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Volume 43: Number 4

Wed, 15 Jan 2025

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Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Message: 1
From: Joel Rich
Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2025 21:40:11 +0200
Subject:
[Avodah] zeh haklal


The mishna often provides a number of specific case examples and then says
zeh haklal.  Is the assumption that these were all included in the original
mishna?  Anyone posit that the klalim were added later?  Why sometimes are
there no klalim and it''s left to the gemara to figure out what the issue
at hand was?
Bsorot tovot
Joel Rich
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Message: 2
From: Micha Berger
Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2025 10:57:13 +0200
Subject:
[Avodah] Dikduk and the Age of the Chumash


R Prof Joshue Berman recently blogged a review of Proc Aaron Kornkohl's
work: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/biblical-grammar-enters-the-culture-wars

I was interested. When I was a bachur, RSM zt"l pointed out to me the
evolution of only using "asher" - not having a prefix version in Chumash
to "sha-" as a prefix in Shofetim or Rus, to "she-" as you get to later
books of Tanakh. The context of our discussion was the Ashkenazi "Midim
anachnu Lakh shaAtah..." instead of "sheAtah". I thought we were calling
Hashem "The You", but RMS said it was a grammarian's hypercorrection to
Biblical Hebrew. And an older biblical

Here are key snippets from RJB's review:

    ... [Aaron] Hornkohl is a professor of ancient Hebrew at Cambridge
    and he loves dikduk. He's an expert in historical linguistics, the
    study of how languages change over time. Scholars like Prof. Hornkohl
    identify differences between the Hebrew found in the former prophets
    - early biblical Hebrew - and the Hebrew found in the books of the
    post-exilic era, such as Ezra, Nehemiah Chronicles and Esther. For
    example, the name "David" in early biblical Hebrew is almost always
    spelled with consonants alone - dvd. However, in post-exilic works
    it is almost always spelled with a vowel; something like dvid,
    because this form of spelling (called plene spelling, or ktiv male)
    is much more prevalent in the post-exilic books.

    There are many hundreds of markers of the difference between early
    biblical Hebrew and late biblical Hebrew, and they help us date the
    authorship of the books....

    If Hornkohl is correct that the Torah uniquely preserves so many
    pre-monarchic linguistic features and presents a linguistic profile
    that is earlier than that found in the other books of the Hebrew Bible...

    Some dismiss the work of historical linguists like Hornkohl, arguing
    that we cannot determine the relative composition date of a biblical
    book based on language. They contend that an author from a later period
    could easily mimic an earlier style to lend their work an air of
    antiquity and authenticity.

    However, the truth is that writers from later periods inevitably betray
    the language of their own time. They unintentionally slip in modern
    expressions and stylistic nuances - not occasionally, but pervasively
    and unmistakably...

    ... For instance, if your character says, "I am really tired,"
    in the 1970s this would likely have been expressed as, "I really
    am tired." Over the past fifty years "really" has moved from more
    frequently emphasizing the verb ("am") to modifying the adjective
    ("tired"). Or consider this: "I've got a station wagon. I would
    recommend buying one, too." While invoking the Brady Bunch-era vehicle
    might seem era-appropriate, both "I've got" and "recommend buying"
    reflect more recent linguistic preferences. A truly 1970s character
    would have said, "I have a station wagon. I would recommend to you
    to buy one also."

    As someone who lived through the 1970s, I can assure you: none of us
    would have consciously remembered such minute differences - and even if
    armed with a comprehensive guide, most modern readers wouldn't notice
    the discrepancies. These are the subtleties that historical linguists
    like Hornkohl detect after painstaking analysis of vast data sets, not
    the kinds of things that leap out to the average person.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   with the proper intent than to fast on Yom
Author: Widen Your Tent      Kippur with that intent.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                     - Rav Yisrael Salanter



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Message: 3
From: Akiva Miller
Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2025 20:47:19 -0500
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] belief


.
R' Joel Rich asked:

> If I understand correctly, R?EW in the Kovetz Maamarim makes
> the watchmaker argument to prove God?s existence. He then goes
> on to say that this is so obvious that anybody who denies it
> is doing so because of his wish to willfully throw off the
> yoke of Heaven. How does this square with your experience?

(For clarity, I presume that RJR is referring to the idea that when
presented with a complex mechanism such as a watch, no rational
person would think that it sprang into existence without a watchmaker; kal
vachomer, this complex universe *must* have a Creator.)

My experience is that there are two sorts of "proofs". For lack of a better
term, let's call them "objective" and "subjective" proofs. (If more formal
descriptors exist among those of you who have studied these things, please
share.)

Mathematics is a good example of objective proof. I have two apples, and
then I take another apple, and now I have three apples. I have objectively
proven that two plus one equals three. It is inescapable, as far as I can
tell. This is what people usually mean when they use the word "proof".

In my experience, I have NEVER seen or heard of ANY proof of God's
existence (or non-existence) of the above type. Furthermore, I believe,
categorically, that no such proof will ever be found or devised, and that
God specifically designed Creation in such a way as to make such proofs
impossible, in order to preserve our freedom of choice to believe or not.

In my experience, EVERY proof of God's existence (or non-existence) is in
the category that I'm calling "subjective" proof. In these types of proofs,
the argument ultimately ends up at a point where one side says to the
other, "This is so very obvious that I am personally convinced that it is
correct", or "This is so very ridiculous that I am personally convinced
that it is wrong". But the point has not been strictly proven or disproven.
All we've done is to convince *you*, while someone else might remain
unconvinced.

I believe that RJR's example falls in the second, "subjective" category.
Example: With what I know about modern quantum physics, it most definitely
IS POSSIBLE that the random items sitting on my desk might suddenly
rearrange their components into a beautiful and functioning gold watch. The
ONLY problem with that scenario is that it is highly unlikely.

Personally, I do believe that God created the universe, and at the same
time, I do NOT believe the Watchmaker Argument to be an *objective* proof.
I have other experiences (and I stress the concept of "experiences" as
opposed to logical arguments) which have proven God to me, and I'm
satisfied with that.

Akiva Miller

POSTSCRIPT: Upon rereading the above one last time before sending it, I now
see that I was ranting about the word "proof" in the contest of the
Watchmaker Argument, and that I failed to address the main part of the
question.

I still maintain that the Watchmaker Argument is not a true objective
proof, because it IS remotely possible (per quantum theory) that the watch
assembled itself spontaneously. But what does this say about a person who
relies on this remote possibility to deny God's existence?

You and I feel it is ridiculous to rely on the infinitesimal possibility
that the universe arose spontaneously. But R'EW goes further, declaring
that "this is so obvious that anybody who denies it is doing so because of
his wish to willfully throw off the yoke of Heaven." I respectfully
disagree. The problem is this: Just like you and I find it ridiculous to
think that the universe arose spontaneously, some people think it's
ridiculous to think that there's a Being In The Sky Who Controls
Everything. As I wrote above, the evidence for and against is - and must
be! - evenly balanced, lest bechira go out the window.

These people aren't stupid or evil or lazy. I know such people, and in fact
I used to be one of them! All due respect to Chazal, not all of them are
looking for an excuse to do arayos. They just haven't had the exposure to
these concepts, and it is just too hard for them to "wrap their heads"
around the idea that it could be real. Every day I thank Hashem that I
*was* exposed to such ideas, and over many years I grew to accept them and
believe them. And whenever my children and grandchildren ask how I was able
to do it, I always give the exact same answer: "Baruch Hashem, I had very
good teachers."

Akiva Miller
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Message: 4
From: Joel Rich
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2025 09:31:22 +0200
Subject:
[Avodah] elul slichot


For minyanim that say slichot after the earliest time for talit and
tefillin, what is the practice (where you daven) as far as the tzibbur
wearing them during slichot?  Any explanation for that practice vs the
alternative?
Bsorot Tovot
Joel Rich
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Message: 5
From: Joel Rich
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2025 05:46:23 +0200
Subject:
[Avodah] tcheilet reminders?


If you were given a white tallit and asked to add an element from scratch
to remind you of tcheilet, what would you do and why?
Bsorot Tovot
Joel Rich
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Message: 6
From: Micha Berger
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2025 16:58:38 +0200
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] tcheilet reminders?


On Wed, Jan 15, 2025 at 05:46:23AM +0200, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
> If you were given a white tallit and asked to add an element from scratch
> to remind you of tcheilet, what would you do and why?

I would re-tie with murex dyed strings. <grin>

I said it like that, rather than saying "with tekheiles" because I
am not insisting that we identified tekheiles correctly for this
move to make sense.

Say you tie 1 string out of 8 (1/2 out of 4), Rambam style. None
of your white strings are colored blue, for sure. Just an instead-of-
tekhieles string.

You don't claim it's definitely tekheiles if you don't think it is,
and you don't violate the gemara about misrepsenting kaleh ilan.

You might be fulfilling the mitzvah. And if not, you are at least
remembering tekheiles.


Or you could be talking about what we actually did:

When we continued wearing tellisos even after the stollus went out
of style, the stripes were not longer just because that's how fancier
stollae were made. And after centuries, later than Rembrandt!, different
communities settled on blue in memory of tekheiles or black in mourning
for it.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

(PS: And those blue in memory of tekheiles stripes were on the tallis that
the Zionist flag committee started with. The Magen David was to keep the
flag, when hanging without a breeze, from looking like a white flag of
surrender. The tallis design was too plain.)

-- 
Micha Berger                 Problems are not stop signs,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   they are guidelines.
Author: Widen Your Tent              - Robert H. Schuller
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF


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