Volume 44 Number 76
Produced: Mon Sep 13 7:02:23 EDT 2004
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Chabad Siddur
[Nathan Lamm]
Following the minhagim of the husband
[Martin Stern]
Glatt
[Esther Posen]
A Grammatical Point (2)
[Ira L. Jacobson, Yisrael & Batya Medad]
Maimon (was: Yiddish Names)
[Mike Gerver]
Stringencies/chumrot
[Yakir]
Tal/Geshem
[Nathan Lamm]
Time for reflection during HHD services?
[Joel Wiesen]
Yiddish (2)
[Martin Stern, Nathan Lamm]
Yiddish and German
[Andy Goldfinger]
Yochanan B. Zakkai
[Nathan Lamm]
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From: Nathan Lamm <nelamm18@...>
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 05:37:18 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Chabad Siddur
I've seen the line about accepting "Veahavta" (at the beginning of
Tefillah, along with others) in Ashkenaz siddurim from Israel.
Nachum
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From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 14:03:44 +0100
Subject: Re: Following the minhagim of the husband
on 10/9/04 11:22 am, Bernard Raab <beraab@...> wrote:
> In the very erudite discussions of this issue, the following circumstance
> was not discussed:
>
> * When a married woman and her husband return to her father's house for
> Shabbat, does she follow the minhagim she grew up with (e.g.; washing
> hands before or after kiddush, standing or sitting for kiddush;
> covering her hair for kiddush, etc., or that of her husband, who will
> also be making kiddush?
>
> * Does it matter if her father insists that she follow his minhagim?
>
> * Does the situation change when the parents visit the daughter for
> Shabbat? And the father continues to insist that his daughter observe
> his minhagim, even in her "husband's" home? Would it be a violation
> of "kibud Av" to ignore his request?
>
> These are not academic questions in some households.
Having seven married daughters (I only mention this since it clarifies
my position which might otherwise be thought to be partisan), the
halachah is that a married woman is exempt from kibbud av if it
conflicts with her husband's wishes. Any father who 'insists' in such
circumstances is acting completely wrongly. If only this problem were
purely academic!
However, all this only applies if complying with the father's wishes
involves going against the husband's custom. Thus covering her hair for
kiddush in her father's house would be a matter of politeness since her
husband would not have the positive minhag that her hair must be
uncovered, merely that he does not insist that it must be covered.
When one is a visitor in someone else's home (not necessarily a parent)
it is surely best to follow the host's custom in minor matters and not
insist on doing everything one's own way. In her own home she should
anticipate any such problems and, preferably, obtain her husband's
agreement on what to do.
If the situation is reversed and the daughter wishes to cover her hair
at all times whereas her father considers this to be mechze keyuhara
(religious extremism) and tries to force her to remove the covering, she
should not comply since there is halachic support for her position (dat
yehudit) and thus it would be analogous to being mechallel shabbat at
his behest r"l.
The basic rule is that, wherever possible, conflict should always be
avoided so long as there is no breach of halachah.
Incidentally it is not so clear that a guest should make kiddush
separately in someone else's house since there is a principle of 'berov
am hadrat Melekh', that the more people involved in a mitsvah (in this
case listening to one person making kiddush) the greater the glory of
the One to whom all praises are due.
Martin Stern
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From: Esther Posen <eposen@...>
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 07:40:19 -0500
Subject: RE: Glatt
It is my understanding that today, Glatt slaughterhouses will turn any
animal that does not meet exacting standards to the non-kosher market
without spending time determining whether the animal could be kosher and
not glatt. I don't know where I heard this or if it is correct.
Esther
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From: Ira L. Jacobson <laser@...>
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 13:55:46 +0300
Subject: Re: A Grammatical Point
Akiva Miller <kennethgmiller@...> stated the following on Wed, 8 Sep
2004 16:57:40 GMT:
Just wondering: Has anyone ever heard the plural "holidays"
referred to as "Yamim Tov"?
I've heard they word "yomtovim", which I presume to be a plural of
the *Yiddish* word "yontev", but in Hebrew the term seems to be
"Yamim Tovim". This appears in the Mishna (Taanis 4:7): "Lo hayu
Yamim Tovim l'Yisrael k'chamisha asar b'Av uk'Yom HaKippurim".
This is a good example, but it fails to take into account that yamim
tovim here is used in its literal sense, and not to mean festivals,
since neither Too be'Av nor Yom Kippur is a yomtov.
While Ta`anit 4:8 does indeed use yamim tovim to refer to "good days,"
three other places in the Mishna (at least) use it to refer to the two
days of Rosh Hashanah.
A similar example would be Rashi on Leviticus 23:35, or the Ramban on
Leviticus 23:7, where yamim tovim is used to mean festivals.
An interesting plural of yom tov in the sense of a festival is yemei
tov, where yom tov is understood to be the construct form for days of
goodness. I have found this usage to refer to the month of Marheshvan
as having no "yemei tov" http://www.kipa.co.il/jew/show.asp?id=403 .
IRA L. JACOBSON
mailto:<laser@...>
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From: Yisrael & Batya Medad <ybmedad@...>
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 14:26:21 +0200
Subject: Re: A Grammatical Point
"Just wondering: Has anyone ever heard the plural "holidays"
referred to as "Yamim Tov"?"
It can't be the same as beit sefer---batei sefer, because yom is a noun,
and tov is an adjective, while beit and sefer are both nouns.
Batya
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From: <MJGerver@...> (Mike Gerver)
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 07:04:56 EDT
Subject: Maimon (was: Yiddish Names)
Akiva Miller, in v44n72, says (quoting Rav Moshe Feinstein),
and says that "Maimon" - the name of the Rambam's father - also
appears to be a foreign name.
Maimon comes from the Arabic "maimun" meaning "fortunate," but it is
etymologically related to several words in Hebrew, as well as in
English. The Arabic word comes from the shoresh Y-M-N, and is the
source of Yemen, the "fortunate land." It also has the meaning "right
hand" or "southern," though it is not the main word used for those
concepts in Arabic. (In Semitic languages generally, it is assumed that
people are facing east, so "left" means "north" and "right" means
"south." And in most languages, I think, including English, the words
for "left" and "right" also carry connotations of "bad" and "good"
respectively.) So "Yemen" means the "southern land," as well as the
"fortunate land."
In Hebrew, Y-M-N is the standard word for "right hand," and is found in
the name Binyamin, or Benjamin. Also, in its meaning of "south," in
Teman, the Hebrew word for "Yemen."
In Arabic, "maimun" also means "ape." This is a euphemism, since apes
are considered evil in Arab tradition (hence the many references among
modern Arab anti-Semites to Jews as the "sons of pigs and
apes"). Although there are other theories, Arabic "maimun" is probably
the source of Spanish "mona," meaning "ape," which is the source, via
German, of English "monkey."
Mike Gerver
Raanana, Israel
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From: Yakir <yakirhd@...>
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 12:55:18 +0200
Subject: Stringencies/chumrot
> I think it is clear to everybody that there are certain situations
> where people are perceived as simply observing something different
> rather than being arrogant or showing off. It seems therefore that we
> should develop criteria to evaluate how to perceive the stringency.
It is not all that clear to me. Like all aspects of human behaviour I
don't think things are that simple, nor do I think that we should be
involved in setting objective criteria for determining the subjective
motivations and feelings of others, not at this level.
I remember a question regarding the fashion amongst certain groups in
Israel of "shos lihyot dos" (roughly: its cool to be super frum),
e.g. peyot, huge kippot etc. The questioner asked for a response in
view of the fact that many, in his opinion, were doing so for social
etc. reasons.
The answer (I believe it was from HaRav Zalman Melamed) was that there
are many ways that youth especially can choose to be "in" or "cool" or
to make an impression (not his words), and if someone chooses to do so
by stronger religious identification, even externally, then we should
try to view the positive aspects of this behaviour and also apply the
principal of "mitoch sh'lo lishma ...." (deeds intially performed not
with the right motivations will eventually lead to their performance
with htose motivations - free translation)..
Shana Tova
-- Yakir.
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From: Nathan Lamm <nelamm18@...>
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 05:38:05 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Tal/Geshem
I've never heard of bentching Tal or Geshem *before* Chazara Hashatz or
the silent Musaf. Can you elaborate how this is done?
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From: Joel Wiesen <Wiesen@...>
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 06:20:01 -0400
Subject: Time for reflection during HHD services?
With the HHD services so full of words, when does one find the time to
think/reflect on one's past/future actions, teshuva, and the like?
Yehuda
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From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 11:01:19 +0100
Subject: Re: Yiddish
on 10/9/04 9:52 am, Perets Mett <p.mett@...> wrote:
> Well spoken Yiddish (as opposed to Germanized Yiddish spoken by
> Yiddish speakers with an inferiority complex) is by and large not
> readily intelligible to most German speakers I suspect that most
> (all?) those who claim Yiddish is just a corrupted form of German
> don't speak Yiddish.
Yiddish is certainly not just a corrupted form of German but could quite
legitimately be called a German dialect. Any person, however fluent in
modern High German, would have as much difficulty understanding any
other dialect such as Alsatian, Swabian, Bavarian or Swiss German as
with Yiddish yet these, like it, are all derived from Middle High
German. As regards the Low German dialects spoken in North Germany the
difficulty would be even greater since they are essentially dialects of
a more or less distinct language akin to Dutch and Flemish. While I do
not know much about the Volksdeutche, the non-Jewish German colonists in
Transylvania, the Ukraine etc., I would imagine their dialects would
have much in common with Yiddish in their divergence from the modern
German idiom.
Martin Stern
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From: Nathan Lamm <nelamm18@...>
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 05:34:28 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Yiddish
Saying that Yiddish speakers and "German" speakers don't understand each
other is avoiding an important fact: Many *German* speakers can't
understand each other each. A speaker of High German, for example, will
have difficulty understanding a speaker of Low German, and while Dutch
and Swiss German are essentially the same language, people from those
areas would not understand a word of each other's language. Even
speakers of Dutch and Flemish have difficulty. "German" includes a wide
range of dialects, from Europe to South Africa to Pennsylvania- and
Yiddish, in various forms.
To take another example, place a New Yorker in deepest darkest London
and see if he can understand a Cockney who, after all, speaks the same
language as him.
Nachum Lamm
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From: Andy Goldfinger <Andy.Goldfinger@...>
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 07:39:45 -0400
Subject: Yiddish and German
Perets Mett writes:
> I suspect that most (all?) those who claim Yiddish is just a corrupted
> form of German don't speak Yiddish." and points out that Yiddish and
> German are quite different.
If I remember correctly, in the book:
"Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy: The Life and Works of
Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, 1884-1966" there is an account of an early
organizational meetting of Mizrachi (I hope my memory is correct) in
Western Europe that was attended by Rabbonim from Eastern Europe. The
Speeches were given in German and the Yiddish speaking Eastern Europe
Rabbonim could not understand them.
-- Andy Goldfinger
P.S.
One of my children took a college course in Yiddish. The form of
Yiddish they taught was described by a friend of mine as "Academic
Yiddish," a dialect that was never spoken by anybody, anywhere, at any
time. Is this correct?
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From: Nathan Lamm <nelamm18@...>
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 05:36:13 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Yochanan B. Zakkai
I believe another lesson of the story lies in whether the concept of
"Da'as Torah" as it's used today has validity. After all, Rabban
Yochanan Ben Zakkai himself wasn't sure of his actions. Of course, a
standard response might be that "Hashem covers the eyes of tzadikim,"
but then, "Im ken, ayn ladavar sof."
Nachum Lamm
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End of Volume 44 Issue 76
