Volume 38 Number 65
Produced: Mon Feb 17 7:11:18 US/Eastern 2003
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Flavius Josephus online
[Yisrael and Batya Medad]
Holy Places
[Yisrael and Batya Medad]
Kashrut Question
[Mike Gerver]
Kashrut question
[Robert Israel]
Nun Hafuchah
[Ben Z. Katz]
Origin of phrase "Shabbat Shalom"
[Ari Trachtenberg]
Shabbat Shalom (2)
[Yisrael and Batya Medad, Alan Cooper]
Shabbat Shalom - in the Writings of the ARI
[Yael Levine Katz]
Tuxedo (2)
[Bernard Raab, Sam Saal]
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From: Yisrael and Batya Medad <ybmedad@...>
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 06:59:42 +0200
Subject: Re: Flavius Josephus online
Additional On-line links to Jewish e-texts: Flavius Josephus online
http://www.nalanda.nitc.ac.in/resources/english/etext-project/history/warjew/in
ex.htm
http://www.nalanda.nitc.ac.in/resources/english/etext-project/history/antiqjews
index.htm
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From: Yisrael and Batya Medad <ybmedad@...>
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2003 14:38:32 +0200
Subject: Holy Places
re Ezriel Krumbein's comment:
> There are probably a number of ways to define the word holy. In the way
> in which you are using the word holy, the mishna in Keilim chapter 1
> mishna 6 lists 10 places with 10 levels of increasing holiness. The
> original post, I would suggest, defines a holy place as a place in which
> one can make a closer connection to Hashem. Using this definition there
> are many more places that can be called holy. One can argue with this;
> but, maybe that is the reason why Hashem tells Moshe that the site of
> the burning bush was a holy place.
of course, after the Beit Hamikdash was erected, all former 'holy'
places were invalidated. and we know that the Beit Hamikdash can only be
built were it was constructed originally, so other 'holy' places in the
future are out also.
as for the Mishna, only one 'kedusha' in today's terms is outside of
Yerushalyim and 8 of the 10 refer to Har Habayit anyway. the first
level, of Eretz Yisrael, deals with a special 'holiness' or if you
prefer, 'sanctity', - that of the need to treat the fruit and vegetables
properly. the other 9 levels deal with whether one who is physically
impure can be in a spot within the Har Habayit confines, similar to the
burning bush incident when Moshe Rabeinu was asked to remove his shoes.
Yisrael Medad
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From: <MJGerver@...> (Mike Gerver)
Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 18:17:42 EST
Subject: Kashrut Question
Yitzchak Moran asks, in v38n63
> When folks were pioneering during the westward expansion of the US
> (and in other earlier times in history, presumably), and there isn't
> a kosher butcher along, what was done to ensure kosher meat? Did the
> pioneers bring along their own kosher animals which they then
> slaughtered themselves? Does anyone have any info?
This doesn't quite go back to pioneer days, but when my great uncle and
aunt, Sol and Anna Gerver, were living in Tuscon, Arizona in the 1930s,
there was no kosher butcher in town, but there was a travelling shochet
who would make the rounds of different towns in the area. On one
occasion my great uncle and aunt bought a duck, and kept it in their
back yard until the shochet would be in town. But their two young
daughters became so attached to the duck that they (the daughters)
couldn't bear to have it slaughtered. Their son (older than the
daughters), who told me this story, didn't remember what happened to the
duck, but was pretty sure they didn't eat it, and was absolutely sure
they did not keep it as a pet, which he said his parents would have
found incomprehensible.
Mike Gerver
Raanana, Israel
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From: Robert Israel <israel@...>
Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 13:17:07 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Kashrut question
Just about any Jewish community would have a trained shochet (ritual
slaughterer) to slaughter the animals. I don't know about the US, but
several of my relatives were shochetim in small agricultural settlements
in western Canada. If no shochet was available, they wouldn't eat meat
(of course in real life-and-death emergencies you eat what is available
rather than starve; also, not everybody was observant, though probably a
much larger percentage than today).
Robert Israel <israel@...>
Department of Mathematics http://www.math.ubc.ca/~israel
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2
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From: Ben Z. Katz <bkatz@...>
Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 15:43:09 -0600
Subject: Re: Nun Hafuchah
>From: Alex Heppenheimer <aheppenh@...>
>The "nun hafuchah" in Bereishis 11:32 most certainly does exist - Rashi
>and Rabbeinu Bechayei, at least, refer to it as an established fact,
>and Minchas Shai there discusses various opinions on what "hafuchah"
>means. (Although it is true that he concludes that it should not be
>upside down.) Granted that most present-day Sifrei Torah don't have
>this letter written any differently - I would assume that this is due
>to the uncertainty as to which opinion should be followed -
This is not exactly correct. There are scores of examples of references
in classic rabbinic sources to matters of the mesorah that are not
followed in present Torah scrolls or editions of the tanach. why this is
so is not clear. much has been written about this topic. see for
example: Fixing God's Torah, by B Barry Levy (where attempts to
"correct" present day Tora scrolls based on these rabbinic statements
are discussed) and the article by SZ Lieman Masorah and Halacha: A study
in conflict, reprinted in Tehillah e-Moshe [Greenberg], ed. Cogn, 1997.
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
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From: Ari Trachtenberg <trachten@...>
Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 20:37:21 -0500
Subject: Re: Origin of phrase "Shabbat Shalom"
>From: <Gevaryahu@...> (Gilad J. Gevaryahu)
>...A second explanation is that when "Shalom" became the standard form
>of greetings, those who wanted to acknowledge the Shabbat in their
>greetings just appended the modifier "Shabbat," without regard for the
>lack of grammar.
This is a very nice explanation, but then how do you explain the
similarly common term "shabbat shalom umevurach"? It would seem that
Shabbat simply can take on male adjectives?
Kol tuv,
-Ari
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From: Yisrael and Batya Medad <ybmedad@...>
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 00:20:00 +0200
Subject: Shabbat Shalom
Gilad J. Gevaryahu wrote:
Since the Shela"h was first published in Amsterdam in 1649, that
is ~350 years ago, one can sense that there is an ambiguity as to
the origins.
Pardon my being nonplussed but why should the fact that the Shel"ah's
sefer was published in 1649 in Amsterdam impact on the question of the
ambiguity of the origins of the phrase Shabbat Shalom? What's the
connection? If anything, the fact that the Shel"ah was a Kabbalistic
work should be the point of departure.
Yisrael Medad
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From: Alan Cooper <amcooper@...>
Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 12:24:55 -0500
Subject: Shabbat Shalom
>From: <Gevaryahu@...> (Gilad J. Gevaryahu)
<snip>
>Gur dictionary cites the Shela"h (Isaiah Horovitz
>1565?-1630) book as an early use, with the possibility that it is based
>on Shabbat 12b, at the top, where it is written "ve'Shivto be'Shalom".
>Since the Shela"h was first published in Amsterdam in 1649, that is ~350
>years ago, one can sense that there is an ambiguity as to the origins.
If the Shela"h had a Talmudic basis for the greeting, he no doubt would
have provided it. What he says, however, is "I have received [qibbalti]
that when a man visits his friend on shabbat morning, he should not say,
as he would on a weekday, tzafra tava ["good morning"], but shabbat
shalom or shabbat tov, in order to fulfill the mitzva zakhor etc." This
note immediately follows the remark that on shabbat, one should greet
one's superiors with "words of peace [divrei shalom] and likewise words
of holiness [divrei qedusha]."
The use of qibbalti by the Shela"h indicates that the greeting formula
preceded him, but as Mr. Gevaryahu rightly says, leaves its origins
ambiguous.
Alan Cooper
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From: Yael Levine Katz <ylkpk@...>
Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 23:19:54 +0200
Subject: Shabbat Shalom - in the Writings of the ARI
The saying of 'Shabbat Shalom' appears already in the writings of the
Ari. In Sha'ar ha-Kavvanot, Derushei Arvit Leil Shabbat, it is written
that when one enters his home he should say in a loud voice and with
great joy 'Shabbat Shalom' since he is like a groom receiving the bride
in great joy and with a cheerful face. And similarly, in Peri Etz Hayyim,
Sha'ar ha-Shabbat, chapter 14.
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From: Bernard Raab <beraab@...>
Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 17:57:52 -0500
Subject: Re: Tuxedo
>From: <DTnLA@...> (Dov Teichman)
>What makes an ordinary suit and tie any less "goyish" than a tuxedo?
>Unless you dress Hassidic, most of the orthodox world dresses just like
>gentiles to some extent.
Sorry but there is no "unless" here. The typical costume of an Eastern
European gentleman of the middle ages was a full-lenth caftan with a
cloth belt, and, in the winter, a fur hat. And, quoting from a treatise
on 15th-centurt Vienna: "Persons from the Ottoman Empire and
Anatolia...always have their head covered as a sign of devotion to
God. (Hats are extremely common among Western Europeans as well, but it
does not have religious significance.)" It seems in all cases our
"Jewish" dress is simply a preservation of earlier costumes of the
general population.
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From: Sam Saal <ssaal@...>
Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 13:58:57 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: Tuxedo
<DTnLA@...> (Dov Teichman) wrote:
>What makes an ordinary suit and tie any less "goyish" than a tuxedo?
>Unless you dress Hassidic, most of the orthodox world dresses just like
>gentiles to some extent.
I wqas taught by my uncle, a Rav, that most Chassidic garb is what was
worn by the Rabbi that started thge sect, which, in turn, was what was
worn by the nobles/upper class gentlemen at the time and place of the
founding of the sect.
He also explained that costumers for movies and plays, who needed
authentic clothing for period peices that coincided with the founding of
particular sects, have been known to study clothing for the production
by studying the clothing of the sect from the apropriate time and place.
Sam Saal <ssaal@...>
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End of Volume 38 Issue 65