Volume 36 Number 10
Produced: Wed Mar 20 6:19:08 US/Eastern 2002
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Birkat Cohanim
[Allen Gerstl]
Birkat ha-Ilanot (3)
[Chaim Tabasky, Batya Medad, Yisrael Medad]
Blood (2)
[Rabbi Leonard Oppenheimer, Gershon Dubin]
Chalalah
[Michael M. Schein]
Cohain Marrying a Women Divorced from Non-Jew
[Gershon Dubin]
Making A Minyan With Nine
[Netanel Livni]
Minyan
[Eli Turkel]
Unmarried Men wearing Talis
[Shaya Potter]
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From: Allen Gerstl <acgerstl@...>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 10:27:33 -0500
Subject: Re: Birkat Cohanim
Ben Katz <bkatz@...> wrote:
>"Am kedoshecha ka-amur" sounds like a stand-alone phrase. That
>seems to be why the congregation says it aloud after the hazan says the
>word "kohanim", which appears to end the preceding sentence. When one
>reads the phrase "kohanay am kedoshecha", the last two words modify
>kohanay. Then "ka-amur" just means "as follows". I agree that ka-amur
>often introduces a proof text, but here (at least according to RS"G) it
>seems to introduce a quote (like "laymor" in the Bible).
My two-cents-worth:
I think that "ka-amur" indeeds refer to the quotation of the passukim of
Birkat Cohanim that immediately follow, in our case, not as a Proof Text
but for another reason: Remember that if there are Cohanim present the
SHaTZ reads the Pesukim word by word and the Cohanim then repeat those
words responsively after him. So "ka-amur" would then dfferentiate
between the SHaTZ who is reading the pesukim from a text and the Cohanim
who are engaged in the act of making the Bracha and NOT reading the
text.
I have no source that says so but such appears to be the sense from the
wording and also from the punctuation in my Rinat Yisrael Siddur and the
Artscroll Hebrew only siddur that I looked into.
KT
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From: Chaim Tabasky <tabaskc@...>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 16:27:38 +0200
Subject: Birkat ha-Ilanot
Hannah and Daniel Katsman wrote:
>Last week's issue of Shabbat be-Shabbato (a parasha sheet in Israel)
>contained a discussion of Birkat ha-Ilanot, which among other things
>stated that the blessing should not be recited on Shabbat. Does anyone
>know of a source for this? From my days in Washington Heights, I
>remember being told that the Breuer's community goes to the park en
>masse on
The Ben Ish Chai writes that according to Kabbalah one should not recite
birkat hailanot on Shabbat as the bracha is efficacious in separating
the holy sparks, and separation (borer) is a melachoh on Shabbos. In all
normative (i.e. non kabbalistic) poskim the bracha may be recited on
Shabbos. Personally I do this and assume the custom stems from the
desire to have a large congregation - "b'rov am hadras melech" - the
glory of the king is in a large turnout.
b'yedidus,
Chaim
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From: Batya Medad <ybmedad@...>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 13:41:15 +0200
Subject: Birkat ha-Ilanot
> contained a discussion of Birkat ha-Ilanot, which among other things
> stated that the blessing should not be recited on Shabbat. Does anyone
> know of a source for this? From my days in Washington Heights, I
Strange, because here in our neighborhood in Shiloh, there must have
been at least a dozen neighbors with "smichah" on Shabbat saying Birkat
ha-Ilanot on flowering fruit trees in Rabbi Dov Berkovits's garden.
Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach,
Batya
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From: Yisrael Medad <ybmedad@...>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 20:49:59 +0200
Subject: Birkat ha-Ilanot
Re: Daniel Katsman <hannahpt@...> question on Birkat ha-Ilanot
on Shabbat, all I can say is that in Shiloh for the past 21 years, we've
always said it on Shabbat as it should be said "b'rov am" = in the
presence of a large crowd which would lend respect to the mitzvah and
Shabbat lends itself to a larger crowd.
Oh, and it needs to be facing two different fruit-bearing trees.
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From: Rabbi Leonard Oppenheimer <pdxrebbe@...>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 09:43:32 -0800
Subject: Re: Blood
> From: Janet Rosenbaum <jerosenb@...>
> Frequently, when someone is buried, their bloodied clothing is buried
> with them, if possible. (I have heard that this is only customary, but
> please correct me if there is a halachic requirement.) Has anyone ever
> heard of a custom to dispose of menstrual blood respectfully, such as by
> burying it?
There is no such requirement. The only blood that is buried with a person
when they are interred is "Dam HaNefesh" or blood that comes out at death.
Other blood that may be found from some other cut on the body is not
neccersarily buried with it.
Rabbi Leonard Oppenheimer
Please reply to <rabbi@...> , which is my permanent email
address. The current email is subject to change at any time
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From: Gershon Dubin <gershon.dubin@...>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 23:21:23 -0500
Subject: Blood
I believe there is a halachic requirement to bury blood which
may be dam hanefesh (blood with which the soul leaves the body) which is
defined differently by different authorities. Burying bloody clothing
of a victim of violence, or that associated with medical procedures
undertaken ante, is a consequence of this concern. Menstrual blood is
never buried except if it figures in the cause of death.
Gershon
<gershon.dubin@...>
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From: Michael M. Schein <mschein@...>
Subject: Chalalah
If a kohen and a non-Jewish woman have a daughter, and she subsequently
converts, is she a chalalah? I have seen some opinions which imply so,
which I don't understand; a convert is a new person and is not
halachically related to her father, so it shouldn't matter if he is a
kohen or a israel or a goy or whoever. Of course, this issue does not
have much practical significance, since she is already forbidden to
marry a kohen, being a convert.
Michael Schein
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From: Gershon Dubin <gershon.dubin@...>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 23:25:32 -0500
Subject: Cohain Marrying a Women Divorced from Non-Jew
From: <Avram_Sacks@...> (Avram Sacks)
<<My understanding is that although a cohain may not marry a divorced
woman, in this case, the woman is not divorced from a Jew, so, from a
halachic perspective her marriage and subsequent divorce from a non-Jew
is not relevant vis a vis the prohibition against a cohain marrying a
divorced woman. However, I have also heard that a cohain may not marry
a woman who has had intercourse with a non-Jew. Correct?>>
Yes. Therefore, if she were "married" to a nonJew she may not
marry a kohen.
Gershon
<gershon.dubin@...>
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From: Netanel Livni <n_livni@...>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 10:42:17 -0800
Subject: RE: Making A Minyan With Nine
This reminds me of a story I once heard about Rav Chaim Volozhiner. Rav
Chaim was trying to find a minyan with 8 other people without much
success and with the zman quickly approaching. One of the people
suggested that they get a menorah and count it as the tenth. Every one
looked at this individual as if he was a shoteh except for Rav Chaim.
Rav Chaim explained:
The Shulchan Aruch says that when you only have 9 people you can count
a Menudeh (a person in cherem) as a tenth. This poor individual misread
the Daled in Menudeh as a Reish and thus arrived at his mistake. Leave
it to Rav Chaim to make sense out of the unsensical.
Nati
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From: Eli Turkel <turkel@...>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 17:31:33 -0500
Subject: Minyan
1.R. Moshe Feinstein writes that in times of necessity one can include a
boy under bar mitzvah for a minyan when not doing so will result in the
end of the minyan. He suggests that it is better for the boy to daven
himself rather than hold anything.
2. The minimum of kaddishs for a mourner seems to be one a day. In the
old days and a few shuls still around only one person says kaddish and
this is split among all the mourners in shul. Thus, each mourner gets a
kaddish only rarely. Many poskim are against saying extra kaddishim. If
there is a minyan only through adding a child than certainly one should
minimize the number of kaddishes
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From: Shaya Potter <spotter@...>
Date: 19 Mar 2002 10:55:18 -0500
Subject: Re: Unmarried Men wearing Talis
I think I've responded to this before. When I was in yeshiva in Israel
I asked one of my rebbeim about this, because as a kohen, I had to put
on a tallis anyways everyday, so I thought I might as well wear it for
the entire davening. In his opinion, the reason I (and other's who
don't have the minhag) shouldn't do it, is because of a gai'vah issue.
i.e. it's sort of "look at me, look at the mitzvah I'm doing", and the
downside of that can outweigh the positives of doing the mitzvah. For
people who have the minhag, this doesn't apply as much, because it's
known they are doing it because of their minhag.
What I ended up doing in Israel (when I had my own tallis to say a
bracha on) was that I'd say the bracha and put on my tallis after my
amidah, and wear it until the end of davening. During the week it
wasn't so much, but on the shabbos (or yom tov) as we duchan'd twice, it
was for a longer period. I figured that just like it's not an issue for
people who have a minhag, a kohen who has to wear one for duchan'ing it
shouldn't be an issue either. I don't remember if I asked my rebbe
about what I did, but no one in yeshiva had an issue with it (and I seem
to recall a bunch of the American kohanim doing similar things)
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End of Volume 36 Issue 10