Avodah Mailing List

Volume 43: Number 41

Thu, 03 Jul 2025

• 1. Re: The Census Numbers In Bmidbar (Akiva Miller)
• 2. fyi - m'mekomos on TIDE as l'chatchila (from Rabbi Reisman) (mco...@touchlogic.com)
• 3. gzeira shava (Joel Rich)
• 4. Dairy and fish (Joel Rich)
• 5. Re: Lashon Hara in the Torah (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: gzeira shava (Micha Berger)
• 7. Re: Dairy and fish (Micha Berger)

.
Way back when Hashem put confusing numbers in His Torah, He knew exactly
when and where R' Jay F. Shachter would post:

> Obviously a man would normally know exactly whether or not
> he was a firstborn.  But how would a man know whether he was
> 20 years old?  He could know that only approximately.
> ...
> even if a man's parents told him on what day of the month he
> was born (and I think that is implausible, there is no record
> of anyone in the Bible except Pharaoh caring about, or even
> knowing, his date of birth) and in what season he was born,
> how would he know whether he was born in the 11th month or
> in the 12th month?  Or in the 13th month? Obviously the
> number of men in a tribe who were over the age of 20 -- in
> contrast with the number of men in a tribe who were firstborn --
> was a number that could be known only approximately.

While I concede that "there is no record of anyone in the Bible except
Pharaoh caring about, or even knowing, his date of birth", as they say, "lo
ra'inu aino raayah". Lack of evidence proves nothing.

And even if you are correct that they didn't know their birthdays, exact
information might have been available in other ways. I'm referring to
various midrashim (which I'm not going to bother looking them up right now)
about the census being conducted with the help of a Bas Kol which announced
the number of babies, or some such data.

But let's not get sidetracked by midrashim. Let's look at the pesukim:

3:39 - There were 22,000 levi males older than one month.
3:43 - There were 22,273 firstborn males older than one month.
3:46 - There was a surplus of 273 firstborns over the leviim.
3:50 - The 273 firstborns were redeemed for 1365 shekalim.
(Note that 273 x 5 =1365, and 3:47 gives the rate of 5 shekalim each.)

I concede that a man of Frederick Douglass' age would be unlikely to know
his birth date. But we're not talking about whether an adult would know
such a detail from years back. We're talking about whether his *parents*
would know the date of an event only one month past! "Well, let's see. He
was born on Erev Shabbos, about 4 four - maybe four and a half - weeks ago.
Yep! That makes him 32 days old today."

While I do not claim this to be any sort of proof that all the new parents
remembered accurately, the likelihood is not nearly as low as you'd like to
think.

But even so...

> I have been hearing this question all my life, and I do not
> understand why anyone has ever asked this question, because
> the answer is obvious. I can only conclude that the people
> who have asked this question, have not thought about it for
> more than 30 minutes.

So, if you have indeed been thinking about this for more than 30 minutes,
please tell me what you think of the following:

As you see it, the census came up with a total of 22,000 leviim, which not
only *looks* like an approximation, but according to you they knew and
understood that it *was* an approximation. Okay. The next step is that they
compared the approximate 22,000 leviim to the 22,273 firstborn, right?

So, can you explain: If all the other numbers were blatant approximations,
how did they come up with an apparently precise number for the firstborns?

And: If they knew that 22,000 was only an approximation, wouldn't a
reasonable estimate of the difference have been 250 or 300 or something?
Why on earth would they come up with a number like 273 - and be willing to
pay five shekel each! - if it was not precise?

Akiva Miller

DISCLAIMER: There are several countings in the Torah, and they have many
numbers which appear to be rounded. I am not claiming that none of those
are rounded. My only claim is that this one particular number [22,000
leviim] is indeed precise, and not rounded, and that this is proven by the
22273-22000=273 arithmetic. In my opinion, this lends much credence to the
idea that the other numbers in this chapter are also precise, but it is not
a rigorous proof for those other numbers.
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Rabbi Reisman ? Parshas Korach 5785
 
I would like to share with you a second thought. In 1933, Rav Schwab
returned from Lita to Germany. He was born in Germany in 1908. At age 16,
he traveled first to Telz and then to Mir. And for five years learned in
the Litvishe yeshivos. And he came back to Germany. In '33 he got a shtelle
in a small town in Germany as a rav. He was torn. As he writes himself, he
was torn between the Torah im derech eretz chinuch of Germany and the kulo
Torah chinuch of Lita. And what he did at that time, 1933, he was 25 years
old, was to write letters to Gedolei Yisrael to ask them, was Rav Shamshon
Refael Hirsch's shita of Torah im derech eretz meant to be b'dieved? That
really kulo Torah is the correct approach, but there was a compromise
because of the assimilation and the haskala going on in Germany? Or is it
l'chatchila? We don't know how many gedolim he wrote it to.
 
We know Rav Elchonon responded. Rav Elchonon's letter to Rav Schwab is
printed in the back of Kovetz Ha?aros in the drushim as siman yud aleph. We
know Rav Boruch Ber wrote back to Rav Schwab, and his letter is printed in
the back of Birchas Shmuel on Kiddushin, siman chaf zayin. There's a letter
from the Rogatchover responding. And we have from Rav Wolbe that one of the
letters was to Rav Yerucham, the Mir Mashgiach. And another one of the
letters was to Rav Bloch, the Rosh Yeshiva in Telz.
 
He also wrote a letter to Rav Kook. Now we don't have Rav Kook's response,
it could be Rav Kook did not respond, but we have the original letter of
Rav Schwab which was found among the ksavim of Rav Kook. And this is
published in the HaMa'ayan journal in the '60s, 1963, I believe. I think in
the Otzar HaChochma, I believe it's number chaf ches. And we have Rav
Schwab's letter there and a number of the responses.
 
Now this is not the setting to go through the entire response, but I'd like
to share Rav Yerucham's response. Rav Yerucham did not, to our knowledge,
write a letter back, but he gave vadim on the topic. And Rav Wolbe, his
talmid, who wrote a kuntres Adam B'Yakar. Adam B'Yakar is a biography of
his rebbe, Rav Yerucham. Rav Wolbe signs it (???? ????? ???? ??????
??????). And there, in I believe perek yud gimmel, the entire perek is
devoted to Rav Yerucham's response.
 
The yesod of Rav Yerucham's response was the following yesod. He writes,
there are two paths to Gan Eden, two paths to Olam Haba, and they're both
equally valid paths. One path is the derech ha'tivi, the natural path. And
one is the al tivi, is the more than natural path. They're two paths. The
derech ha'tivi is Torah im derech eretz. We know there was a Shevet Zevulun
and a Shevet Yissachar. We know there were Yidden in Eretz Yisrael that
worked the land. It's a derech ha'tivi, a derech to go.
 
There's a derech me'al tivi, there's a higher path, a higher way to get
there. The derech she?al tivi, to make it without a plan for parnassa,
without a clear mahalach. That plan, that derech she?al tivi, is the path
of kulo Torah. The path of people who want to be ochlei hamon and devote
themselves to kulo Torah. And that path is only through Torah.
 
All mitzvos are tied to certain times. You daven certain times. You shake
lulav certain times. If somebody goes with the derech ha'tivi, has to be
kovea itim l'Torah. He has to learn at certain times. The al tivi derech is
a person who's kulo masur l'Torah, who's daveik b'Torah. He's totally
devoted to Torah, he's not tied to any time or any place or any zman. And
that derech is a derech of kulo Torah.
 
This yesod comes from the Meshech Chochma in Parshas Vayechi, towards the
end of Vayechi I believe. Where the Meshech Chochma writes about the
mahalach of kulo Torah as opposed to, he doesn't call it Torah im derech
eretz, the other mahalach.
 
So these are two paths. Now they're not necessarily mutually exclusive. I
mean to say, is even if somebody is not a kulo Torah person, he's a Torah
im derech eretz person, there's an ability to be noteh towards the al tivi,
the above tivi mahalach. There's an ability to go above it.
 
What it says in the Meshech Chochma is that (????) is the derech of Torah
and (????) is the derech of Torah im derech eretz. (?????????? ?????
??????, ????????? ??????????????). It says it in both ways. The Meshech
Chochma is dibur hamaschil u'b'Zohar ha'Kadosh, he quotes a Zohar. Tehillim
118:16 (?????? ??????, ?????? ?????) 118:17 (???-??????). Darshins the
smichus. That when Hashem goes with yemin Hashem with kulo Torah, lo amus.
He's l'ma'ala min olam hazeh.
 
I don't believe that those who are l'ma'ala min olam hazeh need my shiur on
the parsha. My chaverim are like me, they are in the weakness of a derech
hativi. But im kol zeh we need to be inspired by a derech she?al tivi, a
derech of dveykus to Torah.
 
In Eretz Yisrael the Kollel men today are suffering financially and gedolei
yisrael came here to try to help for those who are, they're really are
derech she?al tivi, an unexplainable path to make it in olam hazeh and to
do it in a way that's kulo Torah. We need to be inspired by them. We need
to take a vacation time, a time we're off, and make it a time of kulo
Torah. Make it a time of ibergegeb'n to Torah. Make it a time where a
person goes to a yarchei kallah. A person has more chavrusos.
 
Chas v'shalom. Somebody should go on a vacation and learn less than when he
works? What a kitrug on a person. When I got married, my father told me an
eitza. He told me a few eitzos. One eitza he said, when you go on vacation
with your wife, it's hard to tell her I want to go learn in the afternoon.
You're on vacation. You get up early in the morning, get up four o'clock in
the morning and learn for four or five hours. Then in the afternoon, say,
you know, we're on vacation, let's take a nap. A nap on vacation, that
doesn't get on anyone's nerves. Ah, a gevaldige eitza.
 
My point is, when you're planning your vacation, it should be a vacation
that's me'al tivi, a vacation that's devoted to Torah, to increase time in
Torah. IY?H we should all be zocheh that we should have a summer of aliyah,
not chas v'shalom a summer of yerida, a summer meaningful in our avodas
Hashem. A guten zumer to all!
 
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The whole topic of gzeira shava has been my Moby Dick. Looking at all the
seeming cases within the talmud and trying to come up with an overarching
theory of everything has been very challenging.

One specific that issue I came across is on Chulin 137a. Please look at
tosfot sv asia asia and explain to me the answer to the question.

bsorot tovot

joel rich
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Stet in the Beit Yosef: Fish and Milk, from Typographical Error to
Typological Exemplar
<http://www.torahmusings.com/?action=user_content_redirect&;uuid=725a4eff1c3ea0c9efc72aa23478d86ba8059b31b895436b546639eeabbdf43d&blog_id=20608219&post_id=62090&user_id=0&subs_id=10121545&signature=49b60ebb8ee2d99d182b13ee0b783a6d&email_name=new-post&user_email=joelir...@comcast.net&encoded_url=aHR0cHM6Ly9zZWZvcmltYmxvZy5jb20vMjAyNS8wNC9zdGV0LWluLXRoZS1iZWl0LXlvc2VmLWZpc2gtYW5kLW1pbGstZnJvbS10eXBvZ3JhcGhpY2FsLWVycm9yLXRvLXR5cG9sb2dpY2FsLWV4ZW1wbGFyLw=&email_id=d2061cbdf1a3a8e09f9971dd8f26e69f>

Stet in the Beit Yosef: Fish and Milk, from Typographical Error to
Typological Exemplar
Aton M. Holzer

Dairy and fish . Do we try to understand alternative narratives of what R?
Karo was thinking or take him at his word? Other places where this type of
analysis should be used?

bsorot tovot

joel rich
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On Mon, Jun 23, 2025 at 04:29:34PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote:
> The Torah discloses Miryam's indiscretion
> but not that of Aharon HaCohen
> [although we ought to ask if the T did not why did Chazal]
...
> Why does the T disclose the indiscretion of Sarah Immenu?

We learn Hil' Geneivas Daas from comparing that event to the end of
Bereishis when the bothers entirely lie about Yaaqov asking Yosef
to forgive them rather than Hashem's only telling Avraham a partial
truth.

(I am not sure "indiscretion" is the right word. She laughed, perhaps
involuntary, in private. Had HQBH not spoken up, no one would have
known. The question is her bitachon, not her discretion.)

And in the reverse... If the pasuq was trying to make a point of
portraying Re'uvein's and Dovid's actions as much worse than Chazal say
they actually were, why do they defuse the pasuq's statement by telling
us so?

Or you would ask, why mention the action at all, even without guzma?

> would someone please offer to explain the Ohr HaChaim - VaTeChaChesh Sarah
> 18:15
> what Sarah Imenu feared

HQBH. She instinctively denied her lack of bitachon evidenced from her
lauch because of having the yir'ah a servant would have for her master.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   about things most people don't watch even on
Author: Widen Your Tent      Yom Kippur.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                     - Rav Yisrael Salanter

On Wed, Jul 02, 2025 at 05:32:54AM +0300, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
> The whole topic of gzeira shava has been my Moby Dick. Looking at all the
> seeming cases within the talmud and trying to come up with an overarching
> theory of everything has been very challenging.

When asked in another venue, I replied, R Dov Kramer replied to me,
and this is where my thoughts are currenly up to...

RDK pointed to the Ramban on the 2nd Shoresh of Seifer haMitzvos. In
it he says that because it's normal for the same word to come up in
many places, we cannot simply make gezeiros shava on our own. They
have to come from a mesorah.

Rashi holds this was always true. And therefore writes (Sukkah 11b
"lo") that one can only use a GS that has a tradition back miSinai.

But it is possible that the Ramban is describing the position later
described by the Qin'as Soferim (also on Shoresh #2).

Which is how I initially learned the Ramban. I took him to mean that
since *today* we don't know how to distinguish between a buzzword being
used as jargon and regular word usage, we can *no longer* see the same
word used in two contexts and say that it is jargon there being used to
share implications between the two halakhos.

(There is also the pro-forma problem of only a Sanherin being able
to mandate a din based on a newly discovered derashah. See QS ad loc.)

The Ramban there also denies the permissability of considering derashos
to be invented ("vedorshim osam midaatam") -- except maybe qal vachomer.
But that doesn't mean they are necessarilky miSinai, they can also be
discovered. IOW, his iqar is that we are interpreting ("harei GS keTorah
sheleimah .. af leheavi davar mechudash"), and not *re*interpreting
the text.

This fits a model in which we lost the detail necessary to discover
derashos in the text over time during the tannaitic and early amora'ic
era. GS was simply the first. And the loss of this ability caused the
shift from midrashei halakhah mining the text for dinim (or for support
for existing shitos) to having mishnayos and analyzing Mishnah.

Perhaps this itself was the loss of knowledge R' Aqiva, R Meir and
Rebbe saw happening under Roman opression that caused them to compose
and compile the Mishnah to begin with.

But unforunately, I think that this means RJR will never catch his
great white whale. Either because it never existed (Rashi) or because
he eluded the amora'im, who were incomparably better at harpooning
than we are (Qin'as Soferim).

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 We look forward to the time
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   when the power to love
Author: Widen Your Tent      will replace the love of power.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF              - William Ewart Gladstone

On Wed, Jul 02, 2025 at 05:35:25AM +0300, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
> Dairy and fish. Do we try to understand alternative narratives of what R'
> Karo was thinking or take him at his word? Other places where this type of
> analysis should be used?

I am not saying that sort of analysis is *invalid*. After all, until
lomdus took over yeshiva learning (mostly Brisk, but R Shimon's and
other descendent versions too), girsa'os were more commonly used to get
peshat. Recently in AhSY, we saw RYME cite a Rama questioning the girsa
of the Rosh. He adds more questions to the Rama's, and pasqens like the
adjusted result!

(OC 102:2, the question is whether when discussing the din of not sitting
or spitting within 4 amos of someone who is davening [Shemoneh Esrei]
the Rosh excludes behind the mispallel as well. The AhS pasqens lequlah.)

But once it's accepted as minhag... A minhag ta'us isn't a minhag that
is based as a ta'us. It's a minhag that is itself a ta'us because it
violates din or is a chumera that brings a long a qula in something more
significant.

Second, since your second question uses the word "should", I think it's
a bad idea because of a slippery slope argument. If we reopen practices
that are part and parcel of our religious life, I am afraid the whole
system that preserves our fealty to it will unravel.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Life is a stage and we are the actors,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   but only some of us have the script.
Author: Widen Your Tent                  - Rav Menachem Nissel
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF


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