Volume 37 Number 18
Produced: Wed Sep 25 6:11:12 US/Eastern 2002
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
ArtScroll vs. Birnbaum
[Michael Feldstein]
Calendar
[Yisrael and Batya Medad]
Eruv and women
[Chaim Shapiro]
Halachik Date Line -- Yom Kippur in Japan in 1941.
[Gilad J. Gevaryahu]
HaYom: Art Scroll versus Birnbaum
[David Olivestone]
Legarmei
[Mark Symons]
men vs. women
[Yehonatan and Randy Chipman]
Michal bat Shaul
[ben katz]
New Tallis
[Andy Goldfinger]
[nusach] RH on Shabbat - bah/bo/bam?
[Andrew J Libby]
Socio-Economic Mitzvot
[Gershon Dubin]
Torah as Historical Record
[Binyomin Segal]
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From: <MIKE38CT@...> (Michael Feldstein)
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 17:06:39 EDT
Subject: ArtScroll vs. Birnbaum
> As I've menitoned before in this forum, there's a lot to like in Art
> Scroll's Rosh Hashanah machzor. My favorite song from Rosh Hashanah (and
> Yom Kippur) is HaYom at the end of Musaf.
>
> Does anyone know why Art Scroll has a different order than Birnbaum for
> the lines in this song and why Art Scroll skips one of the lines?
I don't know the answer to your specific question, but as someone who
has led the services on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur for about 20 years
(and who learned from Birnbaum but gravitated towards ArtScroll when it
became popular), I can tell you that it's not the only difference
between the two machzorim.
There are slight differences in text (mostly grammatical) in the Hineni
prayer between the two. In the Kol Nidre, Birnbaum and ArtScroll
reverse the order of "B'yeshiva shel ma'ala, uv'yeshiva shel mata" and
"Al Da'as Hamakom, v'al da'as hakahal". Also, ArtScroll and Birnbaum
have a different order for "v'konamei, v'kinuyei, v'kenusei, ushvuos."
In the end of the Unesana Tokef prayer, Birnbaum uses the word "b'riah"
and Artscroll uses "b'riosecha"
I'm sure there are other differences that I haven't mentioned.
Michael Feldstein
Stamford, CT
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From: Yisrael and Batya Medad <ybmedad@...>
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 19:50:47 +0200
Subject: Calendar
I received this reply from Prof. Ely Merzbach of Bar Ilan
In each country the transformation from Julian calendar to
Georgian calendar was done at another time. For example in
France, the Gregorian calendar began in the 16th century. However
in England they pass to the Georgian calendar at the end of the 18
th century (certainly latter than 1756). In Soviet union, the
Georgian calendar became the official calendar only in the middle
of the 20th century!
Prof. Ely Merzbach
Dept. of Mathematics, Bar-Ilan university
52900 Ramat-Gan, Israel
Tel: (972) (3) 5318768, 5318556, (50) 352766.
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From: <Dagoobster@...> (Chaim Shapiro)
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 14:33:42 EDT
Subject: Eruv and women
Several posts have mentioned that for very legitimate reasons, women are
often not as machmir on eruvin as their husbands. I was commenting on
the fact that the note simply said that it this eruv is assur for women
too, as the entire flier was geared toward the idea that the eruv was
100% assur without question from the Torah. It is in this climate that
a comment about women is both unnecessary and slightly disturbing.
Chaim Shapiro
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From: <Gevaryahu@...> (Gilad J. Gevaryahu)
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 13:29:03 EDT
Subject: Halachik Date Line -- Yom Kippur in Japan in 1941.
Bernie Raab brings (MJv37n13) a different version of what transpired on
1941 on the date line issue. Recently a more scholarly paper was
published electronically in Hebrew by Menashe Elyashiv on this very
issue at: http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/kipur/eli.html. The
differences between the versions are substantial, and very important to
halachah and to history, and as such I suggest to read the last part of
the Hebrew articles and its related footnotes.
Some important differences:
1. The letter with the question was sent initially to several rabbanim,
such as: Rabbi Herzog (Chief Rabbi of Israel); Rabbi Mishkovsky (Rosh
Vaad Ha'hatzalah); Rabbi Alter (Admo"r of Gur); Rabbi Soloveichick
(Brisk); Rabbi Finkel (Mir Yeshivah); Iser Z. Melzer (Rosh Yeshivat Etz
Haim, Jerusalem). From the article it appears that the question was not
addressed at all to the Chazon Ish.
2. Rabbi Herzog convened a forum of 23 rabbanim of Jerusalem. He did not
call it Sanhedrin, but the number speaks for itself.
3. When Rabbi Karlitz, The Chazon Ish, heard of the p'sak of the Herzog
synod (?) of rabbanim, theChazon Ish sent a telegram, saying that they
should not listen to the Herzog p'sak to fast for Yom Kippur on
Wednesday, but rather they should fast on Thursday. This caused an
uproar and as many of the people managed to get out of Japan before Yom
Kippur so that they will not have to fast for two days. Form those who
stayed, some fasted for two days, and some fasted for one days, but ate
on the second date "Le'she'urim".
This is an amazing story.
Gilad J. Gevaryahu
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From: David Olivestone <dmlo@...>
Date: Sun, 22 Sep 2002 21:50:47 -0400
Subject: HaYom: Art Scroll versus Birnbaum
Sam Saal writes:
Does anyone know why Art Scroll has a different order than Birnbaum for
the lines in this song and why Art Scroll skips one of the lines?
ArtScroll follows the text found in older machzorim, such as the Kol Bo.
Interestingly enough, ArtScroll mentions in a note that the "first four
of these brief pleas" follow the order of the alef bet, without
explaining why the remainder don't. They also note that "in some
machzorim, this series continues through the entire alphabet, but the
remaining verses are not recited". However, they do not identify the
"some machzorim" or say why. Birnbaum also notes that the prayer "is
the remainder of a complete alphabetical acrostic". What he does is to
add one more line, i.e., "tichteveinu lechayyim tovim" (without saying
where he found it), and then to place all the lines into the proper
alphabetical order. I can tell you from experience that if you are
davening from a Birnbaum when the chazan is using an ArtScroll. or vice
versa, it's impossible to follow along.
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From: Mark Symons <msymons@...>
Subject: Legarmei
Dov Bloom <dovb@...> writes
> The question is why are they legarmei when they should according to
> all logic be munach+paseq?
The legarmei revii sequence is very similar to the gershayim revii
sequence, the former having a slightly greater degree of separation.(I
think I got this from Breuer).
Mark Symons
Melbourne,Australia
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From: Yehonatan and Randy Chipman <yonarand@...>
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2002 17:37:21 +0200
Subject: Re: men vs. women
Menashe Elyashiv <elyashm@...> commented in v37n11:
<<I once heard why we say veyanuhu ba or bo or bam- on friday, she
lights on time but he thinks he still has time = veyanuhu ba after the
morning meal, she pushes the stroller because he won't use the eruv =
veyanuhu bo and he + she take shabbat nap = veyanuhu bam (however, our
minhag is bo also in minha...and there were other minhagim)>>
It's a good jest, but I assume you understand that it's no more than
that.
The real reason is Kabbalistic. As one can see from the three Aramaic
table hymns of the Ari z"l for the three Shabbat meals: Friday night is
the aspect of Shekhinah, feminine; Shabbat morning -- Atika Kaddisha or
the intellective face of the Gdhead, conceived as masculine (also Torah
reading); Seudah Shelishit is Ze'ir Anpin, the combination of the six
middle sefirot, hence a balance of masculine & femine elements.
Incidentally, Rav Soloveitchik, to assure that the prayers wouldn't be
ungrammatical as a result of the changes in the prepositional pronouns
{?}, altered the rest of the text accordingly:
Maariv: "vehahilanu... shabbat kodshekah... vayanuhu vah"
Shaharit & Musaf: "... et yom shabbat kodshekha.... vayanuhu vo"
Minha: "shabbetot kodshekha.... vayanuhu bam"
Yehonatan Chipman, Yerushalayim
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From: ben katz <bkatz@...>
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 11:40:54 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: Michal bat Shaul
>From: Zev Sero <zev.sero@...>
>Presumably something like this happened to Rashi's daughters. However,
>that Michal bat Shaul wore tefilin seems indisputable.
It is indisputable at least in so far as it is in the Talmud.
However, (an I know many will disagree with me for saying this -- see below)
the Talmud is interested in explaining how Michal could have been given back
to King David after being given to another man in the interim by her father
Saul, in clear violation of Torah law. The gemara answeres that Michal and
her interim husband slept with a spear in between them to prevent any
marital relations, and that Michal was so religious that she wore tefillin;
thus, one could be sure that she had not had relations with her interim
husband before being returned to david. Clearly, the gemara could be using
the example of her wearing tefillin as hyperbole for how religious she was.
(I can already see the postings. First, from the right, for
doubting the historicity of a statement in the Talmud about events that
occurred 1500 years before it was edited, and then, from the left about
removing a precedent for women wearing tefillin. I guess that's what being
a centrist is all about :-) )
Ben Z. Katz, M.D.
Children's Memorial Hospital, Division of Infectious Diseases
2300 Children's Plaza, Box # 20, Chicago, IL 60614
Ph. 773-880-4187, Fax 773-880-8226
e-mail: <bkatz@...>
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From: Andy Goldfinger <Andy.Goldfinger@...>
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2002 08:14:36 -0400
Subject: New Tallis
Mike Gerver writes:
> ... there was a crazy guy in our shul who used to steal people's tallis
> bags, leaving the tallises themselves neatly folded on the seats. The
> problem was that it is difficult to tell your tallis from someone else's
> tallis without the bag, and I didn't want to take someone else's tallis
> by mistake.
I can appreciate the problem. I recently bought a new tallis. At the
store, the salesperson told me that the new tallis was treated so that
is was stain proof. She regarded this as a positive feature. I
disagreed. The only way I could recoginze my previous tallis was by the
cholent stain on it. What am I going to do now?
-- Andy Goldfinger
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From: Andrew J Libby <slipstick1@...>
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2002 06:16:24 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: [nusach] RH on Shabbat - bah/bo/bam?
Shimon Lebowitz <shimonl@...> wrote:
> For some reason my Machzor Rabba and my son's Rinat Yisrael both say
> that when RH is on Shabbat, and we add the words of Shabbat to Kedushat
> haYom, we say 'veyanuchu VO' in all of the tefillot. I noticed this when
> I had just reflexively said 'veyanuchu VAM' at mincha.
FWIW, the Chabad machzor as originally printed has it this way, but
there's a footnote pointing out that this is an error, and it should be
bah/bo/bam, just as during the year. What's more interesting is that
the prayer for yomtov, which doesn't have `veyanuchu b?' at all, does
have `shabat kodshecha', which at Mincha should be `shabatot kodshecha',
but while the Chabad siddur and machzor point this out for RH, the
siddur does not point it out for yomtov. IMHO this is an obvious
oversight, and at mincha on yomtov I do say `shabbatot'.
Zev Sero, writing to you from the Holy City, Yerushalayim
<zsero@...>
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From: Gershon Dubin <gershon.dubin@...>
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 17:24:01 GMT
Subject: Socio-Economic Mitzvot
From: Yisrael and Batya Medad <ybmedad@...>
> In Siman tav-kof-pey-alef, para. 52, he writes that erev Rosh Hashana
> is the first of the four days when one can force the slaughterer to
> slaughter a cow worth even 100 dinar even if the client has already
> only given one dinar and one doesn't have to wait until enough
> customers have paid.
This is a Gemara although I don't recall where "be'arba'ah perakim
mashchitin es hatabach" and IIRC it's erev Yom Kippur, not erev R"H; I
wonder if the Mateh Efraim added his own.
Gershon
<gershon.dubin@...>
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From: Binyomin Segal <bsegal@...>
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 19:15:00 -0500
Subject: Re: Torah as Historical Record
Stan Tenen asks:
> But statistical tests and
> other tests based on our knowledge of grammar, style, spelling, and the
> like, can tell us -- sometimes -- if two works are by the same author or
> not. (Of course, I'm not suggesting aiding or abetting the anti-Torah
> documentary hypothesis of the academic scholars. I'm only suggesting
> that if there is a serious question in our tradition, then we might make
> use of statistical techniques in this limited case, because it could be
> halachically appropriate when done properly.)
Actually, I don't think the test is appropriate here. The tradition does
not ascribe real authorship, in the way we think of it, to either Moshe
or Yehoshua. They were "merely" the scribe. The author of the Chumash
was entirely Hashem - it was His writing style throughout. As a result
we already know that there is a single author. We do not know if there
was a single scribe.
binyomin
<bsegal@...>
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End of Volume 37 Issue 18