Volume 42 Number 45
Produced: Fri Apr 16 6:29:03 US/Eastern 2004
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Bi-Gender Nouns
[Eli Turkel]
Bnei Eretz Yisrael keeping one day of yom tov in chu"l
[David I. Cohen]
Did Esther and Achashverosh have any children?
[Ben Katz]
Direction of Prayer
[Joel Rich]
Go-al vs. Go-al
[S.Wise]
Haggadah question - Ke'Hilchos HaPesach
[Jeremy Rose]
Havdalah for Shabbat Hol Hamoed
[<MPoppers@...>]
House for rent or exchange in Allon Shvut
[Ephraim Tabory]
Joy and Punishment on Shabbat
[Batya Medad]
More than one person for aliya on simchat tora
[David Ziants]
Most Common Mispronunciation of Them All (2)
[Leah Perl Shollar, Mark Symons]
Priestly Blessing Topic
[Ben Katz]
Veshameru on Friday night (2)
[Mark Steiner, Shmuel Himelstein]
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From: Eli Turkel <turkel@...>
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 14:03:21 +0200
Subject: Bi-Gender Nouns
> I would like to mention that this issue of Taleisim vs. Talitot and
> Shabosim vs. Shabbatot has been discussed in MJ before. Talit is a
> bi-gender noun in Hebrew (i.e., it is both masculine and feminine,)
> and in my opinion Shabbat is probably too. [A source for the
> masculine usage of talit is "shnei ravakim be-talit ECHAD,"]
What is the word ilan?
SA has the beracha has "ilanot tovot"
Siddur Rinat Yisrael changes this to "ilanot tovim"
Eli Turkel, <turkel@...> on 4/15/2004
Department of Mathematics, Tel Aviv University
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From: <bdcohen@...> (David I. Cohen)
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 15:42:36 -0400
Subject: Bnei Eretz Yisrael keeping one day of yom tov in chu"l
David Ziants wrote:
> "I was told that even when in a community, an Israeli (who intends to
> return eventually), should keep one day yom-tov."
While I see many Israelis in chutz l'aretz for a Yom Tov keep only one
day, I would be interested in seeing an actual written psak on the
subject.
Also, I would like to know the definition of "eventually" in the phrase
" who intends to return eventually".
David I. Cohen
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From: <bkatz@...> (Ben Katz)
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2004 17:43:50 -0500
Subject: Re: Did Esther and Achashverosh have any children?
>From: Joshua Meisner <jam390@...>
>> There is a tradition, sorry, no source, that Daryavesh the king of Madai
>> was their son.
> Daryavesh the Mede was the first king of the Persian-Median
>empire, who defeated Belshatzar of Babylonia (Daniel 5:30-6:1). The
>king who is sometimes identified as the son of Esther and Achashveirosh
>is Daryavesh the Persian, who ruled some years later.
There are historical difficulties with the individual called "Darius the
Mede" in the book of Daniel. See the introduction to the Anchor Bible
(Note: not an Orthodox work, but quoted occassionally by Daat Mikra)
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From: <Joelirich@...> (Joel Rich)
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 09:36:53 EDT
Subject: Re: Direction of Prayer
Yisrael Medad <ybmedad@...>
If I recall, the issue of which direction to face during the last
stanza of L'Cha Dodi has been discussed several times.
Yes, my own update from the YU bet medrash minyan is that while the aron
faces north and the doors are in the east everyone turns to the
back(south) even though this fits none of the explanations we gave(other
than since back is usually west the takanna was back and lo plug{we
don't differentiate}
KT
Joel Rich
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From: <Smwise3@...> (S.Wise)
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 20:40:38 EDT
Subject: Re: Go-al vs. Go-al
I think some posters got the wrong impression. I am quite aware of the
difference between the words and the potential for confusion.
My point was that one should be careful when davening to avoid the error.
S.Wise
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From: Jeremy Rose <jeremy@...>
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 11:01:44 +0100
Subject: Haggadah question - Ke'Hilchos HaPesach
I was thinking about the meaning of KeHilchos HaPesach in the response
to the Chochom - why "Ke"? Why not explain them all to him? Why just
some of them?
And then it occurred to me that there are four expressions of "Ke" in
the Haggadah, and each of them has (or seems to have) some derush
associated with it:
* Ke'Ho Lachmoh Anyoh
* Ke'Ven Shivim Shonoh
* Ke'Negged Arboh Bonim
* Ke'Hilchos HaPesach
I looked around a bit, and asked around as well, and no-one seems to
comment on this issue (which is always a bit worrying!) - but does
anyone have any ideas or seen something about this "new" foursome, or
about the "Ke" in Hilchos HaPesach.
I saw one Girsoh (can't remember which one) that has Be'Hilchos
HaPesach, which works out nicely - but then it spoils the potential
foursome :-(
A gutten summer to you all..... Jeremy Rose
Jeremy L Rose Tel: +44 1727 832288
Communication Systems Limited Fax: +44 1727 810194
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From: <MPoppers@...>
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 19:35:15 -0400
Subject: Re: Havdalah for Shabbat Hol Hamoed
In M-J V42#43, Hillel (Sabba) Markowitz replied:
> I just got this (after Yom Tov) so the answer is late, but the answer is
> no. Make a regular havdalah.
Until this past motzoai Shabbos [Saturday night], I would have agreed,
but Rabbi EDTeitz publicly noted in that evening's JEC of Elizabeth, NJ,
USA minyan that some have the custom not to make a b'rocho [blessing] on
and smell b'somim [spices, or fragrant "plant world" produce] because,
AIUI (and any mistakes are mine, not his), their ancestors' communities'
spices contained chometz and couldn't be used during the Chag...hence,
the answer isn't "no" for everyone.
All the best from
-- Michael Poppers via RIM pager
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From: Ephraim Tabory <tabory@...>
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 08:07:15 +0200
Subject: House for rent or exchange in Allon Shvut
Four bedroom (1 + 2 half baths) split level house in central Allon Shvut
(just 25 minutes from Jerusalem) from July 15 for one year, for rent, or
exchange in greater New York area. Kosher, fully furnished, large sukkah
area and garden and a great Torah community. Information:
<Tabory@...>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Batya Medad <ybmedad@...>
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 18:44:57 +0200
Subject: Re: Joy and Punishment on Shabbat
Furthermore there is a Rabbinic obligation to be joyful on the
Sabbath. Clearly then it is prohibited to be involved in
"punishment
Joyful in the halachik sense, not narcissic (if that's the right word.)
Many words have lost their true meanings. Think of "lehov" in the Shma
verses it's present meaning in modern Hebrew.
Batya
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Ziants <dziants@...>
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 02:20:46 +0300
Subject: More than one person for aliya on simchat tora
I once frequented a shul (in chu"l) where on on simchat tora, they
sometimes called a few people up together for the same aliya at the same
time. This shul had only one k'ria (Tora reading) going on, and did not
(at that time) have anyone else who could do a parallel k'ria, as is
done in a lot of shuls.
Did they have any halachik precedence for this, or was this a mistake?
(I am sorry the question is "out of season" - but this happens to irk
me now.)
[Yes, there is both precedence and halachik discussions of this
practice. Ya'ari discusses it in his sefer on Simchat Torah. Mod.]
David Ziants
<dziants@...>
Ma'aleh Adumim, Israel
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From: Leah Perl Shollar <leahperl@...>
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 18:13:26 -0400
Subject: Re: Most Common Mispronunciation of Them All
How about "Pay-sach" for "Peh-sach", or "kiddish" for "Kee-dush"? I
use the incorrect forms automatically, but am finding it odd the more I
think about it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Mark Symons <msymons@...>
Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2004 06:30:46 +1000
Subject: Re: Most Common Mispronunciation of Them All
> From: Michael Frankel <michaeljfrankel@...>
<<.. I also do remember hearing, but do not know the source, that
Esther's response to Mordechai of "veka'asher avaditi avadati" refers to
her potentially changing from a passive role to.. Avi>>
> While life is too short for normally balanced individuals to obsess over
> e-mail spellings
I share your obsession with these things, though I don't know if I'd go so
far as to call myself normally balanced.
>the sh'voh under the daled is noch, not noh. Thus the word ought be
> pronounced avad-ti, rather than avadAti or avaditi. The unwarranted
> substitution of a sh'voh noh is ubiquitous when the sh'voh is under the
> first of two letters with similar sounds -daled, tof, tes. Thus in the
> sh'ma, the correct pronunciation is v'limad-tem, v'avad-tem and not
> v'limaditem/v'avaditem, etc etc. Moreover, this very issue was also
> discussed by the early sefaradi grammarians, who emphasized that the
> correct pronunciation was noch, but the sound of the first letter then
> became assimilated into the pronunciation of the second. i.e. avad-ti
> was actually pronounced avati, etc. In any event this is my candidate
> for the most widely abused mispronunciation by ba'alei q'rioh.
I think an even more common and basic and thus possibly worse problem
by ba'alei q'riah is not taking care to enunciate individual letters and
vowels clearly (eg pronouncing ya'akov as yakov), so at least
pronouncing the sh'va under the dalet in those examples as na, although
wrong, does make it more likely that the dalet won't be absorbed, which
I would've thought was worse. I wasn't aware that the assimilation of
the dalet was correct, if that's what you're saying, because if so, it
would certainly seem to change the meaning.
I think the root of the problem is that we pronounce the dalet r'fuyah
(dagesh-less dalet) the same as a dalet d'gushah (dalet with a dagesh),
which sounds too similar to the following tav d'gushah, and thus doesn't
lend itself to pronouncing a sh'va nach without losing the dalet
(similarly, when 2 of the same letters appear consecutively in the
middle of a word, it is regareded as acceptable to give the first one a
sh'va na, even though it should grammatically be a sh'va nach, I think
for the sake of both letters being clearly enunciated). If we pronounced
the dalet r'fuyah as I understand it should be, ie TH (as in THAT; as
distinct from a tav r'fuyah which is pronounced TH as in THINK), then it
would sound quite natural to give it a sh'va nach before a tav
d'gusha. (Pronouncing the dalet r'fuya in this way is also the only real
way that allows it to be effectively prolonged in the echad of the first
pasuk of the sh'ma. All the non-dagesh forms of the BGD KFT letters can
be drawn out. The gimmel is sounded like a chaf while making a sound
instead of a whisper).
> I reluctantly put "mistake" in parentheses to acknowledge there is also
> another side to the story. And that is the undeniable fact that in
> spoken Hebrew, almost all sh'voh nohs in the middle of a word (with the
> exception of sh'voh nohs appearing under letters with dogeish) have
> weakened to sh'voh nochs (thus, kosvu - they wrote, rather than the
> "correct" kos'vu) . >
Material I have read says that most authorities don't agree with you on
this, despite the beit not taking a dagesh, though which I haven't yet
come across an explanation for.
Mark Symons
Melbourne, Australia
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From: <bkatz@...> (Ben Katz)
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2004 17:46:09 -0500
Subject: Re: Priestly Blessing Topic
>From: <ROSELANDOW@...> (Rose Landowne)
>Re: the discussions of Birchat kohanim on shabbat outside of Israel, and
>Targum. There is a Yemenite minyan at the West Side Institutional
>Synagogue in Manhattan , where they duchan on Shabbat morning and Musaf,
>and where they have a metargman who says the targum in Aramaic, pasuk by
>pasuk during the Torah reading and the haftarah. They have Chumashim
>which have it side by side so everyone can follow along.
I hope at least one person in the congregation understands aramaic.
otherwise it would be better to read it in English or perhaps read
rashi.
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From: Mark Steiner <marksa@...>
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 15:57:41 +0300
Subject: RE: Veshameru on Friday night
Disciples of the Vilna Gaon (together, ironically, with those of
the Besht and Baal Hatanya) established the modern Ashkenazi community
in Eretz Yisrael. I hypothesize that where the Gaon's practices (or
theories) coincided with those of other communities in Eretz Yisrael
(such as those of the Middle Eastern Jews) it was more likely for them
to introduce them as actual practices. Examples might be to duchan
regularly, skip barukh hashem le-`olam, say ve-sab`enu mi-tuvah (instead
of Ashkenaz mi-tuvekha), etc. A striking example would be the wearing
(or, rather, non-wearing of tefillin on Hol Ha-mo`ed. For perhaps
completely different reasons, the Gaon, the Sefaradim, and the Hassidim
forbade the wearing of tefillin on Hol Ha-mo`ed. In Lithuania, the
Gaon's position (on Hol Ha-mo`ed and certainly concerning duchanen)
seems not to have made much headway (as Prof. H. Soloveitchik points out
in a recent article), but in Eretz Yisrael, we have a completely
universal and uniform practice in this regard.
Mark Steiner
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From: Shmuel Himelstein <himels@...>
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 15:45:36 +0300
Subject: Veshameru on Friday night
The question of saying or not saying Veshameru on Friday night is not a
question of Minhag, but one of Halachah. According to some views, it is
considered a Hafsakah - an interruption - at that point of the prayer.
The Siddur of Rav Avraham Yitzchak Hakohen Kook, Olat Re'iyah, for one,
does not have it.
Shmuel Himelstein
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End of Volume 42 Issue 45
