Volume 34 Number 75
Produced: Fri Jun 8 8:31:02 US/Eastern 2001
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Baruch HaShem L'Olam
[Ari Y. Weintraub]
Can of Peas - Food Labling
[Zev Sero]
Can of Peas/Can of Worms
[Gershon Dubin]
Mappiq
[Mark Steiner]
Oyheiv or Oyev?
[SBA]
Pauses in T'hilim
[Perets Mett]
Quality Control in Kosher Products? (milk/eggs)
[Leah S. Gordon]
Source for Dairy on Shavuos
[Perets Mett]
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From: Ari Y. Weintraub <aweintra@...>
Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 00:27:18 -0400
Subject: Re: Baruch HaShem L'Olam
See Igros Moshe Yoreh De'ah Chelek Gimmel Siman 96:8, where in a teshuva
to R' Reuven Feinstein shlit"a R' Moshe writes as follows: If one who
does not say Baruch Hashem finds himself in a shul/minyan where they are
saying it, the question of whether or not to say it depends on whether
this person never says Baruch Hashem at all (based on the fact that this
bracha is not found in the gemara) or if he omits it only on Motzei
Shabbos. If he never says it, then he may omit it only in such a fashion
that it will not be noticed by the rest of the tzibbur. However, R'
Moshe writes that in a situation where it is impossible to conceal his
omission (and he specifically mentions the case where this person is
serving as the shat"z), he must say Baruch Hashem with everyone
else. (He brings proof from the gemara in Pesachim 106a where R' Ashi
was asked to say "kiddusha rabba" for the b'nei Mechoza "v'agid be'
b'vircas borey pri hagafen" (and not being sure of the meaning of
"kiddusha *rabba*" he recited the bircas hayayin and then delayed to see
if anyone of the gathered drank to determine whether there was more to
kiddush shel yom than just borey pri hagafen), and the Rashba"m explains
that had "hahu sabba" not drunk, he would have continued with the
kiddush shel layla for them, even though this was not his minhag. R'
Moshe thus says v'kol shekayn a shat"z must recite Baruch Hashem (even
if his minhag is to omit it) since many shitos hold that this bracha is
required. [L'aniyus daati I think one could be mechalek between kiddush
where he was being _motzi_ the b'nei Mechoza and a shliach tzibbur who
is not actually being motzi anyone with the birchos krias shema. "aval
mi ani u'ma ani l'chalek al adam gadol c'mo Maran Harav zt"l?"]) R'
Moshe ends the paragraph with the psak that the custom of omitting it
only from maariv on motzei Shabbos is not a minhag at all as it has no
mekor in divrey Chaza"l and is a minhag that certain people
independently began, and therefore if a person with this minhag is in a
place where they are saying Baruch Hashem, he must do likewise even if
his omission could go unnoticed.
One definitely notices the omission in a minyan where it suddenly
becomes very quiet at Baruch Hashem with half (or more) of the
mispallelim sitting around quietly waiting for the others to say Baruch
Hashem. Even though some of those may omit it all week long, a good
number of people (e.g. rov nusach sefard) only omit it on motzei shabbos
(also motzei yom tov and chol hamoed for some), and R' Moshe clearly
holds that they are required to say it with the tzibbur, not to mention
the shliach tzibbur. What I have begun to do since reading this teshuva
is to prolong my kerias shema and birchos kerias shema such that I
finish Shomer Amo Yisroel La'ad with the tzibbur's completion of Baruch
Hashem and then go directly to shemoneh esrai following chatzi
kaddish. This way I am not yoshev batel while they are saying Baruch
Hashem, and I believe (possibly wrongly) that this avoids the issue.
R' Nachum Klafter's posek clearly disagreed with R' Moshe on this
point. I would be interested to know his sevaros and how he learns
peshat in the gemara in Pesachim (is "baruch she'kivanti" in order
here)?
KT,
Ari
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From: Zev Sero <Zev@...>
Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 14:56:06 -0400
Subject: RE: Can of Peas - Food Labling
Sam Saal <ssaal@...> wrote:
> The following was an article, recently, in the New York Times:
>
> May 31, 2001
> Food Industry Agrees to Tighter Standard on Food Labeling
> By GREG WINTER
> http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/31/business/31FOOD.html
> Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
>
> I wonder if this will change the dynamic of the discussion
> regarding the need for Kosher certification. If labels will
> now - either through industry initiatives or government
> regulation - required including even trace amounts of
> ingredients, will we need certification our proverbial
> can of peas?
As far as I can tell from what I've read on this to date, the new
guidelines only cover common allergens, such as milk, eggs and nuts.
Manufacturers will still not be required to list incidental ingredients
that occur in negligible amounts, and there's no clear guideline on what
is negligible.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Gershon Dubin <gershon.dubin@...>
Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 14:03:13 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Can of Peas/Can of Worms
From: Sam Saal <ssaal@...>
<<I wonder if this will change the dynamic of the discussion regarding the
need for Kosher certification. If labels will now - either through
industry initiatives or government regulation - required including even
trace amounts of ingredients, will we need certification our proverbial
can of peas?>>
The short answer is that it won't change the dynamic. Those who held
you need a hechsher will still say so (because the taste absorbed from
another food cooking in the same retort either simultaneously or within
24 hours does NOT constitute a trace ingredient but an halachic taste,
which two ideas are not identical) and those who said you don't will
continue saying so.
Having said that, I thought to share a conversation I had this week with
a friend who is a kashrus expert, having been in the supervision end of
things for over 20 years. He told me that ALL commercial bakeries
(that's as opposed to your house, not the major industrial bakeries but
Mom and Pop also) use flour fortified with L-Cysteine as a dough
conditioner. This stuff used to be made from sources which were OK
except for what he called the "Yuch factor" which I shall spare you.
About two years ago, through government legislation NOT in the US, the
source had to change. It now comes from an animal source which is
controversial at the least as to its kashrus. (The impetus for the
conversation was his being upset that a "way was found" to permit it
despite his and other rabbis' misgivings)
OK, folks who read ingredients:
Which of you knew that the ingredient was contained in the bag of flour
delivered to and used in the back of your local bakery?
Where it came from?
That the source changed? When?
The basis for permitting/prohibiting it?
This is ONE example where the consumer in this techno-society MUST rely
on the certifying organizations. Only an ostrich would insist he can
know all from reading ingredients or "just tell me the parameters and
I'll pasken for myself.
Gershon
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Mark Steiner <marksa@...>
Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 09:59:26 +0300
Subject: Re: Mappiq
Further to the issue of the mappiq. There is a conceptual confusion
among many of today's Hebrew readers, as though a mappiq were like a
qometz, hiriq, etc. A "mappiq" is not pronounced as such; rather it's a
sign that the letter he is to be pronounced as a consonant (for example,
because it's part of the "shoresh"). I would say that it replaces the
shva nax which you'll find in the middle of the word as in "yehgeh",
where the he is also supposed to be pronounced, but the same shtibls
that don't pronounce the mappiq he don't pronounce this he either.
I was informed by a professional linguist, that the loss of the
mappiq he is not a new phenomenon, but occurs, for example, in the
dialect of Aramaic in which the Kaddish was written. I believe there
was a discussion of this on mail-jewish already. If this is correct,
and I'm not familiar with the evidence, then there is no need for
Ashkenazim to choke on the mappiq of kir`uteh etc. as though the Kaddish
were written in Biblical Aramaic which of course does have the mappiq.
Why be more Catholic than the Pope (lehavdil).
As a sign of the loss of the mappiq even among "Litvaks" (and I
apologize to all for whom this appelation is derogatory), consider the
word gimel-beth-he meaning "high". The standard reading of this word by
Litvaks is "gavoa." (I'm not getting into the thorny problem of the
choylem/chaylem among Litvaks and am using o for this vowel.) Those who
regard themselves as grammatically informed read it "gavoha" (this is
how the word is transliterated in the stationery of the Lakewood
(Litvishe) Yeshiva, Beth Midrash Govoha, though I don't remember how
they spell Beth Midrash). Many readers who learned the mappiq on the
basis of (an incomplete study of ) "dikduk" (texts!) rather than as what
Professor Soloveitchik calls a "mimetic tradition" regard Govoha as
"correct." Yet the "heder" reading "gavoa, " though also "wrong," is
much closer to the historical truth. The mappiq is used for a he at the
end of the word instead of the shva which is usually not placed under a
final consonant. The patax "under" the he in "gimel-beth-he" is really
not "under" the letter, as you can see in ancient vocalized mss. but a
little before it, and it is pronounced exactly as a patax "under" the
final het which is pronounced before the het. The historical reading of
"gimel-beth-he" would then be "gavoah" where by the h I mean a
consonantal he, mappiq he. The Sefaradim call this a "patax genuvah."
The Sefaradim actually pronounce the word "gavowah", the w being the
historical pronunciation of a waw (vov). I believe they pronounce it
this way whether or not there really is a waw there, but I defer to our
Sefardic participants.
My claim is thus that both "misreadings": gavoa (without pronouncing
the he) and gavoha (even worse) prove that the mappiq had been lost even
in Lithuania as a real tradition, as distinct from a correction based on
"texts."
For completeness, I'll mention that the same phenomenon occurs with
the patax genuvah and the letter `ayin. The patax "under" the `ayin
(and it is not really under it in the mss.) is pronounced first, the
`ayin last. Of course, for those who don't pronounce the `ayin at all,
there's no difference--but that's a whole new subject.
Mark Steiner
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From: SBA <sba@...>
Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 16:09:21 +1000
Subject: Re: Oyheiv or Oyev?
<<From: Meylekh Viswanath <pviswanath@...>
Just wanted to point out that the standard Yiddish pronounciation of a
word like "oyheiv yisroel" is, indeed, "oyev yisroel." Hence, at least
as far as Yiddish speakers are concerned, this just happens to be a case
of two words pronounced similarly, but with vastly different >>
But we davven in Loshon Hakodesh and not in Yiddish...
And another one often heard in places where the pronunciation is in
'Galicianish' or 'Polish/Hungarian' chassidish (eg 'Booreech' for
'Boruch') - one often hears "BoorEEch" Oleynu instead of "BoorEYch"
Oleinu...
SBA
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From: Perets Mett <p.mett@...>
Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 12:51:03 +0100
Subject: Pauses in T'hilim
This appeared recently.
> I would just like to add that familiarity with the Cantillations could
> avoid this problem. The rules for cantillations in Psalms are rather
> easy (PROVIDED you are only interested in where to PAUSE).
>
> * The following are major pauses: Ethnachta, Sof Possok
> * The following are secondary pauses:
> All Revia; Oleh VeYored,Tipchah,Shaleshelt, Pazer
>
> This covers 95% of the cases (Technically there are 3 types of Revia but
> that need not concern a person only interested in PAUSES).
I do not think it is quite right
The primary pause within a posuk in sifrei Eme"th (=Iyov, Mishlei,
T'hilim) is definitely the Oleh V'Yored (if the posuk has one). The
Athnach follows the Oleh VeYored in strength of pause. This difference
is frequently misunderstood in Ch. 29 (Kabolas Shabbos) in the posuk:
Koil Hashem yechoileil ... y'oroith; uv'heicholoi, kuloi ...
where I have put a semi-colon for the Oleh VeYoreid and a comma for the
Athnach
A Tipcho (Tarcho Meaylo)) in Taamei Eme"th is conjunctive; the writer
presumably meant the disjunctive D'chi which, while looking like a
tipcho, always precedes the first vowel of the word. Revia immediately
preceding an Oleh VeYoreid is only barely disjunctive. Shalsheleth can
be conjunctive!
Perets Mett
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From: Leah S. Gordon <lsgordon@...>
Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2001 20:31:17 -0700
Subject: Quality Control in Kosher Products? (milk/eggs)
There have been a few comments about chalav yisrael milk spoiling early,
or OU-milk spoiling early.
I eagerly bought Eggland eggs because they are marked with the OU and I
thought that they might be more reliable re. blood-spots and so forth.
Imagine my horror when at least 20% of them had *blood-spots*, whereas I
think I had seen maybe one blood-spot my entire egg-using life up until
that point. I went back to buying the generic eggs.
(I suspect that what I saw weren't treif blood-spots, per say, because
of the way hen-raising/egg-raising is done nowadays, but it was too
gross to contemplate not throwing the egg out.)
Anyway, I was disappointed, because I am used to thinking of kosher
stuff as being necessarily higher quality.
--Leah Gordon
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From: Perets Mett <p.mett@...>
Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 17:22:21 +0100
Subject: Re: Source for Dairy on Shavuos
Leona Kroll <leona_kroll@...>, in an illuminating contribution, wrote
>In the Talmud, mesekta Makkaos, it states that each day of the year
>corresponds to one of the negative commandments and that Shavuos
>corresponds to basar v'chalav. Shavuos is the day for bringing the
>Bikkurim to the Beis HaMikdash and in the Torah, immediately after the
>verse commanding us to bring bikkurim we are commanded not to boil a kid
>in its mother's milk. According to the Chiddushei HaRim, it is b/c of
>this relationship between Shavuous and the command not to mix milk and
>meat that we eat both a dairy and a meat meal on Shavuous, b/c by eating
>first a dairy meal and then, after changing the tablecloth and waiting a
>certain period, rinsing our mouth, etc. eating a meat meal we show that
>we are following all the laws of seperating the two.
Just for the record, the source for this explanation is not the
Chidushei Horim but his nephew by marriage, R. Yidl Kaminer (who was
also the father-in-law of the Sfas Emes).
Perets Mett
London
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End of Volume 34 Issue 75
