Volume 50 Number 55
Produced: Wed Dec 14 5:49:44 EST 2005
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Davening with a minyan
[Carl Singer]
Father and Mother as Called by Children
[Aliza Berger]
Full-time Rabbi / Part Time Pay
[Morissa Rubin]
Kohen and Giyoret
[Gilad J. Gevaryahu]
Licensed tour guide?
[Irwin Weiss]
the Philadelphia ketuba (3)
[Shalom Kohn, Martin Stern, Richard Dine]
Reality, Halachic Reality, and Bugs
[Robert Rubinoff]
Siddurim made for Eretz Yisrael
[Nachum Amsel]
women/men to minyan (3)
[Martin Stern, Gershon Dubin, .cp.]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: <casinger@...> (Carl Singer)
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 05:40:59 -0500
Subject: Davening with a minyan
> The only exception is an 'onus' e.g someone who is not well enough to go
> to shul or will lose money (or his job) by davening in shul. There is no
> basis for missing tefilo betsibur, not to mention kadish and kedusho, so
> that your wife can go to shul.
I haven't been following this thread, but having been happily married
for over 56 years (28 her, & 28 me) and having observed many couples
over those years ....
Shalom Bias, among other things is a basis for missing davening (or part
of davening.)
Many who know me will attest that I'm not the most sensitive guy in the
world -- and this isn't about me.
If one's wife has been cooped up in the house and / or hospital for
several months and one cannot balance what they believe is their
absolute requirement to daven with a minyan with their wife's needs = --
then there are problems.
Worse yet, why is this solely the man's unilateral decision? Certainly
there are women who are comfortable staying at home for years on end
with infant children (especially in communities without ah eruv) but
there are others who are not.
Carl Singer
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Aliza Berger <alizadov@...>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 14:32:53 +0200
Subject: Father and Mother as Called by Children
I'm interested in what children call their parents - Aba, Ima, Mom, Dad,
Tate, Mame, whatever (either what your children call you, or what you
call your parents). I am wondering how common it is outside Israel for
Aba and Ima to be used, and how common it is to call one parent a name
in one language and the other parent in another (e.g., Aba and Mommy -
which is what I did).
Aliza Berger-Cooper, PhD
English Editing: www.editing-proofreading.com
Statistics Consulting: www.statistics-help.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: <morissa.rubin@...> (Morissa Rubin)
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 17:23:03 +0000
Subject: Full-time Rabbi / Part Time Pay
From: <casinger@...> (Carl Singer)
>> one should have the number of another Rabbi (perhaps from a town one
>> lived in previously) to call. I mean, if one's primary physician weren't
>> available in an emergency wouldn't one call one another physician to
>> deal with the situation?....
>
>Does the readership know of similar arrangements in any communiities --
>i.e., several Rabbi's getting together to provide coverage -- either for
>sheilehs or for, say, funerals, etc.
In our community, Kenesset Israel Torah Center, in Sacramento, CA, our
Rabbi has an arrangement with two other Rabbis, one from Oakland and one
from Berkeley (who together form the Bet Din of Northern
California). Together they cover for each other when one is out of town
(shilas, funerals, and other emergencies). The fact that a relationship
exists between these three Orthodox shuls, despite Sacramento being 80
miles away, may surprise others in more densely populated Orthodox
cities. Between NCSY, Bnei Akiva, and other shared organizations the
congregations have built a connection between both the Rabbis and
congregants. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Morissa Rubin, Sacramento
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: <Gevaryahu@...> (Gilad J. Gevaryahu)
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 17:39:15 EST
Subject: Kohen and Giyoret
Mark Steiner (MJv50n50) questioned the following ketuba:
http://jnul.huji.ac.il/dl/ketubbot/12/18/k1218a.jpg
I do not know the exact circumstances of this wedding between a giyoret
and a cohen, but I'll try to put it in perspective of the History of the
Jews of Philadelphia.
The congregation Mikveh Israel was about to finish the construction of
its first synagogue building which was dedicated on September 13, 1782.
The ketubah dates the wedding to 18 of Elul 5542 which was 28 of August
1782 roughly two weeks before the completion of the first synagogue in
the city of Philadelphia. There was no rabbi in Philadelphia at the
time, and rabbinic duties were performed by the hazan, the Rev. Gershom
Mednes Seixas, who was also the shochet and mohel of the congregation.
One can see that the first signature in English belongs to Mordecai
Sheftall (a Jew from Savannah, Georgia who was the original subscriber
to Mikveh Israel. The second signature (I think) belongs to Israel
Jacobs who was also the original subscriber to Mikveh Israel. Haym
Salomon, the third English signature, was the largest contributor to the
shul and was its head. Salomon Hebrew knowledge was limited to saying
his prayers.
I leave to a trained historian to figure out more details. It is known
that there were a couple of more learned members of the congregation. It
is my speculation that wedding was performed by the above hazan. (We
know he performed weddings see P.52)
Source: The History of the Jews of Philadelphia from Colonial Times the
Age of Jackson, Edwin Wolf 2nd & Maxwell Whiteman, Philadelphia, 1957.
Gilad J. Gevaryahu
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Irwin Weiss <irwin@...>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 07:06:16 -0500
Subject: Licensed tour guide?
Shmuel Himelstein, in vol 50 #52, writes about a tour guide giving wrong
information on a tour. I suspect that this is not so uncommon on all
tours of whatever nature. We were on a tour once in Canada and the
guide commented that the water level in some lake was very high because
it was "New Moon". Well, I don't know the science of why a new moon
would make the water level high or low, or not effect it, but I did know
that Rosh Chodesh was 10 days earlier.
Irwin Weiss
Baltimore, MD
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Shalom Kohn <skohn@...>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 08:15:08 -0600
Subject: the Philadelphia ketuba
Mark Steiner has cited, and Leah Gordon have commented on, a ketuba for
a "R. Yaakov Bar Yehoshua Hakohen" marrying "The widow, giyoret Esther
bat Avraham" in Philadelphia in 1782, and speculated as to the reasons
for this marriage and the ketuba's recognition of an obviously
impermissible union.
My speculation is that the man in question insisted on marrying the
woman in any case, and the purpose of the ketuba was to establish that
the children would be challalim, and not kohanim (male) or permitted to
marry kohanim (female). I assume that when the children would come to
marry and needed to produce proof of their Jewishmess -- this being the
New World -- they would need to produce their mother's ketuba, where the
flaws in their ancestry would become apparent.
It remains an interesting issue why the rav in question (or the educated
layman who presided over the ketuba) felt it appropriate to sanction the
marriage rather than have the couple marry in a civil or other ceremony.
Perhaps the couple was already married, and the woman then converted,
and the Jewish marriage was important to achieving or preserving that
conversion and the husband's continued Jewishness.
SLK
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 14:55:40 +0000
Subject: Re: the Philadelphia ketuba
on 13/12/05 9:46 am, Leah S. Gordon <leah@...> wrote:
> Mark Steiner points out a very interesting ketuba for a "R. Yaakov Bar
> Yehoshua Hakohen" marrying "The widow, giyoret Esther bat Avraham" in
> Philadelphia in 1782. This does seem a bit odd, but I was thinking that
> in that time and place, there may well have been a shortage of Jewish
> women....
A more plausible explanation is that there was a shortage of rabbanim
(in fact, if I am not much mistaken, a complete lack of them) at the
time in the American colonies and so things were allowed to happen,
which were not halachically correct, through ignorance.
Martin Stern
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Richard Dine <richard.dine@...>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 06:40:55 -0500
Subject: the Philadelphia ketuba
From: Leah S. Gordon <leah@...>
> Mark Steiner points out a very interesting ketuba for a "R. Yaakov Bar
> Yehoshua Hakohen" marrying "The widow, giyoret Esther bat Avraham" in
> Philadelphia in 1782. This does seem a bit odd, but I was thinking that
> in that time and place, there may well have been a shortage of Jewish
> women
My wife is a student of the period and notes that the post Revolutionary
War period was a time of significant economic dislocation and not much
rabbinic authority or for that matter, rabbis in America so some rules
were rather laxly enforced if at all, and because the communities were
so small there was often a mismatch in terms of available marriageable
partners. The book "Mordecai, An Early American Family" by Emily
Bingham (Hill and Wang, 2003) discussed the controversy on pages 15-16.
Excerpts: "Cohen rescued Esther Mordecai from penury, promising aid to
her children as well. But their wedding took place over the objections
of Philadelphia's Jewish leaders" since Esther was a convert. "[Mikveh
Israel's] adjunta (council of elders) deliberated for six weeks before
ordering its hazan not to perform the ceremony....A handful of friends
defied the council's order and came to the couple's side. Haym Salomon,
a respected broker and commission merchant, signed Cohen's ketubah. The
elders dared not retaliate against Salomon, who had pledged to finance
one-third of Mikveh Israel's building costs."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Robert Rubinoff <rubinoff@...>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 14:48:51 -0500
Subject: Re: Reality, Halachic Reality, and Bugs
> From: Ari Trachtenberg <trachten@...>
> From: Andy Goldfinger <Andy.Goldfinger@...>
> > Halachic reality is different from scientific reality.
>
> I saw a beautiful example of this at the MIT kosher kitchen when I was a
> student. A student complained to the Mashgicha [kashrut supervisor]
> that his meat was bloody, implying it not to be kosher because blood is
> not kosher. She replied that, since the meat was properly soaked and
> salted, what the student was seeing was not halachically blood.
That's a nice story, but it's not correct.
The blood that is removed by salting and soaking is only prohibited
Rabinnically. (It's the blood that comes out when the animal is
slaughtered that is prohibited by the Torah.) And when the Rabbis
prohibited it, they excluded any blood that might remain after the
soaking/salting process was done. So (assuming there wasn't a problem
with how the meat was processed) the meat in question may in fact have
had blood in it, and it was halachically considered blood, just not
*prohibited* blood.
Robert
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Nachum Amsel <namsel@...>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 14:46:26 +0300
Subject: Siddurim made for Eretz Yisrael
I have picked up this discussion only of late, and thus I do not know if
this has been mentioned. However, one sure-fire way of testing whether a
Siddur is made for Eretz Yisrael is to look at the Shabbat Shmoneh
Esreh. If it has in it Al HaNisim for Purim, then it is made for
Israel. Since Al HaNisim can only be said in Jerusalem on Shabbat (and
only every few years -- when Pesach falls out on Saturday night), almost
no Siddur prints this Al HaNisim.
Rabbi Dr. Nachum Amsel
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 14:21:11 +0000
Subject: Re: women/men to minyan
on 13/12/05 9:53 am, Leah S. Gordon <leah@...> wrote:
> Also, it is unfair to characterize a decision made by a couple as some
> kind of pressure from a haranguing wife ("wife who makes her husband
> stay home so she can go to minyan"). This kind of description borders
> on the misogynist IMHO.
This description of those who uphold the Torah's stance on the differing
obligations of men and women as bordering on being misogynist is like
labelling those who uphold its stance on sodomy as homophobic. Surely we
should be able to discuss these matters without resorting to politically
correct stereotyping.
Martin Stern
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Gershon Dubin <gershon.dubin@...>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 19:01:10 GMT
Subject: women/men to minyan
From: Leah S. Gordon <leah@...>
> It may work just fine for Martin Stern and his wife to arrange things
> so that he always goes to minyan and she never does, but this is no
> reason to disparage other frum families in comments denigrating their
> priorities as misinformed or even sinful. As Aliza said, when there
> will be a minyan's worth of people in any case, there is room to discuss
> how a person of either sex should balance shul and other obligations.
I am sure Martin Stern would agree that a couple could, if they wish,
agree to have one of them attend an earlier minyan and the other, a
later minyan.
The issue Mr. Stern addressed was the binary choice: husband goes and
wife doesn't or wife goes and husband doesn't. Feminist sensibilities
aside, the former is acceptable and favored by Halacha; the latter is,
simply, not.
Gershon
<gershon.dubin@...>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: .cp. <chips@...>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 22:17:34 -0800
Subject: Re: women/men to minyan
From: Leah S. Gordon <leah@...>
> I wanted to post my support for Aliza Berger's statements about
> different couples working out plans for each of them to fulfill
> religious/spiritual obligations of tefila.
>
> It may work just fine for Martin Stern and his wife to arrange things so
> that he always goes to minyan and she never does, but this is no reason
> to disparage other frum families in comments denigrating their
> priorities as misinformed or even sinful.
Ok Leah and Aliza, show us one Posek who ruled that it would be fine for
a wife to go to minyan instead of the husband when both are healthy
enough to do so.
As has been pointed out many,many,many times in this group - it is the
men that have the halachic obligation to go and daven with a minyan and
not the women. This group is based on being a discussion list based on
Halachic percepts.
-cp
----------------------------------------------------------------------
End of Volume 50 Issue 55
