Avodah Mailing List

Volume 32: Number 76

Fri, 02 May 2014

• 1. Re: Kzayit (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: help with 2 sugyot (Zev Sero)
• 3. Re: help with 2 sugyot (Ben Waxman)
• 4. help with 2 sugyot (Eli Turkel)
• 5. Re: help with 2 sugyot (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: Ad Shetechpatz (Moshe Y. Gluck)
• 7. Re: obsession with kitniyot (Ben Waxman)
• 8. Re: obsession with kitniyot (Moshe Y. Gluck)
• 9. Re: obsession with kitniyot (Micha Berger)
• 10. Re: obsession with kitniyot (Micha Berger)
• 11. Re: obsession with kitniyot (Micha Berger)
• 12. Re: help with 2 sugyot (Samuel Svarc)
• 13. Re: Selling Chometz Gomer Before Pesach (Joshua Meisner)

On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 03:18:54PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote:
: On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 01:07:28PM -0400, I wrote:
: : So I would assume an ammah is about 43.3 - 43.7 cm.
..
: The AhS (OC 16:4) says that a tallis qatan needs to be at least 3/4 of
: an ammah sq in front and behind the person, and he tells us that this
: is 9 vershoks in then Russian units. Meaning an ammah = 12 vershok =
: 53.34 cm (wikipedia provided conversion for vershok).
: 
: For comparison, other commonly cited shitos on the bottom of the range:
:     Rambam: 45.6 cm
:     RCNaeh: 48.0 cm

Okay, I need more sleep, H/T to RETurkel for noticing. I was responding
as though the AhS's first digit was a 4, not a 5.

The AhS's shitah is pretty much the same as RMF, especially if you figure
the AhS gave us the size in an integer number of vershok.

Fortunately, I caught it before updating the table at
http://www.aishdas.org/asp/units-of-measure

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 17th day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org        2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate
Fax: (270) 514-1507                              state of harmony?

On 1/05/2014 10:36 PM, Kenneth Miller wrote:

>>> any gardener who doesnt have enough jobs should just go into yards
>>> and cut mow the lawn or remove the snow without permission and then
>>> demand full compensation.

>> No, becuase the home owner might have intended to let it go unmown
>> or unshovelled.  Perhaps he just doesn't care, and if so you
>> haven't done him any favour by mowing or shovelling.  If, however,
>> you saved him from a ticket, then ein hachi nami, you are entitled
>> to either your costs or the amount you saved him, whichever is less.

> Is this really so? I'm not disputing you. As I wrote, I've only heard
> this "outside", and never really learned it in any depth at all. But
> this would seem to be a critically important detail, which would
> overturn almost any attempted application of this halacha. In the
> VAST majority of cases, it is indeed no favor at all, as you wrote.
> Perhaps he wanted to do the work himself, or perhaps he didn't even
> want it done at all.

On the contrary, in the majority of cases there's no question that the
trespasser did the owner a favour.  It's an objective fact: the owner is
better off than he was before.  There is no such thing as a person who
doesn't want to be richer.

The case of the lawn-mower or snow-shoveller is different, because a
mown lawn or a shovelled drive does not make the owner any richer, unless
it saves him from a ticket.  It may nevertheless help him, if he is a
person who likes have a neat lawn, or he has a car and needs his drive
to be shovelled.  But if he has no car and doesn't care about the state
of his lawn, mowing and shovelling doesn't make him any better off.  But
that is an unusual case.  In the usual case the value added by the work
doesn't depend on the owner's subjective tastes.  It's objectively
measurable, in dollars.  Certainly in the cases which the gemara and
poskim discuss, the improvement is objectively measurable, and there is
no reason at all for the owner to be unhappy at his good fortune.


> If I have already selected someone for the job, then the case is
> complicated by the fact that this squatter/gardener is stealing
> parnasa from the guy I contracted with, or agreed with, or even
> simply mentally chose.

As I alluded to before, this would make that other person an "ani hamehapech
bacharara", and he may well have a case against the intruder.  Normally such
a person can't recover damages, but perhaps this case is different, because
the baal habayis had already decided to give him the work.


> What is going to happen if the Beis Din says, "He did $100 of work
> for you. Pay him." - and my response is, "If that's what it costs,
> I'd rather do it myself! I would have paid $40, but not $100!" I'm
> really very curious about this case. Would the Bais Din tell the
> squatter/gardener (I call him that specifically to disrespect him) to
> accept the $40 because that's what it's worth to me? Would they tell
> me to pay the full $100 because that it what it is worth to an
> average person, even though it's not a favor to me? Maybe $70? Maybe
> zero?

He always gets the smaller of his actual cost or the value of the improvement.
And this is objectively measured.  The assumption is that his cost is about
what it would have cost you too.   If you can show that you could have done
it cheaper, then my guess is that you only pay what it would have cost you.
(I'm not sure about the case of the meshiv aveida who chooses to take a taxi
to you.  Can you say that he should have taken public transport, and only pay
him for a round trip by bus, rather than his actual cost?   My guess is that
you can, though it seems churlish.)


[Email #2.]

On 1/05/2014 10:36 PM, Kenneth Miller wrote:
>> >The key point here is that if you can't explain rationally why
>> >you object to what he did, then the only explanation that remains
>> >is that you're a mean person, a churl who has his feelings hurt
>> >when people trespass on what's*his*, even when they leave him
>> >better off than before.  And that is a bad midah to have, so beis
>> >din can make you act as if you didn't have that midah.


> I accept this wholeheartedly, PROVIDED that "I'd rather do it myself
> and save the money" counts as a rational explanation.

I'm not sure that labour counts as an expense that he's entitled to be
reimbursed for, anyway.  But if it is, then it's assumed that your labour
would have cost you the same as what he is billing you.  If you could have
done it cheaper, perhaps because you're more skilled than he is, or perhaps
because your time is worth less than his, then ein hachi nami I think you
pay the smaller amount.



> I am not trying to be mean. I'll give the guy some tzedaka if he wants.
> And I understand that giving him a job is the highest form of tzedakah.
> But for all we know, he is a*wealthy*  squatter/gardener. Or do these
> halachos apply only to*poor*  ones?

No, it has nothing to do with tzedaka, or with rich and poor.


> On a related, but much more general topic, RZS also wrote:
>
>> >Get over it.  Zachin le'adam shelo befanav, and he did you a
>> >favour; if someone were to deposit money into your bank account
>> >would you complain that they didn't ask first?!

> At first glance, you're totally correct. Nothing is better than
> "free", right? But one must realize that people have sensitivities
> about certain things, and sometimes these things backfire. I once
> phoned a florist, to order some flowers to be sent to my wife. I
> don't remember how the subject came up, but he told me that his
> policy is to never accept an order from someone who wants to send the
> flowers anonymously. You'd think no one would refuse a gift, even an
> anonymous one. But he had seen so many people who were hurt and
> confused by not knowing who sent the flowers, that he decided to
> never do it again.

Flowers are a tricky business.  Objectively the whole industry makes no
sense.   Flowers are completely unnecessary.  You can't eat them, they
don't really do anything for you.  The reason people give each other
flowers is really a form of deliberate waste for the sake of impressing
the recipient.  When you give someone flowers you're saying "I like you
so much that I've wasted money on something useless just to make you happy".
And people are happy to receive flowers because it means the giver likes
them that much.  (Greeting cards are an even better example.  "I like you
so much that I made a donation to Hallmark in your name.")   In other words
flowers  are not at all about themselves and are all about the thought behind
them.  With that understanding, you can see how receiving such a gift
anonymously is kind of creepy.  "Someone is thinking of me, I have a secret
admirer" can be kind of exciting, but it can also be really disturbing.
But you can't reason from that to a real gift of something useful.  If an
anonymous person deposits money in my bank account, I'll have no qualms
about taking it.


> This is not about rights. It's not about keeping people off my
> property simply because it is mine. Rather, it's about: Is this
> gardener my father? Why does he presume to know what I want and what
> is good for me?

Because in the impersonal world of commerce, what is good for you is
objectively determinable.   And all the cases the gemara and poskim discuss
are in that world, not in the personal world that you keep wanting to
discuss.  All of your examples are non-commercial, and that's why you're
having difficulty applying the principles to them; they don't fit.


[Email #3]

Shorter version of the two long screeds I just wrote:

We are not talking about someone who breaks into your house and paints it.
We are talking about someone paints your barn, or your factory, which
badly needed painting. We're not talking about someone who plants
petunias in the front garden of your house; we're talking about someone
who plants tomatoes in your field which exists for the sole purpose of
growing commercial crops.


[Email #4]

On 2/05/2014 12:38 AM, Samuel Svarc wrote:
> And what about 'hezek reiah'? Someone walking through private
> property? The invasion of personal space, not respecting boundaries?
> A true BD would order maakos mardos for our squatter/gardener.

There is no hezek re'iyah in a field.  And there's a takanah from Yehoshua
that one is allowed to walk through people's fields when it will not damage
the crops.

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

Sure I'd complain because (for purposes of discussion) since I am 
"atz'mah'i"  (self employed) the tax people are going to be all over 
this deposit. The 500 shekels that you gave me is going to cause me 1000 
shekels of accountant fees, loss time spent at a government office, & 
endless paper work.

(taken from a real life experience, when the money involved was 36 
shekels!!!!)

Ben

On 5/2/2014 4:36 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote:
> On a related, but much more general topic, RZS also wrote:
>
>> >Get over it.  Zachin le'adam shelo befanav, and he did you a
>> >favour; if someone were to deposit money into your bank account
>> >would you complain that they didn't ask first?!

<<What decision was there to be made?  He has done you a favour.  You are
objectively better off now than you were before, and even after paying
him you will be objectively better off, so what rational reason could you
possibly have for not wanting him to have done the work?  In what way did
he harm you?>>

He harmed me because I have a regular gardener who does moy lawn or snow
removal.
Now a stranger comes removes the snow and demands full payment.
I repeat my question that this seems like a nice way for someone to make
money. After
a snow storm he quickly goes to all the yards in the town and removes the
snow from the lawns.
True some people will claim they didnt mind the snow etc and he can claim
only expenses.
However, many/most people have a deal with someone to remove their snow and
instead now have to pay this person who did him a "favor" by coming
illegally into his property.

I note that CI (against Nesivot ) that one cant force someone to get a
benefit against his wishes.
Instead the land owner swears that he wasnt interested in hiring this guy
and he doesnt have to pay

see (Hebrew)
http://eret
zhemdah.org/newsletterArticle.asp?lang=he&;pageid=48&cat=1&n
ewsletter=661&article=2445

Micha writes
<<But I think the key here is the word "property". I suggested in the past
that there is no such thing in halakhah. (With a probable exception of bal
yeira'eh bal yeimatzei.) There is baalus, but that's a different concept>>

I am going to series of shiurim by Rav Avraham and his claim is the exact
opposite. That the most fundamental concept is what he calls "territory" .
This based in a large part on Rav Shimon Shkop that says that the idea of
ownership precedes the Torah. The idea of theft is based on the
pre-existing idea that it belongs to someone. Binyan Tzion claims that one
cannot steal even to save a life. Even though only 3 things oberride saving
a life it doesnt give someone the right to invade someones "territory" to
save a life. He has an obligation to help but if he refuses you cant take
what belongs to him. This applies to most mirzvot between people eg shame,
damages etc This has nothing to do with theft being more important then
saving a life. It is that one cannot take what is not yours for a good
reason and even if there is no prohibition of stealing.
Thus, Rav Shinon Shkop says that onecannot steal from a nonJew (Torah law)
even according to the opinion that there is no Torah prohibition against
stealing from a nonJew. It simply means that the Torah does not call it
"theft". Nevertheless it is prohibited from the Torah simply because it is
his and not yours.

In today's shiur Rav Avraham went further and claimed that "korban asham"
arrises because one has entered the territory of someone else, it has
nothing to do with prohibitions.
The Pnei Yehoshua quesyions a gemara that says that a woman cant have 2
husbands simultaneously. Pnei Yehishua comes up with a case where the woman
is a "shifcha charufa" married to a even ivri. She now marries someone
else. First the gemara says there is no issur on the male to have relations
with the shifca and in any case it is only a "lav" . So according to Rabbi
Akiva the second marriage should work. He answers that the second marriage
doesnt work simply because she is married and belongs to someone else. It
has nothing to do with any prohibitions. Similarly one brings a korban
asham for shifca xharufa simply because the man violated the rights of the
husband. It makes no difference if it is shogeg or mezid or if there is a
formal issur or not.
Korbam Asham for Meilah is only for shogeg because only in that case has he
caused hekdesh to become chullin and so taken things out of their territory.

Talmidei Rabbenu Yonah claim that Meilah applies to not reciting birkhat
hanaah . Hence, one violates a biblical law when not reciting a bracha even
though brachot are only rabbinical.
This is because one is taking the fruit out of the "territory" of G-d
without permission.
Hence, Rav Avraham paskened that in the case of safeq one is required by
halacha to
say the bracha again but without G-d's name since that involves other
problems.

-- 
Eli Turkel
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On Fri, May 02, 2014 at 01:03:51PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote:
:> What decision was there to be made?  He has done you a favour.  You are
:> objectively better off now than you were before, and even after paying
:> him you will be objectively better off, so what rational reason could you
:> possibly have for not wanting him to have done the work?  In what way did
:> he harm you?

: He harmed me because I have a regular gardener who does moy lawn or snow
: removal.
: Now a stranger comes removes the snow and demands full payment.

The question isn't whether he added value to the field objectively,
but whether the baal gained value subjectively. So, the second you
write "he harmed me because..." your case wouldn't require payment.

: Micha writes
:> But I think the key here is the word "property". I suggested in the past
:> that there is no such thing in halakhah. (With a probable exception of bal
:> yeira'eh bal yeimatzei.) There is baalus, but that's a different concept.

: I am going to series of shiurim by Rav Avraham and his claim is the exact
: opposite. That the most fundamental concept is what he calls "territory" .
: This based in a large part on Rav Shimon Shkop that says that the idea of
: ownership precedes the Torah. The idea of theft is based on the
: pre-existing idea that it belongs to someone...

And is in the 7 mitzvos. But what RSS calls part of DE qodmah laTorah
(my phrasing) is baalus, not ownership. My whole thesis is that ownership
goes beyond baalus in terms of how much it ties property to an owner.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 17th day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org        2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate
Fax: (270) 514-1507                              state of harmony?

Old MYG:
<<There?s a famous Vort attributed to Ramban on Shir HaShirim 8:4: 
???-????????? ?????-?????????? ???-?????????, ??? ???????????? When one has
a His?orerus, they should do something physical ? Ad Shetechpatz ? 
to make it ?take.? I couldn?t find this Ramban ? can anyone lead me in the
right direction? >>

R' David Riceman:
   IIRC  it's cited by the Piasatzner Rebbe in Hovos Ha Talmidim, and he
attributes it to Sefer HaEmunah V'HaBitachon, which was traditionally
attributed to the Ramban but was not in fact written by him.
----------------------------- 

Thank you, R' DR - yes, I found it in HaEmunah V'Habitachon (Kisvei
Haramban, MHK, vol. 2), Perek 19. I meant to look into the introduction to
see what Mosad HaRav Kook writes about the authorship, but I forgot to...

KT,
MYG

When someone whose grandparents come from four very different places, 
you can get these confusions. This is what I meant when I wrote about 
the sefardi girl who marries an ashhkenazi guy; often they change the 
custom (in the reverse situation, usually she is glad drop the whole thing).

However going from a confusion caused to a particular person or persons 
having mixed lineage to "everyone should drop the entire custom" is a 
bit much.

Ben

On 5/2/2014 6:08 AM, Lisa Liel wrote:
> Which ancestors?  Again, why are my ancestors in Belarus more
> important than my ancestors in Spain?

R'n LL:
Families choose whether to keep chalav Yisrael or not.  That's a huge
difference.  And when a kid moves out on their own, they get to decide anew
for themselves.  They don't have to keep it because their parents did.
----------------------------- 

I don't think Cholov Yisroel-keeping people see it this way.

KT,
MYG

On Thu, May 01, 2014 at 11:08:43PM -0500, Lisa Liel wrote:
:> We've done this more than annually since 2009. Search "minhag avos and
:> minhag hamakom" in the archive. In Pesachim pereq 4 ("Maqom sheNahagu"),
:> boh shasin have examples of people moving to a place that has no
:> established minhag, and they are told to keep their ancestors'.

: Which ancestors?  Again, why are my ancestors in Belarus more
: important than my ancestors in Spain?

There is a concept of beis av. And qiddushin (not eirusin) marks a
woman's transition from her father's beis av to her husband's. Which
is why minhag avos runs patrilineally. So, the last community your
father's father to the n-th lived in that had a minhag hamaqom would
be the minhag you should stick with until moving to a new maqom that has
its own minhagim.

See http://www.etzion.org.il/vbm/archive/17-beshiv/beshiv278.doc
and http://daf-yomi.com/DYItemDetails.aspx?itemId=23169
for sources.


An example lemaaseh. My mother's father a"h wore tefillin on ch"m for most
of his life. Because when living in Boston or NY he continued practicing
minhag Frankfurt-am-Main. (Although he was a Litvak; my grandfather was
brought in for a shtella with the general Gemeinde rabbinate.) But when
grandpa made aliyah, where there is a minhag hamoqom about tefillin on
ch"m, my grandfather stopped.

(I did ask about what he did the first time he lived in EY, in Tel Aviv
under the mandate. He said the immigrants in TA were doing both, his
mother made aliyah shortly after his father passed, so he just continued
doing what he always did.)

I am just spelling out the implications of that shitah; my grandfather
was not a poseiq whose actions prove anything.


Ad kan FFB bas FFB. Whether a BT the child of a chiloni-from-birth,
whose minhag avos was already interrupted by at least one generation,
should follow their grandfather's minhagim or their rebbe's is AFAIK
an open question.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 17th day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org        2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate
Fax: (270) 514-1507                              state of harmony?

On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 11:07:51PM +0100, Chana Luntz wrote:
: RMB writes:
:> Then we're doing it wrong.

: Yes but isn't precisely the idea of a uniform to create a sense of us and
: them.  That's one of the reasons schools do it - to create a sense of "our
: school" versus the "other school".  It creates a sense of belonging, but
: part of that sense of belonging is that we are not them.

Not necessarily. A person can take pride in being a Litvak or a
Chalabi and everything his ancestors and their community brought to
Yahadus without denegrading the value of other communities and their
contributions.

This is harder to pull off pragmatically when speaking of a school
designed for a single eidah. But a yeshivish or Mod-O day school today
takes in kids from a number of qehillos. And (aside from Deal) how many
communities in the golah have a "Sepharadi school" that only services
one flavor of Sepharadi? So the kid will overhear your statements to
his classmates.

I mean, wouldn't it be great for that Litvak to take pride in his
community's place in the history of learning, wanting to belong to that
and claim it for his own, while still admiring Yekkish focus on yosher,
the way Chassidim take joy in their mitzvos maasiyos, vekhulu?

A healthy body needs both a pancreas and a liver, after all.


I said something similar about educating girls a couple of months ago
to a poor reception. Why not honestly teach girls how "she'asani
kirtzono" gives y'all advantages men lack, while also honestly teach
boys why we're thanking/praising the BSO "shelo asani ishah".

The world has multiple metrics. Two people can each be superior to the
other -- in different ways. And perhaps each person should be bequeathed
with a hashkafah which teaches them to focus on what they do well,
or have the skills / upbringing to get there.

In the days of shevatim, for most Jews (barring sheivet leivi, descendents
of geirim), minhag avos and minhag hamaqom would coincide -- nachalah
too would follow beis av, so every yovel you were pulled back to land
that was next to your brothers', just a little down from your first
cousins', etc....

But no one told Zevulun that it would be better to become a sheivet of
learners like Yissachar! Rather Yaaqov avinu blessed each son in ways
that would develop their distinct stregnths (Shimon and Levi to whittle
their tendency to violent response), and Moshe rabbeinu praised each
tile in for what they brought to the mosaic.

Semach Zevulun betzeisekha, veYissachare be'ohalekha.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 17th day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org        2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate
Fax: (270) 514-1507                              state of harmony?

On Fri, May 02, 2014 at 11:05:17AM -0400, Micha Berger wrote:
: Semach Zevulun betzeisekha, veYissachar be'ohalekha.

Continuing...

And isn't the bigger problem with chinukh not leading to retention,
much more than seemingly arbitrary differences in minhag, the fact that
we provide too few pictures of the ideal person? That our mass-produced
education is overly focused on cookie-cutter product?

How about a few pictures of baalei chessed among those rashei yeshiva
to inspire the ADHD boys who can't be expected to be happy sitting
and learning? Or to feel anything but second-class when handed a religion
that has only that as the one ideal for men?

Pride in one's mesorah through minhagim is very different than pride
in one's ability to bring one's own skill-set to avodas Hashem, but the
assumption that "we're great" must imply "they're not" underlies both.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

PS: As in the last post (first half of this post?), where I shifted to
focusing on Ashkenazim, here my example was boys because you're supposed
to write about what you know. But they're only the examples I am most
familiar with, not the scope of the issue.

Although I do think the narrowness of ideal is more true for boys,
which is what underlies the perpetuatiohn of the Age Gap Issue and
thus the Shidduch Crisis. Ve'ain kan hamaqom leha'arikh -- that's more
for arreivim.

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 17th day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org        2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate
Fax: (270) 514-1507                              state of harmony?

On Thu, May 1, 2014 at 11:56 PM, Zev Sero <z...@sero.name> wrote:
> On 2/05/2014 12:38 AM, Samuel Svarc wrote:
>> And what about 'hezek reiah'? Someone walking through private
>> property? The invasion of personal space, not respecting boundaries?
>> A true BD would order maakos mardos for our squatter/gardener.

> There is no hezek re'iyah in a field.  And there's a takanah from Yehoshua
> that one is allowed to walk through people's fields when it will not damage
> the crops.

I wondered if I needed to make this explicit, but figured since the
words used was gardener there was no need. I see now I was wrong.

The discussion centered around work done on private property, where there
is a personal component to the work (layout, design, etc.). We were not
discussing planting some crops in a far away public field.

Again, a true BD would thrash our trespasser/gardener/squatter, using
maakos mardus to prevent the breakdown of society, after forcing him
to pay him for being a 'mazek' and damaging the garden he pillaged. To
avoid him and his other 'anshei sedom' friends from "removing splinters
from someones fence until there is no fence left" (in whatever form this
manifests itself in), BD will thrash the first person.


[Email #2]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 4:43 PM, Kenneth Miller <kennethgmil...@juno.com>wrote:
> <SNIP>
> I am only slightly bothered by the case of the squatter who gets to live
> in my home rent-free, but I suppose it's an example of the Torah's ruthless
> indifference to the two sides of a dispute. Halacha is tilted neither to
> the rich nor the poor, neither to the baal habayis nor the visitor. The
> Torah seeks only what is right and just. I *did* have the option of renting
> out my home; having left it vacant I really don't have any claim to
> compensation.

> The American in me, of course, is totally offended by these limitations on
> my right to keep people off my property. And that's why I'm grateful to
> halachos like these, which remind me that "my" property isn't really mine
> at all. <SNIP>

No, there is no limitation on your right to keep people off your property.
In fact you might even be allowed to leave deathtraps to make sure that no
one trespasses.

You can't ask for compensation when you had no physical damage, but this
technical aspect does not permit someone to squat. We can't fine him if he
did so, but it remains 'assur', and reveals our squatter as a boor without
yiras shmayim (and according to the Tanya, after squatting he is now
considered a 'rasha').

KT,
MSS

On Thu, May 1, 2014 at 7:03 PM, Zev Sero <z...@sero.name> wrote:

>
> I don't think bal tashchis can apply when there is an explicit *mitzvah*
> "tashchis"!   However, you can make the same point using a different
> source: Hatorah chasah al mamonan shel yisrael.  The Torah commands that
> when a house is suspected of tzara'as it should be emptied before the kohen
> comes to inspect it, so that in case he declares it tamei these items will
> be exempt from the mitzvah of destroying the house and its contents.  Thus
> we see that even when there is a mitzvah to destroy, the Torah wants us to
> try to avoid having it apply to valuable items.   (Is there a similar
> mitzvah
> to empty out an Ir Hanidachas before pronouncing sentence on it?)
>

The emptying of the bayis ham'nuga does not occur prior to the destruction
(hachlata), but rather prior to the declaration of tum'a (hasgara).  Even
if keilim were brought into the house following the hachlata, the chiyuv
n'sitza would only apply to the structure of the house, not to keilim
inside (with the possible exception of fixtures attached to the walls). The
application of HaTorah chasah al mamonan shel Yisroel is with respect to
the need to break k'lei cheres to remove their tum'a, not to an avoidance
of an independent imperative of destruction, so it doesn't appear that the
case is analogous to that of chameitz or the ir hanidachas where there is a
specific imperative to destroy.

Joshua Meisner
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