Volume 64 Number 97
Produced: Sun, 14 Mar 21 21:33:11 +0000
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Covid Shul Changes? (4)
[Yisrael Medad Perets Mett Orrin Tilevitz Michael Poppers]
Timing of Parshat Zachor
[Immanuel Burton]
What Is and What Is Not TIDE
[Joel Rich]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Yisrael Medad <yisrael.medad@...>
Date: Sun, Mar 7,2021 at 07:01 AM
Subject: Covid Shul Changes?
Stuart Pilichowski writes (MJ 64#96):
> Our torah reading has changed: Shachrit: We use two torahs - one on one table
> for the baal koreh and another torah on another table for the one getting the
> aliyah. They're separated by about twenty feet.
Are we to understand that it has double the amount of people now engaged in
opening the Ark, carrying the Sefer, lifting it as previously?
That the Oleh makes the benediction over one sefer but the reading is done from
another?
--
Yisrael Medad
Shiloh
Israel
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Perets Mett <p.mett00@...>
Date: Sun, Mar 7,2021 at 09:01 AM
Subject: Covid Shul Changes?
In response to Stuart Pilichowski (MJ 64#96):
Why do they stand twenty feet apart?
Is this some new halocho? Certainly nothing to do with COVID
Perets Mett
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Orrin Tilevitz <tilevitzo@...>
Date: Sun, Mar 7,2021 at 10:01 AM
Subject: Covid Shul Changes?
Stuart Pilchowski wrote (MJ 64#98):
> How has your minyan changed, if at all, in this twilight zone of returning to
> shul after Covid vaccinations...?"
I live on the outskirts of politically red, "heimish people don't wear masks"
Brooklyn. Except for Yamim Nora'im (where I arranged a socially distanced,
masked, window-open, drastically abridged davening) and a couple of yahrzeits, I
haven't been to shul since last year at exactly this time (Parshat Hachodesh).
What used to be my shul reopened last May, with normal davening, normal layning
(oleh next to the baal kriah and gabbaim on either side), windows closed, and
(reportedly) about half the people masked.
A couple of weeks ago, someone supposedly got up and announced "the pandemic's
over; there's no more need for masks or social distancing". They also have been
having a kiddush after davening each week. All this time, they could have
davened outside on the roof, but didn't. I understand all this is normal in my
neighborhood.
This coming shabbat I'm planning to try out a socially-distanced, masked shul
about a mile away.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Michael Poppers <the65pops@...>
Date: Thu, Mar 11,2021 at 11:01 PM
Subject: Covid Shul Changes?
In response to Stuart Pilichowski (MJ 64#96):
In my community, since we resumed forming minyanim,
-- seating is set up for physical distancing and masks are de rigueur in each
building;
-- shacharis starts at "R'Yishmael omeir" (so the SHaTZ enunciates a bit less at
the beginning of the davening);
-- the ba'al q'riyah wears gloves, takes the seifer out of & brings it back to
the Aron, and performs at least hagbahah; olim take care (e.g. wearing a glove
or gloves; or purifying hands before and after touching the handle(s)); and each
oleh is separated by a barrier from the ba'al q'riyah;
-- we have not been saying many to all of the piyutim we said in the past;
and
-- we have not been singing together to the extent we did in the past.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Immanuel Burton <iburton@...>
Date: Sun, Mar 7,2021 at 12:01 PM
Subject: Timing of Parshat Zachor
Following on from our previous discussion, I noticed that, in some Siddurim, one
finds a list of 6 things that one is commanded to remember:
(1) The Exodus from Egypt (Deuteronomy 16:3).
(2) Receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai (Deuteronomy 4:9-10).
(3) Amalek (Deuteronomy 25:17-19).
(4) The Golden Calf (Deuteronomy 9:7).
(5) What Hashem did to Miriam (Deuteronomy (24:9).
(6) Shabbat (Exodus 20:8).
Otzer Dinim u'Minhagim by Judah David Eisenstein (1917) adds 4 more things to
this list:
(7) Remembering that Hashem sustains us (Deuteronomy 8:18).
(8) The manna (Deuteronomy 8:2).
(9) Remembering that Hashem saved our ancestors from Balaam & Balak (Micah 6:5).
(10)Remembering Jerusalem always (Psalms 137:5).
Apart from remembering Amalek, how many of these are remembered by means of a
public Torah reading?
(1) The Exodus is recalled in the third paragraph of the Shema, recited twice daily.
(2) Receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai is recalled on Shavuot.
(3) Amalek is recalled with the reading of Parshat Zachor (at least since the
Purim story happened).
(4) How and when is the Golden Calf recalled? On the 17th of Tammuz as one of
the reasons for the fast?
(5) How and when is what Hashem did to Miriam recalled?
(6) Shabbat is remembered by the use of wine, i.e. kiddush at its beginning and
havdalah at its end.
(7) Could blessing on food be a way of remembering that Hashem sustains us?
(8) Some people read the story of the manna (a different meaning for the "manna
portion", perhaps?) every day, plus one of the reasons for covering the challah
for kiddush on Shabbat is to recall how the manna was covered in dew.
(9) How and when is being saved from Balaam and Balak recalled?
(10)There are many reminders for (presumably a pre-Third Temple) Jerusalem, such
as the breaking of a glass at a wedding, not completely painting one's home, etc.
So it looks as if only 1 of these is remembered by a special Torah reading, so
why just that one?
Immanuel Burton.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Joel Rich <joelirarich@...>
Date: Sun, Mar 7,2021 at 09:01 AM
Subject: What Is and What Is Not TIDE
Prof. Yitzchok Levine wrote (MJ 64#96):
> ...
> Furthermore, the leit-motif is neither Torah and Derech Eretz nor Torah U'Madoh
> -- the two are not equal partners nor must it be twisted around into Derech Eretz
> plus Torah. It is neither a synthesis of Torah with assimilation nor a
> bloodless orthopraxy blended with earthbound Americanism.
Interesting. You had me till here - I read through the whole piece carefully and
its pretty much what I heard from my rebbeim (and some secular studies teachers)
at MTA not always carried out but certainly the aspiration (and what I've tried
to live up to)
KT
Joel Rich
----------------------------------------------------------------------
End of Volume 64 Issue 97
