Volume 42 Number 48
Produced: Mon Apr 19 22:05:59 US/Eastern 2004
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Apocryphal Story
[<JoshHoff@...>]
Bnei Eretz Yisrael keeping one day of yom tov in chu"l
[Edward Ehrlich]
Bnei Yisrael in Chutz L:aaretz
[Yisrael Medad]
Duchaning Outside Eretz Yisrael
[Nathan Lamm]
Haggadah question - Ke'Hilchos HaPesach
[I. Balbin]
An halakhic riddle
[Gershon Dubin]
Links to Sefarim on the Internet
[Shmuel Himelstein]
Most Common Mispronunciation of Them All
[Leah Perl Shollar]
Original Pronunciation of Hebrew
[Mike Gerver]
Siddur/Haggadah Text (Unicode)
[Michael Rogovin]
Transportation on Shabbat
[Mike Rosensaft]
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From: <JoshHoff@...>
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 17:44:11 EDT
Subject: Apocryphal Story
R. Avraham Danzig wrote a kitzur of Sefer Charedim,entitled Matzeves
Moshe, so it does not seem likely that he would on principle have said
that he is against the writing of kitzurim
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From: Edward Ehrlich <eehrlich@...>
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 09:37:05 +0300
Subject: Bnei Eretz Yisrael keeping one day of yom tov in chu"l
David Charlap wrote:
>Today, even though we have accurate calendars and instant communication,
>we still follow this as a custom, in order to comemorate what was
>necessary back then.
>
>Which is why I don't understand the practice of an Israeli only
>observing one day when visiting a foreign country, or of a foreigner
>observing two days when visiting Israel.
>
>Back when this practice was out of necessity instead of custom, they
>certainly wouldn't have behaved this way. An Israeli traveling abroad
>would be just as much in doubt over the date of Rosh Chodesh as everybody
>else, and would therefore have to observe both days. Similarly, a Jew
>from another country visiting Israel would not have any such doubt and
>would be able to observe only one day.
>
>So why don't we, in our comemoration of that practice, practice it today
>the way they must have had to practice it back then?
The following is my own theory and there is very likely another more
technical explanation for the current situation.
I think the reason that a Jew living outside of Israel observes two days
even when in Israel is that he or she is commemorating the ancient
custom and not duplicating it. We KNOW when Rosh Chodesh begins whether
we're in Israel or abroad. The purpose of observing two days is not to
pretend otherwise but to commemorate that at one time in the past Rosh
Chodesh was fixed by actually observing the Moon. If an Israeli Jew
observed two days while outside of Israel it would indicate that we
didn't know the actual date which is not the case.
Ed Ehrlich <eehrlich@...>
Jerusalem, Israel (and originally from New York so I still miss the
second Seder night, but my tzabra wife grows pale at the idea of doing
the whole thing twice. (vbg))
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From: Yisrael Medad <ybmedad@...>
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 23:38:11 +0200
Subject: Bnei Yisrael in Chutz L:aaretz
Shimon Glick wrote:
In practice many dati Israelis act otherwise, in spite of
rabbinical admonitions
I was on shlichut to England in 1975-77 and the practice among the
religious shlichim was that on Second Day, melachot were permitted
inside one's private space.
Yisrael Medad
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From: Nathan Lamm <nelamm18@...>
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 06:52:02 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Duchaning Outside Eretz Yisrael
Yisrael Medad wrote:
"So, it would seem, that is, without reviewing the academic sources she
notes, that the custom of duchaning was affected both by the destruction
of the Temple and by an aversion to a similar Christian custom."
I believe those sources (re: ending the custom [the correct word] of
raising hands during tefillah) are speaking not of Birkat Kohanim but of
ordinary raising of hands during prayer- still done today here and
there, but not on the widespread basis it used to be done, and still is
done in other religions (a "l'havdil" would be out of place, because it
is precisely the fact that others do it that Jews stopped, the same way
as Yaakov set up a stone to worship God, but the Torah later prohibited
it).
May I suggest another posibility? Tefilah (especially b'tzibur) as we
know it was only laid down after the Churban (the first, to a degree,
and the Second, much more so). Many variants we have today date to this
period, when Bavel adopted some versions (a forerunner of "Nusach
Sepharad," an annual Torah reading cycle) and Israel adopted another
("Nusach Ashkenaz," a triennial cycle). Isn't it possible that as Birkat
Kohanim had been reserved for the Beit Hamikdash, it was only after the
destruction that the question of when to say it as part of ordinary
tefillah arose, and the communities of Israel and Chutz La'aretz simply
came up with different responses, i.e., those in the former felt it was
appropriate for the actual kohanim to say it every day, while the latter
simply inserted a zecher to it on most days and reserved the actual
bracha for yom tov (both of which are quite logical responses)?
Nachum Lamm
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From: I. Balbin <isaac@...>
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 14:06:23 +1000
Subject: Re: Haggadah question - Ke'Hilchos HaPesach
> From: Jeremy Rose <jeremy@...>
> 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?
If we adopt the Nusach of the Rambam which is AD (until) Ein Maftirim
Achar HaPesach Afikoman, then a logical explanation could be that it is
only "Ke" because one could not properly learn all the halachos and
manage to eat Afikoman on time. The Ke could be a synopsis?
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From: Gershon Dubin <gershon.dubin@...>
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 21:08:01 -0400
Subject: An halakhic riddle
From: Mark Steiner <marksa@...>
<<Where does he recite the havdalah prayer--in the middle of the
(mistaken) atah honen prayer, with the weekday ata honantanu havadalah
formula, or in middle of the atah behartanu prayer, with the Yom Tov
havdalah formula 'vatodi`enu', etc.?>>
Seems to me that using the nusach of bein kodesh lechol being
inappropriate, the option of saying havdala in chonen hada'as means
changing the matbe'ah of that beracha.
Which leaves the vatodi'einu as the nusach of choice.
*******
One good shayla deserves another:
Let's say our hapless friend continues this tefila and gets to birchas
hashanim. It being acharon shel pesach (or maybe shevuos or rosh
hashana,) he says, by accident, vesen tal umatar. If he had said the
proper amida for yom tov, there would not have been a problem. Now that
he said an incorrect birchas hashanim, does he have to repeat the amida?
Gershon
<gershon.dubin@...>
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From: Shmuel Himelstein <himels@...>
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 13:45:59 +0300
Subject: Links to Sefarim on the Internet
My brother-in-law, Rabbi Prof. Yosef Tabory, sent me this fantastic site,
which has links to no fewer than 1400 Sefarim on the Internet.
http://www.halachabrura.org/alephlink.htm
Shmuel Himelstein
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From: Leah Perl Shollar <leahperl@...>
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 12:54:32 -0400
Subject: Re: Most Common Mispronunciation of Them All
> spoken languages evolve, else we would still be speaking in s'faradit
> accents as did card carrying Ashkenazim like Rashi and his
> generation.
I think we can go back even earlier than that -- sibbolet/shibbolet...
Leah Perl
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From: <MJGerver@...> (Mike Gerver)
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 18:34:20 EDT
Subject: Original Pronunciation of Hebrew
Mechy Frankel writes, in v42n47,
> spoken languages evolve, else we would still be speaking in s'faradit
> accents as did card carrying Ashkenazim like Rashi and his generation.
What are you basing that on? It seems to me there is strong evidence
that before Hebrew developed regional dialects, the vowels, at least,
were pronounced more as Ashkenazim do today. For one thing, Ashkenazim
make more distinctions between vowels, and originally all vowels were
presumably pronounced differently from each other. Also, the concept of
the kamatz katan (a kametz pronounced by Sephardim like an Ashkenazi
kametz) only originated around 1100 CE, suggesting that Sephardim
pronounced all kametzes like an Ashkenazi kametz before then. This is
further supported by the fact that Yemenites still pronounce kametz more
or less like Ashkenazim do.
If all you are talking about is the stress patterns, then I agree with
you.
Mike Gerver
Raanana, Israel
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From: Michael Rogovin <rogovin@...>
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 10:42:12 -0500
Subject: Siddur/Haggadah Text (Unicode)
Does anyone know of the availability of the text of the siddur and/or
haggadah (ashkenazic and/or sphardic nusach), with nikudot, for
Microsoft Word/OpenOffice (Unicode)?
Siddur texts are available for at least 2 word processors for Windows:
Dagesh and DavkaWriter (as well as older versions of Nisus for the Mac).
Both were the state of the art hebrew-english wordprocessors. While
Hebrew for MS Word was available, it required both the localized
versions of Windows and Word. That changed with Windows xp and Office xp
(as well as the recently introduced free OpenOffice) which provide full
Hebrew functionality built in.
Improved hebrew handling is available for MS Office with the
Internationalization pack, but for most documents the built in functions
work fine. Some utilities that came with Dagesh and/or Davka are not (at
least yet) available for Word or Open Office, such as auto-nikud,
spelling and grammer checking and lots of good fonts.
A problem is font mapping, font encoding and different handling of
glyphs: Dagesh and Davka each use proprietary font handling, as well as
file formats, which make them incompatible with each other and with xp
(although conversion between the 2 older programs is, I am told,
available, converting files to Word is complex). Word and Open Office
use the Unicode standard which is non-proprietary. They cannot, to the
best of my knowledge, directly read, convert and open files created in
either Dagesh or Davka. (Scanning does not appear to be a viable
option. While hebrew scanning software is available, it is very costly
and, as far as I can tell, outputs only to Dagesh/Davka-readable
formats, not Unicode).
While there are Word (Unicode) compatible Tanach, Gemara and many other
texts online at http://www1.snunit.k12.il/kodesh/ and elsewhere (see
also http://jwit.webinstituteforteachers.org/judaicresources.htm#text
for sources), I have yet to find the siddur and haggadah.
Any help in locating texts or easily converting texts from other formats
to Unidoce would be appreciated. Any help in finding (inexpensive) ways
to convert Dagesh or Davka fonts to Unicode would also be helpful.
Michael Rogovin
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From: Mike Rosensaft <mmrosensaft@...>
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 12:50:54 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Transportation on Shabbat
Hi all. I'm new to this list and I hope you will bear with me a bit
with my question. I hoped someone could direct me to a source
concerning public transportation on Shabbat. Why would it not be
permitted to use a public bus card or the likes on Shabbat (let's assume
you are riding the bus to shul and the distance is not great)? Does it
matter if you have to swipe the card or if you just have to show the
card? Does it matter if the bus driver is opening the door just for you
versus if you enter and exit the bus with a group of people? I guess
the same could be asked of using a train ticket on Shabbat to go a short
distance. I have always assumed both are not permitted, but I didn't
know what the source of that prohibition would be.
Thanks,
Mike
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End of Volume 42 Issue 48
