Volume 39 Number 55
Produced: Fri May 30 6:04:23 US/Eastern 2003
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Anticipation of Covering Hair
[Shoshana Ziskind]
Bicycles on Shabbos
[Chanie]
Counting Omer (2)
[Michael Feldstein, Lenny Levy]
Forgetting counting sefirah 2 Nights-A conceptual approach
[Russell J Hendel]
Forgetting Sefirah
[Gilad J. Gevaryahu]
Forgetting Sefirah & Bicycles on Shabbos
[Dov Teichman]
paralysis in halacha
[Gil Student]
Requirement to Tovel Aluminum vessels
[Elazar M Teitz]
safek/sfek s'feka
[Danny Skaist]
Segulas and Superstition
[Art Werschulz]
Urim Publications (was hair covering)
[Ruth Warrens]
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From: Shoshana Ziskind <shosh@...>
Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 09:29:40 -0400
Subject: Anticipation of Covering Hair
BS"D
On Thursday, May 29, 2003, at 04:43 AM, Leah S. Gordon
<leah@...> wrote:
> As a married woman, I would like to comment on the alleged happy
> anticipation/participation re covering hair--
>
> While it is sometimes fun to wear a cute hat or whatever, I think I can
> safely say that covering one's hair is generally inconvenient and
> sometimes uncomfortable/hot/sweaty/annoying. For instance, in the very
> cold or windy weather, it makes it hard to wear normal
> coats/hoods/etc. or walk without a hand on the head.
As also a married women I also sometimes find wearing a sheitel
uncomfortable especially in hot weather and while since I wear a sheitel
I don't have to walk without a hand on my head to keep my hat on,
certainly I have to be more worried about wet weather than I used to be.
((I would never walk around with a hair bonnet when it was just misting
out before). Also I think I wrote this in an earlier post, having your
hair grow in under snoods and sheitels is very uncomfortable not to
mention itchy. BUT...
> I think we should be very careful not to sentimentalize these sorts of
> things. Perhaps it is necessary to cover the hair, but it is certainly
> not great fun.
I still feel its special to cover my hair because of the ruchnius
involved. That's I think where the sentiment is coming in. I don't see
a problem in getting a bit sentimental about a mitzvah that, although
sometimes annoying and difficult is worth every bit of discomfort, and
are mitzvos bclal something that are supposed to be "fun"? Okay some of
them happen to be that way but is that why we're doing them?
This discussion is making me want to read that book that recently came
out concerning covering hair...
All the best,
Shoshana Ziskind
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From: <crew-esq@...> (Chanie)
Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 14:41:02 GMT
Subject: Bicycles on Shabbos
I seem to recall having heard that it was analogous to riding a horse,
where you might break off a branch to whip the horse. I've never seen
someone whip a bike, but I have definitely seen kids riding down the
street pulling leaves off trees!
Chanie
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From: <MIKE38CT@...> (Michael Feldstein)
Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 07:10:03 EDT
Subject: Counting Omer
I'll add another monkey wrench to the question: What if someone forgot
to count Thursday night, and in his community, they bring in Shabbos at
7PM. He remembers after kabbalat shabbos that he forgot to count. It's
before shkia and tzais. Can he count (since the stars have not come
out), or is it too late (since the entire community has already brought
in Shabbos, and it would be "the next day")?
Michael Feldstein
Stamford, CT
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From: <LennyLevy@...> (Lenny Levy)
Subject: Counting Omer
A follow up to M Gerver's posting on missing sefirah What if you forget
to count omer thursday night and remember on friday before sunset but
you were mekabel shabbos early and already davened maariv for
shabbos. Can you still count friday's count and continue with a bracha
or, having accepted shabbos early would it be tartei d'sasrei (a
conflict)?
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From: Russell J Hendel <rjhendel@...>
Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 18:51:52 -0400
Subject: Forgetting counting sefirah 2 Nights-A conceptual approach
Daniel v39n42 asks about forgetting counting sefirah 2 nights in a row
but remembering during the day. Should we continue saying the blessing
and if so why?
The answer is simple: There are two separate aspects to the commandment
to Count. a) First there is the obligation of counting EACH of the 49
days b) Second there is the obligation of counting the 49 days as one
whole unit.
To illuminate note that we count in cardinal numberS (day 1,2,3,) vs
ordinal numbers (1st 2nd 3rd day). The reason for this is that ordinal
numbers view the 49 days as one whole unit while cardinal numbers view
the 49 days as 49 units.
What happens when you dont count for one whole day. Well if there were
49 separate commandments (to count 49 days)then you simply lost one day
and you can count the rest with a blessing! But if there is only a
commandment to count one whole unit of 49 days then you have lost that
since the unit was interrupted and hence you would not be obligated to
count anymore.
The law is that since we are in doubt (Whether the commandment is 1 unit
of 49 or 49 units) we therefore do not say the blessing (blessings are
not said when in doubt) but do count (in case the real law is that there
are 49 separate commandments).
Now let us proceed further: Suppose I did not count by night. One could
argue that I have not counted the whole day and therefore cannot say a
blessing (To take an extreme case...suppose I remember to count 1 hour
before sunset...obviously in such a case my counting does not refer to a
whole unit of 1 day and is an inferior counting).
However by counting during the day I maintain the link in the unit of 49
days and can continue counting with a blessing that night.
Now that we know the underlying principles we can examine the case of
forgetting 2 nights in a row and counting two days in a row.
Clearly a) we have lost the count of those 2 individual days but b)
according to the opinion that there is one commandment to count 49 times
I have not lost my continuity and therefore can count with a blessing(as
I do every night).
(The preceding was based on a shiur I heard from the Rav--Rabbi J B
Soloveitchick).
Russell Jay Hendel; http://www.RashiYomi.com
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From: <Gevaryahu@...> (Gilad J. Gevaryahu)
Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 13:41:02 EDT
Subject: Forgetting Sefirah
Zev Sero (v39n51) wrote <<One is whether counting at night is required,
or only recommended. According to the opinion that counting can only be
done at night, if you forgot to do so, there is no point in counting by
day. The mitzvah is gone. The other opinion says that not only should
you count by day, you should do so with a berakhah. Since we don't know
whom to follow, we count without a berakhah.>>
The source for the above dispute is the dispute between the Israel
tradition and the Babylonian tradition. In Israel one could count the
omer with beracha both during the night and during the following day,
whereas the Babylonian tradition was to count the omer only at
night. The Egyptian Jewish Community as late as the 20th century
followed some of the Israel traditions and counted the omer also during
the day. _HaHilukim she'bein anshi mizrah uvnei Eretz Israel_,
Mordechai Margaliot, Jerusalem, 1938, pp. 167-168. This book is critical
edition and commentary of a book from the early Geonic period.
Gilad J. Gevaryahu
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From: <DTnLA@...> (Dov Teichman)
Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 13:18:15 EDT
Subject: Re: Forgetting Sefirah & Bicycles on Shabbos
Yisrael and Batya Medad <ybmedad@...> write:
<<A spin-off on Daniel Alexander's query on: Forgetting Sefirah, I
once heard a shi'ur by Rav Nechemiah Taylor that, if I recall
correctly, raised the possibility that even if one forgot to count
the days, one still had the obligation, as separate from the days,
on the evenings when the week's become 'whole', to count, *with* a
blessing, the week.>>
This chiddush can be found in the Tshuvos of Reb Chaim Brisker. I've
always wondered if we hold this way practically.
Regarding Bicycles on Shabbos, Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef has a very
comprehensive essay on it, with many references, in his sefer on the
Laws of Shabbos -- "Livyat Chen."
Dov Teichman
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From: Gil Student <gil_student@...>
Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 10:57:39 -0400
Subject: Re: paralysis in halacha
Eli Turkel wrote:
>Thus, while some poskim rise above the crowd the tendency in most
>yeshivot to is stress that one cannot disagree with CI, etc even with
>good proofs. There are rabbis who are trying to "end" the era of
>achronim and claim that the MB is the final psak with some minor
>deviations for the poskim of the past 100 years but that in the near
>future disagreeing with achronim will be like us disagreeing with
>rishonim (they will need some imagination for the name of the new era).
If this is the case then Prof. Sperber did not prove that argument
because all of his proofs, except for one, were from top-notch poskim
who have made "risky" pesakim at times.
If he was, indeed, arguing that lesser poskim and talmidei chachamim are
being taught not to disagree (in practice) with the great poskim then I
agree with this position. They should not. Leave it to the Minchas
Yitzchak to disagree with Reb Moshe, and not to some pulpit rabbi who
hasn't learned through Shas or even to some talmid chacham who knows
Shas but lacks depth of understanding.
There are rabbis who try to make the MB the final pesak but if you look
through the responsa literature it is very clear that the poskim
disagree.
It seems that your argument, or your perception of Prof. Sperber's
argument, is more regarding the sociology of how the frum world
determines halacha (via texts) rather than how poskim rule. That is far
from claiming that halacha is paralyzed. Just ask the many people who
have conceived through fertility treatments that some poskim oppose.
The existence of machmir views did not force the lenient poskim to
change their minds.
Gil Student
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From: Elazar M Teitz <remt@...>
Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 09:57:45 -0400
Subject: Re: Requirement to Tovel Aluminum vessels
> There is no such Rav Moshe. What he said is that since the posek lists
> seven kinds of metal, aluminum not being one, obviously aluminum is
> not susceptible to Tumah, and accordingly does not need Tveliah.
This, too, is not what RMF says. He does indeed state that
because the posuk lists only six (not seven) metals, the _Torah_ does
not require t'vilah for other metals, but he adds that it _is_ required
rabbinically, for the same reason Chazal added glass.
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From: Danny Skaist <danny@...>
Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 12:37:12 +0200
Subject: safek/sfek s'feka
<<Mike Gerver, Raanana, Israel
A more interesting question is whether you can still count with a bracha
if you forget one night, and forget during the following day, but
remember after sunset before the stars come out, when it would normally
be too early to count for the following day. In this case, I think, you
cannot continue making the bracha. The reason is that the double safek
of not knowing whether counting during the day fulfils the mitzvah, and
not knowing whether it was that day or the next day when you did count,
means that you can assume that for one reason or the other you did not
count on that day at all. Then there is only the single safek of whether
you have to count every day to keep saying the bracha, and that single
safek is not enough to allow you to keep saying the bracha. >>
Think of it as a simple case of safek. Safek Brocho l'kula, we don't
make the brocho. If it's a Sfek s'feka (to make a brocho) we do make a
brocho.
If you forget to count nite and day you have a safek, (one mitzva for 49
countings or 49 mitzvos one per day.) Single safek so no brocho. If
you don't know if you counted ( either you don't remember or don't know
if it was early enough) then you have a sfek s'feka, and you do make a
brocho.
And it's reversable.
1) safek you counted or not, and even if you didn't count then maybe it's 49
seperate mitzvos.
2) safek 49 mitzvos or one mitzva and even if it's one mitzva, maybe you did
count.
danny
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From: Art Werschulz <agw@...>
Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 09:54:37 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Segulas and Superstition
Hi. Andy Goldfinger <Andy.Goldfinger@...> writes (when asking about
origins of various segulot):
> A man folding his tallis right after Shabbos will increase the
> chances of Shalom Bayis (peace in the home).
The explanation that I heard (possibly from Rav Dr. Moshe Perkal) was
that the kallah traditionally gives a tallit to the chatan as a wedding
present. One's zeal to fold the tallit shows how much one appreciates
this present.
Art Werschulz
GCS/M (GAT): d? -p+ c++ l u+(-) e--- m* s n+ h f g+ w+ t++ r- y?
Internet: <agw@...><a href="http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~agw/">WWW</a>
ATTnet: Columbia U. (212) 939-7061, Fordham U. (212) 636-6325
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From: Ruth Warrens <ruth_anthony@...>
Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 05:22:35 -0400
Subject: Urim Publications (was hair covering)
I am a 'lurker' on mailjewish - i.e. I read it from time to time,
picking up on threads which interest me, but don't contribute.
Batya Medad wrote: Read the new book on hair covering by Urim Press,
Hide and Seek.
I tried to send a note to her personally, but her spam filter blocked
the message (presumably she has it set to reject all unrecognized
addresses).
No matter, as I am happy to prompt the whole list to look at the website
of Urim Publications. Their website is excellent - so often publishers'
websites list their books with bare publication details, possibly brief
synopses, but Urim include extensive and helpful reviews of their
wonderful looking books. Our shelves are already groaning, but I am sure
I will be tempted to acquire many of their publications. (Luckily - for
me, not for our groaning bookshleves - my husband is as much a
bibliophile as I am!)
Kol tuv,
Ruth Warrens
London, UK
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End of Volume 39 Issue 55
