Volume 66 Number 65
Produced: Sun, 03 Dec 23 07:27:55 -0500
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Kiddush in Shule on Friday night - bracha l'vatalla? (2)
[Menashe Elyashiv Deborah Wenger]
Not going back to normal
[Micha Berger]
Observer effect
[Micha Berger]
Origins of variant mihagim (was Birchat Cohanim)
[Martin Stern]
Saying Tehillim verse by verse (3)
[Martin Stern David Ziants Yisrael Medad]
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From: Menashe Elyashiv <menely2@...>
Date: Sat, Dec 2,2023 at 04:17 PM
Subject: Kiddush in Shule on Friday night - bracha l'vatalla?
In response to Avraham Friedenberg (MJ 66#64):
Maran in SA OH 269, brings the minhag to make kiddush, then states that it is
better not to make, as holds tosafot, Rosh, tur & rabanu yeruham, and that is
minhag eretz Israel. So also now, that is what is done here. Also, minhag
hasidim outside of Israel is not to make kiddush. You are correct that it may be
bracha levatala, but it is quite hard to stop a minhag
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From: Deborah Wenger <debwenger@...>
Date: Sat, Dec 2,2023 at 07:17 PM
Subject: Kiddush in Shule on Friday night - bracha l'vatalla?
Avraham Friedenberg (MJ 66#64) wrote:
> After observing the shat"z saying Kiddush as part of the Friday night
> davening, I began wondering why this minhag is not a bracha l'vatalla.
>
> Yes, I'm aware that the Gemara says that Kiddush was recited in shule in those
> days for the benefit of those eating their meals and staying in the shule.
> However, that doesn't happen any more. Currently, the shat"z, or the Gabbai,
> say Kiddush, and either the person saying it or the youngsters drink the wine.
>
> However, nobody is yotzei by hearing this during davening - it's not in the
> makom se'uda, there's no meal included, and the person saying the Kiddush
> still has say Kiddush again - the full version - when he returns home.
>
> How does this minhag survive today?
IMHO. I have spent many Shabbatot in small communities in the US where they were
lucky to get a minyan Friday night - but many men who went to these minyanim
were either not 100% observant or did not know enough to say kiddush on their
own. Therefore, kiddush was made in shul so they'd at least hear it somewhere.
Just my 2 perutot.
Shavua tov,
Deborah Wenger
Atlanta
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From: Micha Berger <micha@...>
Date: Thu, Nov 30,2023 at 12:17 PM
Subject: Not going back to normal
Joel Rich wrote (MJ 66#64):
> ... Another irony is that all the divrei chizuk I've heard stress not going
> back to normal (sadly my perception is that we heard the same thing when
> covid was devastating our communities -- I'm not sure how much has changed)
I have a theory I call "The Eigel Effect".
I think it is somewhere between hard and impossible to be changed by outside
events. I mean, even the one mass revelation in all of history from the Creator
Himself -- "ro'im es haqolos" and all -- was followed up with an orgy at an
Egyptian-style idol just 40 days later.
What external events CAN do is provide temporary inspiration.
IF we use that inspiration to do something while still in the moment, that
starting on a new course with even just a small incremental change, THAT is what
can lead to permanent teshuvah.
Tir'u baTov!
Micha Berger
http://www.aishdas.org/asp
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From: Micha Berger <micha@...>
Date: Wed, Nov 29,2023 at 05:17 PM
Subject: Observer effect
Joel Rich wrote (MJ 66#64):
> Anyone think about the relationship between the observer effect and the
> leidat hasafeik in the 10 store cases (kavua vs kol dparish mruba)?
>
> The term observer effect in quantum physics means that the act of observing
> something will influence the thing being observed and by the observation,
> waves turn into particles ...
Tangent about quantum mechanics (QM) ... There are a lot of interperations of
QM, explanations about what is really happening that all yield the same math an
the same experimental results. Science cannot distinguish between them, since
the same results means they cannot be tested.
The Copenhagen Interpretation was popular for the first decades of QM, largely
because it was produced by its biggest names -- Bohr, Born and Heisenberg. (I
bet you can guess where they were when they discussed the idea!)
For a few decades, now, it has not been accepted as a given, and in fact fell to
minority status. Some now think collapse is caused by decoherence (just too many
particles are involved), or gravity, or it doesn't collapse at all -- something
else is going on.
But now, on to Torah ...
I have posted on this topic on Avodah repeatedly, since way back in vol 1.
R Aqiva Eiger makes a chiluq between qavua and kol deparish. Rov is only
meaningful in cases where the subject of the uncertainty is the metzi'us of the
object. But if the object is qavua, it once had a known metzi'us and thus a
halachic state. In the case of qavua, the doubt is about the din.
My own feeling is that halakhah is about tiqun hanefesh, and therefore its
metzi'us is not the object as it is in-and-of-itself, but how people relate to
the object, and how they are supposed to relate to it. And therefore when the
physical state is in doubt, my mind is entertaining both possibilities, and that
is my relationhip with it.
And this principle can be extended to explain why eidus is terei kemei'ah [two
witnesses have as much import as one hundred], and we don't use rov [majority].
Or why there is a chazaqah deme'iqarah, etc...
I wrote several blog posts on the subject under the category "Phenomenology":
https://aspaqlaria.aishdas.org/category/phenomenology/
The most recent one was about my excitement when I found out from something by
RYGB that R Gedalia Nadel said something similar first:
https://aspaqlaria.aishdas.org/2018/01/24/phenomenalism-baruch-shekivanti
(Quote and translation there.)
> validated with the double-slit experiment which revealed that particles are
> in the state of potential until they are observed. The outcome of the
> double-slit experiment depends on what the physicists try to measure: If
> they set up detectors beside the slits, the photons act like ordinary
> particles, always traversing one route or the other, not both at the same
> time. However, if the physicists remove the detectors, each photon seems to
> travel both routes simultaneously like a tiny wave, producing the striped
> pattern. This is the observer effect. A single outcome is realized out of
> many possibilities
Tir'u baTov!
Micha Berger
http://www.aishdas.org/asp
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From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Sat, Dec 2,2023 at 02:17 PM
Subject: Origins of variant mihagim (was Birchat Cohanim)
Micha Berger wrote (MJ 66#64):
> Remember that the Jewish community in Italy were more connected with the
> Yerushalmi, whether because they came from that community or were in the same
> empire and had better communication.
>
> We could expect they (and many believe Ashkenazim as well) would have minhagim
> that better fit the Y-mi or the Midrashei Halakhah than the Bavli.
It would seem that the Jewish community in Italy was more connected to Eretz
Yisrael since at least the southern part was part of the Byzantine Empire,
whereas most of the Sefardi lands were conquered by the Arabs who (later) set up
their capital under the Abassids in Baghdad in Bavel, enabling the Geonim to
influence them.
Thus we see the cultural links:
EY > Romaniot (Balkan Jews) > South Italy > North Italy > France > Germany >
Eastern Europe
Bavel > North Africa > Spain
Martin Stern
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From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Tue, Nov 28,2023 at 04:17 PM
Subject: Saying Tehillim verse by verse
David Olivestone wrote (MJ 66#64):
> Because of the war with Hamas, we are saying tehillim (chapters of Psalms)
> verse by verse, i.e., we repeat the verse said by the chazan (leader), following
> every davening. However, I recall very clearly from my youth (in England) that
> when we said tehillim, the chazan and the kahal said alternate verses. Does
> anyone else recall this and, if so, when and why did it change to verse by
> verse?
This was the practice in the shul I used to attend which maintained Ashkenazi
practices that were current in Germany from which the founding members came
during the '30s (mainly from Hamburg). I suppose that this is based on the
concept of "shomeia' ke'oneh [listening (with intent) is considered as if one
were saying the words oneself]" which, for example, allows listeneres to fulfil
their mitzvah of kiddush.
It seems that the practice of repeating each verse, to which David refers, was
the custom in Eastern Europe from which the majority of Ashkenazim originate.
The (Modern Orthodox) United Synagogue in England had tended to follow German
customs which had been adopted by its original constituents, in particular the
former Great Synagogue in London (destroyed during the Blitz). The change
probably came about as a result of the mass influx of East European Jews fleeing
the pogroms in the Tsarist empire from 1881 onwards.
Martin Stern
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From: David Ziants <dziants@...>
Date: Sat, Dec 2,2023 at 02:17 PM
Subject: Saying Tehillim verse by verse
In response to David Olivestone (MJ 66#64):
I also remember this from England, whereas in Israeli Ashkenazi shuls, each
verse is repeated. Occasionally in England, there were Tehillim that everyone
just said together in unison, without repeating or alternating.
In Israel at least, the Aidot haMizrach [eastern communities] Sephardim do it
this way and I would not be surprised that the Spanish and Portuguese Sephardim
in England also have the same minhag [custom]. The (Orthodox) United Synagogue
(US) in England for many issues, although supposed to follow minhag Hamburg, had
adopted the custom of the Sephardim who were in England well before Ashkenazim
started coming in large numbers.
This includes, among other matters, the layout of the seating in shul and the
chazan on the bima [podium] rather than the amud [desk at the front of the
shul], standing for Mizmor Shir l'Yom haShabbat [the psalm said] on Friday
night, and Yigdal on Friday night rather than Adon Olam [poems sang by many at
the of the Friday service]. Many years ago, I remember there was a thread on
this in Mail Jewish. Most likely, the US also took the method of reciting
tehillim from the Sephardim (unless someone can show that this was minhag Hamburg).
On the other hand, repeating the same verse is the way it is generally done by
Ashkenazim in Israel, and I assume in what my US Rabbi in England referred to as
"the heimisha shuls" i.e. the non-US shuls, primarily belonging to the Adath
Yisrael organisation but possibly some of the Federation shuls, in England. I do
not know whether the new-school US still follow this (as the US have adopted
certain Israeli customs that were not prevalent in the past in these
communities), or whether they now follow the Israeli (and "heimisha shul") way.
The obvious advantage of repeating the verse is for those who don't have a
printed text available. For me, though, that only works properly for those
psalms that I am very familiar with [e.g. "Shir lamalot, esa..." and "Shir
hama'alot, mima'amakim..."]. I was once told that the alternate verse way is
closer to the original way and is what the psalmist intended - but the flip side
is that in certain places the mesora [tradition] of where to put the verse
breaks, for this purpose, was lost.
David Ziants
<dziants@...>
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From: Yisrael Medad <yisrael.medad@...>
Date: Sat, Dec 2,2023 at 02:17 PM
Subject: Saying Tehillim verse by verse
In response to David Olivestone (MJ 66#64):
I have been reciting, when the occasion calls for it, Tehilim verse by verse
rather than alternate verses for over 60 years. Did David have this minhag more
than 60 years ago?
--
Yisrael Medad
Shiloh
Israel
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End of Volume 66 Issue 65