Volume 44 Number 90
Produced: Wed Sep 22 5:06:20 EDT 2004
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Can one eat at Jaine restaurants in India (3)
[Janice Gelb, Akiva Miller, Bernard Raab]
Fitting into a community (was "girls")
[Carl Singer]
High Holiday Services
[Joel Wiesen]
Kodesh v'khol (was:Speckled sticks and sheep)
[N Miller]
Language
[Tzvi Stein]
Rabbinic Personalities Information
[Meira Josephy]
Selling Aliyahs and "holding" by someone's Psak
[Carl Singer]
Shmini Atsereth
[Perets Mett]
Spanish etymology of Yiddish names
[Jay F Shachter]
Tal/Geshem
[<chips@...>]
Third Person (2)
[<chips@...>, Shimon Lebowitz]
Warnock's Dilemma
[Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes]
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From: Janice Gelb <j_gelb@...>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 09:23:13 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: Can one eat at Jaine restaurants in India
<DTnLA@...> (Dov Teichman) wrote:
> Another issue to consider about these Jaine Indians is although they
> claim to be very strict vegetarians, do gentiles have believability to
> that effect? Some of the preparers of the food may not be as frum as we
> think. I doubt that they have Ne'emanus to say "we guarantee that there
> are no bugs or animal products in our food."
I am sure that I am not reading this reply correctly, as it seems to be
saying that the Jaine Indians are less likely to be as strict in keeping
their own religion as we are in ours for no apparent reason except that
they are gentiles. Could you please explain further what you really
meant?
-- Janice
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From: Akiva Miller <kennethgmiller@...>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 16:49:07 GMT
Subject: Re: Can one eat at Jaine restaurants in India
Chana Luntz wrote <<< Why would a restaurant differ from anywhere else?
Everybody in their own home would be expected to cook every day - and
certainly in days gone buy people did not own enough pots that you
expected them to give them a lot of rest nor did they own refrigerators
and freezers which allowed them to keep food for days and weeks the way
we can. >>>
I have always figured this to be the case. But if so, I have long
wondered, then on what basis did Chazal declare that ordinary pots have
presumably NOT been used in the past 24 hours? Could it be that they DID
have a surplus of pots?
Akiva Miller
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From: Bernard Raab <beraab@...>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 11:03:19 -0400
Subject: Re: Can one eat at Jaine restaurants in India
>From: Dov Teichman
>
>Another issue to consider about these Jaine Indians is although they
>claim to be very strict vegetarians, do gentiles have believability to
>that effect? Some of the preparers of the food may not be as frum as we
>think. I doubt that they have Ne'emanus to say "we guarantee that there
>are no bugs or animal products in our food."
When it comes to "ne'emanus" the Jaines put our biggest "tzaddikim" to
shame. For example, they walk with masks over their mouth and nose to
avoid breathing in a living creature, as well as to avoid polluting the
air with their exhalation. From that standpoint we may prefer a Jaine
restaurant to an "ordinary" Hindu vegetarian restaurant, which are quite
machmir in themselves to strict vegetarianism. But from another
standpoint, I wonder if the Jaine religious practises (i.e. idol
worship) should give us pause before sampling a Jaine restaurant?
BTW, there are a number of Indian vege restaurants in New York with some
rabbinical supervision. B'tayavon!
g'mar chatima tova--Bernie R.
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From: Carl Singer <casinger@...>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 21:37:10 -0400
Subject: Fitting into a community (was "girls")
> A similar situation but not quite comparable are couples who don't have
> children or the woman isn't obviously pregnant yet and have been married
> longer than 2 years. Its simply not fitting into your community. The
> community norms for a Jewish community is that you get married and have
> children
Let me extend this even to include married couples with children.
Perhaps it's because of our very strong association with children and
with education that once you're out of that loop -- you may have very
little in common with many people in the community. I.e., once your
youngest ages out of school (say eighth grade) -- by which time children
are going to very schools and yeshivas, not the "local" school -- you
find that many community activities no longer involve you.
When we moved to Passaic 8 years ago we found not only an age gap (we
were somewhat older than many of the "young couples") but also a school
/ community gap caused, in part, because our two older boys were at an
out of town yeshiva and our youngest also did not go to either of the
"local" schools.
By most happy coincidence two families whose children were in
kindergarten with ours (when we all lived in Philadelphia) are now my
neighbors in Passaic -- that bond is still very strong. At a second
level, there are families here in town who were my wife's students --
and there's a hint of a relationship there but not that strong.
In summation (?) -- people get absorbed in activities that are very
important to them -- and "community" builds around those shared
activities (in the example above, "school") those not involved with
that locus of activity are left out.
Tiddlywinks, anyone?
Carl Singer
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From: Joel Wiesen <Wiesen@...>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 22:16:42 -0400
Subject: Re: High Holiday 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?
<<Aren't the HHD prayers all about tshuva and serving Hashem?
Yes, but the words come so fast and furious, it is hard to focus on the
concepts.
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From: N Miller <nmiller@...>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 14:11:36 -0400
Subject: Kodesh v'khol (was:Speckled sticks and sheep)
David Charlap writes:
Someone who grew up herding animals may very well know - through
personal experience - that putting certain kinds of wood in the water
trough produces certain effects in the sheep that drink from there.
Fair point. Perfectly possible.
And why would you assume that someone trying to scientifically figure
out the mechanism is trying to replace his faith with it?
I make no such assumption. The whole point of my post was that science
cannot "replace" faith. The plane of the sacred (kedusha) is
nonrational and untouchable by the rational discourse of science--or,
for that matter, traditional drash. Thus the story is true because it
says so in Bereyshis; and the story may be read either skeptically or as
an instance of folk-wisdom (though the skeptic notes in passing that
none of these scientific-technical attempts at explanation actually
involve an empirical test). But neither skeptic nor explicator adds or
subtracts _anything_ from the sacred.
A matter that interests me a lot is a detailed account of how the status
of modern science in Orthodoxy changed from almost universally despised
to almost universally respected. Can someone suggest readings?
Noyekh Miller
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From: Tzvi Stein <Tzvi.Stein@...>
Subject: Language
>My overall impression is that if two speakers cannot readily understand
>each other then they are speaking different languages and not separate
>dialects.
That would be a pure linguistic definition, but by that definition,
Spanish and Portuguese would not be considered separate languages, and
to a lesser extent German and Dutch, or to an even lesser extent,
Spanish and Italian.
The dialects of Spanish and Portuguese converge as one approaches the
border, and the people on either side of the border speak a very similar
dialect and can definitely understand each other. German and Dutch
speakers near the border can understand each other with some difficulty.
Spanish and Italians can generally understand each other with some
difficulty.
So the definition of the army and navy definitely has a lot of truth to
it. Of course there are obvious exceptions, the various
English-speaking countries being a glaring example... their dialects are
not considered separate languages by anyone, although that may be mostly
for historical reasons, since they all once belonged to England.
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From: Meira Josephy <mjosephy@...>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 17:12:59 -0400
Subject: Rabbinic Personalities Information
I am looking for information about Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Eliakim (author
of Dikdukei Torah and a Jerusalem book publisher at the end of the 18th
century), his father Rabbi Yisrael Chaim Yosef Eliakim (originally from
Sofia and author of Shem Yosef) and father in law Rabbi David Madjar.
I am also looking for information regarding who wrote a book called
"Yaffe L'Lev".
Any information would be greatly appreciated.
thanks,
meira
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From: Carl Singer <casinger@...>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 23:20:07 -0400
Subject: Selling Aliyahs and "holding" by someone's Psak
> Oddly, he also rails against the custom of selling the aliyos for the
> high holydays, and calls for them rather to be given to Talmidei
> Chachomim, even where this income is needed for the shul (584/17). I
> cannot explain the inconsistency of his being very accepted as a
> decisor, and this ruling being so thoroughly ignored.
Two things --
(1) The National Council of Young Israel forbids $$ for aliyos during
the year -- don't know their policy re: bidding for High Holidays ----
no doubt someone will correct me if I'm mis-stating or not clearly
stating. I don't know that the custom of selling aliyos is universal --
although there's the annual rumor that someone paid $50,000 for an
Aliyah in Deal NJ (the wealth Sefardi community.)
(2) Even though people "hold" by Rabbi X or Rabbi Y (Rashi, Rambam,
Rabbeinu Tam, the Mattes Efraim, the Gra) it turns out that in many
instances they only hold on certain issues and turn either a deaf ear or
blind eye to these same Poskim on other topics. .... and there's always
some explanation.
One common example is using glass dishes for both Milchig & Fleishig. I
believe very few people hold by this even though it comes from one of
the major decisors.
Carl Singer
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From: Perets Mett <p.mett@...>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 23:59:32 +0100
Subject: Shmini Atsereth
Martin Stern wrote:
> I remember being there many years ago on Succot and finding it rather
> odd. This was compounded by having Shemini Atseret and Simchat Torah
> which really seemed a contradiction in terms of their different moods:
> Hakafot followed by Yizkor and Geshem.
Well, I don't think that Yizkor was said on Shmini Atsereth - either in
Erets Yisroel or in Chuts Lo-orets - during the Middle Ages. It is a
more recent custom.
And (Martin can correct me if I am wrong) Yizkor is not said at all on
Sholosh Regolim according the German custom, is it? {Don't they have
Matnas Yad instead?]
Perets Mett
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From: Jay F Shachter <jay@...>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 22:42:05 -0600 (CDT)
Subject: Spanish etymology of Yiddish names
Jonathan Baker wrote in v44n85:
> we see names introduced as populations shift, e.g. Yenta (Juanita)
> or Shneiur (Seņor) into Europe after the Spanish expulsion.
Until reading the above, I had thought that "Yenta" was derived from
Gentillia (the same name that gave us "Tillie"). Do the experts now say
that it comes from Juanita?
(Another, less common, female Yiddish name with an even clearer Spanish
origin is "Shprintza", from Esperanza.)
Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter
Chicago IL 60645-4111
<jay@...> ; http://m5.chi.il.us:8080
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From: <chips@...>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 20:13:50 -0700
Subject: Re: Tal/Geshem
> Thus it came about that at the end of Tal/Geshem, when the cantor
> recited the words: "Livracha v'lo li-klala", the choir responded
> dramatically "LI-KLALA".
reminds me of the 'tissgach yimini" chorus in a tune for "im tiskacha
Yerushalym" that was popular in the '70s
-rp
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From: <chips@...>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 20:13:50 -0700
Subject: Re: Third Person
> This has me confused, as it it considered proper nowadays to use third
> person when speaking to a rabbi. I wonder when this third person to a
> rabbi talk began
It is? I thought it was only a (very) small subset of yeshivish people
who did that. In school and post-highSchool we never used 3rd person
when talking to the rebbeim.
-rp
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From: Shimon Lebowitz <shimonl@...>
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 07:20:58 +0300
Subject: Re: Third Person
> This has me confused, as it it considered
> proper nowadays to use third person when speaking to a rabbi. I wonder
> when this third person to a rabbi talk began. It doesn't seem Jewish.
I can think of at least one very early use of the honorable 3rd person.
The brothers said to (the ostensibly non-Jewish) Yosef:
"adoni sha'al et `avadav"
Gmar chatima tova,
Shimon Lebowitz mailto:<shimonl@...>
Jerusalem, Israel PGP: http://www.poboxes.com/shimonpgp
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From: Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes <sthoenna@...>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 21:57:51 -0700
Subject: Warnock's Dilemma
> > In other words: Elul is a time for Cheshbon Nefesh. If that post didn't
> > suggest any thought, what are we doing our Cheshbon Nefesh on? So very
> > sad, so very true.
>
> But you're assuming that since people didn't post people didn't think
> about the post which I disagree with.
The question of what to assume when a post draws no response has become
known as Warnock's Dilemma, originally expounded here:
http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.bootstrap/1127
I think this is a clear case of #1.
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End of Volume 44 Issue 90
