Volume 52 Number 77
Produced: Wed Sep 20 22:06:05 EDT 2006
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Announcing - "Days of Inspiration - Days of Celebration"
[Yehudah Prero]
Birkat HaMazon - not guest and not home
[Hillel (Sabba) Markowitz]
Gregorian chants= Levite music
[Joseph Ginzberg]
Monsey Meat Debacle (3)
[Richard Schultz, Ari Trachtenberg, Harlan Braude]
Several Short Takes
[Freda B Birnbaum]
Three weeks
[Ira L. Jacobson]
"Why is no one today named "Abaya"?
[SBA]
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From: <dapr@...> (Yehudah Prero)
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:41:31 -0400
Subject: Announcing - "Days of Inspiration - Days of Celebration"
With much thanks to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, I am pleased to announce that my
book "Days of Celebration - Days on Inspiration," on the Jewish holidays
and observances, has just been published by Targum/Feldheim.
To quote from the cover: "How can we transform the Jewish festivals into
uplifting and life-changing opportunities? In his new book, Rabbi
Yehudah Prero, popular columnist for Torah.org, explores the meaning and
the messages of the festivals, including Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, the
Ten Days of Repentance, and Sukkot, and offers insight into their laws
and customs. Transform the festivals into days of joy, meaning,
inspiration and celebration. "
It is available through www.targum.com and at local Hebrew bookstores.
With blessings for a k'siva v'chasima tova to you and yours.
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From: Hillel (Sabba) Markowitz <Sabba.Hillel@...>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 10:46:42 -0400
Subject: Re: Birkat HaMazon - not guest and not home
> From: Akiva Miller <kennethgmiller@...>
> Hillel (Sabba) Markowitz wrote:
>> I have been told that "kol bnai bris b'makom hazeh" is a valid
>> formulation.
>
> Why would one go to the effort of excluding the non-Jews? Why not just
> bless everyone?
>
> (I do realize that we have plenty of prayers where we ask for good
> things for our fellow Jews, but those are in Jewish contexts. The
> context here is to bless the other people who are present, and so it
> seems odd to me that one would be selective to bless only some of those
> present and not others.)
I was told that the reason is that the bracha is to include those who
are present in the eating place who could have been part of a m'zuman
(which only includes bnai bris). See the other harachamans for context.
Hillel (Sabba) Markowitz | Said the fox to the fish, "Join me ashore."
<Sabba.Hillel@...> | The fish are the Jews, Torah is our water.
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From: Joseph Ginzberg <jgbiz120@...>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:51:40 -0400
Subject: Gregorian chants= Levite music
>I was listening to an Aish shiur where the speaker quoted someone as
>saying that classical music was based on Gregorian chants which were
>likely influenced by the Levite's songs and thus "closer" to Jewish
>music. Any thoughts?
There was a recording done in the 70's or 80's called "Chants de
L'exil", as I recall by a French priest who claimed to have researched
extensively the music of the Bet Mikdash, and who claimed to have
reproduced it with the replicated instruments and chorus on this record.
Mostly choral with some slight very basic instrumental backup, the music
sounded to my untraned ear very much like the Gregorian chants, except
that they did the words in Hebrew and Latin (I have no idea why the
Latin!). The Hallel was very moving, if a little jarring whenever the
language changes took place.
IIRC, the Boston Camerata was behind this project.
Yossi Ginzberg
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From: Richard Schultz <schultr@...>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:58:04 +0300
Subject: Re: Monsey Meat Debacle
In mail-jewish 52:76, S. Wise <smwise3@...> writes:
: I can offer reasons of my own, but were all the people who ate non-kosher
: because of this person worthy to this?
I'm not sure what "worthy" means in this context. Since, as I
understand the halakhah, the butcher (assuming that he was shomer
shabbat) was "b'chezkat kashrut," they did not do anything morally wrong
by eating the meat that he sold them, as far as I can tell.
: While I understand that each person is judged according to his own level,
: what lesson does this mean to the individual about violating a mitzvah,
: causing others to sin, the reliance on those we put our trust in?
I am hardly an expert in such matters, and I am well aware that none of
us can explain why the world works the way it does. But in this case,
there is an obvious, if not particularly pleasant, moral: if you go
through life believing that you are better than your fellow person, your
life is treif no matter how ultra-kosher you think your food is. There
was a report that one rabbi had said that the incident was a punishment
for people's having said bad things about other "Ultra-Orthodox sects."
If the rabbi actually said that, or something that translates in to
English as that, then I would include him in my statement as well.
(It's not okay to say bad things about charedim, but it is okay to say
bad things about everyone else???)
Richard Schultz
<schultr@...>
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From: Ari Trachtenberg <trachten@...>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:39:23 -0400
Subject: Re: Monsey Meat Debacle
> From: <smwise3@...> (S.Wise)
> I can't help feeling a great amount of dismay and despair, especially
> at this time of year, to read the details of how one seemingly
> religious man could mislead the public in such a hideous way...
> what lesson does this mean to the individual about violating a
> mitzvah, causing others to sin, the reliance on those we put our trust
> in? Help please.
I think that there is a clear and important lesson in this, taken from
our regular davening: we can never put too much trust in any one person
(including ourselves), only in G-d. As such, we can never completely
eliminate the risk of violating Torah mitzvot (such as eating kosher),
no matter how reliable/respectable the certifying authority. This
realization forces upon us a certain humility in dealing with other
peoples' sins ... shana tova,
-Ari
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From: Harlan Braude <hbraude@...>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:50:47 -0400
Subject: RE: Monsey Meat Debacle
> we haveno idea why Hashem would allow this to continue. I can offer
If there's no evil, there's no "good".
This isn't simply a matter of semantics. The premise of freedom of
choice (good vs bad) is that one of the choices is 'bad'.
There are also side-effects of 'bad'. If one injures someone, then the
other person suffers an injury. That's not philosophy; that's
empirical..
There may very well be no limitation to the side-effects of 'bad', as
the last two generations are all too aware.
> reasons of my own, but were all the people who ate non-kosher because of
> this person worthy to this?
Chaza"l teach us that bad things can occur even to someone "undeserving"
of punishment. Along those lines, I heard an explanation for the Torah's
military exemption of those recently married, having planted a vinyard
or having built a house. The Torah gives these people the chance to
enjoy these things "lest they die in battle" and miss out.
The question is that if one assumes that people die only when it's their
time to die, then what difference does it make whether a person is in
battle or, say, relaxing in his new home, etc.? According to this line
of reasoning, if it isn't the person's time to die, then he'll live to
enjoy these things and vice-versa. So, what, then, is the point of the
military exemption?
The answer is that in a dangerous situation all bets are off; even one
whose time "hasn't come" is in mortal danger.
> was the perpetrator such a tzaddik that he
> was permitted to carry on like this, if true, for as long as he did? It
The irony in the wording of this question is marvelous. Clearly, a
tzaddik wouldn't behave this way. The point is that each person -
tzaddik, rasha or beinoni - has a choice of action. The tzaddik is so
called because of the choices that person has made.
One's current categorization doesn't prevent one from chamging to a
different category through one's future deeds. That's what Elul and
Tishrei are about, after all.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Freda B Birnbaum <fbb6@...>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 08:26:26 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Several Short Takes
Each response not really enough for a whole post, so:
(all from V52N76)
> From: Deborah Stepelman <stepelma@...>
> Subject: Alarm Clock on shabbat
> Saul Mashbaum recalls the wind-up clocks whose alarms stopped after a
> short finite time.
I also remember those clocks, indeed I once worked in a shop that fixed
them!
> So, either for free if you have a cell phone, or for less than $10, you
> can avoid the problem of looking for a heter on this topic.
Which ones stop ringing by themselves? How can you tell from the array
in the drugstore window?
********************
> From: Akiva Miller <kennethgmiller@...>
> Subject: Re: Birkat HaMazon - not guest and not home
>
>> I have been told that "kol bnai bris b'makom hazeh" is a valid
>> formulation.
>
> Why would one go to the effort of excluding the non-Jews? Why not just
> bless everyone?
>
> (I do realize that we have plenty of prayers where we ask for good
> things for our fellow Jews, but those are in Jewish contexts. The
> context here is to bless the other people who are present, and so it
> seems odd to me that one would be selective to bless only some of those
> present and not others.)
I know that "me too" posts are bad form, and I almost wrote Akiva a
private note instead, but...:
I've long thought exactly the same thing and I'm glad to see the
question being asked.
********************
> From: <smwise3@...> (S.Wise)
> Subject: Monsey Meat Debacle
>
> I can't help feeling a great amount of dismay and despair, especially at
> this time of year, to read the details of how one seemingly religious
> man could mislead the public in such a hideous way, and profit from his
> scheming for years and still receive the blessings of heaven. Of course,
> we haveno idea why Hashem would allow this to continue. I can offer
> reasons of my own, but were all the people who ate non-kosher because of
> this person worthy to this? was the perpetrator such a tzaddik that he
> was permitted to carry on like this, if true, for as long as he did? It
> makes one wonder he nature of sin and punishment. While I understand
> that each person is judged according to his own level, what lesson does
> this mean to the individual about violating a mitzvah, causing others to
> sin, the reliance on those we put our trust in? Help please.
This is a subset of the problem of evil, unfortunately. I saw a
particularly poignant bit about this somewhere, where a Holocaust
survivor who almost starved in the camps because he wouldn't touch
non-kosher meat (not that much would have been available!), crying, why
me, why does it come to pass that I am eating this butcher's meat?
********************
> From: Mark Symons <msymons@...>
> Subject: Tunes, Tunes and more tunes
>
> I'm pleasantly surprised, not to mention very impressed, that
> non-Australians know of Waltzing Matilda - although it's our unofficial
> national anthem - let alone knowing all the words.
>
> (I like singing Shir Hama'alot to it, but my wife doesn't!)
I remember learning WM in grade school (public school) around 55 years
ago.
It's always amused and intrigued me that Shir Hama'alos can be sung to
almost ANY tune, music from ANY country (try "This Land is Your Land,
This Land is My Land), and yet, davka, it's about returning to OUR
country.
And I like singing it too!
Freda Birnbaum, <fbb6@...>
"Call on God, but row away from the rocks"
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From: Ira L. Jacobson <laser@...>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 17:19:25 +0300
Subject: Re: Three weeks
> The general Minhag Sefarad is:
> 3 weeks: no Shehehiyanu on weekdays, no music execpt at Seudot Misvah
> (e.g. - bar misvah or wedding)
> 10 days: no meat or wine, no weddings
The Sefardim I know refrain from meat and wine only during the week in
which 9 b'Av falls. Which means that in some years they do not refrain
from these things at all.
IRA L. JACOBSON
mailto:<laser@...>
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From: SBA <sba@...>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 20:44:15 +1000
Subject: "Why is no one today named "Abaya"?
From: <bdcohen@...> (David I. Cohen)
> Ben Katz wrote: "Why is no one today named "Abaya"?
> Rabbi Dovid Silber of Drisha has a son named Abaye.
A natural son or an adoptee?
Abaye's real name was "Nachmeinu". (Shabbos 33 and 74) He was an orphan
adopted by Rabba bar Nachmenu who named him after his father. The name
Abaye alludes to this - being roshei teivos 'asher becho yerucham
yosom'. (From Seder Hadoros)
SBA
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End of Volume 52 Issue 77
