Volume 60 Number 80
Produced: Wed, 02 May 2012 09:11:26 EDT
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
A problem with tumah
[Martin Stern]
Beta Israel
[Joseph Kaplan]
Haredi 'draft dodgers' bad, Arab 'draft dodgers' OK
[Martin Stern]
Hashem yinkom damam?
[Martin Stern]
Kavod hatsibbur
[Stephen Phillips]
Kitniyot
[Michael Rogovin]
Listening to music on the radio, tape, mp3 player etc. during sefirat (2)
[Michael Rogovin]
Minyan problems (5)
[Chaim Casper Joel Rich Perets Mett Ben Katz M.D.]
Nat bar nat deheteira
[Martin Stern]
Non-gebrokts
[Martin Stern]
Out of synch
[Hillel (Sabba) Markowitz]
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From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Sun, Apr 29,2012 at 05:01 AM
Subject: A problem with tumah
The rules regarding tumot hayots'ot min haguf [spiritual impairments arising
from certain bodily discharges] are specified at the end of Parshat Metzora.
In particular, there are two paragraphs regarding women who experience
uterine bleeding - the niddah (Vay.15,19-24) and the zavah (Vay.15,25-30).
The way they are distinguished is the time of the occurrence of the
bleeding, the former being a regular period and the latter at a time when it
would not be expected.
For a niddah, the tumah lasts seven days, whether she experiences bleeding
on all of them or not, after which she immerses in a mikveh on the night
after the seventh day (provided the flow has terminated) and is clear.
After the end of these seven days, any bleeding in the next eleven days
makes her a zavah, for whom the rules are quite different. If the bleeding
lasts one day, all she has to do is check that it has ceased and then she
can immerse in a mikveh the next day, by day, and she is clear after
nightfall (she is called a shomeret yom keneged yom or a zavah katanah). If
the flow lasts a second day, the same procedure is followed but if it occurs
on three successive days, she becomes a zavah gedolah and must check that
there is no flow for seven consecutive days [shiva nekiim], after which she
must bring a korban [offering] and restarts her regular cycle.
A comparison of the two parshiot reveals that the niddah and zavah transmit
their tumah in much the same way - touching (vv. 19 and 27), sitting on an
object designated as a seat (without touching it directly, vv. 20 and 26), etc.
-- all of which acquire tumah (at the level of rishon) for one day and can be
cleared after sunset if previously immersed in a mikveh that day.
There is one major difference, a man who has relation with a niddah (v. 24) gets
the much stricter degree of tumah lasting seven days [av hatumah]. For the zavah
this is not mentioned, but in the final verse of the sedra, summing up these
rules it refers to "a man who has relations with a woman who is tamei" (not
specifically a niddah). The Torat Kohanim (an early midrash halachah) only
comments that this change of wording is to include a shomeret yom keneged
yom (and I would presume it implies also a zavah gedolah, though this is not
stated).
None of this has any relevance to our current practice regarding taharat
hamishpachah [marital relations], which in any case are prohibited
separately in Vay.18,19, since women have taken on themselves to observe
the stringencies of both niddah and zavah for every bleeding episode.
However, for those learning the daf yomi who will be starting Massekhet
Niddah shortly, bearing these distinctions in mind will help understand the
gemara. In my opinion, most people find it difficult because they
confuse current practice regarding taharat hamishpachah with the tumah
regulations that are now in abeyance since we do not have the
opportunity to enter the Temple and consume sacrificial offerings.
My problem is what degree of tumah does a man who has relation with a zavah
get? As regards the niddah, it states explicitly "if a man lie with her, her
niddah status is transferred to him and he will be tamei for seven days...."
Since a zavah does not have such a seven day tumah, does the man who has
relations with a zavah katanah, who is tamei only for one day, become tamei for
seven days (dan minei uminei - transfer the rules from one situation to the
other without allowing for any differences) or only one day (dan minei ve'oki
be'atrei - modify the rules to take account of differences in the second case)?
Even worse, a zavah gedolah is potentially tamei indefinitely (if she cannot
manage to count shiva nekiim), so would this mean a man having relations with
her would be permanently tamei since he certainly cannot possibly count shiva
nekiim?
I have not as yet found any discussion of this problem. Can anyone shed
light on it?
Martin Stern
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From: Joseph Kaplan <penkap@...>
Date: Mon, Apr 30,2012 at 08:01 PM
Subject: Beta Israel
Josh Backon (MJ 60#79) wrote:
> Dr. Steven Kaplan of the Dept. of African Studies at Hebrew University
> in Jerusalem is a acknowledged expert on Ethiopian history. His research
> definitively shows that there was NO connection between the Tribe of Dan
> and the Ethiopian Falasha community.
> ...
> Translation: they're not Jewish."
A few questions:
1. Has Dr. Kaplan (no relative) published his findings? In peer review
publications? Has there been ample opportunity for other experts to review his
findings and respond if they believe a response and/or disagreement is called for?
2. Have any other history or anthropology (or any other relevant field that I
can't think of or don't know of) experts (as opposed to halachic experts basing
a decision on the Radbaz) opined on this? If so, has their work been published?
In peer review publications?
3. What is the standard for determining this factual matter? Who should make
such a determination?
This issue is obviously of great importance and has a direct and extremely
significant impact on the lives of, according to Wikipedia, the more than
121,000 Ethiopian Jews living in Israel. It seems to me that great care must be
taken before their Judaism is, at this late date, questioned or, chas veshalom
(IMO), revoked.
Joseph Kaplan
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From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Fri, Apr 27,2012 at 07:01 AM
Subject: Haredi 'draft dodgers' bad, Arab 'draft dodgers' OK
The Jerusalem Post reported (26 Apr.) that Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman
called on all MKs to support a proposed law that would require equal
military service for all Israelis and that he wrote on his Facebook page
that "outstanding soldiers on next year's Independence Day, secular, haredi,
Druze and Beduin soldiers [should all be] standing side by side."
Clearly he was having a dig at the haredim who choose to remain in learning
rather than serve, but what about the far larger number of non-Beduin Arabs?
Why do we hear constant criticism of the former and hardly ever any calls
for the latter to do compulsory national service (not necessarily in the
army)?
Martin Stern
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From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Tue, May 1,2012 at 04:01 PM
Subject: Hashem yinkom damam?
I have noticed that the phrase "Hashem yinkom damam" is put on many memorials
to Holocaust victims, and I have also heard many people using it.
Surely the word "yinkom" is incorrect and should be "yikom", as we find throughout
Tenakh. Nakam is a peh-nun verb so in the imperfect the nun is lost and the
second root letter (in this case the kuf) gets a dagesh to indicate it is
doubled. Nobody would dream of using "yinpol" as the imperfect of "nafal" so
how has this usage come about?
Martin Stern
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From: Stephen Phillips <admin@...>
Date: Tue, May 1,2012 at 06:01 AM
Subject: Kavod hatsibbur
In MJ 60#79, Martin Stern wrote:
> In many communities someone receiving an aliyah puts on a tallit as kavod
> hatsibbur [showing respect for the congregation]. While this is not the
> practice in others, do the latter object in principle to doing so? The reason
> I ask, is because I was present when a young unmarried man said it was not his
> custom to put on a tallit and threw it on the ground when one was draped on
> him by the gabbai. Can anyone suggest a justification for this bizarre and
> apparently disrespectful behaviour?
Maybe he was an Am Ha'aretz [ignoramus]. On reflection, scratch the word "Maybe".
Stephen Phillips
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From: Michael Rogovin <mrogovin118@...>
Date: Tue, May 1,2012 at 09:01 AM
Subject: Kitniyot
Yisrael Medad (MJ 60#79) reports that Rabbi Dov Leor "stated that only what
was included in the 800 year old edict as kitniyot is to be prohibited
for those observing the custom".
Can one therefore assume that corn (maize) is not kiyniyot at all since it
was an unknown grain in Europe 800 years ago (the English word "corn" used
in the US has its origin in British English as another word for wheat;
Europeans call corn "maize")?
Also was cumin actually included 800 years ago in Ashkenaz? And what's with
mustard seed and green (string) beans?
(I wonder if we really spend too much time on this kitniyot thing...)
--
Michael Rogovin
www.linkedin.com/in/michaelrogovin
@MichaelRogovin <http://www.twitter.com/MichaelRogovin>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Perets Mett <p.mett00@...>
Date: Tue, May 1,2012 at 02:01 AM
Subject: Listening to music on the radio, tape, mp3 player etc. during sefirat
Michael Rogovin (MJ 60#79) wrote:
>
> The trend in the last few decades has been ever
> increasing stringency - what was a chumrah is now treated as normative, be
> it women's singing or growing a beard during sfira. One who feels it
> necessary or desirable to observe stringencies may generally do so (except
> when doing so would be yuhara (arrogance)), but to impose chumrot on the
> entire community strikes me as overkill.
I don't know what makes you think that either men not being permitted to listen
to women singing, or not shaving during the sfira, are "chumros".
Both are clearly laid down in poskim.
If there were/are some communities in which these halochos are ignored, that
does not mean that they are chumros.
Perets Mett
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From: Michael Rogovin <mrogovin118@...>
Date: Tue, May 1,2012 at 06:01 PM
Subject: Listening to music on the radio, tape, mp3 player etc. during sefirat
In replying to my post in MJ 60#79, Perets Mett writes that men shaving
during sfira or listening to women singing (at any time) were both "clearly
[prohibited by] poskim" and goes on to say that "If there were/are some
communities in which these halochos are ignored, that does not mean that
they are chumros." In a subsequent private communication he referenced the
Shulchan Aruch.
There is a halacha of kol isha (lit. "a woman's voice") of course.
However, what constitutes women's singing that is prohibited varies by
poskim. Various poskim have held that multiple voices, or amplified
voices, or voices without seeing the women, or singing religious songs (or
anything other than sensual love songs) are not included in the issur. Dati
soldiers and Rabbis have attended Tzahal programs for decades and no one
ever objected. Suddenly it is an issue. As for shaving, plenty of poskim
hold that if one regularly is clean shaven, one may continue to shave
during sfira.
I was mistaken to use the word "chumrot" when what I really mean was
machmir. In common usage, chumrot are stringencies beyond the law, whereas
I meant that within the halacha, there is a range of opinions, some more
lenient (makel) and some more strict (machmir), and that the trend has been
to characterize anything but the most machmir opinion as not within the
halacha at all. Granted that Perets was replying based on my inexact choice
of words, still I think he is wrong to imply (at least as I read his reply)
that the halacha holds absolutely that one may not shave during sfira, or
that one may never hear a woman's singing voice. If all one needed to do to
understand how to apply halacha was look it up in the Shulchan Aruch, we
would have no need for the Mishna Brurah, Igrot Moshe, other books of
She'elot u'Teshuvot or even modern day rabbis. We would not need to learn
Gemara either. There are nuances within the halacha,
differing approaches within what is generally considered normative, and the
fact is practices vary by community, circumstance, need and
general philosophical approach..
There is no question that for various reasons, discussion of what is
considered normative (within the acceptable range of opinion) has shifted
to the right and there is less tolerance for more makel views. Some in the
orthodox community seem to suggest that only those poskim that adopt
the more machmir position are correct and everyone else is wrong or lax in
their observance. I submit that this is not in the tradition of halachic
discourse or practice, and that those who are more machmir should accept
the fact that there are legitimate positions that are makel, or at least
more makel/less machmir than their position. Halacha is often a balancing
act - when two halachic values conflict, if you are machmir on one halacha,
you may well be makel on another. DIfferent Rabbis may well come to
different conclusions on how to balance conflicting values, and that is a
cause for celebration, not criticism.
Kol Tuv-
--
Michael Rogovin
www.linkedin.com/in/michaelrogovin
@MichaelRogovin <http://www.twitter.com/MichaelRogovin>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Chaim Casper <surfflorist@...>
Date: Tue, May 1,2012 at 12:01 AM
Subject: Minyan problems
Martin Stern wrote (MJ 60#79):
> I have noticed that some men are particular to put on their tallit and
> tefillin outside shul. Can anyone suggest the source for this practice?
I believe the source is Orah Hayim 25 where both R' Caro (the M'haber) and R'
Isserles (the RaMA) say that a person should put on his tallit and t'fillin at
home and wear it to shul. If one feels that he will walk by a malodorous area or
if he will walk by a group of insensitive gentiles, then one may put on these
items in the courtyard outside the synagogue. Evidently, our minhag has
developed that we l'hathilah put on t&t in an outside room. Now the yeshiva I
sent my sons to are very makpid for everyone to put on t&t outside the bet
medrash. But my experience in traveling the world (at least the US east coast)
is that the majority of people who daven in a synagogue put on the t&t in the
davening room (and those who put the t&t in an outside room do it because that's
they way they learned at their respective yeshiva). Why do the synagogue
daveners do it this way? Is it because they are lax in the actual performance of
the mitzvot involved? Or is it because they don't want to chance coming into
contact with smelly garbage, pet excrement, etc. on the city streets?
Chaim Casper
North Miami Beach, FL
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Joel Rich <JRich@...>
Date: Tue, May 1,2012 at 06:01 AM
Subject: Minyan problems
Martin Stern (MJ 60#79) wrote:
> I have noticed that some men are particular to put on their tallit and
> tefillin outside shul. Can anyone suggest the source for this practice?
> Recently, there were nine men in shul waiting to start davenning (actually we
> were waiting before the first kaddish) when the tenth man insisted on waiting
> outside to "get dressed" and refused to do so inside so that the mourner could
> say kaddish. Even according to his custom, was he acting properly?
See Mishneh Brura 25:8. However I doubt that it outweighs the local need for a
set minyan time.
KT
Joel Rich
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From: Perets Mett <p.mett@...>
Date: Tue, May 1,2012 at 08:01 AM
Subject: Minyan problems
Martin Stern (MJ 60#79) wrote:
> I have noticed that some men are particular to put on their tallit and
> tefillin outside shul. Can anyone suggest the source for this practice?
That is indeed my practice, as learned from my father z"l (see Mishnah
Berurah siman 25 s.k. 8)
> Recently, there were nine men in shul waiting to start davenning (actually
> we were waiting before the first kaddish) when the tenth man insisted on
> waiting outside to "get dressed" and refused to do so inside so that the
> mourner could say kaddish. Even according to his custom, was he acting
> properly?
I honestly think that, if while I was putting on my tefilin I were called in
to make a minyan for kaddish, I would go in to do so; and then go out to put
on the tfilin.
Perets Mett
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From: Stephen Phillips <admin@...>
Date: Tue, May 1,2012 at 09:01 AM
Subject: Minyan Problems
Martin Stern wrote (MJ 60#79):
> Recently, there were nine men in shul waiting to start davenning (actually we
> were waiting before the first kaddish) when the tenth man insisted on waiting
> outside to "get dressed" and refused to do so inside so that the mourner could
> say kaddish. Even according to his custom, was he acting properly?
Another Am Ha'aretz? Martin does seem to come across them!
Stephen Phillips
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From: Ben Katz M.D. <BKatz@...>
Date: Wed, May 2,2012 at 01:01 AM
Subject: Minyan problems
Martin Stern wrote (MJ 60#79):
> I have noticed that some men are particular to put on their tallit and
> tefillin outside shul. Can anyone suggest the source for this practice?
It may just be a form of "common courtesy" - you get dressed before you go
somewhere important, not after you arrive.
> Recently, there were nine men in shul waiting to start davenning (actually
> we were waiting before the first kaddish) when the tenth man insisted on waiting
> outside to "get dressed" and refused to do so inside so that the mourner could
> say kaddish. Even according to his custom, was he acting properly?
Whether you should keep people waiting, then, becomes another matter of
courtesy it seems to me.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Fri, Apr 27,2012 at 11:01 AM
Subject: Nat bar nat deheteira
When staying at a mehadrin glatt non-gebrokt (und alle maialos [and the ultimate
in Kashrus strictures --Mod.]) hotel over Pesach, an interesting problem arose.
In the late afternoon, we wished to have a cup of tea and were told that milk
was not available. Intrigued, I asked the proprietor why, and she explained that
the cakes had inadvertently been baked in the meaty oven. This must have been a
case of nat bar nat deheteira [use of a cooking utensil that had absorbed
permitted (in this case meaty) flavour to cook a pareve item - both being
permitted foodstuffs - but which had not been left for 24 hours in between].
While a case could be made for lekhatchila [in the first instance] not putting
that cake into a cup of milky tea, I would imagine that bedieved [after the
fact] this would have been a chumra [stringency] and one would not have done any
real issur [prohibited act]. I cannot see why the proprietor should have found
it necessary to do more than notify the guests of the problem.
As it happens, I never take milk in my tea, and my wife, who does, did not
want to eat any of the non-gebrokt cakes (for obvious reasons quite
unconnected with this halachic problem). In the circumstances the proprietor
let her have some milk on the understanding that she not publicise the fact.
A similar situation might concern the availability of milk in the tea room
after a meaty meal - would the proprietor be justified in not allowing it
for six hours even if some guests kept a shorter gap. After all, this is not
a matter of strict halacha but rather minhag, and everyone is entitled to
follow their own ancestral custom.
Has anyone any comments on the halachic ramifications of these problems?
Martin Stern
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From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Fri, Apr 27,2012 at 07:01 AM
Subject: Non-gebrokts
I had the pleasure of spending Pesach in a hotel advertising the catering as
'non-gebrokts' [no use made of matzah that has come into contact with
water]. Though I do not have this minhag, I must say the choice of food was
so varied and plentiful that I did not miss the kneidlach. In fact, looking
round, I got the distinct impression that the guests had the motto "Eat,
drink and be merry, for TOMORROW we diet"!
There was one point, however, that I noticed and on which, perhaps, those
who are particular not to eat gebrokts can help me. I noticed some other
guests were breaking their matzah into their soup, which I imagine would
cause problems. What is the status of the crockery, cutlery, etc. as far as
non-gebrokt eaters is concerned?
Martin Stern
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From: Hillel (Sabba) Markowitz <sabbahillel@...>
Date: Tue, May 1,2012 at 08:01 PM
Subject: Out of synch
Another point is to consider the calendar with all the parshiot
separate. This puts Bechukosai "too late". The parshiot are supposed to
be separate. In order to avoid the problem, we then combine parshiot in
order to get Bechukosai before Shavuos as quickly as possible. Once
Bechukosai is in the proper week, we stop combining. This means that we
start combining immediately after Pesach until the calendar is correct.
Hillel (Sabba) Markowitz
http://sabbahillel.blogspot.com
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End of Volume 60 Issue 80