Volume 18 Number 40
Produced: Mon Feb 13 22:32:38 1995
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
2000 Amot on Shabbat
[Akiva Miller]
Administrivia
[Avi Feldblum]
Animals in the Torah
[Steven Edell]
Cohen cannot marry a divorcee
[Gilad J. Gevaryahu]
Levi instead of Kohen
[Elhanan Adler]
Prayer for a sick non-Jew
[Robert A. Book]
Rav Goldvicht zt"l
[Meir Soloveichik]
Talmudic Methodologies and a Cup of Tea
[Yosef Bechhofer]
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From: <Keeves@...> (Akiva Miller)
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 03:41:19 -0500
Subject: 2000 Amot on Shabbat
In MJ 18:14, Etan Diamond asked:
>What exactly are the reasons that one can only walk a distance of 2000
>Amot out of the city on Shabbat? how can one get around this
>prohibition? Why do you think the rabbis cared how far we walk on
>Shabbat? What if you live more than 2000 amot from a shul?
This is not a rabbinic law, but comes directly from Exodus 16:29-- "No
one may leave his place on the seventh day." I understand that the Oral
Law defines "place" in this context as the city in which the person was
in when Shabbos began, and that the halachic "city limits" are 2000 amos
past the last house in the city. There are many details, of course, such
as how to decide which is the last house in the city, but I hope this
much answers your main question.
If one does live further than 2000 amos from a place to which one wants
to walk on Shabbos, there is a procedure called "Eruv Techumin", which
will be sure to re-spark the recent MJ debate about loopholes. If I
understand Eruv Techumin correctly, one places a meal's worth of food at
a certain location, (between his home and his destination,) and declares
that location to be his Shabbos "place" mentioned in the above-quoted
verse. This will allow him to go a distance of 2000 amos from the food
in any direction, and so it will not be effective unless his home is
less than 4000 (*four* thousand) amos from his destination.
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From: Avi Feldblum <feldblum>
Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 22:25:23 -0500
Subject: Administrivia
Hello from Little Rock, Arkansas!
Things have been a bit hectic for me over the last few weeks, and as a
result, things have been a little bumpy here on mail-jewish as
well. Between having a bunch of business trips, having Rabbi Berman as
Scholar in Residence at my shul where I am heavily involved in the
education committee, and my kids and I being sick some of the
time, finding the time to properly focus on mail-jewish has suffered a
bit. My apologies to the list members.
A few requests to you all: Please send submissions to only one
address. If you send the message to <feldblum@...>, and also to
<mail-jewish@...>, both messages will end up in the same
mailbox. But if there is some delay, I may get one on one day and the
second the next day, or one before I send it out on the list and then
get a second copy afterwards. This just makes life complicated for
me. Choose whatever address you like and just send it out there. If you
think that it has not gotten to me, then please do send it to one of the
other addresses, BUT include a line saying that it has already been send
to the first address. In addition, do not use my ATT address for
mail-jewish submissions. If I have not responded to your mail sent to
other addresses, you may send me mail at my AT&T address, but I will not
accept postings sent to there.
Another address to avoid is: <owner-mail-jewish@...> As
I understand the current listproc setup, the mail I send out to you all
comes with the From: line reading
<owner-mail-jewish@...>, but with the Reply-To: field set
to <mail-jewish@...> or feldblum@cnj.digex.net (I forget
now how it is set). The listproc thinks that owner-<listname> is only
for error messages, so mail sent there does not get to me in a normal
way. So if your mailer replies to the From: line and ignores the
Reply-To: line, if you can edit the To: line, please remove the owner-
portion.
I am having some serious problems with some addresses on mail-jewish,
which may mean that after I send out an evenings mail, I may get close
to 100 error messages back. It just takes a long time to through those
messages and delete most of them. If I get a User Unknown message back,
I will usually try and send a message to that address from my digex
account, just to make sure that it is not something that is specific to
the nysernet-whereever link, and if it fails from there as well, I will
drop the user. If it is a problem at your end and it then clears, and
you do not seem to be getting mail-jewish, that is probably what has
happened. Feel free to resubscribe under those circumstances. Another
common problem is that you may have a disk quota on your sustem or some
equavalent, and if there is too much mail waiting for you, then I will
get a message indicating that. Under those circumstances, I will set you
as postpone. To recover from that, send the message:
set mail-jewish mail noack to the listproc address.
I have not forgotten about our discussion and voting on the future of
mail-jewish as far as volume limiting and approaches to that. I need a
few hours I can devote to putting that in order, and will then get that
out to you all here on the list.
OK, I'll now try and get a bunch out to you now. As my current plans do
not get me back into NJ until about midnight tomorrow, there will
probably not be any mailings going out tomorrow.
Avi Feldblum
Shamash Facilitator and mail-jewish Moderator
<mljewish@...> or feldblum@cnj.digex.net
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From: Steven Edell <edell@...>
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 00:40:46 +0200 (IST)
Subject: Animals in the Torah
> >From: <BACKON@...> (Josh Backon)
> Bernard Horowitz asked about the availability of an article on animals
> in the Torah for a Hebrew school class.
All of the animals (and then some) that were mentioned by Josh Backon are
also discussed in the new book, "Coat of the Unicorn", by Nathan Merel.
Anyone interested can contact me online if they cannot find the book in
their local Jewish bookstore (he's having distribution problems....).
-STeven <edell@...>
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From: <gevaryah@...> (Gilad J. Gevaryahu)
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 22:26:58 -0500
Subject: Re: Cohen cannot marry a divorcee
Rabbi Sheldon Korn is making some interesting points in MJ18#39, and
although he is right on some of them, he seems to deal with the trees of
my arguments and ignores the forest. I did know the name of the Supreme
Court Judge who is a Cohen and married a divorcee, but thought that to
publish his name served no purpose. Rabbi Korn continues: "As he was
quite old at the time and beyond the child bearing years". Haim Cohen
was born in 1911, and was only about 50 years old at the time. His wife
was a daughter of a fellow Supreme Court Judge (Zemora). I did not know
that they did not have halalim.
The system in Israel, as it operated for many years and still does, was
that one judge who is observant and knowledgeable in Mishpat Ivri
(Jewish Jurisprudence) was appointed to the court, such as Harav Simcha
Assaf, Shareshevsky, Menachem Elon and Zvi Tal. Also there were several
members of the court who had halachic knowledge, and published in that
field, who were not "machmir" in Jewish lifestyle such as Moshe Silberg
and Haim Cohen. Prof. Silberg had a large Jewish library - I saw it
myself. However, the training of an average Israeli lawyer gives him/her
only very limited knowledge in Mishpat Ivri, a knowledge that does not
make him/her a talmid chacham, and certainly not a Dayan. To argue that
the Israeli Supreme Court judges are qualified to be "Super" dayanim
above the Beit HaDin Ha'Gavoha Le'Irurim (=Supreme Rabbinical Court) is
ludicrous at best. The Israeli Supreme court Judges DO NOT qualify, by
training or knowledge to be dayanim.
Rabbi Korn writes: "Since some rudimenatary [sic] knowledge of Halacha
is necessary for one to be called to the bar is needed in Israel, I
would conclude the opposite.[that the Israeli Supreme Court judges are
qualified to be above the Supreme Rabbinical Court]" Rudimentary
knowledge" is insufficient to be a judge in any court, and many years in
Yeshivot CANNOT be substituted by Mishpat Ivri 101 and 102 in an Israeli
Law School.
BTW, Haim Herman Cohen was born in Germany, was educated at Merkaz
ha'Rav yeshiva (not at Eitz Haim), studied law in Germany and graduated
in 1933 (Encyclopaedia Judaica Vol. V , p. 690). I was told that the
German university refused to give him the earned Ph.D. because of the
Nazism, and after the war offered to correct it, but he refused to get a
degree from such a university.
Gilad J. Gevaryahu
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From: Elhanan Adler <ELHANAN@...>
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 9:53:43 +0200 (EET)
Subject: Levi instead of Kohen
Eitan Fiorino wrote:
>I know that the Rav held that the Levi's kedusha is entirely dependent
>upon the Kohen, meaning that in the absence of a Kohen, the rights of a
>Levi compared to a Yisrael are disrupted and that in such an instance a
>Levi is not deserving of preference over a Yisrael (as in the first aliya
>or in bentshing). In some metaphysical way, the hierarchy of
>Kohen-Levi-Yisrael is entirely dependent upon the Kohen.
I can attest to this myself. Many years ago (1960's) when I was
asst. gabai at YU and there was no Kohen present, I called up the Rav as
Levi-bimkom-kohen. To this day I remember his displeasure.
* Elhanan Adler University of Haifa Library *
* Tel.: 972-4-240535 FAX: 972-4-257753 *
* Israeli U. DECNET: HAIFAL::ELHANAN *
* Internet/ILAN: <ELHANAN@...> *
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From: Robert A. Book <rbook@...>
Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 13:05:05 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Prayer for a sick non-Jew
The ArtScroll siddur (and many others) have a prayer to say for a sick
person, as an optional insertion in the weekday Amida. Given that this
prayer uses the Hebrew name of the patient and concludes with the phrase
"among the other patients of Israel" it is clear that this prayer is
intended to be said for Jews.
If one knows a non-Jew who is sick, what is the appropriate way to pray
for his/her health? One possibility is to use the same prayer as for
Jews, but with the English name and change or delete the concluding
phrase.
Is there any problem with this, and is there any other "official" avenue
to pray for the health of a non-Jew?
--Robert Book <rbook@...>
University of Chicago
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From: Meir Soloveichik <msolo@...>
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 01:25:03 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Rav Goldvicht zt"l
To just make a slight correction of Leah Zakhs' post: the correct name of
the Rosh Yeshiva of Kerem BiYavneh is Chaim YAAKOV ben yisrael Elazar.
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From: <sbechhof@...> (Yosef Bechhofer)
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 00:29:00 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Re: Talmudic Methodologies and a Cup of Tea
An Analysis of Darchei HaLimud (Methodologies of Talmud Study)
Centering on a Cup of Tea
I am attempting to define the differences between the major
classical Darchei Halimud in the 19th-20th century Yeshiva world,
focusing on a well known jest. I would appreciate the help of the MJ
readership in fine-tuning this, albeit light-hearted, but hopefully
illustrative example.
In Brisk they would mockingly say that in Telshe one would klerr
(analyze) the following chakira (problem):
What makes tea sweet, is it the sugar or the spoon stirring?
Now, the truth is that in Telshe, there were two derachim, that of
Reb Chaim Rabinovitz (Reb Chaim Telzer) and that of Reb Yosef Leib Bloch
& Reb Shimon Shkop. This chakira captures the hallmark of the former
(Reb Chaim Telzer's) derech - Contingencies - but not the latter, which
we will explore later.
Let us now go through how the various darchei halimud would
approach this important conundrum:
Brisker Derech: Intrinsic Categorization and Definition - There are two
dinim in sweetening tea: The cheftza (substance), i.e., the sugar; and
the pe'ula (activity), i.e., the stirring with the spoon.
Poilisher Derech: Brilliant Novelty (pilpul) - Neither. It is the tea
itself which makes the tea sweet, for if there was no tea, there would
be no sweet tea either.
The Rogatchover's Derech: Combination of the Two Previous Derachim -
There are three dinim in sweetening the tea: The cheftza, the peu'la and
the niph'al (the impacted entity), i.e., the tea itself.
Hungarian Derech: Extrinsic Resolution - Since wine is sweet and it is
not stirred, it follows that the stirring is not what makes the tea
sweet, but the sugar.
Other Telzer Derech: Abstraction to an Essence - It is the Hitztarfus
(Fusion) of tea molecules and sugar molecules that makes the tea sweet.
Sephardi Derech: Uncomplicated Grasp - The Sephardi would walk away from
the argument that the six Ashkenazim were engaged in over the tea
shaking his head in disbelief about how silly these Ashkenazim were -
obviously the sugar stirred into the tea is what makes the tea sweet!
Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer
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End of Volume 18 Issue 40
