Avodah Mailing List

Volume 31: Number 3

Wed, 02 Jan 2013

• 1. Re: Why Lie When Truth Can Also Achieve Peace (Arie Folger)
• 2. Re: Why Lie When Truth Can Also Achieve Peace (Lisa Liel)
• 3. Re: What date was the Torah given? (Akiva Miller)
• 4. Re: What date was the Torah given? (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: What date was the Torah given? (Liron Kopinsky)
• 6. Re: Why Lie When Truth Can Also Achieve Peace (Arie Folger)
• 7. Re: Why Lie When Truth Can Also Achieve Peace (Arie Folger)
• 8. Re: Why Lie When Truth Can Also Achieve Peace (Lisa Liel)
• 9. Re: What date was the Torah given? (Zev Sero)
• 10. Re: In revolutionary ruling, rabbis allow gender selection (T613K@aol.com)
• 11. In revolutionary ruling, rabbis allow gender selection (Prof. Levine)
• 12. Re: In revolutionary ruling, rabbis allow gender selection (Micha Berger)

On Jan 2, 2013 4:15 PM, "Zev Sero" <z...@sero.name> wrote:
> We constantly see references to people "seeing with ruach hakodesh",
> implying that it's not a line of communication but a sort of enhanced
> vision...

So you claim that ruach hakodesh is a kind of X ray vision. Prove it citing
sources older than 300 years, and document using such sources who has such
vision and how prevalent it is.

On 1/2/2013 7:40 AM, Zev Sero wrote:
> On 2/01/2013 1:07 AM, Arie Folger wrote:
>> That's your statement. Can you please back this up with Chazal? Or at 
>> least a Rishon?

> What exactly are you challenging?  What part of what I wrote do you not
> already know to be true?   Hamefursamos einam tzrichim ra'ayah; are you
> just trying to assign me some make-work?!

It's polite to include some of what you're referring to, so that people 
don't have to go back and search through old emails.

[It could very well have been deleted by my hand. When there is a rapid
discussion in which no quotes are trimmed, I sometimes step in. -micha]


You'd written this:
>  Prophecy and Ruach Hakodesh are not the same thing.  Nevuah went away.
>  Ruach Hakodesh never went away; it's what tzadikim today have.  It's
>  not direct communication of information; it's an ability to see the
>  hidden truth.  So by default he would know everything that it's relevant
>  for him to know, unless Hashem specifically hides it from him.

Things that are not "mefursamos" and do require a ra'ayah:

1) Tzaddikim today have ruach ha-kodesh.
2) Ruach ha-kodesh is an all-or-nothing thing, so that a person who has
it would know everything it's relevant for him to know, unless Hashem
specifically hides it from him.

I challenge both of these assertions. Please provide sources in Chazal,
or at least a Rishon.

Lisa

R' Marty Bluke asked:

> ... is how can there be a dispute about the date of Matan Torah?
> Matan Torah was/is THE most important event by far in Jewish
> history, how can we not know what date it took place?
> The fact is that each one tries to prove his position by
> darshening the pesukim their way but no one brings a mesora and
> says I have a kabbala that matan torah was on this date. Why not?

This is an important question, but not a unique one, and could be asked
about many other things as well. The answer is so complicated that one
could write a book about it. In fact, listmember Rabbi Zvi Lampel DID write
a book about it, which I recommend to anyone interested: "The Dynamics of
Dispute: The Makings of Machlokess in Talmudic Times"

R' Micha Berger suggested:

> ... perhaps the majority of Jews never knew the date. Rosh
> Chodesh had no halakhos lemaaseh yet, did it? Yes we were
> already given the mitzvah of "ke-'zeh' re'eih veqadeish". But
> did the 70 zeqeinim have any motive for sharing the dates of
> RC Iyyar or Sivan with the masses, or the masses for paying
> much attention if they did?

Shtaros? The practice of dating all legal documents seems quite ancient.

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's "The Torah Anthology" gives exact dates for many
events. For example, the birthdates of Gad and Asher appear in Vol 3 on
page 71. (See his notes for his sources.) It seems clear to me that some
sort of lunar calendar was in use -- even if there was no halachic
significance to it -- and that these dates were known and passed down to
later generations.

So if they knew Asher's birthday, the date of Matan Torah would presumably be even more memorable, as R' Marty Bluke asked.

Akiva Miller
____________________________________________________________
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Go Further With Industry&#45Leading Rewards &#38 Earn 25,000 Bonus Points&#33
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/50e460dd8b82a60dd5b21st04vuc

On Wed, Jan 02, 2013 at 04:30:46PM +0000, Akiva Miller wrote:
: R' Micha Berger suggested:
:> ... perhaps the majority of Jews never knew the date. Rosh
:> Chodesh had no halakhos lemaaseh yet, did it? Yes we were
:> already given the mitzvah of "ke-'zeh' re'eih veqadeish". But
:> did the 70 zeqeinim have any motive for sharing the dates of
:> RC Iyyar or Sivan with the masses, or the masses for paying
:> much attention if they did?

: Shtaros? The practice of dating all legal documents seems quite ancient.

Unfortunately I wasn't specific enough.

I mean that at the time of Matan Torah, the masses might not have known
the date. There was no dinei shetaros yet. Think only of mitzvos MRAH
told the Jews about before the end of the 40 days. Did the masses have
any reason to know the calendar date? I presumed in my earlier post that
the Sanhedrin fulfilled the mitzvah of qiddush hachodesh that first Iyyar
and Sivan. (To speak less anachronistically: ... that the 70 seqieinim
fufilled the mitzvah ... that first chodesh sheini and shelishi.) But
it's possible that not too many people knew the date when matan Torah
was occuring, and thus it wasn't well known to be "forgotten" and subject
to machloqes later.

: Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's "The Torah Anthology" gives exact dates for many
: events. For example, the birthdates of Gad and Asher appear in Vol 3
: on page 71. (See his notes for his sources.) It seems clear to me that
: some sort of lunar calendar was in use -- even if there was no halachic
: significance to it -- and that these dates were known and passed down
: to later generations.

And if all you quote is Seder Olam, rather than any dissenting opinions
among other tannaim and amoraim, it would look like the date of Matan
Torah were also open-and-shut and well known.

RZL's "The Dynamics of Dispute" focuses on machloqesin in halakhah,
not in history. So I'm not sure he fully addresses RMBluke's question.

As for "some sort of lunar calendar" in use before parashas Bo, there
are also the dates for various events of the Mabul -- Bereishis 7:11,
8:4,5,14. I assumed, though, that dates before HQBH handed Benei Yisrael
control of the luach, there was an objective and automatic definition
of these dates. If dates were exclusively al pi re'iyah when the Torah
was given, it's meaningless to say what some ancient date was or would
have been.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless
mi...@aishdas.org        he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness.
http://www.aishdas.org   Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive
Fax: (270) 514-1507      a spirit of purity.      - Rav Yisrael Salanter

>
> R' Marty Bluke asked:
>
> > ... is how can there be a dispute about the date of Matan Torah?
> > Matan Torah was/is THE most important event by far in Jewish
> > history, how can we not know what date it took place?
> > The fact is that each one tries to prove his position by
> > darshening the pesukim their way but no one brings a mesora and
> > says I have a kabbala that matan torah was on this date. Why not?
>

A suggestion I haven't seen here yet: What if all of Bnei Yisrael were in
such a high spiritual state, they weren't really sure what day it was? They
were too busy preparing themselves for Matan Torah to be worrying about
exactly how many days it was since they left Egypt. Moshe was aware of the
state of the people to know they needed another day of preparation, but the
people weren't necessarily as cognizant of what day it was or how long it
had been.

Additionally, the Jewish people messed up on the count of the 40 days
immediately post-ceding Matan Torah, so maybe they doubted their count of
the previous days as well.

Kol Tuv,

-- 
Liron Kopinsky
liron.kopin...@gmail.com
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RSZ wrote:
> > Ruach Hakodesh never went away; it's what tzadikim today have.  It's
> > not direct communication of information; it's an ability to see the
> > hidden truth.  So by default he would know everything that it's relevant
> > for him to know, unless Hashem specifically hides it from him.

I responded:
> On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 8:07 AM, Arie Folger <afol...@aishdas.org> wrote:
> That's your statement. Can you please back this up with Chazal? Or at least
> a Rishon?

R' Liron Kopinsky then replied:
> Gemarrah in Brachos when talking about the Neviot says that Leah Imenu was
> *not* a Neviah, but named her children with Ruach HaKodesh.


Well, does that gemara say that Leah knew what was goign to happen
with her children? Or that she was inspired to name them as she did,
not necessarily understanding why?

I think that the gemara does not unambiguously point to the former,
hence you did not respond to my challenge to RSZ.

--
Arie Folger,
Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/
* Schnellkurs im j?dischen Grundwissen: I. Der Schabbat (Audio)
* Warum beschneiden Juden ihre Knaben ? Multimedia-Vortrag
* Beschneidung, die aktuelle Rechtslage ? Multimedia Schiur
* Was mir in Holocaust Museen fehlt
* Beschneidungslerntag ? Schlu?worte (Multimedia)
* Paneldiskussion zur Beschneidung ? Audio-Datei
* Welche B?nde gibt es zwischen Mensch und G?tt? (Multimedia)
* R?ckblick Gedenkfeier F?rstenfeldbruck

RZS wrote:
> Why are you even dragging nevuah into this?  First of all, a navi
> *is* "a soothsayer or prognosticator".  When your donkeys go
> missing, you go to the navi to ask him where they are.   When
> you're sick, you go to him for a cure.

I figured you were goign to refer to Shaul and Shemuel. Well, just
because people, including Kish, would go for that to the navi doesn't
mean that the navi always or often knew the answer.

The text contains insufficient information to know how often the navi
would be able to provide such information, as to where the donkeys
are, and I posit that Shemuel knew because G"d wanted him to know so
as to send Shaul on his particular journey, where he ended up
prophetising, too. Of course, you will claim the opposite, but it is
really unprovable, both claims are plausible. Except ... such
occurrences are rather rare in Tanakh, which is why I suggest that
prophets really aren't running some massive lost and found operation,
but rather guide Jews (and non Jews occasionally) to do teshuva. Only
what he needs to know for his tafkid is revealed to him.

Now as far as praying for someone, well, gedolim do this today, too,
why should it have been different then? Since neviim were so much
greater, of course people wanted them to pray for them, guide them in
prayer to G"d. Nothing controversial about that. On the other hand,
whether they were all ba'al moftim like Eliyahu and Elisha, well, I
would deny that. Those two were extraordinarily exceptional, and
Eliyahu couldn't even guarantee that Elisha would get those gifts,
because even prophets weren't that great.

Kol tuv,
--
Arie Folger,
Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/
* Schnellkurs im j?dischen Grundwissen: I. Der Schabbat (Audio)
* Warum beschneiden Juden ihre Knaben ? Multimedia-Vortrag
* Beschneidung, die aktuelle Rechtslage ? Multimedia Schiur
* Was mir in Holocaust Museen fehlt
* Beschneidungslerntag ? Schlu?worte (Multimedia)
* Paneldiskussion zur Beschneidung ? Audio-Datei
* Welche B?nde gibt es zwischen Mensch und G?tt? (Multimedia)
* R?ckblick Gedenkfeier F?rstenfeldbruck

On 1/2/2013 8:42 AM, Zev Sero wrote:
> But all of that is irrelevant, because nobody mentioned nevuah, we are 
> speaking of ruach hakodesh.  Are you seriously claiming they are the 
> same thing?!

I am.  They are different degrees of the same thing.


On 1/2/2013 9:15 AM, Zev Sero wrote:
> Remember what we're discussing here: a tzadik, who is known to have ruach
> hakodesh, knows some piece of information, and we're discussing how he
> could have known it.

Who says that a tzaddik necessarily has ruach hakodesh?

Lisa

On 2/01/2013 11:30 AM, Akiva Miller wrote:
> Shtaros? The practice of dating all legal documents seems quite ancient.

But no more ancient than the calendar itself, which was only two months old
at the time.

> So if they knew Asher's birthday, the date of Matan Torah would
> presumably be even more memorable, as R' Marty Bluke asked.

They knew the date of matan torah with no less certainty than they knew
the date of Asher's birth!


On 2/01/2013 12:28 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> 8:4,5,14. I assumed, though, that dates before HQBH handed Benei Yisrael
> control of the luach, there was an objective and automatic definition
> of these dates.

Or even that these dates are all arrived at by projecting the calendar
backwards, just as we speak of dates BCE.  (Have you heard about the coin
that was found, dated "50 BC"? :-) )

-- 
Zev Sero
z...@sero.name

From: "Prof. Levine" <llev...@stevens.edu>
From  http://tinyurl.com/b2gfquv

>> Until now, rabbis have forbidden any  intervention 
to select the sex of baby  But Jewish fertility 
center  founder Rabbi Menachem Burstein says an 
increase in the number of requests  stemming from 
deep psychological needs has prompted rabbis to reconsider....  <<


Yitzchok Levine  
 

>>>>
 
I really have a hard time believing that anyone has a "deep psychological  
need" to have a son rather than a daughter, or vice versa.  
 
I also am not very sympathetic to the idea that such a "need" justifies  
gender selection -- which can be very expensive and can require invasive and  
potentially risky medical intervention.  There is a way to separate Y sperm  
from X sperm in a lab but it is far from foolproof -- it has anywhere from  
a 10% to a 50% failure rate (meaning a 10% to 50% chance that the "wrong"  
sex baby will be born).  The only way that is foolproof is the much more  
expensive and invasive method of having the couple go through IVF, watch the  
fertilized ova for a couple of days until they have grown into  
several-celled balls, and then test each "ball" to see if it's male or  female, 
discarding the ones that are the wrong sex.
 
The one reason that truly does justify the expense, pain and risks, IMO, is 
 "medical gender selection," in which sex selection can prevent the birth 
of a  child who carries certain catastrophic genetic diseases.  
 
A boy may inherit from his mother a defective X chromosome causing a  
disease like muscular dystrophy, hemophilia or another genetic disease that is  
carried by the mother and can affect her male offspring.  In such a case  the 
parents want only girls because only boys get the disease.  Even if a  girl 
inherits her mother's "bad" X she will not have the disease  --  because 
the second X that she got from her father will protect her from disease  -- 
though she will be a carrier and can pass it on to /her/ sons.
 
One way to prevent the birth of children of the "wrong" sex is to check the 
 sex of the baby via amniocentesis when the mother is further along in her  
pregnancy and then abort the baby if it is the unwanted sex.  I think at  
that point the baby can also be tested to see if he did inherit his mother's  
"bad" X chromosome.  Abortion is way easier and cheaper than IVF but  
morally reprehensible.
 
Ironically many Christians consider the discarding of an eight-celled ball  
in the lab to be murder, just the same as if you had aborted a fetus or had 
 strangled a full-term baby after birth.  But I don't think there are /any/ 
 Jewish poskim who would say the discarding of such tiny balls of cells is 
the  same as abortion, let alone the same as murder!
 
BTW yesterday when we were talking about why there might be objections to  
IVF, one consideration that we didn't mention was the necessity of 
discarding  "extra" fertilized eggs.  Typically drugs are administered to induce  
super-ovulation -- the release of multiple eggs, not the normal monthly one or  
two eggs -- so that the doctors will have more to work with.  Not all the  
eggs will fertilize. But if six or eight or ten eggs /do/ fertilize, you do 
not  want to implant them all in the woman's uterus, because the babies will 
not  survive (and the mother might not either!). Instead, you implant the 
one or  two that look the healthiest and are growing vigorously, and either 
discard the  rest or freeze them for use in a later attempt.  If at a later 
date the  couple decide not to use those frozen eggs, and they are thawed and 
discarded,  Catholics believe that thawing out those embryos is yet another 
act of  murder, and all the doctors and nurses in the fertility clinic are 
mass  murderers.  We Jews are pro-life but don't agree with the Catholics 
and  fundamentalist Christians on this. I can sort of see where some poskim 
might not  like the idea of discarding extra embryos (balls of cells -- do not 
picture  a baby or even a fetus).  But the vast majority do not seem to 
consider  this a halachic problem AFAIK.  When we asked our shailos we were 
told it  was not a problem.  If you need that information I will tell you 
privately  which posek we asked but since I cannot be certain he would answer 
every case  the same I don't want to say it here.
 
So anyway, not to forget my main point, to my mind sex selection IS  
justified for medical reasons,  but doing something that is so expensive,  so 
invasive, and so risky to the mother, is not justified just because G-d  sent 
you six daughters and you really wanted a son.  Love your daughters  and thank 
G-d for them, and thank Him that you are not one of those childless  Jewish 
couples who would be ecstatic to have your "problem."
 
 
--Toby Katz
=============




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At 01:53 PM 1/2/2013, Rn T. Katz wrote:

>I really have a hard time believing that anyone has a "deep psychological
>need" to have a son rather than a daughter, or vice versa.

It seems to me that not being satisfied with what HaShem has given 
you,  whether a boy or a girl,  flies in the face of accepting the 
will of HaShem and being thankful for his "gift."

Whenever I hear that a new baby was born,  I ask two things - "Is the 
baby healthy?"   "Is the mother fine?"  To me this is all that should count.

This lesson was really brought home to me when my youngest grandson 
was born in March 2011.  Shortly after he was born it was discovered 
that his esophagus was not connected to his stomach.  If you 
like,  you can read about this at

"<http://personal.stevens.edu/%7Ellevine/aaron_vunderkind.pdf>Medical 
Drama: Why We Call Aaron a 
<http://personal.stevens.edu/%7Ellevine/aaron_vunderkind.pdf>Vunderkind" 
Inyan: Hamodia Weekly Magazine, June 15, 2011, pages 28 - 29.

Yitzchok Levine


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On Wed, Jan 02, 2013 at 02:00:09PM -0500, Prof. Levine wrote:
> It seems to me that not being satisfied with what HaShem has given you,  
> whether a boy or a girl,  flies in the face of accepting the will of 
> HaShem and being thankful for his "gift."

Related is the question of what berakhah to make when one has a newborn
baby with Downs.

See <http://rabbisedley.blogspot.com/2012/12/blessing-for-birth-of
-downs-syndrome.html>
(or <http://j.mp/WePGyX>

R. David Sedley (CC-ed) posted a teshuvah by R Shlomo Aviner that a parent
in such a situation should say shehechiyahu AND Dayan haEmes -- since
both emotions are present.

Someone then asked a followup question because they were and are happy,
and saw no reason to say Dayan haEmes. RSA says that one goes by the
usual reaction, which would be to feel both.

He also mentions that RYSElyashiv would have parents who do not feel any joy
do not say Shehechiyanu. I'm not sure how this buttreses his point. I
would think RYSE's pesaq shows that one goes by the individual making
the berakhah, not the norm.

R' Sedley provides a relevent link to the pages in Toras HaYoledes (R
Zilberstein) with RYSE and R Scheinberg's teshuvos
<http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49181&;pgnum=232>
They do not mention shehechiyanu, only Dayan haEmes. Also, RDS notes
that the Rama says we aren't nohagim to say shehechiyahu anyway.

R Sedley wrote (and I reinforced in a comment based on experience) that
Dayan haEmes reinforces the negative spin to the experience which could
have severe impact to how the child is raised. Doubly so if said as
the only berakhah!

Do Sepharadim say shehechiyanu upon birth of a child?

Back to the point, the post ends with a citation of the Beiur Halakhah
(222:2 "Dayan haEmes"). One only says Dayan haEmes on something you had
and was ruined or lost. But if one don't get what one really wanted and
expected (eg the father of 7 daughters who didn't get the son he was
hoping for) DhE is not said. So it would seem the CC wouldn't have you
say DhE in this situation either.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The trick is learning to be passionate in one's
mi...@aishdas.org        ideals, but compassionate to one's peers.
http://www.aishdas.org
Fax: (270) 514-1507


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