Volume 44 Number 60
Produced: Thu Sep 2 17:45:12 EDT 2004
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Arrogance (5)
[Elazar M Teitz, David Riceman, Binyomin Segal, Meir Shinnar,
David Riceman]
Chumrot At Other's Expense
[Tony Fiorino]
Coffee
[Leona Kroll]
Singing Voice as part of Tefilah (2)
[Joel Rich, Meir]
Strollers/Eruv
[Leona Kroll]
Women Singing in Shule
[Carl Singer]
Yuhara (3)
[Joel Rich, Carl Singer, <bdcohen@...>]
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From: Elazar M Teitz <remt@...>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 22:09:06 -0400
Subject: Re: Arrogance
Dr. Shinnar writes:
> the fact that there exists other people who follow the humra of not
> following the eruv, or even believe that eruvin are intrinsically
> valid[should read invalid--EMT], does not change the fact that if you
> believe that it is intrinsically valid, then for you, not using the eruv
> is a statement that you are at a level that is appropriate to keep a
> humra that is not kept by the community as a whole.
Not necessarily. It may mean that the individual follows the
dictate of the Chafetz Chaim, who writes on this topic that "although we
lack the authority to interfere with those who accept the lenient
position, . . . every G-d-fearing individual should be stringent for
himself" not to rely on an eruv where the streets have the requisite
width and multitudes using them, but lack 600,000 daily. (Biur Halachah,
Siman 345)
Elazar M. Teitz
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From: David Riceman <driceman@...>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 07:40:09 -0400
Subject: Re: Arrogance
> From: Meir Shinnar <Meir.Shinnar@...>
> the very notion of mechaze keyohara, or that being stringent is a form
> of forbidden arrogance, is something that is foreign to many people
> today.... Most cases of mechaze keyohara are cases where there is a
> dispute, and while the standard has been to accept the more lenient
> opinion, many of those who hold by the stringent opinion hold that it
> applies lecatchila ... if you believe that it is intrinsically valid,
> then for you, not using the eruv is a statement that you are at a
> level that is appropriate to keep a humra that is not kept by the
> community as a whole.
Or it could mean that "the community as a whole", as a place of
monolithic practice, no longer has meaning.
David Riceman
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From: Binyomin Segal <bsegal@...>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 08:31:22 -0500
Subject: RE: Arrogance
On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 21:50:18 -0400 (EDT), Meir Shinnar wrote:
> These posts are indicative of the fact that the very notion of mechaze
> keyohara, or that being stringent is a form of forbidden arrogance, is
> something that is foreign to many people today.
...
> Similarly, the fact that there exists other people who follow the humra
> of not following the eruv, or even believe that eruvin are
> intrinsically valid, does not change the fact that if you believe that
> it is intrinsically valid, then for you, not using the eruv is a
> statement that you are at a level that is appropriate to keep a humra
> that is not kept by the community as a whole.
I realized when reading this post that Meir and I both have fallen into
a trap often mentioned here on MJ. Neither of us have been quoting from
sources, but rather simply reporting our understanding. For this
conversation to continue, and I think that worthwhile, sources need to
be examined.
Frankly, I admit, I do not have sources that address this definition
question on hand. I will have to look, and report back. Perhaps Meir can
also look, and we can share what we find. Then perhaps we can develop a
reasonable defintion.
bivracha
binyomin
To the WORLD, YOU may be ONE person; but to ONE person, YOU may be the WORLD
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From: Meir Shinnar <Meir.Shinnar@...>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 09:45:22 -0400
Subject: RE: Arrogance
David Riceman
> Or it could mean that "the community as a whole", as a place of
> monolithic practice, no longer has meaning.
The disappearance of the notion of a community for many different issues
is a reality. However, I don't think that the concept of mechaze
keyohara was dependent on the notion of a kehilla and minhag hamakom -
it reflected an individual awareness that choosing the more stringent
position, when the other position was widely (not univerally) practiced,
and you viewed it as acceptable, as a form of arrogance - especially
when done publicly, when others accept the kula publicly.
Meir Shinnar
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From: David Riceman <driceman@...>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 17:18:56 -0400
Subject: Re: Arrogance
I wasn't clear enough in my initial post. My claim was not that the
community has disappeared. Instead I think many people define their
community by means other than geography. In that case they may be the
only one in town with a certain humra, but they consider it not a humra
but their minhag, and they think it displays, not arrogance, but their
identification with a particular group which has uniformly adopted that
humra. The group as a whole may be arrogant, but mehezei kiyuhara
applies only to an individual, not to a group.
Whether the sociological observation about community can be justified
halachicly is a different question.
David Riceman
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From: Tony Fiorino <Fiorino@...>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 10:53:59 -0400
Subject: RE: Chumrot At Other's Expense
>From: Sammy Finkelman <sammy.finkelman@...>
> This is exactly the situation, though, that prevailed in the household
> of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein. (R Moshe Feinstein considered his use of only
> Cholov Yisrael to be in the nature of a Neder, which of course does not
> apply to anyone other than the person making the vow. He did not
> consider this halachah at all, not even a Safek (doubt)
Perhaps someone could verify but I have heard that Rav Moshe was strict
in his own home with regard to the laws of yashan but would routinely
eat breakfast at MTJ even though the yeshiva was not.
-Eitan
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From: Leona Kroll <leona_kroll@...>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 23:45:28 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: Coffee
one thing that needs to be pointed out- shmattas used to clean out
coffee machines at closing time might have bits of grease from other
cooking utensils on them (having once worked at a McDonald's- b/4
becoming frum- I can tell you this isn't far fetched). Also, if the
actual container the coffee is poured from is a Mr Coffee style pitcher-
if it is glass that's less problematic but what if it is pyrex and was
washed with non-kosher kaylim? aside from bishul akum, I think other
questions do come up.
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From: <Joelirich@...> (Joel Rich)
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 05:28:56 EDT
Subject: Re: Singing Voice as part of Tefilah
> to a second Rav who ruled that: since some were obviously attracted to
> her voice and there was no halachic imperitive for her to sing and
> that he doubted that the men in the shul were on the level of piety of
> those Rabbi's who used to allow women to sing that they should
> instruct her to sing softly.
Interesting calling this "a ruling", it sounds much more like a common
sense pshara (compromise) that didn't require rabbinic intervention.
Question - had the woman not agreed, would this have been enforced as
the clear halacha? If it is clear halacha, what basis did the Rav offer
that the original opinions that allowed women's singing were based on
the piety of the Rabbis (or for that matter of their congregants)? Did
those who complained do so because of their own attraction to the
woman's voice (since clearly they hadn't complained about other women)
or was this a test case to try to enforce a change in standard? It's not
so simple to my very limited understanding why we would be in a rush
(and I don't mean this to be limited to women) to take something away
from others that helps them in their avodat hashem.
KT Joel Rich
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From: <meirman@...> (Meir)
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 12:28:37 -0400
Subject: Singing Voice as part of Tefilah
>From: Janice Gelb <j_gelb@...>
>Which, as usual, begs the question of why if the admonition is on the
>man not to hear the voice of the woman, it isn't the man's obligation to
>make sure he's not in range rather than the woman's obligation not to
>sing. I understand this for davening but it really bothers me for
>zemirot. There is as far as I know no obligation for men to sing
>zemirot. If so, the answer if the men present hold that even mixed
>voices are not permissible should be for no one to sing zemirot, not for
>the men to sing and the women to be forced to keep silent due to a
>stringency that is really on the men.
This won't solve your problem where it is not the custom, but isn't
there a practice that women can sing if no single voice is discernable
among all the other women's voice?
(In my public high school, there was always one girl who sang well but
much louder than anyone else, girl or boy, and everyone would look
around to try to see who was doing it.)
Maybe this is a place to add that I used to lead hikes for a Jewish
outdoors club, and I would have one each year late Saturday night
between RH and YK. And I wanted to sing Lu Yehi at the break, and I
called up an Israeli friend and asked her to call me back and sing it to
my phone machine, so I could play it until I learned it. She was a good
looking woman, but it wasn't until I heard that song on my phone machine
with her voice, which was just beautiful, that I was sexually attracted
to her. My very strong reaction to it surprised and amazed me. For
some reason I already hadn't been able to learn part of the melody, and
playing the tape again gave me the same romantic reaction, although it
got a bit weaker each time. (I was able to remember the melody for the
hike, but after a few months, I again conflated part of it with another
song.)
Meir
<meirman@...> Baltimore, MD, USA
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From: Leona Kroll <leona_kroll@...>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 23:45:28 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Strollers/Eruv
kol hakavod to Eli Turkel for bringing up a point I've often thought of
but would not have been able to express so well. Why is it considered
better to be chumradic about eruv than to be chumradic about respecting
one's wife? Is the intense summertime heat in Jerusalem (which makes
pushig a stroller even more unpleasant) a factor?
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From: Carl Singer <casinger@...>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 07:01:05 -0400
Subject: Women Singing in Shule
Practically speaking in a relatively small shule one would have to be in
the vestibule to be out of range. Our shule is one with the men in
front and the women behind (versus side-by-side) -- one woman with an
especially powerful voice (a music major) started to sit in the front
row of the women's section -- since the men's section is only about 15
feet deep there was "no place to hide."
Carl A. Singer
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From: <Joelirich@...> (Joel Rich)
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 05:39:20 EDT
Subject: Re: Yuhara
> Joel Rich questioned <<< So the first people who do it constitutes
> yuhara but when enough people join them it's not? >>>
> We find this principle in any area of halacha which depends on the local
> custom, which by definition will develop over time. For example, I think
> that it safe to say that when the first women of a community began to
> wear slacks, it was a violation of "wearing men's clothes", but when
> enough women of that community joined them, the new ones were *not* in
> violation of "wearing men's clothes" (at least according to the poskim
> who hold that way). >>
Which community did it change in? If the nonJewish, is it clear that we
look to them (I think yes but that's a different issue)> If Jewish, my
question stands.
KT
Joel Rich
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From: Carl Singer <casinger@...>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 07:13:02 -0400
Subject: Yuhara
> I totally agree that it is disturbing to consider that two people did
> the exact same action, and we're saying that one acted improperly and
> the other acted acceptably, and the only difference is when the action
> occurred.
>
> But the truth is that the exact date when the action occurred is NOT the
> only difference between the two cases. Because in the interim between
> the two actions, the society around them changed.
I don't believe that sequence and the like have much to do with this --
it's a more complex issue of context.
The elements of "context" include how public / private, community
standards & practices, who this person is what other practices he
observes, and how he relates to others. Sometimes that brings it down
to the nebulous -- "I'll know it when I see it."
Carl A. Singer
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From: <bdcohen@...>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 16:17:24 -0400
Subject: Yuhara
Akiva Miller wrote:
>>Of course, the logic works just as well in the
other direction, when an
action begins to be shunned by a community. For
example, as long as only
a few people were avoiding kitniyos, the people who
kept on eating it
did absolutely nothing wrong. But at some point, the
number of
abstainers grew to a level where it became a
community minhag, and from
there onwards, the ones who ate kitniyos *were*
doing something wrong.>>
One can watch this phenomenom in progress in teh
example of "Glatt" meat. Fifty years ago, only
eating "glatt" was a chumra. Nowadays (outside of
Israel) galtt has become the defacto , if not de
jure, standard of mainstream kashrut.
David I. Cohen
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End of Volume 44 Issue 60