Avodah Mailing List

Volume 34: Number 78

Tue, 12 Jul 2016

• 1. leviim on duty (saul newman)
• 2. Re: gemara narrative (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: listening to governments and derabbanan (Micha Berger)
• 4. icy korach (Eli Turkel)
• 5. halacha in changing times (Eli Turkel)
• 6. on current day nezirus (saul newman)
• 7. Re: Is dirt clean? (Micha Berger)
• 8. Re: derabban (Micha Berger)
• 9. Re: birchat kohanim (Micha Berger)
• 10. Re: birchat kohanim (Zev Sero)
• 11. Re: icy korach (Micha Berger)
• 12. RHS on shabbat - electricity (Eli Turkel)
• 13. Re: RHS on shabbat - electricity (Rich, Joel)
• 14. Re: RHS on shabbat - electricity (Eli Turkel)
• 15. Re: RHS on shabbat - electricity (Zev Sero)

in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard duty
at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. two, maybe that family of
leviim wasn't assigned to that job.  i suppose three, who says you're a
levi.    any more data?
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On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 12:47:21PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
: When you are learning gemara and you come to a give and take where
: the hava amina seems strange (e.g. maakot 14a...          the answer
: is ein haci nami?! -- so why record the whole misattribution of reason,
: and how did they know/not know)

Building a parallel to Edios 1:4 and why the mishnah bothers recording
divrei beis Shammai.... Perhaps the whole point is that people were
making this mistake, maybe it hit the grapevine, and therefore ruling
it out had to be made explicit and recorded. So that the strange hava
amina never rears its head again unanswered.

IOW, not that the gemara seriously entertained it, but the gemara wanted
to codify its rejection.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries
mi...@aishdas.org        are justified except: "Why am I so worried?"
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 04:39:43PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
: I don't know what point you were trying to make, but I'm wondering if you
: considered the possibility that "lo bashamayim hee" might teach us that
: their legislation IS His will, by definition.

It is His Will that humans legislate, but a particular decision may not
necessarily in accord with His Will.

Just as it is possible to say that it is His Will that humans have our
own free will, while still saying that the Nazi decision to slaughter
us was not in accord with His Will. Even though the Desire to have free
willed humans may have been part of what oughtweighed stopping them.

Also, in discussions of hashgachah peratis... I don't think you would
argue that denying universal HP is logically meaningless because a
Divine Decision to abandon someone to miqreh or teva is itself a form
of hashgachah.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When a king dies, his power ends,
mi...@aishdas.org        but when a prophet dies, his influence is just
http://www.aishdas.org   beginning.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                    - Soren Kierkegaard

<<Did anyone see a meforash make a Qorach - qerach connection? >>

rather than ice it would be likely (?) that he was bald.  Korcha is in the
torah

-- 
Eli Turkel
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According to recent daf yomi an animal that eats food in a public
thoroughfare the owner is not liable because animals have a right to walk
there. (BK 14 ...)

Does the halacha change in modern times when animals don't walk down a
public street.
As an example a horse (with a rider?) w)walks down a street in Manhattan
and eats fruit/vegetables
from an outdoors fruit stand.
Is the owner required to pay? In todays society n would be difficult to say
that it is the job of the vegetable owner to prevent animals from eating
his fruits.

The  questiont is that this is a monetary question and so may be different
from the usual questions of changes in issur ve-heter halachot because of
changing times.


-- 
Eli Turkel
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http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2016/07/interesting-psak-annul
ling-vow-of.html

is hatarat nedarim sufficient to remove nezirus status? of a kattan?
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On Tue, Jun 28, 2016 at 06:03:53AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
: My question is simple: Why is dirt in the category of "things which clean"?
: It seems to me that if I would rub my hands with dirt they would (almost
: always) be even dirtier afterwards than before.

The early Greeks apparently used clay, sand, pumice and/or ashes to remove
the oils and "to draw toxins out of the body". Then they washed it odd
and annointed themselves with oil, often scented. (This annointing with
oil is likely familiar from discussions in hilkhos Shabbos and tannis.)

Galen had them shift to soap to ward off diseases of the skin. He lived
around the same time as R Meir and Rashbi.

Interestingly, the Tur mentions using a pebble or anything that cleans.
The BY inserts "ve'afar", and repeats it in the SA.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When we are no longer able to change a situation
mi...@aishdas.org        -- just think of an incurable disease such as
http://www.aishdas.org   inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change
Fax: (270) 514-1507      ourselves.      - Victor Frankl (MSfM)

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 09:05:23PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
: In modern terms the Netivot says that all rabbanan decrees are gavra
: and not cheftza. Eating meat and milk (cooked together) the mixture is
: prohibited. Eating chicken and milk cooked together there is nothing
: wrong with the mixture. It is rebelling against the chachamim to eat it
: on purpose (lo tasur) or rabbinic if eaten le-teavon.

I don't understand this last sentence.

We are talking about grounding the duty to obey a derabbanan. If we say
that in some circumstance that duty is itself derabbanan, haven't we
reached circular reasoning?

IOW, if there is no chiyuv de'oraisa to resist tei'avon to obey a
derabbanan, then how could the chakhamim create the meta-chiyuv in a
way that we would be duty-bound to obey? The meta-chuyuv too is versus
to'eivah, not rebellion.


Did RMA give part 2 of the shiur yet?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "The worst thing that can happen to a
mi...@aishdas.org        person is to remain asleep and untamed."
http://www.aishdas.org          - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
: How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz
: Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get
: birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of
: the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is
: on the cohanim alone?

If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to
skip it?

A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv
ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag?


I also don't know if one can differentiate between mitzvos and the benefit
of the cheftzah shel mitzvah. But I don't have anything to add to the
"does a mezuzah protect beyond the sekhar of protection of the mitzvah
of mezuzah?" thread beyond noting its potential relevance here.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "The worst thing that can happen to a
mi...@aishdas.org        person is to remain asleep and untamed."
http://www.aishdas.org          - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On 07/11/2016 05:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
> : How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz
> : Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get
> : birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of
> : the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is
> : on the cohanim alone?
>
> If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to
> skip it?
>
> A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv
> ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag?

The ostensible reason for the minhag is that duchening requires simcha,
and nowadays with all our troubles we only have real simcha at musaf of
yomtov.

But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our kohanim's yichus
is uncertain, so every time they duchen they are risking an avera.
Therefore, just as a safek kohen only takes teruma once a year so as not to
lose his status, so also our kohanim only duchen on those occasions when it
would be obvious if they abstained, and people would talk.



-- 
Zev Sero               Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire
z...@sero.name          meaning merely by appending them to the two other
                        words `God can'.  Nonsense remains nonsense, even
                        when we talk it about God.   -- C S Lewis

On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 05:00:17PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
:> Did anyone see a meforash make a Qorach - qerach connection?

: rather than ice it would be likely (?) that he was bald.  Korcha is in the
: torah

Or, as a medrash suggests, his wife was outraged by his coming back
the day he was consecrated as levi entirely shaved, head-to-toe.

But the nice thing about medrash is, it needn't be mutually
exclusive. Could be darshen-able both as bald and as ice-like.
As I said, with everying done with qorkha and Amaleiq, there is
what could be done hear. (Even if though shorashim differ.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries
mi...@aishdas.org        are justified except: "Why am I so worried?"
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507

Rav Herschel Schachter gave a shiur last night in Raanana on electrical
appliances on shabbat
Enclosed is a short summary

1) Maharsham felt that all electricity on shabbat was derabban since it
didn't exist in the mishkan. However, we normally pasken like R Chaom Ozer
that if there is a metal filament that is heated then its use on shabbat is
deoraisa. Interestingly we have no statement from RCOG to that effect. He
brought that when RYBS visited Vilna several times R Chaim Ozer always made
a point of making havdala on an electric bulb.
Of course this works only if the bulb is not frosted. This was also the
minhag in the Breuer shul in washington heights. Towards the end of his
life R Breuer was blind. At some time they stopped using the bulb for
havdala because it was frosted. They had a hard time explaining the blind R
Breuer what a frosted bulb was.

RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat only
derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did not see a major
problem is using a toilet that has an automatic flush or even an automatic
door. Flushing a toilet or opening a door is allowed. The electricity is
not doing anything that could not be done manually.
Similarly there is no problem walking normally even if it turns on some
motion sensor.
He stated that in New York there are video cameras everywhere and it is
almost impossible to walk in public without it being recorded which would
be ketiva derabbanan. As long as one doesnt intend to be recorded it is OK
even though it is certain that it will occur.
Of course it is better to avoid it if possible,  R Nachum Rabinowitz
explicitly allows this.

Hence, one can ask a goy to turn on an electrical appliance (without an
incadescent bulb) for a mitzva since it is shvut de-shvut bekom mitzva.
However, he stressed that this can be done only occasionally not as a
regular procedure.

2) When shabbat clocks first were invented some poskim prohibited them.
They reasoned that Bet Hillel only allowed something that started before
shabbat and continued not something that would start on shabbat. The
coomon psak is to allow even beginning on shabbat.
RMF only allowed a shabbat clock for lights but not other devices because
of oneg shabbat. RHS  wasn't quite sure what the difference was between
lights and say an air conditioner. In any case the common minhag is to use
a shabbat clock for all electrical devices.

For a dishwasher the problem is that it will run only when closed. So
closing the door "starts" the process even though the shabbat clock will
turn it on later.
Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina
demalchuta.
R Henkin paskened that dina demalchuta applies to all laws made for safety
or good of the public.This would include monetary rules like rent control
and bankruptcy.

3) Chazon Ish allowed the use of umbrellas on shabbat since he felt that
there was no problem of making an ohel since the umbrella is made to be
opened. RMF disagreed, He didn't write a teshuva on the topic because he
felt that it was obvious that CI was wrong!
-- 
Eli Turkel
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> 2) When shabbat clocks first were invented some poskim prohibited
> them. They reasoned that Bet Hillel only allowed something that
> started before shabbat and continued not something that would start on
> shabbat. The coomon psak is to allow even beginning on shabbat.

Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly
states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat Kol tuv

Joel rich 

On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 2:11 PM, Rich, Joel <JR...@sibson.com> wrote:
> Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly states
> that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat

He mentioned it again and pointed out that once the consensus was to allow
doing an act that begins on shabbat we don't change because of the
discovery of some manuscript.

Again, I provided a summary and did not include every remark

-- 
Eli Turkel

On 07/12/2016 07:11 AM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
> Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly
> states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat Kol tuv

Which teshuvah is this and where can I find it?

-- 
Zev Sero               Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire
z...@sero.name          meaning merely by appending them to the two other
                        words `God can'.  Nonsense remains nonsense, even
                        when we talk it about God.   -- C S Lewis


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