Volume 59 Number 21
Produced: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:38:07 EDT
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Clapping and Dancing on Shabbat
[Ira L. Jacobson]
Crumbs of comfort for Rosh Hashonoh
[Batya Medad]
Easiest Mitzvah
[Andy Goldfinger]
Going to Church
[Orrin Tilevitz]
Instant Teshuvah
[Shmuel Himelstein]
Lashon hora
[Norman Miller]
Rambam's change of mind
[Avraham Walfish]
Smarties (the American kind)
[Lisa Liel]
Statement of Principles on Homosexuality
[Orrin Tilevitz]
Tashlich
[Menashe Elyashiv]
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From: Ira L. Jacobson <compisrael@...>
Date: Mon, Sep 6,2010 at 06:01 AM
Subject: Clapping and Dancing on Shabbat
Yechiel Conway stated the following (MJ 59#19):
> Nowadays, according to the Minchat Elazar, clapping and dancing is
> part and parcel of the mitzvah rejoicing of Shabbat enjoyment (the
> term used is "simcha shel mitzvah shel oneg Shabbat") and is
> therefore permitted as an accompaniment to vocal singing. The
> Minchat Elazar would not have allowed clapping by way of applause
> because this has nothing to do with the "simcha shel mitzvah shel
> oneg Shabbat". The Minchat Elazar's ruling is widely followed by
> chassidim, including Chabad chassidim.
The Lubavitcher Hasidim whom I know do not clap hands on Shabbat in
the normal way (as accompaniment to vocal singing).
~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=
IRA L. JACOBSON
=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~
mailto:<laser@...>
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From: Batya Medad <ybmedad@...>
Date: Tue, Sep 7,2010 at 01:01 PM
Subject: Crumbs of comfort for Rosh Hashonoh
The throwing of actual food/crumbs/loaves etc into water isn't done in
Israel. I have vague memories of my first Tashlich in Great Neck, NY,
going with some family to some water and everyone throwing things. But
in Israel I've never seen such a thing. Water here is so precious and
rare it would cause pollution. Finding a place for tashlich in
Jerusalem and other mountain areas, like Shiloh isn't easy.
There would be a major "international incident" if we threw anything
towards the "well" we face saying Tashlich. It's in a nearby Arab
village.
Batya Medad
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From: Andy Goldfinger <Andy.Goldfinger@...>
Date: Tue, Sep 7,2010 at 11:01 AM
Subject: Easiest Mitzvah
Just a thought ...
What is the easiest mitzvas aseh (positive commandment)? Now - this may be
arguable, but I think shmiyas kol shofar (listening to the shofar blasts) is the
easiest. Blowing the shofar is, of course, difficult - but that is not the
mitzvah. To accomplish the mitzvah you merely have to listen. This is even
easier that eating or sleeping in a sukkah!
Now - when does HaShem (G-d) give us this easiest mitzvah? On Rosh HaShanah -
when we are being judged. We are sitting in court, anxiously awaiting the
decision and wishing that we had just one more zchus (merit) to help us receive
a favorable verdict. At this time - HaShem give us a chance to achieve this
merit by doing the easiest of all Mitzvos.
May we all merit favorable verdicts this year.
... Andy Goldfinger
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From: Orrin Tilevitz <tilevitzo@...>
Date: Tue, Sep 7,2010 at 01:01 PM
Subject: Going to Church
Others on the list can speak more knowledgeably about this, but there is a
Tosafot in, I think, Sanhedrin, raising the idea of shituf, the idea that
Christianity is not considered idol worship because Hashem is being worshiped
together with someone else. There is another Tosafot at the beginning of Avoda
Zara explaining why today we can trade with Christians on their religious
holiday even though the gemara bars one from trading with idol worshippers on
such days. One of the excuses, I think there, is that idol worshipers today are
not nearly as frum [adukim] as they once were. Statements by ashkenazic rishonim
and poskim that Christianity isn't avoda zara could be viewed as mere apologetics.
However, there is more too it. Idolatry, forbidden sexual relationships, and
murder are the three Noahide commandments, binding on non-Jews, in the category
of yehareig ve-al yaavor [be killed rather than transgress]. One would think
that they should be treated equivalently, and that if Christianity is idol
worship Jews should be looking at it the same way they look at the other too
That hasn't happened. Agudath Israel filed an amicus brief in the case of
Lawrence v. Texas opposing the Supreme Court's overturning state bans on
consensual sodomy; and both Agudath Israel and more MO groups (I think including
Young Israel) have consistently supported government bans on abortion, because
(I was told) abortion is considered murder for non-Jews (though not for Jews).
Agudath Israel did not file an amicus brief in the 1989 creche/menora case,
County of Allegheny v ACLU. (Chabad did, of course), and AFIK Agudath Israel
does not attempt to use zoning to ban the building of churches or, for that
matter, any non-Jewish houses of worship.
And when I once asked Rabbi Jacob Kret, z'l, about attending a funeral service
in a church for a colleague, he responded that if there are business reasons to
go, it's ok.
So as they say, nicht azoi poshut [not so simple - MOD].
--- On Tue, 9/7/10, Mail-Jewish <mj@...> wrote:
From: Mail-Jewish <mj@...>
Subject: SUBJECT-Going to Church-MID-7409-
To: "Orrin Tilevitz" <tilevitzo@...>
Date: Tuesday, September 7, 2010, 12:10 PM
Dear Orrin Tilevitz <tilevitzo@...>,
Your submission (appended below) has been reviewed and edited by the moderators.
Please review their edits within one week. If you agree with the edits, just
reply to this message (without making *any* changes). If not, just do nothing
and your submission will be deleted automatically. You may resubmit, if you wish.
Many thanks!
---
Edited submission follows:
From: Orrin Tilevitz <tilevitzo@...>
Subject: Going to Church
Others on the list can speak more knowledgeably about this, but there is a
Tosafot in, I think, Sanhedrin, raising the idea of shituf, the idea that
Christianity is not considered idol worship because Hashem is being worshiped
together with someone else. There is another Tosafot at the beginning of avoda
zara explaining why today we can trade with Christians on their religious
holiday even though the gemara bars one from trading with idol worshippers on
such ideas. One of the excuses, I think there, is that idol worshipers today are
not nearly as frum [adukim] as they once were. Statements by ashkenazic rishonim
and poskim that Christianity isn't avoda zara could be viewed as mere apologetics.
However, there is more too it. Idolatry, forbidden sexual relationships, and
murder are the three Noahide commandments, binding on non-Jews, in the category
of yehareif ve-al yaavor. Agudath Israel filed an amicus brief in the case of
Lawrence v. Texas opposing the Supreme Court's overturning state bans on
consensual sodomy; and both Agudath Israel and more MO groups (I think including
Young Israel) have consistently supported government bans on abortion, because
(I was told) abortion is considered murder for non-Jews (though not for Jews).
Agudath Israel did not file an amicus brief in the 1989 creche/menora case,
County of Allegheny v ACLU. (Chabad did, of course), and AFIK Agudath Israel
does not attempt to use zoning to ban the building of churches or, for that
matter, any non-Jewish houses of worhsip.
And when I once asked Rabbi Jacob Kret, z'l, about attending a funeral service
in a church for a colleague, he responded that if there are business reasons to
go, it's ok.
So as they say, nicht azoi poshut [not so simple - MOD].
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Shmuel Himelstein <himels@...>
Date: Tue, Sep 7,2010 at 05:01 AM
Subject: Instant Teshuvah
Evidently, in line with the "instant" hangup of our generation, our Shul
received a leaflet which came with the variety of Torah leaflets which we
receive each week, by an organization named "Mossadot Or Rashbi" (i.e., the
Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai Institutes), which contains a two page prayer
passage from the Zohar, and which claims that "Whoever is zocheh (merits) to
say this prayer with the proper intention and with fear of the judgment will
be vouchsafed a good and blessed year, Amen."
Shmuel Himelstein
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From: Norman Miller <nm1921@...>
Date: Tue, Sep 7,2010 at 11:01 PM
Subject: Lashon hora
I wonder if readers might reflect on the wisdom or morality of maligning
individuals who are dead or non-Orthodox.
Noyekh Miller
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From: Avraham Walfish <rawalfish@...>
Date: Mon, Sep 6,2010 at 10:01 AM
Subject: Rambam's change of mind
I wrote (MJ 59#17)
> One doesn't need Rav Ovadiah to know that "there are many cases where
> the Rambam says something in his commentary on the Mishna and then
> changes his mind in the Mishna Torah". The Rambam's autograph copy of the
> Mishnah commentary is extant (serving as the basis for most of the Rav
> Kappah edition of the work), and in many cases (documented by Rav Kappah),
> you can see where the Rambam crossed out earlier versions and corrected the
> manuscript to correspond to what he wrote in the Mishneh Torah. That doesn't
> mean that in all cases we can automatically exclude a harmonistic reading,
> but a "school that prefers harmony to contradiction" would seem to contradict
> our current state of knowledge.
Chana Luntz replied (MJ 59#20)
> But nobody appears to be suggesting (as far as I am aware) that this was
> the case for this particular matter (ie the source of women's obligation to
> pray) ....
>
> If the Rambam *didn't* correct this bit, there are two options:
> (a) he slipped up and missed this one; or
> (b) *he* didn't think this particular case contradicted, ie he thought they
> were in harmony ...
>
> I would have thought that the more natural approach, especially given the
> level of brilliance and gadlus we are dealing with here, would be to
> minimise those cases where we have to say (a), and go with (b) where indeed
> there is a plausible way of harmonising the two.
>
> In our case there is indeed a plausible solution, based on the Shagas
> Arieh. In fact it is a far more plausible solution, because if the Rambam
> really wanted to say that women are exempt from three times a day prayer,
> and only obligated on a Torah once a day basis, you would have expected him
> to say so in the Mishna Torah. The omission of such an important and key
> halacha delineating the limitations of women's obligation in prayer from
> his magnum opus of halachic codification, if one were really to believe that
> that is what he held, is pretty extraordinary. And remember, he states that
> women are obligated in tephila twice, once in perek 1 halacha 2 and once in
> perek 6 halacha 10 (each of hilchos tephila). And in neither of these places
> does he say "oh and by the way, that means only the Torah obligation, not the
> rabbinic enactment that I discuss elsewhere which means they only need to
> daven once a day not three times"...
>
Pleasure discussing/debating this with you, Chana, and your comments sent me
back to have another look at the sources - which to my mind confirm and
strengthen the usual reading of the Rambam in Mishneh Torah. First, I believe
that careful reading of Rambam Hilkhot Tefillah 1:1 is clear and
straightforward, even without adding "oh, by the way...". At this point,
the Rambam has mentioned ONLY the Torah commandment to pray once daily, and
has specified (1:1) that the number of prayers is NOT from the Torah. He does
not discuss the rabbinic requirement of three prayers a day until 1:5. Hence,
without any ambiguity, when 1:1 states "hence women... are obligated in prayer,
because it is a non-time-bound positive commandment", it means the Torah
requirement of once daily. In 1:5, in the context of the rabbinic
thrice-daily requirement, the Rambam does not reiterate the obligation of
women.
Can it be presupposed, as Chana suggested, that whoever was included
explicitly in the Torah command in 1:1 is implicitly included in 1:5 as
well? Maybe, but I think the burden of proof is on you. Moreover, if you
want to argue that 1:5 implicitly includes women, how about 1:6, which
concludes with "... even so all of Israel in all places of habitation have
the custom of praying *arvit*." Do you think that the women in places of
habitation the Rambam was familiar with had such a custom? I think the
simpler and more convincing reading is that women are included in 1:1 and
not in 1:5. (And 6:10 just refers back to the obligation about which we know
already, namely 1:1).
As far as the Mishnah Commentary is concerned - remember the context in
which the Rambam calls prayer a time-bound commandment. The Rambam claims in
his comment to M Kiddushin 1:7 that "time-bound" is just a sign and not a
determinitive reason for whether women are obligated or not. The language of
the Rambam in Mishneh Torah, Tefillah 1:1 definitely sounds like he either
changed his mind on that topic (and went back to the opinion of the Rif), or
that he was being a bit loose regarding the reason for this halakhah (much
as sometimes Rambam quotes his own pesukim to justify halakhot and ignores
the pesukim cited by the gemara). In any event, given the Rambam's general
approach in his Mishnah Commentary to the unimportance of a commandment's
being time-bound, I wouldn't read too much into his classification of prayer
as time-bound, and I certainly wouldn't rely on this one word to create an
obligation on women to pray three times daily.
Avie Walfish
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Lisa Liel <lisa@...>
Date: Tue, Sep 7,2010 at 03:01 PM
Subject: Smarties (the American kind)
Do any of you know if Smarties are kosher? I know there's a candy
called Smarties that isn't, but I'm referring to the ones at
http://www.smarties.com/ . I can't find any sourced indication online.
Thanks,
Lisa
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Orrin Tilevitz <tilevitzo@...>
Date: Tue, Sep 7,2010 at 06:01 PM
Subject: Statement of Principles on Homosexuality
This post responds to one by Avie Walfish in MJ 58:78. My original response
seems to have been stuck in the queue, apparently behind a disabled bulldozer.
(1) In 58:77, I pointed out that, read literally, the Statement of Principles
(SOP) implies, by omission, that even open practitioners of homosexuality
should receive synagogue honors; it was only admitting them to membership that
was up to the individual synagogue. Avie replied:
> When I signed the statement of principles, it was clear to me - and I think
> to all signatories and most readers - that if a person's open practice of a
> serious transgression is regarded by community as grounds to deprive them of
> membership in a shul, then they certainly wouldn't be accorded any form of
> honors in that shul. Since Orrin did not understand this point, perhaps the
> document should have spelled it out.
Avie does not say how he reads the SOP to get this result, and his
statement that it is only my lack of understanding that is the problem is
unacceptable. But in view of Avie's concession, discussed below, that this
portion of the SOP was intended to apply to homosexuals only and not to those in
Torah-forbidden heterosexual relationships (which we shall call deviant
heterosexuals), the SOP is troubling even under Avie's reading.
(2) Avie accused me of having made a
> broadside accusation that the statement of priniciples
> [sic] on homosexuality was designed merely to accommodate the halakhah to
> contemporary social norms.
in my original post on the SOP in MJ 58:69.
As a review of my original post will show, I made no accusations. I simply
asked (i) whether the same principles espoused by the SOP were intended to
apply to deviant heterosexuals and (ii) IF SO, whether the SOP was intended to
have the halacha adapt to prevailing societal attitudes.
(3) Without answering the first question, Avie initially denied that the SOP
was intended to have halacha adapt (58:70), but then contradicted himself in
58:78, admitting that
> those paragraphs regarding which the halakhah accords
> great weight to the attitude of community (synagogue membership,
> participation, and leadership) will not apply equally to all types of
> transgressions, because the attitude of the community to the transgression
> and the transgressor is a determinative factor
but instead are specific to homosexuals, as oppose to deviant heterosexuals.
That is the crux of my concern. Setting participation to the side for a moment,
while synagogue membership and leadership are normally manners within the
community's discretion, IMHO [In My Humble Opinion --MOD] that discretion does
not permit the community to substitute values that are alien to the Torah for
values mandated by the Torah. The Torah does not distinguish between homosexual
conduct and forbidden heterosexual conduct. They are in the
same parsha of arayot (forbidden relationships, a parsha we read every year on
Yom Kippur), with the same serious halachic consequences: they are issurei
karet [prohibitions of extirpation --MOD] and yehareig ve-al yaavor [one should
be killed rather than (publicly) transgress --MOD]. That they are both called
toeiva (an abomination) is wholly beside the point. To the extent a community
elevates a practitioner of one and not the other, the community is contradicting
the Torah. If "as appears to be the case" it is doing so because contemporary
society thinks homosexual conduct is OK, it is substituting those values for
Torah values.
(4) The SOPs treatment of synagogue honors for openly practicing homosexuals,
what Avie refers to as "participation", is even more troubling, even under
Avie's reading, because under that reading the SOP would leave the treatment up
to each community in consultation with its rabbi. In other words, the local
rabbi doesn't even have the decisive say. I don't know whether it is black
letter halacha that openly practicing homosexuals may not receive synagogue
honors, but at least it is a halachic issue, not a policy issue.
Avie asks whether the exclusion of open, notorious sinners -- we were discussing
examples such as Bernie Madoff -- from these honors is normative halakhah. Rabbi
Fuchs, in Hatefilah Betzibur 5:28, quotes the teshuvot [responsa --MOD] of the
Chacham Tzvi 38 as saying hachotei beyad rama [one who sins publicly (?)
flagrantly (?)] is not counted in a minyan, and it follows could not get an
aliya. I have not seen the actual teshuva (could someone provide it?). I asked
my LOR [Local Orthodox Rabbi --MOD], a respected charedi rosh bes din [fervently
observant head of a Jewish judicial court --MOD] who sees his share of
non-compliant characters, two questions.
First: if Bernie Madoff escaped from jail and showed up in shul, could he get an
aliya? My LOR, who did not know the teshuva, responded that while technically he
could, he (the LOR) would not permit it. Second, I asked: Many years ago, I was
interviewed as a potential apartment-mate by a cantorial student who thought it
important to ask whether I'd be OK with his regularly having women spend the
night, and "not just for cookies and tea", he said. Not "my girlfriend", but
"women". Ma in Spagna songia` mille e tre [in
Spain alone, 1003]. I am sure he hadn't told his school, but he told me, a
complete stranger. Could such a person, I asked, get an aliya? My LOR's response
was that if this fellows indiscretions were public knowledge, again the LOR
would not permit him to get an aliya.
Substituting a synagogue vote, even in consultation with the rabbi, for what
ought to be a halachic decision is something the Conservative movement does.
5. In response to my point that I knew of no synagogue that would welcome a
Bernie Madoff or a Baruch Lanner (although, according to a later post, Jeannette
Friedman apparently would disagree with me as to the latter), Avie responded:
> If, heaven forfend, the predilections of significant
> numbers observant Jews towards sexual abuse or Ponzi schemes become a
> significant issue for Jewish communities, there may be a need to assess more
> generally what communal attitudes should be towards such individuals.
Judging by his other activities, Rabbi Blau, a co-author of
the SOP, evidently thinks sexual abuse by observant Jews is a significant issue,
and rightly so.
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From: Menashe Elyashiv <Menashe.Elyashiv@...>
Date: Tue, Sep 7,2010 at 03:01 AM
Subject: Tashlich
Although not every one does Tashlich (Some Yemanites, also the GRA), and
some wait until after Rosh Hashana (some Hasidim), and some do not go to a
water source other than the sink (some Sephradim), I have not seen bread
crumb throwing. But I did hear of the guy, who waived his pocket and a $50
bill fell into the creek. Kaparat Avonot (atonement)
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End of Volume 59 Issue 21
