haTanya fought against Kalisker rebbeles
that were drifting outside of halakhah, I find the story quite plausible.
I have no idea why you consider the story "scurrilous" or "silly",
rather than crediting hisnagdus with a role in causing that winnowing.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Strength does not come from winning. Your
mi...@aishdas.org        struggles develop your strength When you go
http://www.aishdas.org   through hardship and decide not to surrender,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      that is strength.        - Arnold Schwarzenegger



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Message: 14
From: Yitzchok Levine <Larry.Lev...@stevens.edu>
Date: Sun, 07 Mar 2010 08:37:37 -0500
Subject:
[Avodah] The Meaning of Chilul Shabbos


The following is from RSRH's commentary on Shemos 31

14 Therefore keep the Sabbath, for it is a sacred 
thing for you. Those who desecrate it shall be 
put to death, for whoever performs [creating] 
work on it, that soul will be uprooted from the midst of its society.

Chilul Shabbos literally means ?the killing of Sabbath? ? i.e., destroying
the living and life-giving ideal of the Sabbath. Essentially, this can only
be done in the presence of others; for whoever violates the sanctity of
the Sabbath in the presence of others diminishes their inner experience
of its sanctity or even deprives them of this experience altogether.

Our verse, then, speaks of the desecration of Sabbath in the presence
of witnesses, who are always representatives of the community. Whoever
desecrates the Sabbath in the presence of witnesses kills before the eyes
of the nation the institution that is the foundation of the whole nation
and the foundation of its calling and mission. It is the nation?s duty to
put an end to the Sabbath-desecrator?s existence and thereby restore
the sanctity of the institution in its midst.

Keeping alive the ideal of Sabbath in the minds of the people is
such an essential part of the purposes of the institution of Sabbath (and
killing this ideal is so damaging) that ? as is the case in no other law
except the understandably related one of Chilul HaShem ? the concept of
farhesiya has a decisive influence on the laws of 
Chilul Shabbos. Hence, one who
desecrates the Sabbath b'farhesiya ? i.e., in the presence of the national
community, i.e., ten adult members of the nation ? is equated with
an oved avodah zara and is considered a mumar l'chol haTorah kula, one who has
broken with Judaism entirely (see Chullin 5a). 
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Message: 15
From: Yitzchok Levine <Larry.Lev...@stevens.edu>
Date: Sun, 07 Mar 2010 09:53:44 -0500
Subject:
[Avodah] The Two Tablets


In his article 
<http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%206%20Fried.pdf>Is 
there a Disconnect between Torah Learning and 
Torah Living? 
<http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%206%20Fried.pdf>(THE 
COMPLETE ARTICLE)   Rabbi Dr. Aharon Hersh 
Fried  makes the case that today there is far 
more emphasis on Bein Adom L'Makom than on Bein 
Adom L'Chaveiro.  In his commentary on Shemos 31 
makes RSRH makes it clear that this is not the Torah way.  YL

18 When He had finished speaking with him on 
Mount Sinai, He gave Moshe two Tablets of the 
Testimony, tablets of stone, written
with the finger of God.

Shnei Luchos ha'adus. We have already noted in our Commentary on
Bereshis 1:14?19 that the incomplete written form 
(k'siv chaser) of the feminine
plural represents a plurality of things in one concept ? i.e., a
uniform common concept embodied in many subjects. So, too, here,
the written form ?Lamed Ches Sof? teaches us to 
regard the Two Tablets as one unit
consisting of two mutually complementary parts. Thus the Midrash: lo
zu gedolah mizu (Shemos Rabbah 41:6). The Tablet of the duties toward God
and the Tablet of the duties toward one?s fellow man are both of the
same size, of the same weight, and are of equal importance. Only both
together represent the fundamentals of God?s Torah (see Commentary
above, 20:14). Placed together, they form a complete cube, with each
tablet comprising half the cube (see Commentary above, 25:10). 
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Message: 16
From: Zev Sero <z...@sero.name>
Date: Sun, 07 Mar 2010 10:47:43 -0500
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Does a BT have to say Asher Yotzar 25,000


SBA wrote:
> http://tinyurl.com/ya7mvyr

It would seem not.  The SA's psak that if one missed an asher yatzar
until the next time one must say it twice, is based on the din of
making up missed tefillot.  And with missed tefillot, once two zmanei
tefillah have gone by it's too late to make them up.  So it would seem
that just as a BT (or even stam a person who slacked off for a day or
two) doesn't make up all the shmone esreis that he missed, so too he
doesn't make up all the asher yatzars, but only the last two.  (And
Ashkenazim follow the Bach's psak to say it only once.)

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
z...@sero.name                 eventually run out of other people?s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher



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Message: 17
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 14:34:24 -0500
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Does a BT have to say Asher Yotzar 25,000


On Sun, Mar 07, 2010 at 10:47:43AM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
: It would seem not.  The SA's psak that if one missed an asher yatzar
: until the next time one must say it twice, is based on the din of
: making up missed tefillot...

Or, hyou could keep the following story in mind, and perhaps never
forget to say Asher Yatzar again...

One afternoon, after radiation (BH it's now over 6-1/2 years that I've
been in remission), I proceeded to find a vacant bathroom at
Sloane Kettering Memorial Cancer Center. I was over in the
next wing of the building, pediatrics.

After washing my hands, I stepped into the hall and saw two women. One a
Chassidic lady, wearing a skirt-suit, a very obvious wig with a hat on
top of it. Neckline at the neck, jacket down to the wrists, skirt past
mid-calf. The day must have been warm, because the other was wearing a
silk blouse that didn't overly tax the silkworms to produce fabric for
it. Jeans that must have risked dislocating an arm to squeeze into, also
ending mid-calf. Stilletto heals. Something about her "looked Israeli".

These two woman, outside the ladies' room at Sloane Kettering's pediatric
unit, were holding a little card between them, each carefully saying
the words of Asher Yatzar, the blessing thanking G-d for our health.

I quickly proceeded to the elevator banks, so the mothers wouldn't see
me cry.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
mi...@aishdas.org         'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
http://www.aishdas.org    'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
Fax: (270) 514-1507                     - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l


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