Volume 14 Number 72
Produced: Thu Aug 11 23:34:37 1994
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Cheating
[Ezra Dabbah]
Climbing the Fence to see the Game (2)
[Jeremy Nussbaum, Percy Mett]
Conferences on Shabbat
[Avi Witkin]
Conferences on Shabbos
[Alan Davidson]
Hakol tzafui vihareshus nisunah
[Mitchel Berger]
Olam Haba
[Turkel Eli]
Pyrex
[Kevin Schreiber]
Sneaking into the Ball Game
[Jay Bailey]
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From: Ezra Dabbah <ny001134@...>
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 94 18:09:00 -0500
Subject: Cheating
David Charlap claims in v14#65 that a jew can behave immorally if no one
sees him doing it or knows about it. (This was in regard to not paying
for cable). As one recent poster wrote recently, if these people had a
day off from Torah and Halacha they would be murderers. Davids claim is
that those signals are being sent out anyway. Does that mean you can
sneak on an airplane, that plane is going to its destination anyway?
Or a movie or a ballgame or a yeshiva classroom or a .......
Ezra Dabbah
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From: <jeremy@...> (Jeremy Nussbaum)
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 1994 10:15:51 -0400
Subject: Re: Climbing the Fence to see the Game
> From: Michael Broyde <RELMB@...>
> Someone raise the question of the child going to the baseball game who
> loses his money and climbs through the fence to see the game, intending
> to come back latter and pay. This is called "sho'al shelo medat"
> borrowing without permission, and is a form of theft. The fact that it
> is a base ball game makes no difference (see my previous post on cable
> television and theft of services). Change the facts a little. Instead
> of a base ball game, turn it into a candy bar. If the child wishes to
> buy the candy or see the game on credit (with a promise to pay), he must
> ask permission from the owner. Otherwise, it is theft or close to
> theft.
Why is this particular case, at least at the late stage, not "ze ne'hene
ve'ze lo chaser," i.e. "this one benefits and that one is none the worse
off?" The collector of the admissions would not get him as a paying
customer, since he has no money. No other paying customer is turned
away. I don't see this as a borrower. I don't remember the fine points
of when, if ever, znvlc is permitted, but it certainly is not
actionable; he is not liable to compensate the owner after the fact.
Jeremy Nussbaum (<jeremy@...>)
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From: <P.Mett@...> (Percy Mett)
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 1994 10:13:16 -0400
Subject: Climbing the Fence to see the Game
Michael Broyde> borrowing without permission, and is a form of theft.
Michael Broyde> The fact that it is a base ball game makes no
Michael Broyde> difference (see my previous post on cable television
Michael Broyde> and theft of services).
How do you know that theft of services is the same as theft of goods?
And what service is being stolen by watching a baseball game?
Gut feeling is not a basis for deciding halocho. A reference from
shulchan Oruch is more convincing.
Perets Mett
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From: Avi Witkin <msavi@...>
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 1994 08:57:43 +0300 (WET)
Subject: Conferences on Shabbat
>From: Aleeza Esther Berger <aeb21@...>
>Considering the number of business travel requests for information I
>guess mail-jewish readers have a lot of experience with this. What are
>the parameters of attending conferences on shabbat? Can you go at all?
>but not present your paper? The issue here is not actual melachah but
>work (the English meaning). What are variuos opinions on this subject
>that people know of? I suspect the answer is pretty negative...
Last year a friend of mine who is in medicine asked a well known rabbi in
New York if he can attend a course from Thursday through Sunday. He told
him that is was ok to attend on Sabbath. Of course he walked to the
course and didn't take notes. He did not even ask anybody else to take
notes. I am not sure exactly why this rabbi said it is mutar. I know
other Rabbis say it is asur.
Avi Witkin
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From: Alan Davidson <DAVIDSON@...>
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 94 08:56:47 EDT
Subject: Conferences on Shabbos
Being in a discipline where the majority of professional meetings are
weekend meetings (Sociology, more particularly, Sociology of Religion
and the Sociology of American Jews), I can speak from some experience.
First, with respect to presenting a paper on Shabbos, I have met
Jews who have presented papers if the microphone was set up in advance,
all they were doing was reading, no overheads, etc. However, usually if
there is an option, I and many others simply send in a friendly little
cover letter along with the abstract (or in rare cases, a paper) that
you will be unable to deliver the paper on Friday night (or in some
instances, Friday afternoons in the Fall/ Winter) or all day Saturday.
Fortunately, when you are dealing with Religion folks and people who
study Jews, this is usually not a problem, and some Professional
associations in their advertisement for papers will explicit solicit
whether such restrictions exist. In the sociology of Religion, for
instance, some Mormons won't present papers on Sundays (and Brigham
Young has a large Sociology dept.). This makes things that much easier
for Jews. Finally, all of the professional associations for Jews
schedule their meetings, or sessions if they are a part of a larger
meeting on a day other than Shabbos.
Second, with respect to attending a conference on Shabbos, assuming
there are no problems with electric door locks, etc., just physically
being there is not a problem. However, my first option is to attempt to
arrange for Shabbos accomodations. This is because I feel uncomfortable
attending because one might think that it is a Shabbosdik activity,
which it is not. Also, it is possible that especially when one is
talking about Friday-Sunday conferences, Jews might be discouraged from
attending if one of the days is Shabbos, versus, for instance, a Monday
to Wednesday conference where no such problems would usually exist, and
where one could take part in the entire conference.
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From: Mitchel Berger <aishdas@...>
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 1994 11:36:20 -0400
Subject: Hakol tzafui vihareshus nisunah
In the words of the Gemara "All is foreseen, yet free will is given."
An old problem, why need we do anything, if G-d knows what we will do, and
why?
I have an explanation, but it isn't simple. It requires projecting into
a reality where there is no time.
G-d does NOT know today what will happen tomorrow. For G-d there is no today
or tomorrow. Therefor we can not give a time for when Hashem knows anything.
For that matter, we can not discusses when Hashem does anything, since
He has no when. Rather, we CAN define when and where the EFFECTS of His
action be felt.
This is why man is judged "ba'asher hu sham" how he is then and there. G-d
doesn't judge man based upon what will be, because that would be an effect
felt within time that preceeds my decision. If G-d would insert things into
time based on later decisions, your question would be valid. I'm only
invalidating your question because it assumes a "when" for something that
has none.
Since time is one of the things Hashem created, the whole concept of
a sequence of events is part of creation. The concept of moment, and each and
every moment, is part of creation. The current instant exists through the
act of creating time -- G-d created this very place and time in Genesis 1.
Without time, creation becomes more a description of how G-d relates to
the universe than how the universe got started. Perhaps this is how we
should understand the pisukim:
Hamechadeish bichol yom tomid ma'asei bireishis
Who renews, each day, continually, the acts of the begining
Ki vo shavas mikol milachto, asher bara Elokim laasos
For on [Shabbos] He "rested" for all His work,
which G-d created to do
The continuation of existance is part of ma'aseh bereishis, and the
act of creation is sill la'asos -- to do, in the present tense, going
on around us.
This might also be the Ramban's intent when he says that miracles don't
represent G-d changing His Mind, or a dissatisfaction with the natural order,
because they were written into ma'aseh bireishis. The creative act applies no
less to day eight than it does to the day we crossed Yam Suf -- both instants
were created in the same act, both events were part of His same timeless
"instant" (for want of a better word), both equally represent "asher bara
Elokim la`asos".
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From: Turkel Eli <turkel@...>
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 1994 09:08:37 -0400
Subject: Olam Haba
A (nonreligious) colleague of mine recently passed away at a
relatively young age. In talking with his wife she mentioned that she
was jealous because she could not believe in an after-life. That
reminded me about discussions I have had in the past about belief in an
after-life. I would like to share what I have heard and hear from
others.
Some people are able to just believe in afterlife without any
reasons. As it has been pointed out we "believe" that man has reached
the moon, seen atoms etc. even though we have not done it
ourselves. Thus, we believe in things that we have no real way of
verifying, Nevertheless, belief in an afterlife seems to depend mainly
on ones education. Hence, many people look for "proofs" of the existence
of an afterlife or even of G-d.
1. There is a beautiful story by Rav Auerbach. He gives the example of
two twins in the womb of their mother arguing whether there is life
beyond their present existence. One twin argues that there is a much
better life after they leave the womb while the other twin makes fun
of him. Finally the mother begins her contractions. The twins feel
their end is near. Finally the "believing" twin is drawn out and the
other twin says "I told you so" as his brother disappears until
finally he also is born.
2. There have been numerous stories of people who have "died" only to
be resurrected later. Many of these people give very similar stories
of their life immediately after their "death". They all describe a
feeling of being apart from their body and observing from above what
was going on in the room. Several have given details of their
doctors activities that would have been impossible to know while
under anesthesia. Most tell stories of being greeted by their
departed parents (which is what happens according to Kabalah). All
of these people, after being resurrected, insisted that the feelings
were much stronger than an ordinary dream.
3. For belief in G-d, the medieval philosophers worked on many proofs,
none of which carry much weight these days. In fact most people feel
that one cannot invent a purely logical proof of the existence of
G-d as that would prevent free choice. One "proof" that I find
convincing is the observable fact that the universe exists only by a
"miracle". There are many physical facts that are needed for the
existence of the world and minor changes would destroy the world.
For example, slight changes in the gravitational constant would
cause the universe to collapse or expand beyond reason. If ice were
not lighter than water (at some temperatures - most solids weigh
more than liquids) then ice would fall to the bottom of lakes during
the winter and never thaw during the summer. Then all lakes would be
frozen year round except for a thin layer etc. Thus the chances that
the world could have been created by pure chance is extremely
minimal. The scientific answer to this probability argument is that
there must be an infinity of worlds that exist simultaneously and we
are just the lucky ones (they cannot exist one after another as that
is just the Gamblers paradox). The other viewpoint is the "anthropic
principle" which basically states that because we are here to tell
the story therefore we are in the world that has all the good
properties otherwise we wouldn't exist. As an extension of the
anthropic principle I find it much more reasonable than infinite
independent worlds (which hence cannot be verified) to believe that
the world was created by design by G-d and not by chance.
<turkel@...>
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From: Kevin Schreiber <kschreib@...>
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 1994 09:18:29 -0400
Subject: Pyrex
I was wondering if anyone out there knows if the halachot regarding pyrex were
the same as glass. Also can pyrex be Kashered or not; if so how?
Kevin M. Schreiber
<kschreiber@...>
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From: <bailey@...> (Jay Bailey)
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 1994 16:31:06 -0400
Subject: Re: Sneaking into the Ball Game
> Someone raise the question of the child going to the baseball game who
> loses his money and climbs through the fence to see the game, intending
> to come back latter and pay. This is called "sho'al shelo medat"
> borrowing without permission, and is a form of theft. The fact that it
> is a base ball game makes no difference (see my previous post on cable
> television and theft of services). Change the facts a little. Instead
> of a base ball game, turn it into a candy bar. If the child wishes to
> buy the candy or see the game on credit (with a promise to pay), he must
> ask permission from the owner. Otherwise, it is theft or close to
> theft.
But it is _not_ like a candy bar because if you "borrow" a candy bar
without permission, the owner no longer has it. To sneak into a game in
no way takes away from the "owner," meaning the ball club, etc... I'm
interested in the halachik (moral) distinction between the two. One is
stealing an object and one is stealing a look, so to speak. They
_can't_ be the same...
Jay Bailey
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End of Volume 14 Issue 72
