Shas / Daf : Kiddushin & Yuchsin & Makkos

Testimony if you Recognize Someone's Voice, Part 2

2012-01-30T23:18:00.003-05:00

What is the status of eidus based on identifying someone by their voice?

If this does work, is that only when the "witness" recognizes the voice? What if the witness does not recognize the voice, but the voice identifies itself?

Let's look at various teshuvos about this.

Rishon - Ri Migash 149
Identifying from voice works. The shaila was for mekalel or menadeh, so it seems if you heard someone be mevarech es Hashem you can give a chiyuv misa, provided there was a hasraah.

Interesting Gemara (cited by Ri Migash): Gittin 66a
תלמוד בבלי מסכת גיטין דף סו עמוד א
מתני'. מי שהיה מושלך לבור, ואמר כל השומע את קולו יכתוב גט לאשתו - הרי אלו יכתבו ויתנו.
גמ'. וליחוש שמא שד הוא! א"ר יהודה: כשראו לו דמות אדם. אינהו נמי אידמויי אידמו! דחזו ליה בבואה. אינהו נמי אית להו בבואה! דחזו ליה בבואה דבבואה. ודלמא אינהו נמי אית להו! א"ר חנינא, לימדני יונתן בני: בבואה אית להו, בבואה דבבואה לית להו. ודלמא צרה היא! תנא דבי רבי ישמעאל: בשעת הסכנה, כותבין ונותנין אע"פ שאין מכירין.
The Rambam (Geirushin 2:13) does not bring down about בבואה דבבואה; see Kesef Mishna. (My Rebbi discussed the "sheid" aspect in Hashkafa shiur here.)

Achronim:
Avodas Hagershuni 110
The case was where a person had a brother abroad, but no one knew where. Someone came claiming to be the brother, and he wanted to inherit their father's estate with his brother. No one recognized his face, but people did recognize his voice. Is that enough? Avodas Hagershuni says recognizing the voice is enough even in dinei mammonos, provided there is no contradictory evidence. Therefore, in this case, there are eidim who recognize his voice, however, his identity is in doubt because everybody agrees his face does not look like the brother we knew before he went abroad, so he cannot inherit absent better proof that he is who he claims he is.

Applying this to Gittin 66, Kol is a siman. When there is no other evidence, it works. When the gemara says "dilma sheid hu," it means how are you so sure it is a person and not a ventriloquist or Frank Caliendo imitating a voice or people trying to play tricks? בבואה דבבואה tells us there is no evidence contrary - call it reiusa or hakchasha - against this voice.

Shvus Yaakov I:100
The case was to matir an aguna. During a war or rebellion her husband went missing. Witnesses came that they heard rebels catch someone and that man was pleading for his life, and from what he was saying they knew he was this woman's husband. However, they were too far away to visually identify him, and it was very dangerous for them to try to get closer. Is their testimony of identifying this man by his voice enough to allow this aguna to remarry?

He says we don't have Halachik precedent regarding this. He cites the Avodas Hagershuni. He goes through the sugyos relating to it (and says a suma or even a seeing and hearing person is allwed to their wife even on their first night of marriage, based on recognizing their voice) and says we would allow it. Not for dinei nefashos, but certainly for this case and probably even for dinei mammonos. However, due to the novelty of the ruling, his heter allowing the wife to remarry would only take effect if two other great poskim agree to his heter. (This method of using three ballei horaah to be matir an aguna was used widely; even Igros Moshe has cases of it).

Comment: here we see that recognizing a voice does not mean that we know the person and recognize his voice, but even if we don't know the person but from what he says we can identify him - probably in this case, when the man was begging for his life, he probably said he had a wife and kids and probably mentioned their names, so the eidim who heard it were able to put the pieces together. That's how I understand the teshuva. This relates to the question I asked at the very beginning. It is important because Rashi to Gittin 66a says the voice identified itself, his wife's name and his city; the information necessary to write a get. He doesn't say if you recognize the voice or not; I think he means when you don't recognize the voice.

Testimony if you Recognize Someone's Voice

2011-12-22T00:00:00.000-05:00

Can people testify based on recognizing someone's voice without seeing them (tevias eina dikala)?

See Chullin 95b-96a Rava says ...now I know Tevias Ayin is greater than a siman, for if not, how could a blind man be allowed to his wife (maybe it is not his wife, but he cannot see her), and how can any man be allowed to his wife at night [when he cannot see her, maybe it is not his wife], the answer is teviyas ayin of [recognizing their] voice.

Ketzos 81:13 from Chullin, (the continuation is:
אמר רב יצחק בריה דרב משרשיא: תדע, דאילו אתו בתרי, ואמרי: פלניא דהאי סימניה והאי סימניה, קטל נפשא - לא קטלינן ליה, ואילו אמרי: אית לן טביעות עינא בגויה - קטלינן ליה
However, he brings Rashi Sanhedrin 67a - if eidim are hidden and they hear someone being meisis others to avodah zarah, he is not put to death if they only identified the meisis through his voice. You need a light so the eidim can see the person's face (even though he doesn't see the eidim). Therefore Ketzos says tvias eina of kol does not work for dinei nefashos, and if ti doesn't work for dineo nefashos, it doesn't work for dinei mamonos either. Then he quotes Shiltei Giborim Sanhedrin Ch 3 (8a in Rif) that tevias eina of kol only works for issurim - to recognize your wife, for example - not for mamonos or nefashos.

Nesivos 81:7 argues and says for mamonos, tevias eina dikala does work because Bava Metzia 20 regarding Simanim, isur is stricter than mamon, so if it is accepted for isur it is accepted for mamon, but dinei nefashos needs re'iah and yediah. (It is pretty clear that recognizing someone through their voice is yediah but not reiyah.)

Meshoveiev Nesivos rejects this because if so, umdena should work - but it doesn't from the case where Shimon ben Shetach saw someone chase aperson into a deserted building and Shimon ben Shetach followed them in and found one man dead and the other brandishing a bloody knife and no one else in the building. Shimon ben Shetach knew the guy killed the other guy, but said "al pi shnei eidim yumas hameis" prevented him from killing him (what about the fact that there only would have been one witness - Shimon be Shetach himself; it does not say anyone was with him?). This is on Sanhedrin 37b. (Regarding umdena see Rav Elchanan koveitz shiurim 2:38) but, conludes the Ketzos in Meshoveiv Nesivos, we see we need re'iah mamash.

Now I'm not sure this Ketzos is right. In an umdena, we didn't actually see the murder or event take place in front of our eyes, we can only infer it. But in our case, the Nesivos is talking about where they hear it happening as it happens. That very well might be yedia without rei'ah, but it is much stronger than an umdena!

One very surprising nafka mina comes up according to this Nesivos in a case where we have yediah and it is sufficient for dinei mamonos but not for dinei nefashos. Haghos Ashri, Bava Kama chapter 4 says if Ruvein kills Shimon, even though he's put to death, he is chayav to pay his (probably Shimon's, but it probably depends on the machlokes on Makos 2b if kofer is dmei mazik or dmei nizak) value to Shimon's heirs, but because of Kam Lei bidiraba minei, Beis Din cannot force him to pay it. If Shimon's heirs grabbed the money from him we don't take it away from them. But in this case, where we are sure Ruvein killed Shimon because we hear Ruvein in the room with Shimon saying I'm going to kill you and we hear an attack and Shimon crying out and later we find Shimon's corpse, we have yedia, more than umdena! - that Ruvein did kill Shimon. But without actually seeing it, we cannot put Ruvein to death. So, Beis Din should obligate Ruvein to pay Shimon's heirs, because the yedia eidus is good enough for dinei mamonos, according to the Nesivos.

Neemanus of a Midwife

2011-12-21T16:55:00.000-05:00

In Vayeishev, when Tamar's twins were born, the one baby stuck his hand out during labor, and the midwife tied a string around it to show that that was the firstborn (see 38:28). (The baby actually stuck its hand back inside Tamar and the other baby came out first.

It seems that this pasuk is hinting to a certain halacha. See Kiddushin 74a: "Rav Nachman says: Three people are beleived to tell us which child is the firstborn: the widwife, mother and father. The midwife is believed [only] immediately [after birth], the mother for seven days [as Rashi says until the Bris] and the father forever."

Here the midwife immediately took steps to identify the firstborn - because, as midwife, that is the only time she has neemanus to do so.

Chodosh Guide Update!

2011-12-19T13:56:00.001-05:00

Yasher Koach to R' Yoseph Herman.

Chodosh Guide 5772 Pt2

Using Oz VeHadar Makes You Think Less

2011-12-18T23:06:00.000-05:00

While newly re-typeset books are much easier to read, your cognition decreases compared to reading the same words in a less clear font.

[P]erformance was better with the bad font. Cognitive strain, whatever its source, mobilizes System 2, which is more likely to reject the intuitive answer suggested by System 1.
- Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, page 65

Voice and Erva, part 1

2011-12-11T20:15:00.001-05:00

This post is not about Kiddushin 80 - kol b'isha erva, but we will end up there in this series.

Parshas Vayeitzei 29:25, see Rashi.

Bava Basra 123a says Rachel gave the simanim to Leah, and Eicha [Rabasi] Pesichta 24 says Rachel hid under the bed and gave them to Yaakov. What is the difference between the two midrashim? Sanhedrin 38 says everyone is unique in three ways: appearance, voice and thoughts. Appearance and voice for Erva purposes - so you can recognize your spouse. Therefore the midrash said Rachel hid under the bed so it was her voice - which Yaakov knew - answering Yaakov with the simanim. What would the Gemara Bava Basra (that Rachel told the simanim to Leah, so Leah gave them to Yaakov) do with the Gemara in Sanhedrin - Yaakov should have realized the voice did not belong to Rachel?

Maybe, as siblings, Rachel and Leah had similar voices and could not be distinguished accurately. Maybe that they didn't have too much to do with each other until the marriage so they didn't know each other's voices too well (Torah Shlayma Breishis 29:25:84 cites this possibility in the names of Ri miVina, Riva in Drashas ibn Shavib and Baalei HaTosfos). And maybe the siman was not verbal, but was an amulet (Torah Shlayma brings such a possibility) so voice never came into play. And see Maharsha, Bava Basra 123a s.v. Vehaynu.

Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel - Vayishlach 5760

2011-12-08T15:26:00.001-05:00

These are my notes of the Schmuess delivered by the Rosh Yeshiva of Mir Yerushalaim, Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, for Parshas Vayishlach 5760. Rav Nosson Tzvi's shloshim is this week.

First, Yaakov Avinu sent a message to Eisav: im lavan garti. Rashi has two peshatim. The first pshat is Yaakov telling Eisav that he lived as a stranger, not as an important person and Eisav should not hate him for receiving the brachos. His second pshat is while he lived with Lavan harasha, Yaakov kept all the mitzvos.

Secondly, we see Yaakov said Katonti mikol hachasadim. Rashi says his zechuyos were decreasing in number and shema nislachlachti bechait. The Ramban and Sforno say Yaakov wasn't deserving of the chasadim. The Rashbam says a third pshat. Hashem did chesed and Yaakov did not fulfill his duties to Hashem. This is really a machlokes in midrash. Rabi Abba said aini kedai, Rabi Levi said kedai, but katonti mekol hachasadim. The meforshim explain Rabi Abba like the Sforno and the Ramban, and Rabi Levi like Rashi. The pshat is that it's not a machlokes, it's just two dargos. He said I'm not fitting but if I am, maybe I used the zechuyos up and even so, maybe I'll do a chait.

Thirdly, vayei'aveik ish imo ad alos hashachar. It was vayivaser Yaakov levado - a chisaron: since he went alone, the saro shel eisav attacked him. From here we learn it is asur for a talmid chacham to go somewhere alone at night.

The midrash says just like it says venisgav Hashem levado, also by Yaakov - vayivaser Yaakov levado. The Midrash brings down levado is one of the middos of Hashem. So levado is a ma'aleh in Yaakov, not a chisaron. What is the ma'aleh of levado, and ho does one reach it?

From the three things we mentioned, Yaakov reached vayei'aveik ish imo. I'm not saying pshat, but to reach each of the three dargos lies in a Mishnah in Avos 1:14. Im ain ani li mi li uchshe'ani le'atzmi ma ani ve'im lo achshav masai.

Im lo achshav aimasai. As it says in Chazal, one shouldn't say I'll learn when I have time because maybe he won't have time. Don't push it off as it says if you leave it, it will leave you. If you push it off one day it will turn into two days. Im lav garti was Yaakov's first taina - the entire time he was oseik betorah umitzvos.

Keshe'ani le'atzmi ma ani. I think one pshat is - I know there are several peshatim - a person succeeded. But if he thinks he will pat himself on the back and think he did it himself, he is missing middos tovos and is a ba'al ga'ava. Keshe'ani le'atzmi a ani - if you think you did it all yourself, ma ani - what's it worth? You must have middos- anava, chessed - all the middos tovos. How do you reach this? Only by learning Mussur. As the Gaon says it's the hardest thing in life is to break a middah ra'ah. Besides taryag midos shamarti, you need good middos. Without them you can't succeed. If a person doesn't know how to treat his friend, his roommate, his chavrusa, his family, he is lacking in his Torah. Im ain ani li mi li. Baruch Hashem, in our gashmiyosdike world, a person can have everything he wants. Today luxury has become neccesity. But a person can have gashmiyos also. You can have chavrusos, sefarim, what's missing? Im ain ani li mi li. One can have everything, but if he doesn't work onhimself, mi li? Who will think of him if he doesn't think of himself? How does a person get to levado? Ameilus - im brchukosai teileichu - ameilus batorah. This week's parsha teaches us exactly what a shiv is all about. Taryag mitzvos shamarti, middos tovos (katonti mikol hachasadim), and ameilus batorah (levado). If a person doesn't work on himself and doesn't rely on anyone else to feed him,if t to grow in learning or middos tovos, become a gadol batorah, have

When is the matziv of levado? Why does the Torah say here that Yaakov reached the darga of levado? The pshat is simple. First it says vayomer lo ma shimech vayomar Yaakov. Vayomer lo Yaakov yai'omair od shimcha ki im Yisrael. First his name was Yaakov - Veyaakveini zeh paamayim, and after this fight with saro shel Eisav he was zoche to be named Yisrael. He reached a higher level. To reach this higher level of Yisrael, he had to reach the darga of levado. What is the name Yaakov? Veyaakveini zeh pa'amayim. Because of his desire for shleimus, he fooled Yitzchak and received the berachos. It's a maaleh that he did it to become shaleim. Because of this desire to become shaleim, he was zoche to the name Yisrael.

How does a person reach levado? He must have a desire to be shaleim, to be a complete person in all respects - Torah and mitzvos, yiras Shamayim and middos tovos. If a person's desire is to be partial, halevai he will get up to being partial. If he wan to get complete, he can be complete. It doesn't have to do with brains or how smart you are or how quick you are - it's only dependant on your desire.

Klal Yisrael needs gedolim and shleimim that are shaleim in all his avodas haBorei. If a bachur strives for shleimus, he will get there. And that's all dependant on im ani li mi li: if he has a small goal, maybe he will reach it. If he has a bigger go , he can reach it, but you need ameilus.

In this lies another nekudah. Sometimes one feels all alone; he feels lost. It could be it's the opposite - Hashem gives him a test to see if he can pass that test. That's one of the dargos of levado - that he can pass the tests. He doesn't need any help. If he does it alone, he can be zoche to become Yisrael. How does he do that? His desires. Hashem should help the zechus of ain ani li mi li that we should all be zoche to taryag mitzvos shamarti, katonti mikol hachasadim and lo Yaakov yai'omair od imcha ki im Yisrael.

Child Abuse - Chicago Program

2011-11-22T10:31:00.001-05:00

On Sunday, Nefesh Chicago, the Jewish Board of Advocates for Children and the Decalogue Society sponsored an event about child sexual abuse entitled "If You Know Something, Say Something."

Harry Maryles summarized the event. (Note - I see he updated it since I read it, it was accurate before, and I don't know what he changed.)

Here are sources that Rabbi Schwartz quoted. From Nishmas Avraham, volume 3:

Parshas Vayeira and Jerry Sandusky

2011-11-10T19:33:00.001-05:00

WARNING: DISTURBING CONTENT. DON'T READ THIS IF YOU DON'T WANT TO.

On every radio station this week, discussions were about the heinous crimes allegedly committed by former Penn State assistant football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky. The timing of the release of the grand jury report fits in perfectly with this week's Parsha. Chazal were ever prescient when they said that the events of the week are related to that week's Parsha. The scary part, however, is the need to be vigilant and supervise our venues and children to do everything in our power to make sure that events like this do not happen even within our own communities. This week's parsha tells us that, as well.

Take two stories: visitors arrive in a city, the entire city converges at the front door of the host's home and demands the visitors with whom they want to perform evil acts. The host offers to placate the mob by presenting his daughters for their amusement, but the mob refuses and remain insistent. The visitors, who are really angels in disguise, strike the mob blind and escape.

In another city, a man with his concubine were out of town, seeking lodging but finding none. After dark, a man takes them in. But neighbors demand the visitors for their amusement, and they are given the concubine, who returns to the doorstep near dawn, still alive, though barely. When she died soon thereafter, the man sent a graphic version of the story around the country which led to a bloody civil war.

The first story is the story of the angels visiting Lot in Sodom, in this week's parsha. The second story is from Shoftim, the book of Judges, chapters 19-20, and is the incident known as Pilegesh B'Giva. Looking at them side by side, my head burst: how is it possible for Jews in shevet Binyamin to act in an almost identical manner to the residents of Sodom, one of the most evil groups of people in the history of mankind? It is mind-boggling how Jews acted so similarly to the people of Sodom. Ramban mentions a few differences (in Sodom the entire city showed up and in Giva only some of the city; in Sodom they were homosexuals and in Giva they were not; and the entire culture of Sodom was anti-guest so as to not share what they had with anyone else, but such a culture did not exist in Giva), but it is still hard to digest.

About the residents of Sodom not allowing visitors because they did not want to share the beauty and riches of their hometown with others, one opinion in the Mishna in Pirkei Avos says "one whose attitude is 'what is mine - is mine, and what is yours - is yours' - this is the trait of Sodom," because of an unwillingness to share their bounty with others. Unfortunately, the evildoers of today are not identifiable by this trait. Instead, they take a personal interest in underprivileged youth, or kids from broken homes, and shower them with attention and gifts. Others say "what a great guy he is," but he does it to gain the trust of an innocent, unsuspecting youth, and, Heaven forbid, performs atrocities on these children, and lo aleinu, scar them for life.

This is the pattern that happened to Pinny Taub.

How can it happen? Sefer Chasidim says: : מנהג היהודים, הטובים שבהם כמנהג הגויים שבתוכם הם
יושבים. This did not apply to the people of Givah. But still it happened. We in our own time are certainly not immune to these same issues, Hashem Yerachem.

Friday is Veterans Day. One reason Veterans Day is observed on November 11th is because November 10th is the birthday of the Marine Corps. Marines are unique among the armed forces because while soldiers and sailors are such while in uniform, out of uniform they are regular people. Marines, however, whether not in uniform while still in the service or even when retired, are always Marines. There is a code of dress that Marines keep for life that distinguishes them as a Marine, and there is always a special comeradarie between any two Marines, even if they had never met before. In that regard, religious Jews are like Marines. We dress differently that everyone else. If we see another Yid while travelling, a certain connection immediately springs up. When people see us, they say to themselves, "those are Jews over there," and they hold us to a higher standard, just as seeing two guys who stand straight and are dressed neatly are identifiable as Marines.

The end of the first stanza of the Marine's Hymn - a hymn, not just a song - states:
First to fight for right and freedom / And to keep our honor clean;
We are proud to claim the title / Of United States Marines.

At Penn State, there are many who have not kept their honor clean. In Jewish communities, there are, unfortunately, those who have not kept their honor clean. But the issue isn't only that they did not fight to keep their honor clean, it is that by not treating the issue with the full seriousness it deserves, more innocent children were harmed. More than that, some are even proud of their not becoming involved! The GA, McQueary, was horrified by what he saw and told his father, but apparently did not call the police. I even heard a former Penn State football player wonder - on the radio - if this GA's appointment as a coach the next season was a payoff to buy his silence. But the bottome line is, when confronted with scenarios like this, Hashem Yerachem, you have to contact the authorities who have procedures and experience in dealing with these issues. Telling well-intentioned but inexperienced people is not enough.

Public Service Announcement (for those in Chicago)
The second annual "Jewish Week for the Prevention of Child Abuse" presents the author of "Hush", whose topic is "If You Know Something, Say Something", Sunday, November 20, 2:00 pm, at KINS, 2800 North Shore. CEUs available. Sponsors: Nefesh Chicago and JBAC.

Goy Haba Al Bas Yisrael Part 7

2011-10-26T00:38:00.004-04:00

Previous posts on this topic: see here

Sorry this is sideways.

Goy Haba Al Bas Yisrael Noam 14

Negotiating for Prisoners

2011-10-19T11:58:00.001-04:00

תלמוד בבלי מסכת גיטין דף מה עמוד א מתני'. אין פודין את השבויין יתר על כדי דמיהן, מפני תיקון העולם; ואין מבריחין את השבויין, מפני תיקון העולם; רשב"ג אומר: מפני תקנת השבויין. גמ'. איבעיא להו: האי מפני תיקון העולם - משום דוחקא דצבורא הוא, או דילמא משום דלא לגרבו ולייתו טפי? ת"ש: דלוי בר דרגא פרקא לברתיה בתליסר אלפי דינרי זהב. אמר אביי: ומאן לימא לן דברצון חכמים עבד? דילמא שלא ברצון חכמים עבד.

תוספות מסכת גיטין דף מה עמוד א דלא ליגרבו ולייתו - והא דתניא בפ' נערה (כתובות נב.) נשבית והיו מבקשין ממנה עד עשרה בדמיה פעם ראשון פודה שאני אשתו דהויא כגופו יותר מבתו דהכא ועל עצמו לא תיקנו שלא יתן כל אשר לו בעד נפשו ור' יהושע בן חנניא דפרקיה לההוא תינוק בממון הרבה בהניזקין (לקמן דף נח.) לפי שהיה מופלג בחכמה אי נמי בשעת חורבן הבית לא שייך דלא ליגרבו.

ר"ן על הרי"ף מסכת גיטין דף כג עמוד א או דילמא דלא ליגרו בהו ולייתו טפי. כלומר כדי שלא ימסרו עובדי כוכבים נפשם עליהם לגנוב מהם הרבה מפני שמוכרין אותם ביוקר ונפקא מינה אם יש לו אב עשיר או קרוב שרוצה לפדותו בדמים הרבה ולא יטילהו על הצבור. ואמרינן. תא שמע דלוי בר דרגא פרקא לברתיה בתריסר אלפי דינרי. אלמא דמתני' משום דוחקא דצבורא הוא ודחי אביי מאן נימא לן דברצון חכמים עבד דילמא שלא ברצון חכמים עבד הילכך בעיין הכא לא איפשיטא וי"א דאפ"ה מיפשטא מדתניא בפ' נערה שנתפתתה (דף נב א) נשבית והיו מבקשין ממנה עד עשרה בדמיה פעם ראשונה פודה מכאן ואילך רצה פודה רצה אינו פודה רבן שמעון בן גמליאל אומר אין פודין את השבויין יותר על כדי דמיהן מפני תקון העולם אלמא לרבן שמעון בן גמליאל אע"ג דליכא דוחקא דצבורא כי התם דבעל חייב לפדותה אין פודין כי היכי דלא ניגרי בהו ופסק שם הרי"ף ז"ל כרשב"ג ונראה שפסק כן משום דסתם מתני' דהכא כותיה וליכא למימר דת"ק דהתם נמי מודה כסתמא דמתני' אלא דאיהו ורשב"ג בטעמא דתקנתא פליגי דת"ק סבר דמשום דוחקא דצבורא הוא ומשום הכי אמר דפעם ראשונה פודה אפי' עד עשרה בדמיה כיון דליכא הכא דוחקא דצבורא דהא בעל חייב לפדותה ורשב"ג סבר דמשום דלא ניגרי בהו הוא. דלא משמע הכי דמתניתין דהכא ודרשב"ג בחד לישנא מיתנו ומדטעמיה דרשב"ג כי היכי דלא ניגרו בהו משמע דטעמא דמתני' נמי משום הכי הוא ות"ק דהתם לית ליה מתני' כלל הילכך בעיין מיפשטא מההיא אע"ג דלא איפשטא הכא ואשכחן דכוותיה בעיא דלא מיפשטא בדוכתא ומיפשטא מדוכתא אחריתי דלעיל בגמ' [דף מב ב] איבעיא לן (מחוסר) [מעוכב] גט שחרור אם אוכל בתרומה אי לא ובמס' כריתות בפרק המביא אשם תלוי (דף כד ב) אסיקנא דרשב"ג סבר דאוכל בתרומה ומשמע התם דהלכתא כותיה וכ"נ דעת הרמב"ם ז"ל שכתב בפ"ח מהלכות מתנות עניים אין פודין את השבויין ביותר על דמיהן מפני תקון העולם שלא יהיו האויבים רודפין אחריהם לשבותן וכי תימא אם כן תקשי לן ההיא דאמרינן לקמן בפ' הניזקין (דף נח א) דר' יהושע פדה לאותו תינוק בממון הרבה יש לומר דמפני שהכיר בו שהוא תלמיד ותיק עשה כן שתלמיד חכם אין לנו כיוצא בו ולא חיישינן לפדיונו כלל אלא פודין אותו בכל מה שיכולין לפדותו וקודם לפדות למלך ישראל כדאיתא בהוריות (דף יג א) ול"נ דבעיין מהתם לא מפשטא דכיון דחיישי' לדוחקא דצבורא כ"ש דאיכא למיחש לדוחקא דבעל שלא לחייבו בתקנת חכמים לפדותה יותר מכדי דמיה ואם איתא דהוה מיפשטא מההיא ברייתא הוה להו בגמ' לאיתויי הכא. אבל נראה שדעת הראשונים ז"ל היה דכיון דלא מיפשטא ואיכא למיחש לתקלה אין פודין דשב ואל תעשה שאני ועוד דכיון דבגמ' פשט לה מההיא דלוי בר דרגא לא שבקינן פשטין דתלמודא משום ספיקא דאביי דאמר מאן לימא לן:

This Ran leads to an interesting discussion about where there is a baya dlio ifshita in one place and there is a maskana in another place. For example this Milchamos that Rabi Akiva Eiger cites: מלחמת ה' מסכת ברכות דף יב עמוד א ואל תתמה שיש כיוצא בזה בתלמוד בעיות שלא נפשטו במקומן ובמקום אחר מתברר עיקרן שתים מהן בפרק השולח דאבעיא להו אין פודין את השבויים יתר על כדי דמיהן מאי טעמא אי משום דוחקא דציבורא אי משום דלא נגרי בהו ולא אפשוט בדוכתא ואפשיט מההיא דתניא במסכת כתובות נשבית והיו מבקשין ממנה עד עשרה בדמיה וכו' וכן כתבו הגאונים שם ואחרת באותו הפרק מעוכב גט שחרור אוכל בתרומה או לא ולא אפשיטא כלל ובמסכת כריתות אמרו קסבר מעוכב גט שחרור אוכל ועוד בפרק החובל ביישו ישן ומת מהו ולא איפשיטא ובפ' אלו הן הנחנקין אמר רב ששת ביישו ישן ומת פטור וכך היא גרסתו של רבינו שלמה שם ובפרק אין בין המודר אבעיא להו כהני שלוחי דידן הוו או שלוחי דרחמנא הוו ולא אפשיטא ובמסכת קדושין ובמקומות אחרים אמר רב הונא בריה דרב יהושע הני כהני שלוחי דרחמנא נינהו ולא אפשיטא מינה בדוכתא ובגמ' עצמה בפ"ק דערכין דמי ראשי לגבי מזבח מהו נדון בכבודו תיקו והתם אתמר בשמעתא דלעיל והא מבעי מבעיא לך כי אבעיא ליה מקמי דשמעית להא מתניתא השתא דשמעית להא מתניתא לא אבעיא לי וכיוצא באלה סתומות ומפורשות רבות במקומות אחרים כ"ש בכאן שאין פשטא של בעיא זו אלא מסוגיות השמועות ודברי תורה עניים במקומם ועשירים במקום אחר: But that is slightly off topic.

תוספות מסכת גיטין דף נח עמוד א כל ממון שפוסקין עליו - כי איכא סכנת נפשות פודין שבויין יותר על כדי דמיהן כדאמרינן בפרק השולח (לעיל דף מד. /מז./) גבי מוכר עצמו ואת בניו לעובדי כוכבים כ"ש הכא דאיכא קטלא אי נמי משום דמופלג בחכמה היה.
Shulchan Aruch does not mention the heter to redeem the captive when the captive's life is in danger. שולחן ערוך יורה דעה הלכות צדקה סימן רנב סעיף ד ד אין פודין השבויים (ד) יותר (ה) מכדי דמיהם, מפני תיקון העולם, ה ו] שלא יהיו האויבים מוסרים עצמם עליהם לשבותם. ז] אבל אדם יכול לפדות את עצמו בכל מה שירצה. ח] וכן לת"ח, או אפילו אינו ת"ח אלא שהוא תלמיד חריף ואפשר שיהיה אדם גדול, פודים אותו בדמים מרובים. (ואם אשתו כאחר דמי או לא, עיין בטור אבן העזר סי' ע"ח

One may ask on this, what if the captive's life is in danger, but the danger is less than during the seizure? What I mean is that a soldier is in sakana, see
מנחת חינוך מצוה תכה ונוהג מצוה זו בכל איש ישראלי הן אנשים ונשים כמבואר בש"ס דמלחמות מצוה אפי' כלה מחופתה וכו' וכתב הרהמ"ח ועובר ע"ז ובא לידו ויכול להורגו מבלי שיסתכן בדבר וכו' וצ"ע נהי דכל המצות נדחים מפני הסכנה מ"מ מצוה זו דהתורה ציותה ללחום עמהם וידוע דהתורה לא תסמוך דיני' על הנס כמבואר ברמב"ן ובדרך העולם נהרגים משני הצדדים בעת מלחמה א"כ חזינן דהתורה גזרה ללחום עמהם אף דהוא סכנה. א"כ דחוי' סכנה במקום הזה ומצוה להרוג אותו אף שיסתכן וצ"ע:
As a prisoner of war, he is in much less imminent danger. True, being held by a group of terrorist that do not adhere to the Geneva convention (I think Israel never signed it either but they respect international law) may still be big sakana, v'tzarich iyun. Also, we think of "dmeihem" as money. Barter for goods, in place of money, would probably be the same din. In fact, Ben Hecht in his book "Perfidy" says that Hitler yemach shemo offered to trade the lives of a million [Romaninan] Jews for trucks, soap, tea and coffee (but no one met his offer, maybe no one even considered it). Goods would most probably be the same as money. But is there an allowance for an exchange of "prisoners" or people? What if you are exchanging murderers with blood on their hands?

There are many cheshbonos to make and it is very difficult. Vehu rachum yechaper avon velo yashchis.

Rabbi J. David Bleich in Contemporary Halakhic Problems, Volume 1:

Rav Ahron Soloveichik's 10th Yahrzeit

2011-10-16T00:36:00.003-04:00

In Memory of my Rebbi, Hagaon Harav Ahron Halevi Soloveichik zt"l on today, his tenth yahrzeit.

In a teaching that he gave many times, including at the hesped for his mother, Rav Ahron explained the midrash which says that Iyov did not find comfort after all the trials that he suffered until G-d showed him a sukkah. What was so special about the sukkah that it eased Iyov’s mind, after all of the lengthy addresses of his friends failed to do so? Rav Ahron explained that a sukkah is halachically valid even if it has only two complete walls and a fraction of a third wall. The halacha provides for the use of our imagination to create virtual walls. Imaginary walls, said Rav Ahron, can be as real as actual walls, just as imaginary numbers in mathematics are as valid as real numbers. Iyov realized that despite the loss of his children, he could imagine them and in that way their void was not as noticeable.

With the petirah of our rebbi, his students felt a tremendous void. How can we go on without being able to ask Rebbe our shailos? How should we act, without the cogent advice he readily and patiently bestowed to us? The answer is that the Sukkah still has four walls. Rav Ahron imbued all of his talmidim with kochos and a connection to the mesorah of Brisk. By reviewing the shiurim we heard from him, and by recalling the many inspirational acts of chesed he did, he is still with us. May his memory be a blessing.

Below is a brief biographical sketch of Rav Ahron I was asked to write for a magazine. They decided not to publish it, so I present it here, and I reiterate, it is very brief.

Rav Ahron Halevi Soloveichik Article Revised

Re Hesped for HaRav Rivkin

2011-10-06T00:59:00.006-04:00

I have a recording of the hespedim of Rav Rivkin zt"l but there quality is not high enough to post. I listened and was able to hear everything but it was in controlled conditions with high volume. So I apologize that although it was my intent to post the hespedim, I will not because the sound quality is not good enough.

UPDATE: The Young Israel of St. Louis posted the hespedim here.

Baruch Dayan HaEmes

2011-10-02T01:11:00.004-04:00

After Shabbos Shuva, Harav Sholom Rivkin, Chief Rabbi of St. Louis, MO, passed away after a lengthy illness.

UPDATE (10:30 am) The levaya will take place at 4715 McPherson Ave, St. Louis, today at 5:00 pm.

more UPDATE (1:45 pm) The levaya has been changed and will take place at 8:30 pm at the Young Israel. May the entire community show proper Kavod Hatorah and may their doing so be a zechus for them during these Aseres Yemai Teshuva.

Chodosh Guide

2011-09-20T09:42:00.001-04:00

It's that time of year again.

Chodosh Guide 5772 Pt1

Levels of Znus according to R' Saadia

2011-05-25T20:17:00.002-04:00

ibn Ezra Shemos 20:14

Rav Saadia Gaon said that znus has many levels.
The most lenient is with an unamrried woman or widow,
and the level above that is a man with his wife while she is a nida, for after a few days she will be permitted to him.
Above that is with a married woman; if her husband would die she would be permitted to him.
Above that is a non-Jew who is not [a follower of] the Torah...If she would convert, ti would be permitted.
Above that is mishkav zachar which is never permitted.
Above that is extra-species, like man with a beast.

Is Nida Yehareg v'al Yaavor?

2011-05-08T14:15:00.003-04:00

In Parshas Emor we read "venikdashti besoch bnei yisrael," the mitzvah of kiddush Hashem. See Yesodei Hatorah Ch 5. If one would be forced to be boel a nida would one be required to forfeit his life, or may he be boel her? Nida is a chiyuv kares but it is different that other chiyuvei kareis, because kiddushin are not tofsin in chiyuvei kares except nida.

Shulchan Aruch E"H 195 and Shach ibid. 9 sayone would be required to forfeit his life. This is also the opinion of the Ritva (in the name of the Ra'ah), Pesachim 25a s.v. Ki Asa Ravin.

However, the following authorities say one is not required to forfeit his life and can be boel the nida:
Shu"t Pnei Yehishua II 44 (based on Rashi in Sanhedrin perek Ben Sorer)
Tosfos Sanhedrin 37 s.v. Hatorah
Gemara Temurah 29b
Sefer HaChinuch 296 (yehareg v'al yaavor is only for arayos if there is no tefisas kiddushin)
Rambam Igeres Kiddush Hashem (he says "bishas hashmad livol nida," implying nida is only a problem bishas hashmad.

Some sources that discuss this:
Encyclopedia Talmudis Vol. 22 columns 72 and 83
Perach Mateh Ahron, Mada p. 26
Od Yisrael Yosef Bni Chai siman 22

Living in the Present: Yahrzeit of Rav Yoshe Ber

2011-04-22T12:45:00.002-04:00

Chol Hamoed Pesach is the yahrzeit of the Gaon Rav Yoshe Ber Soloveitchik. zt"l, my rebbie's oldest brother. I remember in 1993 the hesped which we heard at the old Brisk building on Peterson from a phone hookup from Boston (that is on the yutorah website; I think it is a tape from Chicago because I'm pretty sure I know the voice telling someone where to sit during the tehillim before the hesped). I never saw Brisk so packed.

The characteristic of the Rav I have been thinking about recently is his ability to put everything aside and focus on the Gemara in front of him right now. There is a famous story how he asked a question in Shiur, a talmid gave an answer, and the Rav said it was a terrible answer. "But the Rav gave that answer in Shiur yesterday!" said the talmid. I heard 2 versions of what happened next; perhaps they happened on different occasions. One is "That is no excuse for a bad answer." The other way I heard it was that the Rav replied "I'm not interested in what the Rav said yesterday." Rav Yoshe Ber was able to forget (he probably didn't, but pretended he did) his previous explanations and learned the sugya as if he never saw it before. He really fulfilled "Tamid yihyu b'einacha chadashos," and he captured the excitement of Aharon Hakohen who lit the menora every day as if it was his first time doing that mitzvah. (L'havdil, some call this process of having this open mind about an issue beginner's mind.)

The Rav wrote in Halakhic Man that when someone makes a chiddush, he becomes a partner with Hakadosh Baruch hu in maaseh Breishis. There is no living as when you reach this level. L'havdil, last week in the WSJ golfer Greg Norman described what it felt like when he was performing at his peak: "When everything is in sync, you feel like you're gliding through space. Things happen in slow motion. The wind feels different, the light is different, your eyesight is more acute. Each blade of grass seems to pop out. You've pushed yourself to the very maximum of your finely tuned ability to play. That's why you're leading the tournament." You see everything in super-clarity; it is hard to describe. But it is just as true in the world of ideas when learning Torah as it is for sports figure playing his sport.

Yet some might question this because the Rav described that when he gave shiur , the Rambam entered the room, thew Raavad entered the room. Rabbeinu Hakadosh was in the room; Abaye and Rava were in the room. The Rashba and Ramban were in the room, and Rav Chayim was in the room. You may ask, that is closed mindedness, you are thinking about other things? But that is precisely what the focus and open-mindedness is. It was taking the Torah from the baalei hamesorah and understanding it. Instead of, for example, saying shiur in front of a mirror and thinking, this is what shiur is - it's about my brilliance in explaining it, he did the opposite, the only true way to give shiur: as a process of the mesorah. Moshe Kibeil Torah misinai umasrah liYehoshua, v'Yehoshua l'Neviim etc. This is the Torah we received by Moshe Rabbeinu. It went through the Chachmei Hamesorah, through Rabbeinu Hakadosh, up to and including Ravina and Rav Ashi. And then the Rishonim explained the Torah Shebal Peh of the Gemara, and all we are doing is understanding what they said, which is really what the Amora'im said.

In succeeding at that, the Mesorah came alive. Yaakov lo mes. When we learn the mesorah not when trying to shoehorn a great thought we had about it into it, but by trying to find the simple peshat of what the amoraim and rishonim were saying, and making ourselves small in comparison to them, that is the only time we actually are great. When our perspective is proper, we can achieve great heights. Rav Yoshe Ber became a shutaf with Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

Rav Yoshe Ber lo mes. As Rav Ahron said at the hesped, do not give up to the keys of the great edifices [of Torah] Rav Yoshe Ber built. If we remember this need to keep an open mind- a simple idea but extremely difficult in practice - we can acheive great heights. To only say over his peshatim is very good, but he didn't only teach us Torah, he taught us how to learn Torah. To really learn Torah is an experience unlike any other; it is fusing together the great Shalsheles Hakabalah. And when we do this, using the keys Rav Yoshe Ber gave us, we are not living in the past; not in Washington Heights in 1975, not in Brisk, not in Vilna; not in Alexandria, Spain, Aragon or Provence; not in Sura and Pumpedisa; not in Yavneh or Usha or Tzipori, not even in the Lishkas Hagazis. We are back at Har Sinai. And Har Sinai wasn't something that happened 3300 years ago. It is still happening. If only we have the focus and concentration to realize it. L'havdil we are like a radio who need the proper antenna to receive those waves. When we fuse ourselves with the chachmei hamesorah, as Rav Yoshe Ber did, we are truly living in the present.

Double Ring Ceremonies

2011-04-04T15:28:00.002-04:00

If you Google "Prince William Ring" you will see that Prince William will not wear a wedding ring after his marriage. For example, see this ABC story.

Rav Moshe Feinstein has a teshuva about 2-ring ceremonies in Igros Moshe Even Ha'ezer III 18. (See here for a copy of the teshuva.) Briefly, he says that either it's chukas ha'akum, and if it's not, it's asur because you're changing things and it will lead c"v to forgetting halachos.

I am not aware if Rav Moshe discussed if a man may wear a wedding ring if it was not given at the ceremony. My feeling is that it's not asur. In certain situations it would probably be beneficial for a man to wear a wedding ring, depending the types of people he interacts with. For example, a man in kollel probably has no reason to wear one. If a man is married and spends a lot of time on a college campus - whether as a student or teacher - I think it would be a good idea to wear one (though there is absolutely no obligation to do so).

Once I'm mentioning an Igros Moshe, I saw a teshuva over shabbos that really got my attention: YD III 91: he didn't want someone to translate part of his Teshuvos into English.
This is undated and was written to his grandson R' Shabsi [Rappaport]. I suspect, but have absolutely no specific facts, that this was in regard to a particular book. Why do I say this? Because Rabbi Dr. Moshe Tendler published a book of Rav Moshe's Teshuvos in English. Also, he wrote a Teshuva (OC IV 74) on common questions in Hilchos Shabbos to Rabbi Shimon Eider, which were probably included in Rabbi Eider's English book on Hilchos Shabbos which have a haskama from Rav Moshe (and he did publish the teshuvos in Hebrew in the back). There are probably many other examples like this. That's why I assume he was writing about a particular book.

The Rebbe of Sinn Fein

2011-03-17T19:39:00.001-04:00

See this article from the Forward

Hat tip: hirhurim

In the News...Mamzer

2011-03-13T12:52:00.002-04:00

Shades of the Langer case? Details are very sketchy. Link Here. Notice they call it mamzerah and not mamzeres. I guess that's modern Hebrew for you.

בית דין רבני ביטל אשה ממעמד של ממזרה

צעירה מבאר שבע שנולדה כתוצאה מרומן בין גבר נשוי לגיסתו עתרה לבית הדין הרבני כדי שזה יבטל את הקביעה שהיא ממזרה

שמעון איפרגן | 8/3/2011 13:33

תגיות: הרבנות הראשית, גירושין,פסק הלכה,ממזרה,ממזרים חיר כבוד

בית הדין הרבני בבאר שבע החליט להתיר אשה שהוגדרה כממזרה כדי שהיא תוכל להינשא כדת משה וישראל. תחילת הפרשה לפני 22 שנה - תושבת דרום הארץ נישאה לבחיר ליבה ויחד איתם, בדריתם הקטנה גרה אחותה הקטנה של האשה שסייעה להם בעבודות הבית.

בשלב מסוים פרח רומן בין הבעל לבין גיסתו והיא נכנסה להיריון, אלא שהיא סיפרה לכולם כי האב של א', הילדה שנולדה לה, הוא פועל ערבי שאותו היא הכירה באקראי. כאשר א' גדלה ורצתה להינשא היא הגיעה למועצה הדתית על מנת להירשם לנישואין. לתדהמתה התברר לה שהיא מוגדרת
כממזרה שלא יכולה לבוא בקהל ישראל. הצעירה פנתה באמצעות הטוען הרבני הרב יוסף חיים-כהן לבית הדין הרבני בבאר שבע בתביעה לקבל היתר נשואין.

הרב כהן הציג בפני הדיינים פסקי הלכה רבים ומורכבים במיוחד אשר במיקרים מסויימים מתירים לבחורה כמו מרשתו להנשא ולבטל את ממזרותה. הדיינים התלבטו ולבסוף ברוב של שניים נגד אחד החליטו לקבוע שא' איננה ממזרה ולאפשר לה להינשא כהלכה לבחיר ליבה.

History and Politics: Geirus for Service to Your Country

2011-02-25T16:49:00.004-05:00

See below for an interesting article about a sad and unique situation. What could Rav Goren's reasoning have been? On a halachik basis, I can't think of any. And in reading the story, the details are sketchy. Were the wives converted and the children not? That seems hard to accept. Meilah, to convert the kids and not the wives I could understand - the children will be living among Jews, but the wives, who were living a lie spun to them by their husbands, it would be hard to believe they would have proper attitude towards converting, so I can understand, if not condone, not converting them. But to say the children do not need conversion and consider them Jewish - I hope the details are incomplete.

Is there a political motive for this story getting out? i.e., because these children were born out of their father's service to Israel they shouldn't need conversions? Is it related to the current issue of IDF conversions - if these people serve in IDF they should have conversions even if they don't meet the regular Rabbanut standards for conversion?

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4031176,00.html

60 years later, spies' lives revealed

In 1952, Shin Bet agents were sent undercover to spy inside Palestinian villages. Keeping their real identities secret, they married Arab women, with whom they had children. Decade later, truth came to light. 'They tried to forget, but never could,' mission leader says
Akiva Novick

"Your husband is not who you think he is. He is not Arab. Your husband is a Jew who was sent into your village on a mission by the defense establishment."

This was the news a few Israeli Arab women received from the head of the Mossad

mission in France in 1964. This was how they discovered that the fathers of their children were serving in a top secret Israeli unit sent to spy in their villages.

Ten Jewish men assimilated into Arab communities in the early 1950s, marrying local women and starting families with them, all the while serving in the Shin Bet as "mistaarvim," (literally, masqueraders) - undercover agents posing as Palestinians.

The goal of the unit, which was established in 1952, was to have men on the inside in case a war breaks out, and the Israeli Arabs join the enemy. Shumel Moriah, a senior Shin Bet officer who came to Israel from Iraq, and had plenty of experience smuggling Jews into Israel, led the unit. He recruited 10 other Iraqi-born men for the complex mission.

The unit was disbanded over a decade after its establishment, which was when the wives were informed of the deception. Most of them converted and lived in Israel as Jews. Their children were recognized as Jews without undergoing an official conversion procedure.

Double life, cover story

The training process took one year; the men learned the Palestinian dialect, studied the Koran and espionage techniques in an Intelligence Corps base near Ramla. With a new identity and a detailed cover story, they were sent into Palestinian villages and cities. They pretended to be refugees from the 1948 war returning home. Their real families in Israel were kept in the dark about their whereabouts and activities; they were forbidden from trying to discover where their loved ones served.

After integrating into Arab life, village elders expected them to find a match, as per tradition. Senior Shin Bet personnel thought that the men should get married for the operation to succeed, but agreed to leave the decision up to the agents. Most of them did marry young Arab women.

"Our guys just didn't have a choice," Moriah says. "It seemed suspicious that young vigorous men would stay alone, without a spouse. When we sent them on the mission we didn't order them to marry, but it was clear to both sides that there is such an expectation, and that it would do the job better."

Shimon, the brother of one of the agents, Meir Cohen (their real names remain confidential), says that for many years, a Shin Bet representative would arrive on his parents' doorstep to personally give them Meir's paycheck, without giving them any information.

"When suddenly everything was revealed, Meir came to me and told me everything," Shimon remembers. "He told me about his cover story and about the double life. We were shocked."

Meir was sent to Jaffa, where he worked as a teacher and where he met Leila, a beautiful young Christian Arab with amazing black eyes, Shimon recalls. Meir presented himself as a Muslim. Leila was studying to be a nun when they met; they fell in love and got married. A short while later their son was born.

Leila's choice

As time passed, the pressure on the Shin Bet to return the double agents home intensified. It was becoming clear that the intelligence benefits achieved by the mission were marginal. When the Shin Bet decided to dismantle the unit, Moriah was faced with a dilemma: To leave the women and children in the Arab villages, or ask them to convert to Judaism, and raise their children as Jews? The agents themselves refused to leave their families, which is why it was decided resettle the families into Jewish areas.

The wives were brought to France, where they were finally told the truth.

"Leila realized that she was cheated, and had to undergo psychiatric treatment for a few months," Shimon says. "Only after she recovered Meir presented her with the most difficult choice that exists: To accept him as he is – a Jew and a Shin Bet agent – and raise their son as a Jew, or to leave Israel for any Arab country that she chose."

'They tried to forget, but couldn't'

Three rabbis were then brought to the Israeli embassy in Paris, including Chief IDF Rabbi Shlomo Goren, to convert the women to Judaism. Considering the special circumstances, the rabbis ruled that the children can be accepted as Jews even though their mothers were not. Their story was first told in Israel Defense, a magazine edited by Amir Rappaport.

Most of the families chose to return to Israel, and began a slow recuperation process.

"Once they returned, problems started surfacing" Moriah recalls painfully. "We tried to rehabilitate the people, but we weren't really successful. The agents' kids experienced serious trauma in their childhood. They tried to recover, to forget their past, where they come from, but they couldn't.

"A few of the kids succeeded in life, but most of them were left behind. They still suffer from problems."

Chodosh Guide part 3

2011-02-23T14:42:00.001-05:00

chodoshguide5771pt3

Surrogate Mother in the news

2011-02-21T14:42:00.002-05:00

According to Rav Moshe Feinstein's psak about surrogate pregnancy (discussed here), this case would be pretty problematic: a son-in-law father and mother-in-law mother.

www.chicagotribune.com/health/ct-met-pregnant-grandmother-20110211,0,2864196.story

chicagotribune.com

Woman, 61, gives birth to own grandchild

Her daughter had tried for years to have a baby

By Deborah L. Shelton, Tribune reporter

11:22 PM CST, February 11, 2011

Almost 39 weeks ago, Kristine Casey set out on an unusual journey to help her daughter and answer a spiritual calling.

Her goal was achieved late Wednesday when she gave birth to her own grandson at age 61.

Casey, possibly the oldest woman to give birth in Illinois, served as a surrogate for her daughter, Sara Connell, who had been trying for years to have a baby. Connell and her husband, Bill, are the biological parents of the child Casey carried, which grew from an embryo created from the Chicago couple's egg and sperm.

Crying and praying, Connell and her mother held hands as Finnean Lee Connell was delivered by cesarean section at 9:47 p.m.

When the baby let out a cry, "I lost it," said Sara Connell, the first family member to hold him. "It's such a miracle."

The doctor who delivered Finnean said there wasn't a dry eye in the crowded operating room.

"The surgery itself was uncomplicated, and the emotional context of this delivery was so profound," said Dr. Susan Gerber, obstetrician and maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

Childbirth remains a rare event for post-menopausal women, but the number of such births has risen in recent years due to wider use of in vitro fertilization and other assisted reproductive technologies. According to state health department records, the oldest woman to give birth in Illinois was 58 when she had her baby in 2006. But data on births after 2008 are not yet available.

Older women face greater risks during pregnancy and delivery, and experts say many women would not be good candidates.

"It's going to be more risky for somebody who's got underlying conditions," said Dr. Alan Peaceman, chief of maternal-fetal medicine at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, one of Casey's doctors. "Because of that, we recommend that patients have a cardiac evaluation."

The Connells decided in 2004 to try to have a baby, but Sara, now 35, soon discovered she wasn't ovulating. After undergoing infertility treatment at the Reproductive Medicine Institute in Evanston, she got pregnant but delivered stillborn twins, and later she suffered a miscarriage.

Casey's previous three pregnancies — her last was 30 years ago — went smoothly, resulting in three daughters. After Casey retired in 2007, she filled her time walking, meditating, taking classes and socializing with friends. But she felt she had a deeper calling.

"At the beginning of 2009," she said, "I decided for once in my life to take some time to think about my life and find something that seemed right for me — where there was no pressure to do a specific thing."

During a visit to Chicago — she lives in Virginia — Casey participated in a workshop led by Connell, a life coach, writer and lecturer on women's empowerment. In one class exercise, she used pictures cut from a magazine to create a collage depicting a life's goal. One picture grabbed her attention: an ostrich with an expression of wonder and joy.

Casey wanted to experience the exuberance captured in the picture.

Around the same time, a walking partner mentioned a story she had read about a post-menopausal woman who gave birth.

"I thought, 'Wow, three of the happiest days of my life were giving birth to my daughters,' and I thought I could choose to do this for someone I love," Casey said.

Casey later wrote a letter to the Connells offering to be Sara's surrogate.

"I found something that would make me feel like that ostrich," she wrote. "What do you think of this?"

She suggested that they forget about it if they found the idea repulsive.

"I won't do this just to make me happy because, believe me, I could find other things to do," she remembers writing, laughing at the recollection. At the time, she was 10 years past menopause.

Several months later, the family discussed the idea with experts at the Reproductive Medicine Institute, where they had sought help six years earlier. The couple said they had considered adoption but preferred to have a biological child.

"The idea of having a family member being open to doing this for us was so extraordinary for us," Sara Connell said.

Bill Connell said he appreciated his mother-in-law's offer, though he didn't think it was doable at first. Any further reservations evaporated when he saw she was serious, he added.

"I just wanted to make sure the science was there," he said. "I didn't want us to subject ourselves to another very risky, possibly devastating, scenario. Infertility is one thing, but putting your mother-in-law in danger kicks it up to another level altogether."

At first, Casey's husband also wondered if it was even possible for his wife to have a baby in her 60s. Then he worried that a pregnancy could jeopardize her health or even her life. But he set aside most of his concerns after she cleared medical tests and doctors gave a thumbs-up.

"What made the difference for me was when Kris said it was a calling from deep within herself," Bill Casey said. "You can't get any more compelling than that."

Casey underwent multiple tests to evaluate her medical and psychological health, as required by Illinois law on surrogate births. The family also drew up a mandatory legal agreement.

The risks of genetic abnormalities were low because Connell's egg would be the one fertilized. But if any such issues were detected later, Casey said she and the Connells agreed that she would carry the baby to term regardless.

Then she took hormones to prepare her uterus for pregnancy. She got pregnant on the second cycle of in vitro fertilization with an embryo transfer.

"If you give the uterus hormones, it will act like a young uterus," said Dr. Carolyn Coulam, a reproductive endocrinologist at Reproductive Medicine Institute. Coulam's oldest patient was in her late 60s at the time she had a baby. She lived in another state.

"It usually is a function of the age of the egg, not the uterus, whether or not the pregnancy will be successful," Coulam said.

Still, some fertility programs have age limits for gestational surrogates. At the University of Chicago Medical Center the upper limit is 55, said Dr. David Cohen, chief of reproductive medicine.

"The issue comes up because as a woman gets older, the risks she takes in pregnancy clearly go up — everything from high blood pressure and diabetes to premature delivery and infant death," Cohen said. "So one has to be clear about what those risks are."

The medical center evaluates cases involving older surrogates in an ethics consultation.

"It's not written in stone," Cohen said. "One is left with deciding each case individually, and those decisions are made after a very serious discussion with everybody involved. I personally would not throw stones at somebody who decided to go ahead in this situation as long as she clearly understood her risks."

Peaceman described Casey's health as excellent throughout her pregnancy, but he emphasized: "It takes a significant commitment to be a surrogate in any circumstance. To take on this type of physical burden at this age is not anything anybody should take lightly."

After her C-section, Casey had a complication with her kidneys.

"After delivery, her urine output was lower than we expected and there was no discernible cause," Gerber said. "We wanted to be extra careful, given her age, so we gave her close attention. With relatively little intervention, it turned around."

Josephine Johnston, a research scholar at the Hastings Center, a bioethics research institute, had no ethical objections to the idea of a 61-year-old having a baby, as long as she had undergone a thorough medical and psychological evaluation.

"It seems like an unquestionably loving and generous thing for a family member to do," she said.

"It's a great story to tell the child," Johnston added. "It's one of those situations where outsiders might wonder if it's OK or healthy. But the experience of that child and his family will be that it's good. … If they treat it as good, it will be experienced that way."

Casey, who has a quick wit and laid-back manner, plans to return to her Virginia home with her husband in about two weeks, where she is ready to adopt a more conventional grandmother role. Finnean is her first grandchild.

"From the very beginning, the moment I've wanted is the moment the baby is in their arms," she said at her daughter and son-in-law's home weeks before the birth. "I've been clear since after my third child that I didn't need to have any more children, and as much as I will be delighted to be a grandmother, I don't want to take a baby home."

Sara Connell said she was grateful for her mother's loving, generous spirit and what she called "her special gift."

"It grew beyond the two of us having a child," Connell said. "It was about the closeness with my mother, and our family having this experience that was unique and special."

dshelton@tribune.com

In Rav Yoshe Ber's Words

2011-02-20T15:28:00.003-05:00

13.11 Surrender to Halakhah

Related by the Rav in his address on Gerut (Conversion) to the Yeshiva University Rabbinic Alumni, Yeshiva University, June 19, 1975

The Torah summons the Jew to live heroically. We cannot allow a married woman, no matter how tragic the case is, to remarry without a get [divorce document]. We cannot allow a kohen to marry a giyoret [convert]. Sometimes these cases are very tragic. I know this from my own experience.

I had a case in Rochester of a gentile girl who became a giyoret hatzedek [righteous convert] before she met the boy. She did not join our nation because she wanted to marry somebody. Then she met a Jewish boy from an alienated background and had no knowledge of Yahadut [Judaism]. She brought him close to Yahadut and they became engaged. Since he was now close to Yahadut, the boy wanted to find out about his family, so he visited the cemetery where his grandfather was buried. He saw a strange symbol on the tombstone - ten fingers with thumbs and forefingers nearly forming a triangle. So he began to ask - he thought it was a mystical symbol - and he discovered that he was a kohen.

What can we do? This is the halakhah. A kohen may not marry a convert [Shulhan Arukh, Even ha-Ezer 6:8]. We surrender to the will of the Almighty. On the other hand, to say that the halakhah is not sensitive to to problems and is not responsive to the needs of people is an outright falsehood. The halakhah is responsive to the needs of both the community and the individual. However, the halakhah has its own orbit, moves at a certain definite speed, has its own pattern of responding to a challenge, and possesses its own criteria and principles.

I come from a rabbinical house - the bet ha-Rav. This is the house into which I was born. Believe me, Reb Chaim used to try his best to be meikil [lenient in his halakhis rulings]. But there were limits even to Reb Chaim's kulot [lenient rulings]. When you reach the boundary line, all you can say is: "I surrender to the will of the Almighty."

With sadness in my heart, I shared in the suffering of the poor woman or the poor girl. She was instrumental in bringing him back to the fold and then she had to lose him. She lost him. She walked away.

--The Rav: The Wolrd of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Volume 2, by Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff

Rummy & Shiur: Some Reminisces

2011-02-17T16:46:00.002-05:00

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was in the news last week with the release of his memoir "Known and Unknown." The title stems from a comment he made in February of 2002: "because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know."

This statement is very clear and straightforward. I would like to use his statement to describe a difference between the philosophy of the shiurim of Rav Ahron Soloveichik and his brother Rav Yoshe Ber Soloveitchik.

For a year I was in the shiur of a very well-known talmid of the Rav, and I still distinctly remember him at times, summarizing a sugya, saying "What we still don't know is how Tosfos learns this Tosefta," and things like that. When he was leaving a sugya, he mentioned the known unknowns, the items we were not able to figure out while studying the sugya. (Some might call it the glass half-empty approach, but I don't agree with that.) However, after completing a sugya with Rav Ahron, I always had a feeling "now I understand this Rishon, that shita...," a focus on the known knowns. I was happy knowing what I learned - or should I say what I knew.

And yes, I think I can even give an example of unknown unknowns from their grandfather Rav Chaim Brisker (though in at least one place I heard it attributed to their uncle Rav Velvel). Rav Chaim is quoted as saying "you cannot say a chiddush until you have gone through Shas." I think there is a lot in that statement, but one point definitely is that there is a lot in Shas, and until you know it, you cannot speculate with new ideas. Because you'll find that some are really old ideas. Some might be good and some might be bad; some are true and some are false. Until you reduce your unknown unknowns, you shouldn't be speculating.

Rav Ahron Soloveichik on Brain Death

2011-02-02T08:51:00.002-05:00

See Jewish Bioethics by Bleich & Rosner for a brief article. The following is his response to Rabbi Dr. Tendler's article in JAMA.

Jewish Law and Time of Death - JAMA, July 14, 1978--Vol 240, No.2

To the Editor.
The article dealing with brain death (238:1651, 1977) contains a serious misinterpretation of Jewish law pertaining to establishment of the time of death. The statement that "absent heartbeat or pulse was not considered a significant factor in ascertaining death in any early religious sources" is a manifest error In fact, the source to which the reader is directed by the footnote, Babylonian Talmud Tractate Yoma 85A, serves to establish precisely the opposite position. Jewish law recognizes the presence of any vital function, including heart action, as indicative of at least residual life. Termination of such life by means of "pulling the plug" or otherwise constitutes an act of homicide.

Moreover, a sharp distinction must be drawn between partial and total destruction of the brain. The authors state that the Harvard criteria signify that "when the criteria have been fulfilled, there is widespread destruction of the brain" and that "time must often elapse before
morphologic evidence of cellular destruction can be. detected." This cannot be equated at all with the state of decapitation.

Jewish law cannot be cited in support of brain death legislation presently before the legislatures of various states. Jewish law cannot condone the removal of life support systems from any patient in whom any vital sign is present.

RABBI AARON SOLOVEICHIK. Brisk Rabbinical College
Skokie, Ill.

The RCA's recent paper is here (in pdf form)

Korban of the Ger

2011-01-31T16:22:00.005-05:00

I feel this post does not violate my declaration that I will not discuss geirus issues on this blog because Kerisos 9 says because of "ledoroseichem" we have geirus even when there is no Beis Hamikdash. And see Tosfos, Gittin 88b s.v. bemilsa. Bimhera yibaneh beis Hamikdash (Sukkah 41).

In Parshas Bo (12:48) vechi yagur itcha ger b'artzichem v'asah pesach laHashem, himol lo kol zachar.... Rashi brings a Mechilta: maybe anyone who becomes a ger should bring a korban pesach right away, talmud lomar v'haya k'ezrach ha'aretz....

What is the hava amina that a ger should bring a Korban Pesach right away?

Now, gerus requires milah, tevila and korban. See Rambam, Hilchos Isurei Biah 13:1-4. The Rambam says the source of korban for all of Klal Yisrael is at the end of Mishpatim (24:5). However, we can suggest that perhaps the Korban Pesach itself serves as a korban of geirus. Therefore every ger should bring one. The drasha teaches that they bring a different korban, not a korban pesach.

The Meshech Chachma (Bamidbar 9:7) does suggest this, that a Korban Pesach serves as a korban pesach in place of the regular korban of a ger.

And see Harirei Kedem II 57 about this.

Organ Transplant Controversy

2011-01-21T00:12:00.004-05:00

Should organ donors be praised as heroes? Mickey Mantle said so. Luckily, I didn't grow up in New York in the '50s, so I can disregard Mick. Their donations can save over a dozen people and I am not questioning that. I do, however, want to make a few points.

Cadaver donors - I am not talking about live kidney donors or partial-liver donors - do not make a decision at the time of death to give anything. They made a choice earlier - or their family did - and sometimes the situation does come when, while they are are at least unconscious and at most dead according to some authorities, their organs are harvested. There is no "cost" to them to donate.

People who donate blood regularly help many people - as many as three people with one donation. Their donation is voluntary. They have to take time out to donate. They are inconvenienced - albeit minimally - but they consistently and voluntarily give up time and "a pound of flesh" (reviis dam is metamei lemais like basar, see Sanhedrin 4).

And to register on the international bone marrow registry can save lives even if you are never asked to donate stem cells or bone marrow (see this post). Kind of sounds like the spiel they always give you when you show up for jury duty.

~~

My Rebbi zt"l discussed some of the classic questions about Akeidas Yitzchak. Why was it considered a test of Avraham and not of Yitzchak? If Hashem hates human sacrifice, what was His goal in asking Avraham to offer his som? Why doesn't the Torah say that Yitzchak returned with Avraham after the Akeida?

Please read his entire discussion in The Warmth and the Light. Briefly, he discussed dying for a cause and living for a cause. Some people are willing to die for a cause, but they are not willing to do little things every day for the same cause. Avraham did not let Yitzchak go to Yeshivas Shem v'Eiver until after the Akeida because he loved Yitzchak so much, he didn't want to be separated from him before the Akeida. Explaining the Ramban, my rebbi said that once Avraham saw he was willing to sacrifice Yitzchak because G-d said so, he realized he could make the smaller, everyday sacrifices regarding Yitzchak.

UPDATE: See here - The Hoffer wrote about this same piece this week. He brings more depth than I did.

~~

Some people can set a big goal, to run a marathon. They take big chunks of time over half a year to train. Is it actually healthier for them to do this or to exercise on a regular basis, with probably shorter training sessions, but keep it up for the long term?

So which is greater - the organ donor or the regular blood donor?

I don't know.

Economy of Scale

2010-11-29T19:30:00.003-05:00

Economies of scale, in microeconomics, refers to the cost advantages that a business obtains due to expansion. There are factors that cause a producer’s average cost per unit to fall as the scale of output is increased. "Economies of scale" is a long run concept and refers to reductions in unit cost as the size of a facility and the usage levels of other inputs increase. (Wikipedia)

See this Rambam, Ishus 18:4

ד] ברכת הבית, מרובה. כיצד: חמישה שהיה מזונות כל אחד מהן קב, כשיאכל לבדו, אם היו חמשתן בבית אחד ואוכלין בעירוב, מספיק להן ארבעת קבין; והוא הדין, לשאר צורכי הבית. לפיכך אלמנה שאמרה, איני זזה מבית אבי, פסקו לי מזונות, ותנו לי שם--יכולין היורשין לומר לה, אם את אצלנו, יש לך מזונות, ואם לאו, אין אנו נותנים לך אלא כפי ברכת הבית. ואם הייתה טוענת, מפני שהיא ילדה, והם ילדים--נותנין לה מזונות המספיקין לה לבדה, והיא בבית אביה. ומותר מזונות האלמנה ומותר הכסות, ליורשין.

Chodosh Guide Part 2

2010-11-22T16:03:00.000-05:00

Yasher Koach to R' Yoseph Herman.

chodoshguide2010pt2

Surrogate Pregnancy Clarification

2010-11-14T12:10:00.002-05:00

Relating to this post, in Parshas Vayeitzei.

When some rishonim mention that the fetuses of Yosef and Dina were switched, the outcome is that the surrogate mother is the mother. According to those who use this midrash to explain that Shimon married Dina, they would have to hold that on some level the surrogate mother is the mother - because Yosef is the son of Rachel and Dina is the daughter of Leah - but they'd also have to hold that for some things the genetic mother is the mother, otherwise, Shimon and Dina would be full siblings and not have been allowed to marry.

Parshas Chayei Sarah: Gittin-related Halachos

2010-10-30T20:54:00.004-04:00

First, From Haftorah:
אמר להו קראו לי לבת שבע וכתיב (מלכים א א) ותבא בת שבע אל המלך החדרה אמר רב יהודה אמר רב באותה שעה קינחה בת שבע בשלש עשרה מפות
(Sanhedrin 22)
Rashi says we know Bas Sheva wiped herself 13 times because there are 13 words in the Pasuk:
טו וַתָּבֹא בַת-שֶׁבַע אֶל-הַמֶּלֶךְ הַחַדְרָה וְהַמֶּלֶךְ זָקֵן מְאֹד וַאֲבִישַׁג הַשּׁוּנַמִּית מְשָׁרַת אֶת-הַמֶּלֶךְ
So, the Gra said we see from this that the name Bas Sheva is one word - if it is 2 words, then this Pasuk has 14 words - so in a Get it is written as one word.
--Kol Eliyahu, Sanhedrin 22

Second,

In a Get, we write the city and the water sources of the city - river, ocean, sea, wellsprings, wells, etc. (see here for an example). See Shulacha Aruch E"H 158. Haghos Ashri (Gittin 4:7) says we write the river just as a siman (perhaps if there are multiple cities with the same name. For example, in The Aryeh Kaplan Reader, there is an article about how to spell Monsey in Hebrew in a Get. He mentions that there are 3 cities in the US with that name, (one is spelled Muncie in English). The significance of that is in the determination of the proper pronunciation of Monsey (e.g., not Moonsey). Then they (meaning Rav Moshe Feinstein) had to determine if Lake Suzanne was a nahar or not. [I think Lake Suzanne has since dried up, but that's a different issue.] So we would know that a Get from "Monsey on Nahar Lake Suzanne" was not the Muncie in Indiana.)

Meshech Chochma proves from our Parsha that Maayan and Be'er are used interchangeably in the Torah and Gemara. Because one Pasuk says Rivka came to the Maayan and in another Pasuk it says she ran back to the be'er.

--Meshech Chochma, Breishis 24:16

9th Yahrzeit of Harav Ahron Halevi Soloveichik zt"l

2010-09-26T17:42:00.003-04:00

Sheidim

Gittin 68 says that Shlomo Hamelech was cast away by Ashmedai, the king of sheidim (demons). So I want to bring some opinions about what sheidim are.

Ramban to Vayikra 17:7 (tha pasuk says "do not sacrifice to seirim, which Onkelos translates as sheidim) says that people are made up of all four elements - fire, water, earth and air, but sheidim consist of only fire and air, and therefore cannot be perceived by the senses. They can fly because they consist of only light elements. They know what will happen because they hear things when they fly (near the heavens).

Rav Ahron zt"l said that sheidim are germs, a disruptive force that cannot be seen. When the Gemara (Gittin 66a) says sheidim have shadows it means hallucinations can be lifelike (sheidim are also psychological).

Eating on Erev Yom Kippur, Part 2

2010-09-18T23:48:00.004-04:00

See Rav Zevin's Moadim B'Halacha for Yom Kippur "Tzom He'asor." The achronim he cites all seem to focus on the last of the reasons offered by Rabbeinu Yonah in Shaarei Teshuva.

What are some nafka minas between the different answers of R"Y? One would be if you're not fasting (As R' Zevin mentions). To the third reason, there is no reason to eat a special meal. To the second reason, if someone is not fasting, perhaps they should eat a yom tov meal on Yom Kippur itself. To the first reason, they should perhaps eat on Erev Yom Kippur, since that is when everyone also is celebrating the kaparah.

As a note to the very last point, Rav Yoshe Ber zt"l said Sukkos is Zman Simchaseinu - the simcha is that of receiving the Kapparah on Yom Kippur, and we just wait a few days to celebrate.

Another Nafka mina would be should you eat the night before Erev Sukkos. The mashmaus of Rashi (Kesuvos 5a s.v. shechal lihyos) is that you do eat the night before Erev Yom Kippur, but no one has such a custom. To the first and third reasons, there is little rationale for eating on the night before Erev Yom Kippur. To the second reason, if we keep Erev Yom Kippur special because we can't eat on Yom Kippur itself, maybe there is some rationale to eat on Erev Yom Kippur eve.

On this second reason of R"Y, my Rebbi Rav Ahron zt"l explained that Yom Kippur should be a Yom Tov like Shavuos because Moshe returned with the second Luchos on Yom Kippur. So really Yom Kippur is a joyous celebration of receiving the Torah and that is why we have a seudah on Erev Yom Kippur.

Then there is a possibility that Erev Yom Kippur has some of the sanctity of Yom Kippur itself. One source is the din of tosefes Yom Kippur. The Gemara discusses this (Yoma 81b). "Bitisha lachodesh ba'erev, mi'erev ad erev..." The inui of Yom Kippur starts on the ninth of Tishrei. Rambam, however, only mentions tosefes for Yom Kippur (Shevisas Asor 1:6) and not for Shabbos or Yom Tov. We see, therefore, that Erev Yom Kippur already has some element of Yom Kippur. (And see Harirei Kedem I 47, you can interpret it like I am saying or you can interpret it differently.) Another possibility for this is in the Rambam, Hilchos Teshuva 2:7 regarding saying viduy before the seudas hamafsekes. Rav Yoshe Ber said (see Machzor Mesoras Harav, p. xix) that "Erev Yom Kippur is appended to Yom Kippur in respect to the kedushas hayom." We could suggest, though it is not totally compelling, that if the ninth is special, its uniqueness begins the night before - that is, the night before the ninth of Tishrei.

According to this, let me depart for a moment from my normal rigid seriousness. The mekubalim say Yom Hakippurim means "the day which is like Purim." Now Yom Kippur is from Har Sinai and Purim was not until after chrurban bayis rishon? Using the previous idea - that Yom Kippur is really 2 days (or 1+ days), we can compare it to Purim. See Rambam Taanios 5:5 that 13 Adar, commonly known as Taanis Esther, is midivrei Kabbalah, because it is from the pasuk in the megillah "divrei hatzomos vezaakasam." (Note: this Halacha in the Rambam needs a lot of explanation. The simple reading says that we fast the 4 fasts as minhag, but Taanis Esther is midivrei Kabbalah. See Magid Mishna, that Taanis Esther is not mentioned in the Gemara. But the 4 fasts are, so it seems that the fast mentioned in the Gemara would have a higher status? One answer is that Taanis Esther is midivrei Kabalah. And if you want to suggest the 4 fasts are also divrei kabbalah because of the passuk in Zecharya tzom harevii vetzom hachamishi - please comment, because I don't think that is a compelling question. A simple but elegant explanation is that of Rav Zelmeleh, the brother of Rav Chaim Volozhiner, that remove the vav from "u'v'yud-gimmel baAdar." Thus this entire Halacha is only discussing Taanis Esther and none of the 4 fasts.) Now, my brother told me that our Rebbi Rav Moshe shlit"a and his brother Rav Yosef shlit"a gave the same shiur with opposite conclusions. In 2 sentences, why is Taanis Esther called Yemai Hatzomos - that would include Purim as a tzom? They both answered that Purim and Taanis Esther are one combined holiday. However, Rav Moshe said that Taanis Esther is a happy fast, and Rav Yosef answered that Purim is a sad holiday. regardless of that dispute, having a holiday where one day you fast and one day you eat, would be like Purim, and thus Yom Kippurim - that we eat on the ninth and fast on the tenth - is like Purim, where we fast on the 13th and eat on the 14th.

Eating on Erev Yom Kippur

2010-09-17T12:47:00.003-04:00

Rabbeinu Yonah, Shaarei Teshuva 4:8
The Gemara (Rosh Hashana 9a) says whoever has a set meal on Erev Yom Kippur is as if he was commanded to fast on the ninth and tenth [of Tishrei] and he did, because he shows his excitement at the arrival of the day of his atonement, and it testifies his worry for his guilt and his sorrow for his sins.

[9] The second reasonis on holidays we have a meal for the happiness of the mitzvah...but because we must fast on Yom Kippur, we are obligated to have the meal on Erev Yom Kippur.

[10] And the third reason is to strengthen ourselves to be able to say the many prayers and supplications on Yom Kippur and to be able to make personal resolutions about Teshuva.

Added Aliyas on Haazinu

2010-09-07T21:37:00.003-04:00

I was asked the following Shaila: This Shabbos we lain Haazinu. We are not allowed to make the aliyos during the shira in places other than where the aliyas are. Can we add aliyas during shevii?

Everything very quickly: the prohibition to make extra aliyos in Haazinu is in Rosh Hashana 31a. Shulchan Aruch paskens it in 428:5. From Rambam's lashon (Tefila 13:5) it sounds like you can't add in the shira, but in shevii you may add. Mishna Brurah brings Eliyahu Rabbah and Pri Megadim that you may add an aliya in shevii. Aruch Hashulchan (428:5) says you may not add aliyas in Haazinu at all.

Rav Tzvi Hirsch Grodzinsky says not to add an aliya, because you would make it at the place we read maftir, and then you will read the same aliya two aliyos in a row (as acharon and maftir). But he mentions that Shaar Efrayim says you may add an aliya there in Haazinu.

It seems that we may add an aliya in shevi'i of Haazinu.

Intermarriage Article

2010-09-07T18:08:00.002-04:00

An interesting article about the prohibition of Intermarriage in The Jerusalem Post.

To everyone, have a Happy and Healthy New Year.

Chodosh Guide #1

2010-09-02T12:24:00.002-04:00

Yashar Koach as always to R' Yoseph Herman.

Chodosh Guide #1 August 2010

13 Elul

2010-08-24T00:26:00.004-04:00

Today was the 7th yahrzeit of Rabbi Dr. David Appelbaum and his daughter Nava. They were killed in a terrorist bombing in Jerusalem the night before Nava's wedding. Reb David was a highly accomplished individual. I am not qualified to address the greatness of Reb David, but besides for being a physician who revolutionized emergency medicine in Israel and a talmid chacham (see the obituary in The Lancet), he had many - like dozens and dozens - other talents and skills. One of them was coming once a week, every week, to learn with his sons in yeshiva.

This week's parsha, Ki Tavo, begins with laws about Bikkurim. In Makos (18b) there is a machlokes tanaim if the main part of bikkurim is placing them in front of the mizbe'ach, or is the main part when the kohen takes the hand of the bringer and they wave the basket together.

Sometimes in life we have to do things ourselves. Just putting the basket down fulfills the mitzvah. But sometimes we cannot do things alone. Sometimes we must be a member of a group to accomplish things, like the waving which could only be while the bringer and the kohen hold the basket.

In life, Dr. Applebaum inspired thousands of people by the way he cared for and about people. His murder incited outrage.

Seven years later, the pain has not diminished. There are many projects that are left unfinished because Reb David is no longer with us. What remains with me is that there is no limit to what man can accomplish. Reb Dovid accomplished so much in his short life, but doubtless would have accomplished mush more had he not been stolen from us so soon. The terrorist murderer destroyed so much - a young couple's journey of life together, as well as the many projects that Reb David had in progress (some of which were completed), but others are still in progress, and some are, unfortunately, lost. But the perseverance of Reb David, and his knowledge of when to act alone, when to act as part of a group, when to assemble a team, and when to let someone else take the lead (at Reb David's insistence) was a rare talent indeed.

ה' יקום דמם

Rambam about Lo Yihye Kadesh (Parshas Ki Seitzei)

2010-08-19T12:28:00.004-04:00

יח לֹא-תִהְיֶה קְדֵשָׁה מִבְּנוֹת יִשְׂרָאֵל וְלֹא-יִהְיֶה קָדֵשׁ מִבְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל. (Devarim 23)

Onkelos says A Jewish woman may not marry an eved, and a Jewish man may not marry a shifcha. Rashi, however, says a woman must not be available for illicit activities, and a man may not be available for mishkav zachor. Rambam, Ishus 1:4 says from this passuk we see kedeisha became forbidden after matan Torah. (see Pilegesh posts here; scroll down). Chinuch 570 says this pasuk is a mitzvah that you may not live with a woman without chuppa and kiddushin.

But what I want to discuss here is the Rambam, Issurei Biah 12:11-14

הלכה יא -העבדים שהטבילו אותם לשם עבדות וקבלו עליהם מצות שהעבדים חייבים בהם יצאו מכלל העכו"ם ולכלל ישראל לא באו לפיכך השפחה אסורה לבן חורין אחד שפחתו ואחד שפחת חבירו והבא על השפחה מכין אותו מכת מרדות מדברי סופרים שהרי מפורש בתורה שהאדון נותן שפחה כנענית לעבדו העברי והיא מותרת לו שנאמר אם אדוניו יתן לו אשה.
הלכה יב -ולא גזרו חכמים בדבר זה ולא חייבה תורה מלקות בשפחה אא"כ היתה נחרפת לאיש כמו שביארנו.
הלכה יג -אל יהי עון זה קל בעיניך מפני שאין בו מלקות מן התורה שגם זה גורם לבן לסור מאחרי י"י שהבן מן השפחה הוא עבד ואינו מישראל ונמצא גורם לזרע הקדש להתחלל ולהיותם עבדים הרי אונקלוס המתרגם כלל בעילת עבד ושפחה בכלל לא יהיה קדש ולא תהיה קדשה
הלכה יד -הבא על שפחה ואפילו בפרהסיא ובשעת עבירה אין הקנאין פוגעין בו וכן אם לקח שפחה דרך חתנות אינו לוקה מן התורה שמעת שטבלה וקבלה מצות יצתה מכלל העכו"ם.

Avnei Milu'im 16:5 says that that from these Halachos we see Rambam holds it is only asur to marry a shifcha midirabanan, because he does not agree with Onkelos as to the pshat in this passuk.

However, my Rebbi zt"l said that his father Hagaon Rav Moshe zt"l did not agree with the Avnei Miluim, because the Rambam cites Onkelos in Halacha 13! If so, why is there no malkos? Because there is a principle that you only get malkos for the main issur of the passuk. If there is an additional law extended fro mthe main law, there is no malkus. For example, there is an isur to destroy a fruit tree, punishable by makos. But that lav extends and tell us we may not destroy any usable object. However, for the extended lav, there is no malkos. So too, explained Rav Moshe zt"l, is this Halcha about shifcha here. Rambam holds the main lav of the pasuk is about not being allowed to cohabit outside of marriage. But he agrees that Onkelos' explanation is an extension of this lav. So marrying a shifcha is asur midioraissa according to the Rambam, but there is no malkos because it is not the main issur of this passuk.

Tax Rates and Halacha

2010-08-17T22:23:00.002-04:00

In last week's Parsha, the Torah lists a command for the king: he may not amass large quantities of gold and silver (see 17:17). Why not?

Rabbeinu Bechaye explains the ibn Eza that the reason for this prohibition is so the king does not excessively tax the people.

So, Torah says High taxes = Bad!
What exactly is considered high? Not sure.

Seudos Mitzvah and Bas Mitzvah

2010-07-17T23:47:00.003-04:00

There is a very famous Yam Shel Shlomo Bava Kama, Perek 7 siman 37, and also after the end of Chapter 7 there is a paragraph, (it begins "garsinan") about siyum being a seudas mitzvah. He makes a new principle, that a feast for completing or publicizing a mitzvah is a seudas mitzvah, as we see from the end of Taanis about Tu B'av. He discusses Bar Mitzvahs, Chanukah, a new house and more; see there if each of these things are seudas mitzvah or not. He says a siyum is definitely a seudas mitzvah, and we see from Shabbos 118b-119a that Abaye would make a yom tov for all the students when a young talmid chacham finished a masechta, yom tov meaning a seuda, that there is an inyan to make a seuda for a siyum. Magen Avraham, O"C 591:33 (commenting on Rama there) cites this.

It is a little surprising that he does not mention an early source - a Midrash - for making a seudah on finishing learning Torah. In Melachim I 3:5-15 Hashem offered Shlomo, in a dream, a choice and Shlomo chose to understand everything, and he did not choose wealth or power over enemies. After he woke up and had so much understanding, he made a big feast. Shir Hashirim Rabbah 1:9 says: R. Elazar said from here we learn to make a seudah on the completion of the Torah.

A few days before we graduated high school, Rav Ahron Solovechik zt"l told us that Chosson Breishis is more important than Chosson Torah. Finishing isn't what's important. The more important thing is to start learning the completed books again, in greater depth, with deeper understanding. (See Reshimos Shiurim of the Rav on Sukkah at the very end, beinyan siyum, similar thoughts are presented there in Rav Ahron's name).

While we're on the topic of this Yam Shel Shlomo, he very strongly supports the minhag of making a seuda for a Bar Mitzvah. He feels "ein mitzvah gedola mizu." However, Igros Moshe O"C I 104 (from the year 1957) says if it were up to him, he would not have anyone make a bar mitzvah the way they make them in the US.

Some points about Bas mitzvah-
Rav Ahron Soloveichik in Perach Mateh Ahron Tefila 7:6 discusses making "barush sheptarani" on one's daughter's bas mitzvah. Basically, he says according to the Levush you would, and according to Magen Avraham peopel claim you would not, but he rejects that and says even to M"A you would.

Rav Moshe Feinstein zt"l was very much against Bas mitzvah seudas (and above we said he wasn't thrilled with Bar Miztvahs either). See Igros Moshe O"C I 104, O"C II 30 & 97 (cites Magen Avraham O"C 225:4 & Dagul Mervavah Y"D 391:2). He syas Bas Mitzvah is no different than a birthday party. It's not a seudas mitzvah, it can't be in a shul, and a reason why Bas Mitzvah is different tyhan Bar Mitzvah is that when a boy turns 13 we see something has changed - before we can't count him in a minyan but now we can. But for a girl there is no recognizable change before 12 and afetr 12, so there is no inyan to have a seuda.

Rav Ovadia Yosef's Recent Psak Allowing Pregnant Woman to Marry

2010-07-16T14:46:00.004-04:00

See ynet for the story. What are the issues involved?

The Gemara in Yevamos 42 a-b says that the sages decreed that a pregnant woman or a nursing mother can't marry because if she's nursing and gets pregnant again, she will not be able to produce milk to feed the older baby, and if she's pregnant she can't marry because her new husband may injure the fetus during marital relations, and the father of the fetus has an interest in the fetus. (I'm skipping a few details because it's not our issue.)

Rambam paskens in Geirushin 11:25:

כד המארס בתוך תשעים יום, מנדין אותו; אירס וברח, אין מנדין אותו. כנס בתוך תשעים יום, מפרישין אותן עד אחר הזמן; ויעמוד עם אשתו.

כה וכן גזרו חכמים שלא יישא אדם מעוברת חברו, ומניקת חברו, ואף על פי שהזרע ידוע למי הוא: מעוברת--שמא יזיק הוולד בשעת תשמיש, שאינו מקפיד על בן חברו; ומניקה--שמא יתעכר החלב, והוא אינו מקפיד לרפאות החלב בדברים המועילין לחלב כשיתעכר.

כו כמה הוא זמן היניקה--ארבעה ועשרים חודש, חוץ מיום שנולד בו ומיום שתתארס בו. [כז] כשם שאסור לישא, כך אסור לארס עד אחר זמן זה; ואפילו נתנה בנה למניקה, או שגמלתהו בתוך ארבעה ועשרים חודש--לא תינשא; מת בנה--מותרת לינשא, ואין חוששין שמא תהרגנו.

כז [כח] עבר ונשא מעוברת, או מניקה בתוך זמן זה--יוציא בגט, ואפילו היה כוהן; ואם היה ישראל, יחזירה אחר עשרים וארבעה חודש של מניקה. נשאה וברח, ולאחר זמן בא--יישב עם אשתו, ואין בכך כלום. אירס מעוברת או מניקה, אין כופין אותו להוציא; ולא יכנוס עד אחר זמן היניקה, או עד שימות הוולד.

So: a woman always needs 3 months, actually 94 days, between being divorced or widowed and getting remarried. If she became pregnant from the first (or earlier) husband, her pregnancy will be noticed by 3 months, and that husband is the child's father, and if she is not pregnant by then, if she has a baby, even if it is born early, at 6 or 7 months, we will know it is from the second (or later) husband, since she was not pregnant at the time of the wedding.

If, upon divorce or after her husband's death, she is pregnant, or if she is nursing (until the baby is 24 months old), she cannot remarry. This is a Rabbinic decree. (I know that the Rabbanut in Israel, if they issue a get and the couple has a child under age 2, they document that the woman cannot remarry until that child reaches age 2.)

Shulchan Aruch also paskens this in E"H 13:11.

In this situation, where the woman is pregnant, if the woman becomes pregnant again after giving birth to the child she is currently carrying, she will not be able to produce milk to nurse the baby. For this issue, Rav Ovadia Yosef said they can feed baby formula to the baby. (While this option was not available in the time of the Gemara, there is a discussion about hiring wetnurses.)

This solves the meinekes issue. But how does it help the other issue in this case how can they get married because she is pregnant, and therefore they can't have relations lest the baby be harmed? The Pischei Teshuva there says: if a woman conceived artificially (b'ambatya), see Birkei Yosef. He does not say what Birkei Yosef says.

But we see a point: where the woman underwent IVF with semen from a sperm bank, and not from a husband, there is a biological father, but in the legal framework, it is almost as if there is no father. In that case, does the Rabbinic decree still apply?

Even though I don't know what the Birkei Yosef says, the Otzar Haposkim (os 71b) mentions other shitos who do weigh in on this matter:
Toras Chesed (by R'S"Z MiLublin) 13 says as a simple matter that she may marry because the Sages did not make their decree in an unusual case like this [meaning insemination without bi'ah]. However, Kerem Shlomo E"H (to R"Sh. Ha'elm) says that when the Sages made the decree, they made a blanket decree and it applies even in an unusual situation.

So the easiest way to understand Rav Ovadia Yosef's psak - I have not seen a teshuva, so I am only speculating on his reasoning - is like the Toras Chesed, that the Sages did not make their decree in an unusual situation like this.

Another explanation, though much more far-fetched, is along the same lines: we can say that the decree wasn't a blanket decree, it only applied when the rationale for such a decree applies: not harm the unborn child of Mr. Ex-Husband. But here, there was no husband and there was no bi'ah, the Tzitz Eliezer has a possibility that for such a child there is no halachik father. It is very difficult, and I have no reason to suspect Rav Ovadia Yosef would accept this even for a ruling like this, but if there is no father, there is no reason to make the decree in this situation.

Rashi & Yerushalmi

2010-06-23T19:16:00.002-04:00

Some wonder why Rashi only rarely quotes the Yerushalmi while Tosfos frequently quotes it. This morning I found an intriguing answer offered in the name of Rav Chaim Volozhiner.

Kerem Yehoshua By Rabbi Yehoshua Cohen, Chapter 10

(excerpted)
For all disagreements between Rashi and Tosfos, we will find that the simple explanation of the Gemara at hand is according to Rashi and not Tosfos...Tosfos usually attacks Rashi by showing his interpretation contradicts some Gemara or passage...so Tosfos offers a different explanation of the Gemara, which does not fit so well with the plain meaning of the text....

Did Rashi fail to see those difficulties which were raised by Rabbeinu Tam, Rabbeinu Yitzchak and others based on other Gemaras or logic?...The Gaon Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin showed that...there is only one dispute - a dispute about convention, tradition and method - from which stem the vast majority of disagreements.

We see many places where the Gemara shows two parts of a single Mishna or braisa seem to contradict each other....If no simple explanation exists, there are two ways to resolve the problem - although neither one is completely satisfactory. One way is to conclude that the mishna or braisa contains the conflicting opinions of two different tanaim...tavra...or the beginning is the opinion of Rabi Yishmael and the end is the opinion of Rabbi Akiva....The other way is to conclude that both parts of the mishna do indeed reflect the opinion of a single Tanna, but each part refers to a different case (see BM 41a, Sanhedrin 62b, Kiddushin 63b, Shabbos 86a).

A careful examination shows Rabbi Zeira, Rabbi Elazar and Rabbah almost always resolve the problem by saying "it is split - whoever taught this did not teach that." On the other hand Rava always takes the other approach, attributing the mishna to a single author, but concluding that it deals with two different topics.

(Similarly...Rav Nachman Bar Yitzchak takes a third approach called litzdadim ketani...but we will not elaborate).

Why did Rava not use the other approach and why didn't Rabbi Zeira et. al. use Rava's approach?

The Gaon Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin explained that what divides the two groups is the tradition which they received from their teachers. Rabbi Zeira, Rabbi Elazar and Rabbah had a tradition that Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi wrote the mishnayos in clear, simple language, to be understood by everyone, not only his greatest disciples. This also applies to braisos....Thus they could not accept Rava's explanation that the beginning and end of a mishna are speaking of two separate topics. If it were so, then according to their tradition, Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi would have said so explicitly. If he did not say so, it must be that there is no change of subject. Thus Rabbi Zeira, Rabbi Elazar and Rabbah have no choice but to say Tavra....

Rava sees things differently, for he had a different tradition....Occasionally he would write a complex mishna...to sharpen the minds of his students....He assumed his students' hard work would yield them the correct understanding of the mishna and bring them to the conclusion that the end of the mishna dealt with a different subject....Rava maintains Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi did this on purpose....

In light of all this, the gaon Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin elegantly explains the disagreements between Rashi and Tosfos. Just as Rabbi Zeira, Rabbi Elazar and Rabbah disagreed with Rav over how Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi wrote the Mishna, so Rashi and Tosfos disagreed how Rav Ashi and Ravina transmitted the Gemara.

According to the tradition Rashi received from his teachers, when Rav Ashi and Ravina compiled the Talmud they wrote in such a way than anyone could understand their words, with no need to employ hair-splitting logic or search for some restricted case (okimta) to which the Gemara might apply. Now, when Rashi encountered a difficult passage, he could explain the Gemara according to its simple meaning, even though that meaning might contradict some other Gemara or might involve certain logical problems, or he could depart from the simple meaning of the Gemara and assume the Gemara referred to some special, restricted case. Faced with such a choice, and based on the tradition he recieved form his teachers, Rashi could not by any means adopt the second alternative. He was forced to adopt the first one, and interpret the meaning according to its simple meaning.

However, Rabbeinu Tam, Rabbeinu Yitzchak and the other Tosafists had a different tradition. They were taught that occasionally Rav Ashi and Ravina would teach a law without mentioning that it applied only to a certain restricted case. They did this in order to sharpen their students and force them to work harder....After much hard work and deep thoughts, the students on their own accord would come to the proper conclusion: the Talmud is not to be understood according to its simple meaning and applied to all cases, but refers only to one particular and unstated case....

(form here to end is verbatim)
I would like to take this insight one step further and apply it to a fact noted above. In the more than 500 disagreements between Rashi and Tosfos which are connected to the Jerusalem Talmud, we see that Rashi never adopts the viewpoint of the Jerusalem Talmud, while Tosfos always does. This cannot be merely because Rashi lacked certain parts of the Yerushalmi while the Tosafists, who lived 100 years later, had these parts. Rather, in my humble opinion, when we clsoely examine these disagreements between Rashi and Tosfos, we will find that in the cases where Rashi interprets contrary to the Jerusalem Talmud, the Jerusalem Talmud cannot be easily reconciled with with the wording of the Babylonian Talmud. Thus Rashi simply remained true to his tradition that Ravina and Rav Ashi, the compilers of the Babylonian Talmud, always wrote in such a way that anyone could understand their words. Based on this tradition, he maintained that if the Babylonian Talmud had agreed with the Jerusalem Talmud, Rav Ashi and Ravina would have written their text to express this agreement more clearly. They would have stated the law in phraseology parallel to that of the Jerusalem Talmud; or they would have restricted the law to the same specific case to which the Jerusalem Talmud restricted it. If they did not do so, this shows (according to Rashi) that they disagreed with the Jerusalem Talmud.

The Tosafists' opinion, however, maintained that not evey law in the Babylonian Talmud is stated in the clearest possible way. Rather, Rav Ashi and Ravina, in order to sharpen their students, would occasionally teach a law without mentioning that it applied only to a certain restricted case. Wherever there is an apparent disagreement between the Babylonian Talmud and Jerusalem Talmud - for example, where the Babylonian Talmud presents a law as being broadly applicable, while the Jerusalem Talmud presents it as applying to one restircted case - Tosfos reasons as follows: why should we assume the Babylonian Talmud disagrees with the Jerusalem Talmud? Let us assume instead that the Babylonian Talmud agrees that the law applies only to one restricted case, but this is one of those places where Rav Ashi and Ravina deliberately did not mention it. Although this involves interpreting the Babylonian Talmud in a way that does not fit the plain meaning of the words, Tosfos does not see this as far-fetched. Tosfos maintains that such occasional discrepancies were intentional. According to Tosfos, it is better to interpret the Babylonian Talmud in this way than to assume a disagreement between it and the Jerusalem Talmud.

Tanchuma Bamidmar 4 & Shavuos

2010-05-13T23:29:00.005-04:00

There is a beautiful Tanchuma this week (maybe more, but I saw this one). Comments as we go along:
סימן ד
וידבר ה' אל משה במדבר סיני. זה שאמר הכתוב, שררך אגן הסהר, אל יחסר המזג, בטנך ערמת חטים, סוגה בשושנים (שה"ש ז ג). מדבר בסנהדרין של ישראל, שהיתה נתונה בלשכת הגזית, והיא משולה בשרר הזה. ולמה נמשלה בשרר. מה השרר הזה נתון באמצע הגוף, כך הסנהדרין יושבין באמצעית של בית המקדש. אל יחסר המזג, שלא היו חסרין אחד משלישתן. אל יחסר המזג. מי שהוא מוזג כראוי, מוזג שלישי של כוס יין ושני חלקים מים. כך היו סנהדרין יושבין מתמיד של שחר עד תמיד של בין הערבים. ולא היה אחד מהן נפנה לצרכו. ומה היו עושין כשהיה אחד מהם מבקש לצאת היה סופר, אם היה שם עשרים ושלשה, היה יוצא. ואם לאו, אינו יוצא. למה. שכך כתיב, אל יחסר המזג.
Parts are very similar to Sanhedrin 37a and some aren't.
The belly is the center of a person - see Sotah 9:4 - this is like R' Eliezer.
1/3 & 2/3 seems to be that they sit between tamid shel shachar & tamid shel bein ha'arbaim, which is 1/3 of the day, about 8 hours. See Pesachim 5:1 & Yoma Ch 3; Rambam Temidin Umusafim 1:2-3. Just like you would fill the cup with 1/3 wine and 2/3 water, 1/3 of the day was "filled" with the very fine, valuable Sanhedrin (derech agav compared to wine) and 2/3 was not. Additionally, we could have explained al yechsar hamazeg referring to the fact that 1/3 of the Sanhedrin must always be there - not all 70 members must sit at all times, but at least 23, a third of 70, must remain there during the day.

בטנך ערמת חטים. למה נמשלו לחטים. מה ערמת חטים זו נכנסה לאוצר במנין ויוצא' במנין, אף כאן אמר הקדוש ברוך הוא, שיהיו נמנין בכל שעה. לכך נאמר, בטנך ערמת חטים.
At this point the Midrash seems to still be talking about the Sanhedrin - because no one can leave without counting and checking that a quorum of 23 dayanim remain, they are considered always being counted. However, from the continuation of the midrash this seems to be discussing Bnei Yisrael (they were counted in this week's Parsha). Why does it jump from Sanhedrin to Bnei Yisrael? Maybe like Rav Yoshe Ber Soloveitchik's yesod that Sanhedrin is a judicial body, but they are also representatives of Bnei Yisrael. So what is true of the Sanhedrin is true to an extent, in regard to Bnei Yisrael.

And regarding comparing counting Bnei Yisrael to the wheat which is counted by number to & from the storehouse - a friend (M. Kanter) once told me a vort on this week's parsha, comparing counting Bnei Yisrael to what is considered in Y"D 98 "davar shebiminyan" - something always counted (I think they give eggs as an example - maybe because they are sold "by dozen" - a number, not a weight) each and every Jew is important, and none are batel.

אבל התבן והקש אינן נמנין ולא נמדדין. כך אומות העולם נמשלין כתבן וכקש, שנאמר, יהיו כמוץ לפני רוח (תהל' לה ה). וכן הוא אומר, ובית עשו לקש (עובדי' א יח). למה. שאין לו להקדוש ברוך הוא מהן הנאה, שנאמר, כל הגוים כאין נגדו, מאפס ותוהו נחשבו לו (ישע' מ יז). אבל ישראל להקדוש ברוך הוא, הנאה לו בהן, קורין קריאת שמע ומתפללין, ומברכין שמו בכל יום ובכל שעה על כל דבר ודבר, לפיכך הם נמנין בכל שעה. ולכך נמשלו בחטים, בטנך ערמת חטים:

What is the Hana'ah?
Kriyas Shma is simple - Yichud Hashem; we acknowledge Hashem as the One, Supreme G-d.
Davening - even though the chiyuv to daven 3 times a day is midirabanan, when we do daven and say Borchu and Kiddusha, we have a kiyum of "Venikdashti besoch bnei Yisrael."
But we can't say that for every Bracha we make. But there are at least 2 answers to explain the Hanaah Hashem gets when we say Brachos. There are two opinions of what is a Bracha - what do we mean "Baruch Atah Hashem..."? One explanation is that we acknowledge that Hashem is the source of Bracha. So Hashem gets hanaah when we make a Bracha. But the other opinion of Bracha is somewhat Kabbalistic, that when we make a Bracha, we give Hashem more power, because our deeds affect the upper worlds (see Nefesh Hachaim). Then, too, whenever we make a bracha, we are giving Hashem hanaah.

Boaz was a member of Sanhedrin. (Even out of session, members of Sanhedrin had a special status - see Chidushei HaGram, Hil. Kiddush Hachodesh.) While he did not make his drasha of Moavi v'lo Moaviah in the Sanhedrin, the Brisker Rav says he took 10 people - a minyan, to make the drasha birabim. Tosfos somewhere explains when the Gemara says "pasach rabi ___ v'darash" that he opened a sefer Torah, started reading, and then made drashos. Maybe Boaz did that also, and maybe you would have a kiyum of kriyas Hatorah bitzibur when you would do this, so it requires a minyan, and also you would have a kiyum of Venikdashti besoch bnei Yisrael.

Furthermore, Rus was in Boaz's field to get matanos aniim, which you had to COUNT to see if 2 sheaves fell (& it is mutar for the ani to take, because it is shichicha), or if 3 sheaves fell.

Happy Yom Yerushalayim

2010-05-12T20:01:00.004-04:00

Yes, that is snow in Meah She'arim, very close to the pre-1967 border...

...and this is what we fought for.

To connect this to Asarah Yuchsin, Rav Chaim Zimmerman zt"l did not visit the Kotel because he felt that, as a Levi, he would have to remain there to do shmiras hamikdash (I guess so tamei people don't go up there). I don't know if there is a discussion about "Levi Meyuchas" or "Leviim Bizman Hazeh."

Mumar Lechalel Yom Tov

2010-05-09T11:08:00.004-04:00

A mechalel shabbos befarhesia is like an oveid avodah zarah. What about a mechalel Yom Tov?

About Shabbos, see Rambam, Shabbos 30:15
טו השבת ועבודה זרה--כל אחת משתיהן, שקולה כנגד שאר כל מצוות התורה; והשבת היא האות שבין הקדוש ברוך הוא ובינינו, לעולם. לפיכך כל העובר על שאר המצוות, הרי הוא בכלל רשעי ישראל; אבל מחלל שבת בפרהסיה, הרי הוא כעובד עבודה זרה--ושניהם כגויים, לכל דבריהם.

טז לפיכך משבח הנביא ואומר, "אשרי אנוש יעשה זאת, ובן אדם יחזיק בה--שומר שבת מחללו . . ." (ישעיהו נו,ב). וכל המשמר את השבת כהלכתה, ומכבדה ומענגה כפי כוחו--כבר מפורש בקבלה שכרו בעולם הזה, יתר על השכר הצפון לעולם הבא, שנאמר "אז, תתענג על ה', והרכבתיך, על במותי ארץ; והאכלתיך, נחלת יעקוב אביך--כי פי ה', דיבר" (ישעיהו נח,יד).

See Rashi Vayikra 23:3
(ג) ששת ימים -
מה עניין שבת אצל מועדות?
ללמדך שכל המחלל את המועדות מעלין עליו כאלו חלל את השבתות.
וכל המקיים את המועדות, מעלין עליו כאלו קיים את השבתות:

What about Yom Tov? See Rambam Geirushin 3:19
[יט] הכותב גט בשבת או ביום הכיפורים בשגגה, ונתנו לה--הרי זו מגורשת. כתבו וחתמו בו ביום טוב בזדון, ונתנוהו לה--אינה מגורשת, שהרי העדים פסולין מן התורה; כתבו ביום טוב בזדון, ונמסר לה בפני עדים כשרים ביום טוב--הרי זה גט פסול. See also Frankel Rambam.
Tur E"H 123 has a slightly different girsa. The differences between the Rambam and Tur are discussed at length. See, for example, Beis Yosef & Kesef Mishna.

I have heard that Rav Chaim Heller's Sefer Hamitzvos includes Yom Tov, not just Yom Kippur. But I have not found it inside.

Mishna, Avos 3:11 (or 14)
[יא] רבי אלעזר המודעי אומר, המחלל את הקודשים, והמבזה את המועדות, והמפר בריתו של אברהם אבינו, והמלבין פני חברו ברבים, והמגלה פנים בתורה--אף על פי שיש בידו מעשים טובים, אין לו חלק לעולם הבא.
Rabbeinu Yonah there says Yom Tov is like Shabbos (and this mishna is talking about Chol Hamoed). Other Rishonim, however, seem to hold this Mishna is talking about Yom Tov itself, not Chol Hamoed. See, however, Shavuos 13 and Kesef Mishna, Hilchos Teshuva 1:2 - the Gemara and Rambam don't mention everything listed in this Mishna.
Psachim 118 &
ואמר רב ששת משום ר"א בן עזריה כל המבזה את המועדות כאילו עובד ע"ז שנאמר (שמות לד) אלהי מסכה לא תעשה לך וכתיב בתריה את חג המצות תשמור
Makos 23a
ואמר רב ששת משום ר' אלעזר בן עזריה כל המבזה את המועדים כאילו עובד <עכו"ם> {עבודה זרה} דכתיב (שמות לד) אלהי מסכה לא תעשה לך וסמיך ליה (שמות לד) את חג המצות תשמור

Is there a difference between המועדות (feminine plural) and המועדים (masculine plural)?

Mishkenos Yaakov (I believe in O"C 38) says that Rambam's opinion is that a mechallel Yom Tov befarhesia is a mumar lechol Hatorah.

Summary of Shitos cited in Encyclopedia Talmudis vol 22 column 608, ff328
Mechalel Yom Tov is Mumar lechol Hatorah:
Shut R' Shimshon
Shut Mabit I:38
Radvaz II:796 (published at the end of chelek Sheni)
Nekudos Hakesef Yoreh Deah 124
Or Zaru'a I:367 at end
Shut Maharsham III:5 s.v. uvn"d

Mechalel Yom Tov is not Mumar lechol Hatorah:
Chelkas Mechokek E"H 123:11, also Beis Shmuel
Pri Megadim, hakdama to Hilchos Shabbos s.v. Ode Zos
Baruch Taam Din 74 L"T din ! end of Ch. 2
Shut Binyan Tzion Hachadashos 23 (ad kan Encyclopedia Talmudis.)

Darkei Teshuva Y"D 2 end 70 brings Shut R' Betzalel Ashkenazy 3 that Mechalel Yom Tov is Mumar lechol Hatorah (this was censored and is not found in most editions; it goes from 2 to 4 and skips 3. A few have 3 published in the back. Here is part of the teshuva which relates to our issue:

Additionally, it seems the Meiri also held this way. See his perush to the mishna in Avos - he seems to understand it literally, that is is talking about Yom Tov, not Chol Hamied (still, is mevaze same as mechalel? Probably - he cites the Toras Kohanim that Rashi above quoted with the phrase "hamevaze umechalel hamoados is a kofer). In his perush to Makkos 23a, Meiri says "whoever is mevazeh the holidays, he is like an oved a"z because in belittling them there is a facet (tzad) of denying reward and punishment and changes of nature (miracles), and from this he will eventually deny creation..."

Even though it sounds like a mechalel shabbos bifarhesia is a complete goy, see Otzar Haposkim 44:9 that his kiddushin may be effective - whether midioraissa or midirabanan, it is a machlokes. Also recall Rama Yoreh Deah 372:2 says the grave of a mumar is tamei like a Jew's grave. (this post http://shasdaf.blogspot.com/2009/02/avos-as-jews-part-2.html )

Mumar Lechalel Shabbos Bifarhesia

2010-04-23T02:33:00.002-04:00

Toras Chaim - compendium of statements attributed to Rav Chaim on Parsha. This is from Beshalach, p. 67 “Mie’amtem Lishmor mitzvosai vesorosai.” (Shemos 16:28)

Chulin 5a says a mechalel shabbos is like an oveid kochavim; see Rashi there. Tashbatz III:43 writes that the Baal HaItur that that chilul shabbos is only by working the land (avodas karka), and Beis Yosef quotes this in E”H 44. The Netziv asks if this Baal HaItur holds like the Geonim who learn it from (Shemos 31:13) ach es shabsosai tishmoru, if so, why is avods karka different than other melachos? Therefore it seems the source for the Itur is in Mishpatim (23:12) 6 days you will do your work and on the seventh you will rest...and keep everything I told you, and the name of another god you shall not mention.” From this we learn that a mechalel shabbos is like oveid a”z and denies the entire torah, that “do your work” refers to avodas karka because it is talking about shmitta (i.e., agricultural laws) there.

Rav Chaim explained this matter based on Yerushlami Nedarim (end of 3rd chapter) “In Torah, Neviim and Kesuvim we find that Shabbos is equal to all the other mitzvos in the Torah as it says “ad anah mei’antem lishmor mitzvosai vesorosai.” And it is written: “Re’u ki Hashem nasen lachem hashabos...” We see that the pasuk that they did not keep shabbos and they went to gather Mon on Shabbos “mei’antem lishmor mitvosai vesorosai,” implying that not keeping shabbos is like transgressing all of the mitzvos of the Torah, and this language is also written by idolotry in Bamidbar 15:22 “vechi sisgu velo saasu es kol hamitzvos ha’eileh,” which also sounds like you transgress the entire Torah.

However, Shavuos 29a that Tzitzis is equal to all of the mitzvos, is not like Shabbos. Because by tzitzis it doesn’t say it in the negative; it does not say if you don’t keep tzitzis it is like you have transgressed all of the mitzvos of the Torah. However, by Shabbos and Avodah zarah it does make the negative comment.

Source: Netziv, Harchev Davar, Ki Tisa 31:17; Mishulchan Gevohah II p. 104. (ad kan Toras Chaim.)

The Baal HaItur is also cited by Rabi Akiva Eiger, Y”D 2:5

My Rebbi shlit"a discussed this on 11 Adar I 5768: Why does the Itur hold you're only a mumar if you do avodas karka?

I suggested that the source is “ha’aretz” in Ki Sisa. My Rebbi explained that Shabbos commemorates both the creation of the world and yetzias mitzraim. This parsha mentions both- 31:13 is yetzias mitzraim, and pasuk 17 for in 6 days I created the world... And meforshim say shabsosai (plural) includes Yom Tov.... In summary, 2 parts to shabbos: Yom Tov is identical to shabbos in commemoration of yetzias mitzraim. But the Melachos we can figure out ourselves is zecher lemmasei breishis. Once we say there are two elements to shabbos, we can suggest passuk 17, os hee - lemaaseh breishis, and creation is like avodas karka, which are known without Mishkan.

Yom Ha'atzma'ut

2010-04-19T14:49:00.002-04:00

My Rebbi zt"l had an interesting psak: if one sings only the first stanza of Hatikva, one must replace the word chofshi with kadosh. As I understood it, singing the first stanza alone is a very secular song. Replacing chofshi with kadosh gives the first stanza religious content. (In fact, I think he held "chofshi" had antireligious connotations.) But religious ideas are found several times throughout the complete Hatikva - 9 stanzas.

April 15th

2010-04-15T21:25:00.001-04:00

April 15th is the anniversary of the day Rabbi Meyer Juzint was liberated from Bergen-Belsen. In his own words:

The Miracle in the Most Glorious Day of my Liberation
Bergen-Belsen 1945
I was liberated, Be’ezras Hashem, from the hands of the murderers on April 15, 1945 at 4:00 pm through the English army that came to occupy the camp of the murderers. This day will always be engraved on my memory, heart and soul. To describe that day exactly one needs not a human pen but a heavenly pen....

Intermarriage (Addendum) & Parshas Acharei-Mos (a week early)

2010-04-14T21:20:00.002-04:00

Rashi, Megilla 25a s.v. ha'omer says if you translate the psuk of "mizaracha lo sitein le'haavir lamolech" as "don't have relations with a non-Jewish woman, becuase that child will serve avodah zarah" you change the meaning of the pasuk, and give kares to a ba al hakusis etc. We see Rashi holds haba al hakusis does not get kareis, not like the Rambam. However, Maharsha ibid. brings the Aruch who says the reverse of Rashi: the pshat of that pasuk is that haba al hakusis does get kareis, and if you say the pasuk deals with bringing your child as a human sacrifice, that is perverting the Torah. Furthermore, Targum Yonasan on Vayikra 18:21 explains the pasuk like the Aruch. The Aruch and Targum Yonasan, then, argue on Rashi and agree with Rambam. And, if you look at the context of the psukim, the Aruch & Targum Yonasan make more sense because all the psukim before it and after it discuss sexual sins. According to their explanation, this pasuk also deals with a sexual sin. However, according to Rashi, this pasuk deals with avodah zarah, and seems out of place.

This updates the following post:
http://shasdaf.blogspot.com/2008/12/prohibition-of-intermarriage-daf-68b.html

A Ger Katan Situation

2010-04-11T12:53:00.002-04:00

Igros Moshe E"H IV:26
11 Av 5734 (1974) in the Camp of Mesivta of Staten Island near Ellenville
To my dear, honored Rabbi Moshe Friedman, Rabbi and Av Beis Din of Indianapolis
(part c)

And regarding the matter of the day school which was founded by bnei Torah and yerei Shamayim, and the principal and the teachers are all fearful [of G-d] and shleimim, and they were informed (maybe: it was known) that many of the students are [born] to non-Jewish women who converted by Reform and Conservative [groups] which has no legal standing, and it is impossible to remove them from the school for they [the teachers] would lose their livelihood, it is difficult for me to say definitively when it relates to their livelihood when it is a great test for something that is not discussed by the poskim, and because of that we do not know the intricate laws in this matter. Even though they consider themselves to be Jewish and they attend a school to learn about Judaism because it is the Jewish way, there is no prohibition. It is also possible because the teacher teaches primarily to kosher Jews there is no prohibition when also some non-Jewish children also learn at the same time, and that which Tosfos state in the name of Rabbeinu Elchanan (Chagigah 13a) that there is a prohibition of "lifnei iver" because a non-Jew is prohibited to learn Torah, perhaps on their young children there is no prohibition; also, the prohibition is not for a Gentile who "learns" Torah, but who is "engrossed", perhaps it does not refer to what a teacher teaches young children. Therefore it is very difficult to say that they must leave their livelihoods, even though it if the most fitting thing to do. If they would, the school would close and all of the children, including the Jewish ones, would go to public schools where they will learn kefirah, so it is much better to remain in their positions so the school will continue to operate. Also, if they leave their positions, [and the school does not close down] they will be replaced by minim and kofrim and they will teach the Jewish children kefirah chas veshalom, which is something we cannot allow. But there is a fix: convert the children. They do not need to accept the mitzvos (because they are minors) and convert them according to the decision of the Beis din, and it is a merit to them, because they already learn in a religious school under teachers who fear G-d, it is possible [or even likely; "matzui"] they will grow up keeping the Torah, even though it is a doubt if it is a complete merit. And even if they do not grow up to keep the Torah, it is a merit becuase sinners of Israel do have kedushas Yisrael, and the mitzvos they do are mitzvos, and aveiros they transgress are like shogeg, so it is a merit, rather than they remain non-Jews. And I think the baalei batim will agree to this. Even the children above bar and bat mitzvah age, if they are told they need to convert, they will certainly agree, and this is what you must try to do, and it goes withuot saying to present this issue in a nice, pleasant and respectful way so they will follow this [plan].

73a Safek Mamzer

2010-04-08T13:14:00.001-04:00

When we have a doubt (safek) in a dioraissa, we must act strictly. For example, if you can't remember if you said kriyas shma, you must repeat it. However, for a safek dirabanan we act leniently. For example, brachos are midirabana (though Ramban holds Birchas Hatorah is midioraissa) so if you forgot if you made a bracha, or if it is uncertqain if you need to make a bracha in a certain case, you do not make the bracha. That which we act strictly for a safeik dioraissa, is that itself midioraissa, or do we only treat it lechumra midirabanan? Rashba says it is midioraissa, but that Rambam holds it's only midabanan.

The Rashba says that Rambam's source is this Gemara: A safek mamzer is midioraissa allowed to enter the khal, but midirabana is not permitted. Rambam cites this in Issurei Biah 15:21. Rashba assumes that because safeik mamzer is mutar, all safek midioraissa cases are mutar midoraissa. Rashba argues and feels that Safek mamzer is an exception, and that's why there is a gzeiras hakasuv to allow safek mamzer in the khal. (The teshuvas Harambam that Rashba cites is nebulous - I am not aware that we have such a teshuva by the Rambam.)

Rambam in Tumas Mes 9:12 also discusses safek dioraissa lekula. Raavad asks that normally we say safeik dioraissa lechumra [like Rashba]. See Kesef Mishna there (who says Raavad seems to contradict himself in Kilayim 10:27), quoting from Ran Kiddushin 15b in Rif pages.

See Shev Shmaitsa Shaar 1 for more discussion about safeik dioraissa.

75b Kusim - Geirus shelo lishma

2010-04-03T22:43:00.004-04:00

I know I said I would not discuss geirus issues, but I can't help myself. Here are 2 Geirus things:

1) The following clip (in Yiddish with English subtitles) has a hilarious example of converting for an ulterior motive. It's not for a job or to marry a Jewish person.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jG6B9Pt_ug

2) Addendum A in So Strange My Path: The story of a former Catholic Priest, by Abraham Carmel (the former Father Kenneth C. Cox), published by MBY Foundation, 1960 has some very intersting facts about Conversions in England in 1959(!). It is eerie how much of it applies today. This selection is extracted "from David Pela's article "The Chief Rabbi's Court", which appeared in the Jewish Chronicle, London, July 10, 1959."

"Probably the most difficult problem facing the Beth Din...is proselytisation. In many cases the applicant is married, or is about to marry a Jew who is anxious for the sake of the children or parents, to secure the admission of his non-Jewish partner into Judaism. The Beth Din is frankly alarmed at the high incidence of intermarriage, and applicants for conversion are automatically discouraged. (The current rate of intermarriage is unknown, but in 1953 was estimated to be between ten and twelve per cent. The figure for the provinces are believed to be particularly high.) What is certain is that the number of applications for proselytization [unsure why a z here and an s in first sentence -ShasDaf] have increased in the past three years. Applications in 1958 totalled 137 (of whom 21 were admitted) and in 1957 they were 121 (9 admitted) and the previous year 120 (23 admitted)....

"What is the Beth Din's attitude to these application? This is what the Chief Rabbi says: 'We are slow in dealing with these cases. Not many are admitted. We must be sure of their moral and social bona fides before dealing with the religious situation. We must be sure the applicant is one who really wants to become a Jew. We do not close the door, but we accept only those who convince us that they will genuinely adhere to Judaism. There has been no change in policy in recent years. We handle each application with care and a great sense of responsibility. We must think in terms of the kehilla (community).' In general, according to the Beth Din, there is a big gap between the Court's requirements and applicants. In most cases, it says, there is no genuine desire for conversion, and, in this connection, the Dayanim (5 'Eccleciastical Assesors' to the Chief Rabbi) emphasize that where mixed marriages break down the proselyte partner almost invariably abandons Judaism.

"But the Beth Din insists that it treats each case on its merits and hears every applicant (last year 315 interviews were granted in proselytization cases...Special consideration, say the Dayanim, is given to children of mixed marriages, and they claim, the Court goes out of its way to help these youngsters. If it is satisfied that such children are brought up in an Orthodox atmosphere it will give them priority....But as has been indicated, the Beth Din is strongly against proselytization. They regard this and intermarriage as among the great Jewish social problems of our time. Their attitude is: 'If the community will not support us on this issue, it will undermine all the Jewish communities in Europe, where the situation - regarding intermarriage - is much worse. The community is not aware of the gravity of the problem....We are not too rigid....Intermarriage is the greatest evil. Who gains from encouraging it? Frequently the parents of both partners are against it. The marriages often break down because the partners come from different religions.'"

I searched and searched for the original of this article, and the best I came up with was searching http://archive.thejc.com/search/jcs.jsp# for the keyword "proselytisation" for the year 1959. Here is a partial screenshot:

Π and Other Precise Measurements in Halacha

2010-03-16T21:15:00.006-04:00

Π (pi) is an irrational number 3.14159... and it never ends. There is discussion in the literature (I haven't read any of it) whether 22/7 (=3.14285...) was the value of pi used by the Ancient Israelites and Greeks, which is not mathematically too close to the actual value.

There are at least two halachos in which Π plays an important role (excluding astronomy): Sukkah and Tefillin. In Sukkah the issue is the area of a [round] sukkah, and in Menachos the discussion is what is square, because our tefillin must be square. Recall the Pythagorean theorem which states that a^2 + b^2 = c^2, that is the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the square of the sides. That means that the length of the hypotenuse equals the square root of a^2+b^2. For a right triangle where the sides are 1 amah (or any unit), the hypotenuse equals the square root of 2=1.414. Critics claim, because the Gemara (Sukkah 8a; see also Shulchan Aruch O"C 32:39 from Menachos 35a) says that this hypotenuse equals 1.4 amos ("an amah and a fifth of an amah") that Chazal had an imprecise value of irrational numbers such as the square root of 2 and pi.

Dr. David Medved in his book "Hidden Light: Science Secrets of the Bible" quotes sources that Chazal had an extremely accurate measurement of pi; so accurate, in fact, that a more accurate value was not found for another 1000 years. While the vort he quotes, dealing with the word kav in Melachim and Divrei Hayamim, seems to be a cute vort but not pshat, I am willing to agree that Chazal may have had an accurate value, but they publicized a less accurate but far simpler value to use in calculations when needed.

Several prominent Torah personalities, such as Harav Chaim Zimmerman zt"l held that Chazal knew all scientific discoveries that would ever be found. Some of Rav Chaim Zimmerman's ideas on this topic might be found in his book "Torah and Reason," which I have not read, but I heard his views from several of his talmidim. (Rabbeinu Avraham ben HaRambam, in his famous essay on aggadah, found at the beginning of Ein Yaakov clearly disagrees with this view and says Chazal could have made mistakes in science.)

I believe I can prove that Chazal made use of less accurate values even when they knew of more accurate values, to keep things simple. When calculating the tekufos, the solar seasons, we have two values: the tekufa of Shmuel and the tekufa of Rav Adda. Shmuel holds (Eruvin 56a) each season lasts 91 days and 7.5 hours. Rav Adda holds the tekufa is 1 1/8 minutes shorter than Shmuel's tekufa. (See Rabbi J. David Bleich, "Bircas Hachammah," 1st edition, ArtScroll, p.49 for the calculation). It is a very involved calculation, especially compared to Shmuel's calculation.

Rav Bleich writes:
"This does not mean that Shmuel must have been ignorant of Rav Adda's method of calculation. Despite acceptance of Hillel's calendar based upon the divergent calculations of Rav Adda, Shmuel is depicted in the Gemara, Brachos 58b, as being familiar with the "paths of the sky" as he was with the alleys of his own city of Nehardea. It may be assumed that Shmuel adopted a simpler method of calculation in order to avoid the necessity of manipulating fractions. This is noted by so early an authority as R. Abraham Ibn Ezra who states in Sefer haIbbur, p. 8, that the tekufah of Shmuel is not the true tekufa, and, moreover, that Shmuel knew his announced calculations to be imprecise. Nevertheless, Shmuel chose a close approximation because of the difficulty which most people have in working in fractions. The same explanation is also advanced by the 17th-century Sephardic scholar, R. David Nieto in his Kuzari Sheni, Vikuach Chamishi, no. 146."

I feel they held people could use easy fractions like 2/5 and 1/4, but uglier fractions were more difficult to use.

Rav Bleich then brings another interesting and very logical possibility in regard to the use of Shmuel's tekufa in the calendar, but it is not so relevent to the simpler value of pi.

Adar Fun

2010-03-14T20:43:00.005-04:00

As we are in the last day of Adar, I have a humorous post to share.

I cooked an old family recipe from me Bubby. You can see it on the right.

I invited guests - the MacGraggers. They posed for a picture, here:

This year we don't have to worry about that serious shailah of what if March 17th falls on a Friday? There's a heter for that:
==================================
Corned beef gets blessing for St. Pat's
==================================
Chicago Tribune (IL)-March 16, 2006
Author: Manya A. Brachear, Tribune staff reporter.

Tipping his red hat to Chicago's Irish Catholic heritage, Cardinal Francis George has again taken action to resolve a St. Patrick's Day dilemma:

Every few years, the holiday falls on a Friday during Lent, when consuming meat is traditionally forbidden. But what would St. Patrick's Day be without corned beef and cabbage?

So George has declared an exception that permits his flock to eat meat on Friday. At least 76 other U.S. bishops reportedly have granted similar dispensations, including Joliet Bishop Joseph Imesch.

While eating meat on a lenten Friday isn't a mortal sin, many look to the church for guidance before bending the rule.

"So many of the oldest Irish are faithful to the sacrifice the faith asks them to make," said Rev. Dan Brandt, pastor of Nativity of Our Lord parish in Bridgeport, where Celtic crosses are etched into the doors and walls and the pews are filled with O'Malleys, O'Donnells and Slatterys. "They need to hear a dispensation has been granted before they keep their tradition."

Both George and Imesch have asked Catholics who choose to eat meat on Friday to substitute another act of penance or abstain on a different day.

"Fridays during Lent are days of discipline," Brandt said. "We try to do something to remind ourselves of the excess in which we live."

Though there are no official records, the archbishop of Chicago has granted the dispensation as far back as anyone with the archdiocese can remember. The last time was in 2000.

The dispensation applies only to parishioners within the archdiocese. Catholics traveling outside the boundaries would seek permission from the bishop of their destination diocese or abstain from meat as usual.

Technically, Catholics could take advantage of the one-day dispensation to indulge in other meaty delicacies, whether fried chicken, pigs' feet or steak. In fact, the cardinal also granted a dispensation to the Young Irish Fellowship's annual banquet last Friday where chefs prepared filet mignon.

Still, Brandt said the St. Patrick's Day dispensation was meant to recognize a time-honored Irish-American tradition--not to give Catholics in the Chicago area a "get out of jail free" card.

"The spirit of the dispensation was in keeping with Irish roots, so those for whom it is a tradition to eat corned beef and cabbage on Friday can go ahead and do it," said Brandt.

Brandt also said it's important to keep the act of penance in perspective, saying that any good deed or act of self-denial can serve the same purpose as abstaining from meat, which in reality is not much to ask.

"Crab cakes, tuna melts--it's really no great sacrifice," Brandt said. "It makes us mindful perhaps that we are a country of excess. It helps us relate to those who aren't so fortunate."

Before the Vatican II Council in the 1960s, Roman Catholics were prohibited from eating meat every Friday. The council recommended that the abstention be limited to Fridays during Lent instead.

Some theologians say a bishop's dispensation is not strictly required for a Catholic to eat meat on the holiday--that believers can make an exception if circumstances call for it. Others say there are rules and only local bishops have the authority to bend them.

Few seem to object to making an exception for St. Patrick. Even Bill Donohue, president of the conservative Catholic League, commended George's decision.

"It's one of the church's manmade rules having nothing to with dogma," Donohue said. "It would be imprudent for Cardinal George not to cede to this reality that corned beef and cabbage and green beer are the staples to an Irishman's diet on St. Patrick's Day."

In Ireland, where the holiday is considered more a day to lift a saint up rather than let the hair down, dispensations are routinely granted, according to the Irish consulate in Chicago.

Corned beef is more of an Irish-American tradition, and Catholics in Ireland would be more likely to indulge in boiled bacon, said Rev. Tom Reynolds, an Irish-born priest who helps run the Missionary Society of St. Columbine in Rogers Park.

"St. Patrick would take to drink in heaven if he thought we weren't eating meat on his feast day," Reynolds joshed.

But since his arrival, Reynolds added, he has developed a taste for corned beef.

"I was delighted when I came to the states and tasted it for the first time," he said. "I can't imagine not eating corned beef on St. Patrick's Day."

St. Patrick is best known as the man who converted Ireland to Christianity. Born in Scotland in 387, Patrick was made a bishop by the pope and dispatched from Rome to Ireland as a missionary. Using the three leaves and single stem of the shamrock, Patrick illustrated the concept of the trinity--"even as there are three leaves on this one stem so there are three persons in one God."

For many Americans, Irish and otherwise, the holiday has evolved into an excuse to celebrate the onset of spring with parades, a platter of corned beef and a pitcher of green beer.

For that reason, Brandt said, he will still be making a sacrifice this Friday. "I gave up beer for Lent," he said. "I'd rather drink beer than eat corned beef any day of the week."

Rev. Jim Donovan, pastor of Our Lady of Loretto parish in Hometown, sees nothing wrong with a little revelry, as long as the reason behind it is remembered.

"We're celebrating our faith. We get so far away from why we're doing things," Donovan said. "It's more than just a party. It's about our faith and identity as a Christian people."

"In the grand scheme of things, one day every other year is not that big of a deal," he said of the cardinal's dispensation.

Even Christ liked to live it up at times, Donovan said. "What would Jesus say? He turned the water into wine."
----------

דרשו ה' בהמצאו

2010-03-09T19:31:00.002-05:00

I See Him
by Dr. Samuel Soloveichik zt"l (1908-1966)

I see Him in a sick's recovery
In a scientific discovery.
I see Him in creative tension,
Realization, materialization, and invention.

I see Him in the voice of our Tano'im,
In the discussion of the Amoraim.
I see Him in the Rishonim's debate,
And in my ancestor's faith.

I see Him in my mother's devotion,
In a little girl's emotion.
I see Him in Beethoven's inspiration
And in a doctor's devotion.

I see Him in a gale's soar,
In the sea's mighty roar.
I see Him in heaven's silence
And in nature's thundering violence.

I see Him in Jewish History,
Highly complex and full of mystery.
I see the Great Sire,
Even in Treblinka's and Oswiecim's fire.

On a rainy day I see Him on the cloud's roof,
Cold, far distant, aloof.
And on a warm day, in prayer I see Him clear,
Glorious, majestic and yet close and near.

I see G-d the Universe Creator,
In science, the innovator.
I see G-d the Great Judge,
in human misery and grudge.

I believe in the uniqueness of our religion and race,
I believe in the righteousness of our case.
When I see the weak's survival,
I am sure of the Messiah's ultimate arrival.

I believe that all people are of one stock,
Yet I am aware that I am of the minority block.
A lost sheep of Jacob's flock,
And G-d is my fortress and rock.

Raavan's Shita

2010-02-24T12:27:00.004-05:00

I now see that my answer for the Raavan has some holes, which include:
If the mamzerus comes from the isur of goy, why isn't there mamzeirus from a pnuyah?
Why does the issue of the act making her asurah libaalah play any role here? In other words, why is vlad pnuyah and eishes ish be'ones not a mamzer?

Therefore, I will refine the last post to say a slightly different pshat in the Raavan. The main points are:
1) His girsa is goy v'eved haba al bas yisrael havlad kasher, but he holds that that doesn't apply to 100% of the situations, only 75%; for the remaining 25% he holds it is vlad mamzer.
2) The mamzeirus does not come from the isur of cohabitation with a goy, it comes from the isur of eishes ish! (Bnei Noach are also muzharim on eishes ish). And more specifically, the mamzeirus comes from the woman violating this isur. A pnuyah does not violate the isur of eishes ish because she is not an eishes ish, and be'ones a married woman does not violate the isur.
3) When we say there is no Mamzeirus for a goy, that is for a complete goy. But the Raavan will hold that when the mother is Jewish, the child has enough yichus to have a psul of mamzeirus (somewhat connected to the last paragraph in the previous post).

So: when there is a rape, an eishes ish did not commit any isur, so a child from a goy who raped her will not be a mamzer. Only if she willfully cohabited with the goy will the child be a mamzer. Also, because by definition a pnuyah is not an eishes ish, her child cannot be a mamzer, even beratzon.

69a Akum Sheba al bas Yisrael, Part 4 - Raavan's shita

2010-02-18T23:51:00.005-05:00

Rav Gedalya Felder in Nachalas Tzvi I p. 115 brings a strange shita: the Raavan on Yevamos 45 says: "Hilchesa, a goy and eved haba al bas yisrael, bein pnuyah bein eishes ish havlad kasher. Vehani mili be'ones, aval beratzon lo b'eishes ish, aval pnuyah afilu beratzon." Then he discusses Rav Mari bar Rachel. It is on p. 242b in the standard Raavan. This Raavan is very difficult because no Gemara makes such a distinction between goy haba al pnuyah and goy haba al eishes ish.

I think we can understand this shita. First of all, there is a very important machlokes rishonim about the proper girsa in the gemara about "goy v'eved haba al bas yisrael" if the girsa is "havlad mamzer" or "havlad kasher." (Most rishonim who say havlad kasher say there is a psul in the child, but the term kasher is used to mean 'not a mamzer.') The second thing to keep in mind is the halacha of Shvuya. (See Kesuvos 3b and 26b). A married woman who was captive can return to her husband, because even if she was raped, a rape does not disqualify her from her husband, but the wife of a kohen may not return to her husband because rape makes her a zona and thus asura l'kohen. For pnuyos it depends if they may still eat trumah (if they are kohanim) or if they can marry a kohen (no). But a married woman who committed adultery cannot return to her husband (nor can she return to the adulterer; there is a halacha kesheim she'asurah lebaal, kach asurah le'boel).

It seems the Raavan had the girsa "goy v'eved haba al bas yisrael havlad mamazer. He also holds there is mamzeirus from a non-Jewish father, but mamzeirus (at least in this case) happens where the woman becomes asurah libaalah (note: there are cases where there is mamzeirus but no isur to the husband, like rape). Hence it's only mamzer to an eishes ish biratzon.

Why might Raavan hold mamzeirus is possible with a non-Jewish man and a Jewish woman? There is a chakira - what causes mamzeirus? Is it the forbidden act, or incompatible yichus of a married woman with a strange man? When a non-Jewish man is involved it is difficult to say there is incompatible yichus, but we can discuss the isur of the act. Tosfos Yevamos 16b s.v. kasavar holds it's not asur midioraissa, but I've discussed that to many opinions there is an isur dioraissa. If Raavan holds that the forbidden act causes mamzeirus, and like Rambam that cohabitation with a non-Jew is an isur dioraissa or even chiyuvei kareis, there might be mamzeirus. (There is a big Machlokes Rabbeinu Tam & Rivam in Tos, Kesuvos 3b & Sanhedrin 74b about bi'as goy, very huge topic, I can't discuss it now).

This chakira I heard from my rebbi shlit"a when he discussed artificial insemination; he feels the two sides to the chakira correspond to the two explanations the Rambam gives in Moreh Nevuchim (III:49) for mamzeirus.

Let's make another chakira: does the non-Jewish father have no yichus in regard to his Jewish child, or do we say the mother's yichus eclipses this non-Jewish father's small yichus?) From Bechoros 47, Levi Pasul mikrei, he has some pgam from the father, so there must be at least a little yichus from the father. But we can make another chakira: does the pgam come from the little Yichus from his non-Jewish father, or is it that because he has no yichus at all of mishpachas av, and that itself is a pgam? In other words, if goy haba al bas yisrael havlad pagum - commonly we say the pgam is that the daughter is asurah to a kohen. But is there any psul to the son? Recall the machlokes Ran/Rambam about daughter of ger & yisraelis. Ran says without mishpachas av is there nothing. Or we can say there's some type of nebulous category (which one amora calls khal geirim), which we call "pgam."

69a Akum Sheba al bas Yisrael, Part 3 - Rashi's shita continued

2010-02-17T13:58:00.006-05:00

I would be remiss if I did not mention the probably most famous explanation in this Rashi, offered by R' Naftoli Trop. He says there are two parts to Yisrael - shem yisrael and kedushas yisrael. Rashi holds this child has shem yisrael from birth, but lacks kedushas yisrael until geirus.

Rabi Akiva Eiger seems to pasken like Rashi, whom he references several times in Kiddushin and Yevamos; for example, see Gilyon Hashas Kiddushin 68b, and in his comments to Yoreh De'ah 266:12, that toRashi's opinion, we would not to bris milah of a goy sheba al bas yisrael on Shabbos, instead we'd push it off to Sunday. This implies he held to Rashi the kid is a full goy, not like Rav Ahron explained. What I don't understand is that in a Teshuva (#91) he says the opinion that the vlad is pagum (i.e., like Shulchan Aruch paskens), it may only be a problem dirabanan, but midioraissa she may marry a kohen. He makes no mention of his strict shita. After looking in Chiddushei R' Akiva Eiger to Yevamos 45 we see he held like Yam Shel Shlomo that goy haba al bas yisrael is only pagum midirabanan. So Rabi Akiva Eiger himself does not pasken like Rashi! He just feels that when Rashi says havlad kasher after geirus, means before geirus the child is a complete non-Jew.

Pischei Teshuva EH 4:1 has a decently sized discussion on this matter using completely different sources (except the Shaar Hamelech), and says this opinion is not accepted l'Halacha. Also see Otzar Haposkim 4:10.

Or Sameiach (IB 15:3) views the matter from a slightly different perspective. He says there are shitos which differentiate between thegoy or eved being boel a pnuyah, or an eishes ish Shulchan Aruch paskens they are the same). If the din applies to a pnuyah only, that the child is kosher, we see the mother's status is involved: this unmarried mother does not produce a mamzer (an unmarried woman could produce a mamzer through a case of incest, but that's not our case). But for a married woman the child would be a mamzer because the woman's status of married means this relationship was adulterous and the child is thus a mamzer. However, to the opinion (like which we pasken) that it doesn't matter if the mother is unmarried or married,the child is not a mamzer, we see the paternity is important. Non-Jews have no mamzeirus. Since this child is not a mamzer, the father's non-Jewish status must be passed down to the child in some way.

69a Akum Sheba al bas Yisrael, Part 2 - Rashi's shita

2010-02-10T09:35:00.003-05:00

See Tosfos 75b s.v. v'Rabi Yishmael. (I already mentioned this shita in my very first post.) Rashi 68b s.v. leima - havlad mamzer and we don't say he's a goy. Implication is, if we say havlad kasher (which is what we do say) the vlad is a goy and if he converts he's kosher. Some (Maharsha 75b s.v. v'Rabi Yishmael) ask that Rashi contradicts
himself because on 76a s.v. u'parchinan he says goy v'eved haba al bas yisrael havlad kasher, ela shifcha vladah eved, which implies the child with a Jewish mother is Jewish, and does not need geirus. Rashi also seems to contradict himself on 70 s.v. kol that Herod probably did not marry Jewish wives. That implies had he married Jewish wives, his children (he was an eved) would be full Jews. But Rashi holds goy v'eved haba al bas yisrael havlad kosher but needs geirus! But the answer is a non-Jewish father is worse than an eved father. See Shaar Hamelech, Issurei Biah 15:3, and Rav Moshe Soloveichik zt"l in Chiddushei Hagram Halevi Issurei Biah 15:3. A non-Jewish father
passes on his psul of non-Jew to the child. But an eved has no yichus (pedigree) so he has no psul to pass on. So When Rashi says goy v'eved haba al bas yisrael havald kasher but needs geirus, he only means goy haba. But eved sheba is completely Jewish and needs no geirus. This shita is also brought in Piskei Tosfos, Asara Yuchsin, 142.

Rav Ahron Soloveichik zt"l explained that Rashi doesn't mean - in the case of goy haba - the child is a goy. The child is Jewish, but he has a psul kahal (he's not allowed to enter the community), but that psul is removed with tevila. It is similar to a ger who had kabalas mitzvos, milah and tevila but didn't bring his korban (in the time of the mikdash) that he is Jewish but may not marry a Jewish woman until he brings his korban, according to Shita Mekubetzes, Kerisus 9a. (See Perach Mateh Aharon, Milah 1:7. The application to this Rashi is not in that piece, but he said it in shiur on Bava Basra.)

An almost identical explanation like Rav Ahron was offered by Rav Itzele Ponovicher in Zecher Yitzchak, siman 4. His thesis is that all aspects of gerus - milah, tevila and korban - are to purify the ger from his previous state of non-Jewishness. He then says with this we can explain [Rashi's shita] that the child is Jewish but needs tevila because he has the psul of goy, that the psul is the psul of both of the parents, but the yichus is after the mother... He is a full Yisrael but needs tevila to marry a bas yisrael....

Click here for Part 1

Updated Guide to Chodosh

2010-02-04T17:20:00.002-05:00

This is the third edition of the Chodosh guide. It is usually the last update of the season.

chodoshguide2009pt3

Mamzer & Mishpachas Av

2010-02-03T22:14:00.002-05:00

The Mishna, Kiddushin 66b, states: "Whenever kiddushin would not take effect between she and he, but she would have kiddushin with another man, the offspring is a mamzer. What case is this? This is one who came upon one of the arayos in the Torah." That the offspring is a mamzer requires further elaboration: does the fatehr's lineage still exist (and if the father was a kohen, the offspring will be a kohen mamzer) or does the mamzerus uproot the mishpachas av?

Koveitz He'aros 44:2 says: "In Shu"t HaRashba...without the Rashba we could have said another thing regarding that which a mamzer does not have kehuna - the psul removes him from from the kedushas kahal, it certainly removes him from the status of kohen....and we see this in Gittin 59 and Tosefta Yevamos 8:1 a female Levi who was held captive.... It is simple from this that mamzeirus removes the mishpachas av.

This is also implied in Mishna Brurah 135:30: "Even if they know their father is a Levi, we must suspect that their father married a mamzeres or nesina and disqualified his children from the kedushas Leviyah, and as a mamzer he reads from the Torah (i.e., gets an aliya) like any other Yisrael.

Chidushei Hagram Halevi (p. 54) s.v. Yevamos 87 says: the din that the offspring follows the psul of either of them is only a status of psul. The offspring of a regular Yisrael and an Egyptian convert is in the khal Yosrael and not in khal geirim, because his family is his father's mishpachas av. Only, he also has a status of psul of Mitzri...

This is also the shita of Rav Chaim, Isurei Biah 15:9.

See Tosfos Kiddushin 68b s.v. vladah kimosah: He explains the question of the gemara that how do we know the vlad of a non-Jewish woman follows her - "what is the source that the offspring is like her, that it will not be called his offspring for anything, not even his son but [a son who is] a mamzer...." According to Koveitz He'aros, if mamzeirus removes mishpachas av, what is Tosfos saying? We see Tosfos holds like Rav Moshe and Rav Chaim that the offspring is a mamzer and has mishpachas av. But the son of a non-Jewish woman will not be considered the Jewish father's son at all.

--Heard from Rav Chaim Ilson

Duration of Makos & Kiddushin 30a

2010-01-27T22:15:00.005-05:00

Shemos 7:25 And seven days were complete, after G-d smote the river. Rashi explains that each makah lasted seven days, and Moshe warned Paroh for the rest of the month (three weeks). Ibn Ezra and Rashbam argue and say the makah of blood lasted a week because the verse tells us so, but there is no reason the think that all the other plagues lasted seven days.

(Everyone seems to agree Makas Bechoros happened at once, and did not last seven days. Regarding darkness - three days of darkness and then three days of thick darkness that inhibited movement - that's less than seven days! Sifsei Chachamim discusses it. Regarding Dever - from Rashi to 14:7, the righteous Egyptians' animals did not die. Rashi to 9:10 explains that the animals that were kept indoors did not die. It can therefore be that the plague lasted seven days even according to Rashi, for if animals were indoors at the beginning of the plague, if they came outdoors during the seven days, they would die. (about dever was mipi Mori Shlit"a answering my question.))

What is the significance of seven days that Rashi holds all of the plagues lasted that long? Rambam in Moreh Nevuchim 3:43 discusses why do Pesach and Sukkos last seven days? He says because seven days is long enough to realize that something was different. Not eating bread for a couple of days isn't so out of the ordinary. But when you don't eat bread for seven days you realize it happened, and you also realize why - because of the mitzva. We can likewise explain the duration of the makos similarly. Had they only been a day or two, it was likely that some people didn't realize anything happened. But because they all lasted a week, everyone in the entire Egypt realized that all of these miracles took place.

With this we can understand another Rashi. The Gemara (Kiddushin 30a) says we must split our learning into thirds - a third of the time we must learn Tanach, a third must be Mishna and a third must be Talmud. Rashi (s.v. leyomi) explains that it means every week we split up our learning, so that two days are Tanach, two are Mishna and two are Talmud. Tosfos (s.v. Lo) finds this difficult and explains that every day we must learn all three, so that our daily learning is split up three ways. Rambam (Hil. Talmud Torah 1:11-12) agrees with Tosfos. Tosfos has a good point with his question against Rashi. Why, then, does Rashi not say we must split our daily learning into thirds? He holds that as long as you did something within seven days, it is considered to be current. We know one might get involved and engrossed in a certain topic for a couple of days. Doing so does not indicate that he is ignoring the other two parts of Torah. But engrossing in one of the three parts for a week does indicate that you are ignoring the other two parts. Therefore Rashi says the learning only must be split up weekly, but not daily.

There is another answer we can give for Rashi. The Gemara asked how do you split up your learning into thirds, for how do you know when you will die? Rashi says you split your weeks in to thirds - two days, two days, two days, but Tosfos still asks, maybe you will die before the week is complete? The Shu"t Kesav Sofer O"C 103 brings a Chacham Tzvi 106 who shows from Tosfos Gittin 28a, Rosh Nedarim 3b and Gemara Sukkah 23b that there is a machlokes Rashi and Tosfos if we are worried that one may die within a week. Tosfos has such a concern, but Rashi does not. Thus, here, in regard to splitting your learning into thirds, Tosfos is worried you may die within a week and not have learned all three parts of Mikra, Mishna and Gemara, but Rashi is not worried about dying within one week.

(With this Ksav Sofer we can explain the machlokes Rabi Yehuda/Chachamim at the beginning of Yuma if they need to appoint a back-up wife for the Kohen gadol lest she dies before Yom Kippur, and the Kohen Gadol must be married: R"Y holds like Tosfos and we're worried she will die within a week, so we appoint a back-up wife, but Chachamim hold like Rashi and we're not worried the kohen gadol's wife will die.)

Tosfos gives some other ways how we fulfill our need to learn all three parts of the Torah daily. One is Rabbeinu Tam, who explained that Talmud Bavli is like balul, a mixture, of all three, so by learning Talmud Bavli you fulfill learning all three. Rav Amram Gaon says that is why we say psukim, mishnayos and the braissa of Rabi Yishmael every morning before davening - to have learned a little of all three parts every day.

Zonah

2010-01-20T18:34:00.004-05:00

Yevamos 61b discusses the many shitos regarding who is a zonah.
Rabi Yehuda: an aylonis (a woman who will never have simanim of naarus; she never reaches sexual maturity) is a zonah.
Rabi Eliezer: zonah is literally a zonah (i.e., an unfaithful wife).
Rabi Akiva: mufkeres (available to anyone).
R' Masya ben Charash - he was going to have her drink the mei sotah and he had relations with her (it is prohibited once he decided she will drink before she actually does).
Chachamim: giyores or freed slave or one who had a forbidden be'ilah.
R' Elazar: two unmarried people having relations. (Tosfos s.v. adds even a married man with an unmarried woman.) (See Shita Kesuvos 13a s .v. ela harei zu, from the Likutei Hagaonim that this is only R' Elazar's opinion and it is rejected. The Shita much later on brings a Ritva who says that some amoraim in Sanhedrin follow this opinion.)

I'd like to give some sevaros for these opinions.

Rabi Yehuda might hold when there will be no fulfillment of perya verivya due to the physical inability of the woman to have children, she is a zonah.

Rabi Eliezer understands the word zonah literally, not as a din.

What is the difference between Rabi Akiva and Rabi Elazar? Tosfos Yeshanim say the nafka mina is the first biah: to Rabi Elazar she will become a zonah from the first biah, and to Rabi Akiva she won't become a zonah until the second biah.

R' Masya ben Charash might hold when there is any prohibition, even though it is not arayos (and does not carry the death penalty), it makes her a zonah. See Rashi Bamidbar 5:31 in the davar acher.

Chachamim hold it's someone who had an arayos relationship or anyone not born Jewish. If she is allowed to marry a psul (like a giyores marrying a mamzer) that same woman cannot marry a kohen, because she is a zonah. Or if she had a relationship where the child born would have been a mamzer, that makes her a zonah. (Rabi Shimon ben Gamliel on 60b holds if she converted before age three she may marry a kohen. This would be because she can be examined and if her hymen is intact she is not a zonah, and the hymen will grow back if penetrated before age three.)

Rabi Elazar can hold one of several things. He can hold like the Rambam in Sefer Hamitzvos (L"S 355) that the mitzva of perya verivya is to get married with chuppa and kiddushin. If you violate that, you become a zonah. Or he can hold slightly different, like the Raavad in Shita Mekubetzes Kesuvos 7 (discussed here) and say that one who violates an isur aseh becomes a zonah.

We pasken like Chachamim (and not like Rabi Shimon ben Gamliel about a girl who converted before the age of three. A question I have is what if a pregnant woman converted and then gave birth to a girl, can she marry a kohen? The baby would not require geirus because we say "ubar yerech imo (the fetus is an appendage to the mother)." I'm not positive, but I don't think she can marry a kohen. I think Ramban considers that a geirus on the fetus. So she would be a considered a giores.

Maalin mishtaros leyuchsin

2010-01-17T23:35:00.005-05:00

Please keep davening for Moshe David ben Devorah.

Kesuvos 24 says (abridged): If one wrote 'I, ploni the Kohen, lent money to ...' and witnesses signed on it, can we consider the man a kohen? Do we consider the witnesses to be testifying only about the loan involved, or on everything in the document, including the fact the ploni is a kohen? It's a machlokes Rav Huna and Rav Chisda. One said we can consider him a kohen based on this and one said we may not.

Tosfos s.v. Chad seems to pasken that this is good enough, and in Kiddushin 76b s.v. ein is more explicit. But Rambam (Issurei Biah 20:9) says this is not good enough. Shulchan Aruch 3:2 paskens like Rambam. Rashba also argues on Rambam (like Tosfos), see Beis Shmuel 3:8. A question on the Rambam - why in Halacha 4 does he say maalin mitruma leyuchsin, but in Halacha 9 he departs from the words the Gemara uses and he says maalin mishtaros likehuna, and not leyuchsin? I'm not sure.

Ketzos Hachoshen asks (28:6) why doesn't the Gemara ask "isn't this mipi ksavam? Meaning, testimony is oral. If we consider someone a Kohen because of a signed document, that is written testimony and not oral testimony and should not be accepted? He answers that because all families are bechezkas kashrus, and because one witness is enough in Issurim if not for the fact that the chachamim made yuchsin special and they required two witnesses, so this requirement (to consider them meyuchasim) is only midirabanan, and in this case they accepted written testimony, but he concludes that this question still needs a good answer.

I'm wondering if the yichus is determined from the document itself, or do we use the document to determine what the chazakah of that person was then. If the latter, we are only using the document to see what the chazaka was, not to decide based on this document.

Also, the mishna in Kiddushin 76a says one who was signed as a witness in the registers of Yeshana near Tzipori is considered meyuchas. Rashi seems to say two explanations, but they it is unclear if they are different. He says because they used to record who was meyuchas and only use them to judge. But what does witnesses have to do with judges? Apparently Rashi is very medayek in "kol hakasher leha'id kasher ladun" (see Nida 49b). So they kept a list of kosher eidim not for their use as eidim, but for their use as dayanim. (Because there is no halacha you need a meyuchas to testify). However, Tosfos Yom Tov bring Rashi - and Rashi also says this on the mishna - there was a sanhedrin that investigated people to determine if they were meyuchas. So it wasn't a register of dayanim, it was a register of investigated people. Tosfos Y"T also says didn't have the word "eid" in his mishna. Others discuss if the word Archei is spelled with an ayin, which means register or aleph, which means the elders. Rambam in Peirush Hamishna says if someone was an eid in this register, then they were meyuchas. He mentions nothing about a register due to a beis din investigating their yuchsin.

So it's possible that the register is not what makes us decide he's meyuchas, the register is a record of what was previously decided by a beis din investigating someone's status.

Adoption, Part 2

2010-01-15T14:05:00.008-05:00

For a refua shleima for Moshe David ben Devorah.

Yichud - some poskim prohibit adoption because it will lead to yichud problems with the parent of the opposite gender. I understand Rav Moshe Feinstein in Igros Moshe E"H IV 64:2 as holding there isn't a problem to adopt a girl because there is a super din of "ishto imo" so there is no concern of yichud. His heter apparently would not apply to a couple adopting a boy, because of the yichud problem between the adoptive mother and the boy. I previously mentioned that my rebbi zt"l paskened there is no problem of yichud because Meiri Kiddushin (81b s.v. Kevar) says: "...However, whomever does this without the intent of yichud and for unclean thoughts, rather, the way of the love of the ones who raise a child (derech hamolidim) to publicise and make known that their children are very dear to them, it is permitted. And on this it is said: hakol lesheim shamayim." He expanded on this and said from Tosfos, Sanhedrin 37a s.v., Hatorah, that sometimes a the thorn around roses - sugah bashoshanim - is a stronger barrier than an iron fence. The sugah bashoshanim of the child-parent relationship in case of adoption will form a psychological barrier against issur, and there will not be an issur yichud.

Writing name on Kesuva - How do we write the name of an adopted person in a shtar (contract)? Rama in Shulchan Aruch C"M 42:15 allows one to wrote "ploni ben ploni" even when it is only an adoptive relationship. For an aliya, most use the adoptive father's name, and some say ploni hamegadlo (who raised him). In a kesuva, the old custom was to write the biological parents (when they were also Jewish). I have heard that R' Moshe Feinstein said they can write the adoptive father's name without hamegadlo. (See also E"H I:99; E"H IV:26). Rav Yitzchak Yaakov Weiss in Minchas Yitzchak is very much opposed to using the adoptive father's name in a kesuva and even for calling the boy up for an aliya, because he is worried that people will make incorrect assumptions by hearing him called up as ben ploni. See Minchas Yitzchak I:136, IV:49, V:44, and VI:151. (He also prohibits yichud in an adoption).

(You could make several distinctions: an adopted non-Jewish child who underwent geirus katan: should he be called ben Avraham Avinu like a Ger ,which s/he technically is, or ben ploni hamegadlo? Because what about a non-Jewish man married to a Jewish woman and later the father converts - especially in a case where the community does not know the father wasn't Jewish, could be call him up ben ploni hamegadlo? What about where the father was Jewish, the mother wasn't, and then the mother & child convert? Can we use hamegadlo or must we use ben Avraham Avinu? (I think Nachalas Tzvi would allow us to use hamegadlo in this last case.) Also, an Igros Moshe EH I:99 has a case where nobody remembered the boy's father's name. Probably that case was where his father died when she was very young and her mother remarried, and this man raised this girl. Rav Moshe paskened to write bas mi shenishkach shmo venikra ben ploni shegidlo. I mention these possibilities because there are several distinctions we can make, plus there may be social considerations where to use the word hamegadlo or shegidlo will cause scrutiny.)

A frum family had to give up a child for adoption, and the child was adopted by another frum family who allowed the child to have contact with his biological parents. When the child got married, the biological parents insisted on walking the child to the chuppa, while the adoptive parents who raised the child wanted to. They had a Din Torah by my rebbi Rav Ahron Soloveichik zt"l. He paskened, based on the Shemos Rabba 4:2, which states: When Hashem told Moshe 'go now, I send you to Paroh,' Moshe responded I cannot, because Yisro accepted me and opened his home to me and I am like his son, and one who opens his home to his fellow, his soil is obligated to him...and more than that, whoever opens his home to his fellow, he is required in honoring him more than his father and mother... So Moshe told Hashem Yisro accepted me and honored me, I cannot go unless he gives his permission. From this Midrash, my Rebbi paskened that the adoptive parents who raised the child should walk the child to the chuppa. Rav Aharon Kotler agreed with this psak.

Adoption, Part 1

2009-12-30T22:43:00.004-05:00

Megilla 13a states: Whoever raises an orphan (boy or girl) in his home, the pasuk considers it as if he gave birth to them. A very similar statement is also found in Sanhedrin 19b. A slightly different formulation is found in Kesuvos 50a, which states: "Praiseworthy are the guardians of justice who perform righteousness (tzedaka) at all times (Tehillim 106)...Said R. Shmuel bar Nachmani, this refers to one who raises an orphan (boy or girl) in his home and marries them off."

Several Biblical personalities were adopted or were praised for adopting a child. These include:

Osnas bas Poti Fera, who was married to Yosef, was adopted by Potifar/Poti Fera and his wife, and she was the daughter of Dina from Sh'chem (Tosfos al Hatorah to Breishis 41:45). Because Poti Fera adopted her she was called bas Poti Fera.
Bilha was represented in Yosef's dream as his mother because she raised him after Rachel died (see Rashi, Breishis 37:10).
Serach bas Asher was Asher's wife's daughter, but he fully adopted her. See Ramban & Yonasan ben Uziel, Bamidbar 26:46. (Daas Zekanim there has a lot of difficulty with that explanation. And see Haksav Vehakabala, Breishis 46:17. Tosfos, Pesachim 54a s.v. Eileh argues on the Ramban and says that one may not call his wife's son his son.)
I heard that Yair ben Menashe was adopted by someone from Menashe, but he really was from shevet Yehudah (based on ibn Ezra, Bamidbar 32:41), but this is not conclusive.
Moshe Rabbeinu was raised by Basya bas Paroh after she found him floating in the river.
Esther was adopted by her uncle Mordechai after her parents died (Megilla 13a).

Sanhedrin 19b lists more examples.

Does one fulfill perya verivya (procreation) by adopting a child? Most poskim say no. However a very famous R' Shlomo Kulger in Chachmas Shlomo (See Shulchan Aruch E"H 1) states: "I have had a doubt whether one who raises an orphan, if this is considered a fulfilment of perya verivya, since Chazal said whoever raises an orphan (boy or girl) in his home, the pasuk considers it as if he gave birth to them, if so one may suggest that it is like perya verivya, or, nevertheless, it's not like actually giving birth to the child. It seems to depend on an argument between Derisha and Taz on Y"D 242, that Drisha holds wherever the gemara says "ke'ilu" (as it does by adoption), the compared situation is not exactly identical to its analogy, and Taz argues and says they are exactly identical...." He continues to say to the Taz you do fulfill perya verivya and to Drisha you do not. But if you had children who died but you also adopted and raised orphans, even according to Drisha you will have fulfilled perya verivya - even though they weren't the same children, you did give birth to children and you did raise orphans.

Even if one may not fulfill perya verivya, it still is a very meritorious and wonderful thing to adopt orphans. See, for example, Pischei Teshuva, E"H 154:27 when discussing a couple that had been infertile for 10 years, must the husband divorce his wife, even though she was such a great wife, and one of her praises was that she allowed her husband to raise an orphan and learn with him. (The answer there was that he didn't have to divorce her, but that's not our issue.)

Surrogate Pregnancy (Shvatim as Jews, part 2)

2009-12-27T00:48:00.007-05:00

Another explanation to Shimon's "Canaani" wife (Shimon had a son Shaul ben haCanaanis) is that she was Dina. See Rashi, 46:10 and Breishis Rabbah 11. After she was raped by Sh'chem, she refused to leave until Shimon told her that he would marry her. Only then did she leave Sh'chem with her brothers Shimon and Levi. How could Shimon have married Dinah, if they were both children of Leah, and we saw the Rambam lists incest of siblings of the same mother among the laws that bnei Noach must keep? Torah Shleima 46:10 os 68 brings several answers:
1) the only relationship forbidden to bnei Noach was adultery with a married woman, but not incest. This opinion, cited in the name of the Moshav Zekaynim, clearly argues on the Rambam.
2) According to Rabi Akiva, bnei Noach are not forbidden to their sister from the same mother. This is similar to the first answer in substance as well as in the difficulties it presents.
3) Ra"b (Rav Ovadia Bartenura?) "I have not found an answer but I heard that"... the girsa wasn't that Shimon will marry Dinah, it was that Shimon promised her he will marry her off to someone else, possibly one of his sons. (While an aunt is forbidden in Torah law, it isn't prohibited to a ben Noach, and in fact, Moshe Rabbeinu's father Amram was married to his aunt Yocheved.)
4) The main gestation of Dinah was in Rachel's womb. Therefore they were not really siblings from the same mother: Shimon gestated and was delivered from Leah's womb, but Dina was gestated in Rachel's womb and was only delivered from Leah's womb, and thus they do not have the same mother.

This last answer is fascinating. It is mentioned by Tur ha'aruch to 46:10 and 38:2, Targum Yonasan to 30:21, and Daas Zekanim ibid. The even earlier source is the gemara Brachos 60a that Leah didn't want Rachel to have less sons than Bilha and Zilpah, so she davened and Hashem switched the fetuses between Rachel and Leah.

This opinion has a huge impact on the following question: if a woman cannot conceive and uses a donated egg which is implanted, (or any situation of surragacy), is the biological mother - the woman who provided the egg - the halachik mother? There are three main possibilities: that the biological mother (the one who provides the egg) is the mother; the surrogate in whom the baby gestated is the mother even if she is not the biological mother as far as the egg is concerned; and the mother who delivered the baby even if the baby did not gestate [mostly] in her womb.

According to these opinions (that Shimon & Dina were not siblings from the same mother), the woman in whose womb the baby gestated will be the halachik mother. However, many poskim do not pasken this way. For example, Rav Shlomo Goren paskened that the biological mother (of the egg) is the mother. Rav Moshe Feinstein paskened that the mother who delivered the baby is the mother. In Dina's case, her biological mother and the mother in whose womb she developed was the same woman - Rachel. If doctors would take the egg of one woman, implant it to woman 2, then transplant it to a third woman late-term, to Rav Goren the first woman would be the mother, Rav Moshe would probably pasken the third woman was the mother, and to the Daas Zekanim et. al., probably the second woman will be the mother. (Really, maybe the reason for the Daas Zekanim is because the host mother is the same as the biological mother, but from his words, the main issue is that the host mother is the mother, not the biological mother of the egg.)

Shvatim as Jews, part 1

2009-12-20T22:27:00.005-05:00

We just saw that the Beis Yosef brought rishonim discussing how was Yosef batel from perya verivya if he didn't have a girl; maybe it was midas chasidus. The bottom line is that the assumption is that Yosef kept all the mitzvos. Which leads to the question: did the shevatim keep the mitzvos? I've previously mentioned the Prashas Drachim by the author of the Mishna Lamelech, who demonstrated from many midrashim that Yosef and his brothers argued about whether they had kedushas yisrael or not: Yosef felt they did, and the brothers felt they did not.

Joel Rich, the audio shiur reviewer at Hirhurim, sent me a source that Yosef kept Shabbos: Eliyahu Rabbah Parsha 7 s.v. Baruch. I can add two sources: the Drisha from the above discussion - Yosef kept the entire Torah, and the Daas Zekanim Parshas Naso (Bamidbar 7:48 - Yosef kept Shabbos).

A famous question is who did the shvatim marry? See Pesachim 50a: "'And Yehuda saw there the daughter of a Canaani man.' What is Canaani? If you say literally a Canaanite, is it possible Avraham warned Yitzchak [against marrying a Canaanite], Yitzchak also warned Yaakov, and Yehuda will go marry a Canaanite? Rather, Rabi Shimon ben Lakish said it is a merchant." Ramban quotes this on Breishis 38:2. He also mentions a midrash that all the shvatim were born with twin sisters, and they married a shevet from another mother (because to marry the daughter of your mother is an isur of arayos for Bnei Noach, see Rambam, Melachim 9:5. Note that this would be an isur for a Yisrael.) This is also brought by Tur Ha'aruch on that pasuk. Ibn Ezra says they married women from Aram, Mitzrayim, Edom and Midyan, but not Canaan, except for Shimon, and that is seen from Breishis 46:10 - Shaul Ben HaCanaanis. (But from Rashi to 50:17, it seems more than one married a Canaanis.) A question on the ibn Ezra is that putting the issue of who is Jewish aside, the Torah forbade marrying people from Mitzrayim. Even though the reason did not yet apply - because they oppressed us when we were their slaves, the fact of the avos keeping the Torah was absolute and did not depend on the reasons for the mitzvos; we see Avraham had matzos and Yitzchak ate korban pesach, and the exodus from Mitzrayim had not happened! So why should they have married mitzriyos? For whatever reason, marrying a Canaanite must be worse than marrying a mitzris, whether it was due to the fact that Avraham said "from the Canaanim among whom we live, but they didn't live with mitzriyos, or for some other reason.

Tashmish During Famine

2009-12-19T19:37:00.002-05:00

A bit of an unusual issue from the parsha. Rashi on Parshas Noach 7:7 & 8:16 says that tashmish was asur during the mabul. The first Rashi says because the world was in trouble. Rashi on Mikeitz 41:50 - Yosef had two sons before the famine - is the source that tashmish is asur during famine. This last Rashi is from Taanis 11a. Rambam brings it in Taanis 3:8. If someone wasn't mekayem piryah v'rivyah this halacha doesn't apply to them. Even if someone already was mekayem perya verivya, shouldn't they have to fulfill onah? Yes - see Beis Yosef O"C 574. Shulchan Aruch mentions this halacha in 2 places: O"C 240:12 regarding famine (Rama adds any other trouble like famine, and his source is the Yerushalmi) and the second place is O"C 574, also for famine.

There is an interesting B"Y in 574 about Yocheved bas Levi being born bein hachomos - as the family of Yaakov reached Egypt. Tosfos asks: But that was during a famine, so how could she have been conceived? Either she was conceived from Leil tevilah (Drisha assumes the shevatim also kept the mitzvos); or Levi didn't have daughters so he wasn't mekayem pv"r yet. The difficulty with that answer is why didn't Yosef try to have a girl even though it was during a famine? Maybe Yosef did some midas chasidus. A third answer is maybe because they knew they had food so tashmish wasn't asur. We'd ask the same question about Yosef - there was food? So Yosef did a midas chasidus. My next question is, if it was midas chasidus, the Rambam shouldn't bring this halacha at all, because he doesn't pasken midos chasidus. Yet he does pasken this halacha? So Rambam would say it's not a midas chasidus.) B"Y says at end it's only asmachta.

Now, what about during recession? Should tashmish be asur? Probably not. Interestingly, this
point seems to be a machlokes between political democrats (refrain) & conservatives (don't refrain) from January - see this editorial from Wall Street Journal. But another report suggests the increased workforce did cause the recession. Is recession a lagging indicator that the birthrate is too high? I don't know if the poskim had an economy like ours in mind when a halacha like this was said.

First Anniversary

2009-12-17T18:12:00.002-05:00

One year ago today I opened this blog and wrote my first post. Events of this week demonstrate the importance of issues related to kedushas yisrael. Between the UK High Court decision prohibiting a frum school from denying admission to a student who is not halachikly Jewish (in other words, the court said the school must admit this student even though he is not Jewish) and the sudden shakeup at EJF, we must continue to understand the many halachik issues that may crop up and be prepared to defend the Halacha.

Kiddushin 41a - Asur Lekadesh Isha ad sheyirena

2009-12-15T21:31:00.003-05:00

The Gemara (41) says one may not be mikadeish a woman until you see her. Rambam paskens this Halacha in two places: Ishus 3:19 and Isurei Biah 21:3. Raavad there also says if you don't know what you're looking for, bring an am haaretz with, so he can tell you if she looks good. Shabbos 53b brings a story where a woman was so tzanua that she was missing an arm and her husband never realized it because she was so tzanua. R' Moshe Feinstein in Dibros Moshe there (43:10) discusses maybe it was kiddushei ta'us, and also why wasn't the man praised for being so tzanu'a that he never noticed. But it is strange that she should be praised when the Halacha mandates the husband to see her and see that there are no gross misfigurations.

Rashi, Breishis 12:11 mentions that Avraham didn't realize how beautiful Sarah was until they went down to Egypt. Rashi's source is Tanchuma Lech Lecha 5. The Gemara (Bava Basra 58a; Tosfos Megilla 15a s.v. Arba also discusses this) also says that Sarah was one of the four most beautiful women who ever lived. The question is, how could Avraham have married Sarah if he didn't see her, for if he would have see her he would have known how beautiful she was!

This is the question of Maharsha, Bava Basra 16a as pointed out by Gilyon Hashas here on Kiddushin 41. Maharsha answers that Avraham did see Sarah before they got married. However, he hadn't looked at closely since that time, until he saw her reflection in Egypt. He thought she wouldn't look so beautiful at that point, many years after their wedding. But when Rashi says he noticed how beautiful she was, it was a surprise to Avraham that she was still so beautiful so many years later.

E"H 55:1 / Parshas Vayetzei

2009-12-01T22:36:00.002-05:00

The Gaon Maharil Diskin zt"l explained the pasuk in Vayeitzei "And they (seven years) were in his (Yaakov's) eyes like a few days, in his love for her (Rachel)" (29:20) based on the Haghos Mordechai at the beginning of Kesuvos and the Rama (E"H 55:1 in the name of the Kol Bo) that an engaged couple cannot live in the same house before their marriage, lest they come to dislike each other because they are always seeing each other. Therefore the Torah emphasizes here the sanctity of Yaakov, even though he lived for seven years in the same house as Rachel before their marriage, his love did not change (diminish) and they were in his eyes like only a few days, and this is because of his great sanctity, that he was fully sanctified to Hashem.
--quoted in Har Tzvi al haTorah, collected from sayings of Rav Tzvi Pesach Frank zt"l

Or it could have been that Yaakov was out of the house so often with the flocks that he didn't see Rachel so often.

Guide to Chodosh

2009-11-26T14:43:00.002-05:00

The updated Chodosh guide:

chodoshguide2009pt2

The first version (includes introduction not included in the updated guide):

chodoshguide2009pt1

A Call for Jerusalem

2009-11-23T00:57:00.004-05:00

A version of this dvar torah was delivered two weeks ago:

Recently there were two articles on Jpost about why youth under age 35 are not supportive of Israel, one wishing for what we'll call a return to traditional Zionist values, and one arguing that the Israeli government is immoral and thus supporting it is unwarranted.

My opinions vary greatly from Mizrachi, but I do consider myself a strong supporter of Zion. I wish to use the last of the Sheva Dinichemta, the Haftorah of Nitzavim (Yeshaya 61:10-63:9), to demonstrate that we owe our allegiance to Israel.

62:1 For the sake of Zion I will not be silent, and for Jerusalem I will not be quiet....

The importance of Yerushalayim to us I discussed (HERE and HERE). But there is an emotional connection, not easily verbalized. It is the heart and the brain of the Jewish people.

62:6 On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen all day and all night, they will never be silent....

When the government of the State of Israel defends its citizens from bodily harm from rockets or anything else, it is only doing what it must do. (The only question might be what took them so long to do it.) We pray for our coreligionists under attack. We visit their communities to give them chizuk. And if we do not -- we have betrayed our brothers and sisters. We must not leave our watch posts, thereby endangering our brothers and sisters....

On Pasuk 63:1, the Gemara (Makkos 12a) says: Reish Lakish said: The officer of Rome will make three errors in the future, as it says, "Who is this coming from Rome, wearing stained clothes, from Batzrah." He erred that the city of refuge is Betzer, and he went to Batzrah; it only serves as a refuge for a shogeg (not on purpose) and he was meizid (on purpose); and he erred that it only is a refuge for men and he is an angel.

What argument can one make that he helps the oppressed by advocating against the genocide in Darfur when his brothers flee to bomb shelters when rockets rain on civilian areas? What good is it when a young woman is reducing her carbon emissions (like a modern incarnation of the pagan worshipers of Gaia) when her sisters are hungry, whether due to a dry winter, or to economic distress? How can you say that the Israeli government is guilty of war crimes when it takes very restrained action to guarantee the safety of its citizens? Your clothes are stained with the blood of your brothers and sisters, and yet you say 'look how hard I'm working to save some underprivileged (by my own measure) group.' Do you remember the rallies on behalf of Soviet Jewry? They were oppressed! Some chickens running around in a field you think is too small and dirty do not need your activism. Their engaging in all types of activism - except on behalf of the hundreds of thousand Israeli Jews in range of Palestinian rockets - endangers the citizens of Israel and all Jews worldwide.

Do these people think Herzl's plan for a Jewish state exists and that it is in Sudan? Who accepts Sudanese refugees - Palestinian Muslims (their co-religionists) or the Jewish State? (We also just saw the Wall Street Journal report that Israel and the US just brought more Jewish refugees from Yemen who have been hiding in their homes for the past few months from pogrom-like violence!) I think 'cognitive dissonance' is just a fancy term for saying 'I'm young and inexperienced and don't understand life, but I don't think it's right.'

When a segment of the Jewish people endangers the rest, and emboldens the enemies of the Jewish people, their punishment is very severe (see Netziv, Haamek She'eilah 142:9). At Chanukah - the fighting between Jew and Jew was worse than between Jew and Yevanim. May we find broad and deep common ground to keep us united.

The haftorah ends (63:9): בְּכָל-צָרָתָם לא (לוֹ) צָר וּמַלְאַךְ פָּנָיו הוֹשִׁיעָם בְּאַהֲבָתוֹ וּבְחֶמְלָתוֹ הוּא גְאָלָם וַיְנַטְּלֵם וַיְנַשְּׂאֵם כָּל-יְמֵי עוֹלָם.
May we merit this again very soon, amen.

Anniversaries of Communism & Terrorism

2009-11-15T00:10:00.005-05:00

Besides for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, last week also marked the fifth "yahrzeit" of Yasser Arafat yemach shemo. The holiday of Purim recalls the physical salvation of the Jews in the time of Haman, and Chanukah represents the spiritual salvation of the Jews from the Yevanim. While the Jewish people through history have been pressured with every kind of pressure imaginable, in the past 65 years - only since the end of World War II - terrorism and communism are certainly the most notable manifestations of these traits. It is fitting that these anniversaries fall out so close to each other as they do, though I've never known anyone to connect them. May terrorism be quickly blotted out, and join Marxism-Leninism "in the ash heap of history."

Yizkireim Elokeinu letovah im shar tzadikei olam, veyinkom l'eineinu nikmas dam avadecha hashafuch.

Below is Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby's powerful column after the death of Arafat.

Arafat the monster
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | November 11, 2004 | Boston Globe

YASSER ARAFAT died at age 75, lying in bed surrounded by familiar faces. He left this world peacefully, unlike the thousands of victims he sent to early graves.

In a better world, the PLO chief would have met his end on a gallows, hanged for mass murder much as the Nazi chiefs were hanged at Nuremberg. In a better world, the French president would not have paid a visit to the bedside of such a monster. In a better world, George Bush would not have said, on hearing the first reports that Arafat had died, "God bless his soul."

God bless his soul? What a grotesque idea! Bless the soul of the man who brought modern terrorism to the world? Who sent his agents to slaughter athletes at the Olympics, blow airliners out of the sky, bomb schools and pizzerias, machine-gun passengers in airline terminals? Who lied, cheated, and stole without compunction? Who inculcated the vilest culture of Jew-hatred since the Third Reich? Human beings might stoop to bless a creature so evil -- as indeed Arafat was blessed, with money, deference, even a Nobel Prize -- but God, I am quite sure, will damn him for eternity.

Arafat always inspired flights of nonsense from Western journalists, and his last two weeks were no exception.

Derek Brown wrote in The Guardian that Arafat's "undisputed courage as a guerrilla leader" was exceeded only "by his extraordinary courage" as a peace negotiator. But it is an odd kind of courage that expresses itself in shooting unarmed victims -- or in signing peace accords and then flagrantly violating their terms.

Another commentator, columnist Gwynne Dyer, asked, "So what did Arafat do right?" The answer: He drew worldwide attention to the Palestinian cause, "for the most part by successful acts of terror." In other words, butchering innocent human beings was "right," since it served an ulterior political motive. No doubt that thought brings daily comfort to all those who were forced to bury a child, parent, or spouse because of Arafat's "successful" terrorism.

Some journalists couldn't wait for Arafat's actual death to begin weeping for him. Take the BBC's Barbara Plett, who burst into tears on the day he was airlifted out of the West Bank. "When the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose above his ruined compound," Plett reported from Ramallah, "I started to cry." Normal people don't weep for brutal murderers, but Plett made it clear that her empathy for Arafat -- whom she praised as "a symbol of Palestinian unity, steadfastness, and resistance" -- was heartfelt:

"I remember well when the Israelis re-conquered the West Bank more than two years ago, how they drove their tanks and bulldozers into Mr. Arafat's headquarters, trapping him in a few rooms, and throwing a military curtain around Ramallah. I remember how Palestinians admired his refusal to flee under fire. They told me: `Our leader is sharing our pain, we are all under the same siege.' And so was I." Such is the state of journalism at the BBC, whose reporters do not seem to have any trouble reporting, dry-eyed, on the plight of Arafat's victims. (That is, when they mention them -- which Plett's teary bon voyage to Arafat did not.)

And what about those victims? Why were they scarcely remembered in this Arafat death watch?

How is it possible to reflect on Arafat's most enduring legacy -- the rise of modern terrorism -- without recalling the legions of men, women, and children whose lives he and his followers destroyed? If Osama bin Laden were on his deathbed, would we neglect to mention all those he murdered on 9/11?

It would take an encyclopedia to catalog all of the evil Arafat committed. But that is no excuse for not trying to recall at least some of it.

Perhaps his signal contribution to the practice of political terror was the introduction of warfare against children. On one black date in May 1974, three PLO terrorists slipped from Lebanon into the northern Israeli town of Ma'alot. They murdered two parents and a child whom they found at home, then seized a local school, taking more than 100 boys and girls hostage and threatening to kill them unless a number of imprisoned terrorists were released. When Israeli troops attempted a rescue, the terrorists exploded hand grenades and opened fire on the students. By the time the horror ended, 25 people were dead; 21 of them were children.

Thirty years later, no one speaks of Ma'alot anymore. The dead children have been forgotten. Everyone knows Arafat's name, but who ever recalls the names of his victims?

So let us recall them: Ilana Turgeman. Rachel Aputa. Yocheved Mazoz. Sarah Ben-Shim'on. Yona Sabag. Yafa Cohen. Shoshana Cohen. Michal Sitrok. Malka Amrosy. Aviva Saada. Yocheved Diyi. Yaakov Levi. Yaakov Kabla. Rina Cohen. Ilana Ne'eman. Sarah Madar. Tamar Dahan. Sarah Soper. Lili Morad. David Madar. Yehudit Madar. The 21 dead children of Ma'alot -- 21 of the thousands of who died at Arafat's command.

Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com.

© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/11/11/arafat_the_monster/

Shiurim Given by Harav Moshe Soloveichik

2009-11-08T18:20:00.004-05:00

**SHIURIM GIVEN BY HARAV MOSHE SOLOVEICHIK**
TIME	LOCATION	SHIUR
Sunday Morning 9:45 - 10:45 AM	Cong. Kesser Maariv 4341 W. Golf, Skokie	Halachik topics on the Sedra of the week
Monday - Friday mornings after shacharis (app. 7:45 - 8:45 AM)	Cong. Beth Sholom Ahavas Achim 5665 N. Jersey, Chicago	Presently studying Sugyos concerning Chanukah
Monday - Friday mornings 9:45 - 10:45 AM	Yeshivas Brisk 3000 W. Devon, Chicago	Presently studying fifth Perek of Maseches Brachos
Thursday evenings 7:15 - 8:45 PM	Young Israel of Northbrook 3545 Walters, Northbrook	Hashkafa Shiur on the Sedra of the Week
Shabbos - after Mincha	Cong. Beth Sholom Ahavas Achim 5665 N. Jersey, Chicago	Halachik Topics as applied to Contemporary Issues on the Sedra of the Week
Monthly Shiur in memory of Mr. Sandor Kirsche z"l	Home of Irv and Lynn Shapiro, Skokie For info call: (773) 267-9055	Halachik and Philosophical Topics as Applied to Contemporary Issues

There are additional shiurim at Congregation Beth Sholom Ahavas Achim on Orach Chaim and Yoreh Deah - specifically for those who are studying to receive Semicha

UPDATE: He is now also giving a shiur on Monday evenings at 8:45 pm at Brisk, on the Parsha or holidays.

Isha ubita from adultery

2009-10-31T23:57:00.004-04:00

In memory of my great-great grandfather, Harav Yosef Michel Newberger, whose 75th yahrzeit was on Friday.

This is related to a point discussed in the Noda Biyehuda: this man should not have married the daughter of the woman with whom he had an affair, but it's midirabanan so now that he is married and has not repeated the aveira he may remain married to his wife.

I was looking at the gemara related to this din - Yevamos 97a: The mishna says if someone seduced or raped a woman he is allowed to marry her mother, sister or daughter, and it is not a prohibition of isha u'bitah or isha v'achosa. Then the gemara asks a contradiction: one who was leaning from a woman "hanitan min ha'isha"is forbidden with her mother, her daughter and her sister midiraban. How can our mishna say he's allowed to marry her close relative? (Note: hanitan implies they were not married but had a relationship.) The gemara answers he may marry her sister, mother or daughter after she dies. But while she is alive he may not.

The Rambam (Issurei Biah 2:11) paskens this gemara on 97 a bit strangely: One who had illicit relations, her seven relatives do not become prohibited to him. But the chachamim forbade one who committed adultery with a woman, to marry any of her 7 relatives as long as the woman (zonah) is alive. Because the woman (zonah) will visit her relative and he will be alone with her and his heart will desire her and they will come to an aveira. And moreso, even if he was leaning on a woman (nitan al ha'isha) he should not marry one of her relatives until she - the one he leaned on - dies. If he married the relative he does not have to divorce her. Why dies the Rambam list the cases separately? Maybe because the first case is where we knew there was a relationship and the second case is where it's only rumored. Or, the first case is an illicit relationship - maybe with a married woman, and the second case is where it was a permitted relationship (kiddushin would be tofsin) but it was outside of marriage.

I recalled the mishna in Yevamos 24b: one leaning on a servant "nitan al hashifcha" and she was freed; or on a non-Jewish woman and she converted, ho should not marry her, but if he did, he does not have to diverce her. One who leaned on a married woman "hanitan al eishes ish" and her husband sent her away [i.e., divorced her] even though they got married, he must divorce her. Why does 97a say min ha'isha and on 24 it says al hashifcha etc.? I think that on 97 the relationship ended. Still it's asur to marry her relative until she dies. On 24 it's a case where the relationship is ongoing. In fact, Rav Moshe Feinstein in Igros Moshe E"H 27 quotes himself in Dibros Moshe Yevamos (I think it's page 312 - hearos Yevamos perek 2 os 52) that the problem in the cases on daf 24 was that these relationships were rumors, and the subsequent marriage gives validity to the rumors. But where it's known, and it's not a rumor, it is not prohibited to marry the freed shifcha or convert.

Famous Teshuvas Harambam 132 in Pe'er Hador about this nitan al hashifcha; he's matir not because it's really mutar, but because of Takanas Hashavim.

Teshuvos Rabi Akiva Eiger 121 (in Even Haezer) discisses a shaila where a woman claims to have converted with her daughter. The validity of the conversion was in question because it was from a faraway place and was never confirmed; she married a man, there were rumors he was playing around with the daughter, and after the mother died he went around until he found a rav who would marry them (he omitted some details and when that Rav found out all the details he was very upset about it). So he discusses both these issues - the nitan al ha'isha and also isha u'bita in an unusual circumstance.

As always, see those teshuvos inside for the context and exact circumstances discussed.

Parshas Noach - Mesora in Torah Shebiksav

2009-10-22T10:47:00.003-04:00

Chumash is Torah Shebiksav. When we speak of Mesora, we mean Torah Sheb'al Peh. Interestingly, there is a Mesora of the proper text of our Sifrei Torah. Unfortunately I do not have time to discuss this is detail; I can only give a brief introduction at this time.

The last Rashi in Parshas Noach (11:32) says that the nun in the word Charan is turned over (think of the nuns around vayehi binso'a in Beha'aloscha; but see Minchas Shai there about how the nun looks). The Minchas Shai asks that none of our sifrei Torah have an inverted nun. Are our sefarim kosher? Short answer: yes. He quotes a Teshuvas HaRashba (meyuchasos LeRamban, 232) quoted by Beis Yosef, Y"D 175 who discusses that there are several instances where a word has (or doesn't have) a yud or vav to make it "malei" but we have drashos in Gemara or Midrash that have the word spelled the other way. Many quote from Kiddushin 30a that we (already in the time of the gemara) are not experts in malei and chaser spellings. (About this, see Tosfos, Shabbos 55b s.v. Maaviram, and Gilyon Hashas there, by Rabi Akiva Eiger, who goes through many cases in Tanach were there is a discrepancy). Note that none of these spellings changes the meaning of the word. An answer which has been suggested to explain these differences have to do with the spellings of words in Ksav Livnai as opposed to their spellings in Ksav Ashuri (which we've used since the time of Ezra. See Sanhedrin 21b-22a, and Tosfos Megilla 2b s.v. ve'od).

The small Koren Tanach in the back has a list of differences between texts; there are three in Chumash. One is in this week's Parsha (9:29): Vayehi Bnei Noach or Vayihyu bnei noach.

There are also minor discrepancies where a parsha (blank space in the Torah, almost like a new paragraph) is different in our Torah versus what the Gemara says: In Lech Lecha - by the Bris Bein Habesarim. Se Tosfos Brachos 7b s.v. Lo haya. (About that, see Tzlach there; Netziv in Harchev Davar Breishis 15:8; also my uncle's friend Leesh showed us that Chadashim gam Yeshanim by R' Yehonasan Steif, and Birkas Yitzchak by R' Yitzchak Bernstein of England in Brachos briefly discuss this issue.) The Koren Tanach also lists a discrepency of whether a parsha is at Vayikra 7:28 or 7:22

Rambam, Sefer Torah 8:4 discusses that there are discrepancies in these matters; many of them are machloksim between Ben Naftali and Ben Asher. Rambam found a Torah fixed by Ben Asher in Egypt and lists the locations of all the parshios based on that Torah in Mishna Torah.

Another point which is probably more minor is the idea of Tagin - little "crownlets" on letters. Rabi Akiva made drashos on letters based on how many tagin they have. Some have none, some have one, and the letters "Shatnez Gatz" have three. See Meiri Kiryas Sefer Maamar 2 Cheilek 1 who only discusses Shatnez Gatz. But there are exception - som have four, and some letters sometimes have more than usual. See Ramban Devarim 27:3, that the tagim were copied from the avanim. (See Griz Stencils Menachos 29b.) The ArtScroll Baal Haturim (Davis edition) goes into some depth about tagim because the Tur sometimes discusses them. See there, Vayikra 23:43 (p. 1257) and footnote 138: Sefer Tagin "lists 55 instances where Kof is embellished with 4 tagin and 74 where the final kof has 4 tagin. Basukos in our pasuk isn't on the list, but basukos in pasuk 42 is...either he had a different text or the Raal Haturim has a different mesorah than Sefer tagin."

Thoughts on this Noda Biyehuda

2009-10-06T14:35:00.010-04:00

In memory of my rebbi, Hagaon Harav Ahron ben Hagaon Harav Moshe Halevi Soloveichik zt"l on the 4th day of Sukkos, his eighth yahrtzeit.

Several points in no particular order:

1) Possible nafka mina based on this teshuva: If I know that someone intends to marry someone who is assur to him (or her), even if the issur is not known except to me, must I inform him? (Mamzer shelo noda may be an exception, but that’s midin mamzer shelo yada, not this more general rule discussed here). Probably I must inform the "kosher" person (whether it's a kohen about to marry a zonah or whatever else it may be), but if it's not a known psul, do I have to tell the local beis din? Not sure.

2) Rav Ashi – does he hold mesayei’a is chayav? In the context of this NB, when you leave the shatnez on, you’re mesayei'a by not contorting yourself into a position to remove it. When you remove it, you’re not chayav for the the time it takes to remove it, because in your action of removing it we see you do not want to be wearing shatnez, so you’re not mesayei’a. Why would I say a strange svara like this? This might be better for a Makkos post. Makos 21b (Noda Biyehuda calls it Machlokes Rav Beibo and Rav Ashi – but it is a machlokes Rav Acha brei D'Rav Ikka and Rav Ashi in response to a question posed by Rav Beibo.

My feeling - I don't think I can go through the sugya here, but does the din of mesayei'a apply only to cutting off peyos & beard, or does it apply to all aveiros? I felt, based on Tosfos, Shabbos 93b s.v. Amar Rav Zevid, that mesayaie'a only applies to peyos and beard. Then I saw my rebbi zt"l (whose yahrzeit is today) in his sefer Od Yisrael Yosef Bni Chai (siman 34) discusses the machlokes Shach and Taz in Yoreh Deah 198 about cutting nails for a woman who needs to go to mikva on shabbos or yom tov, mentions the whole Taz (se'if 21) and Shach (in Nekudos Hakesef) there. As Taz holds mesayei'a applies to other aveiros, like Shabbos. Rav Ahron strongly agreed with the Shach, that mesayei'a is only chayav for peyos. And he said the machlokes Shach & Taz is a machlokes Rambam & Raavad.

Rav Ashi is the one who says mesayei'a is chayav even as a nikaf; Rav Ashi in Shabbos 93b gives a proof that mesayei'a ein bo mamash, and Rav Ashi said if you leave the shatnez garment on you're chatav multiple times. In general Rav Ashi holds mesayei'a ein bo mamash except for peyos. Then why for shatnez are you chayav? So it's probably NOT a din in mesayei'a. Maybe the drasha (in Makkos 21 and 4b) "sadcha kilayim lo" applies to wearing shatnez also. But we get back to the question that it's lav she'ein bo maaseh, so why would you be chayav for not removing the shatnez garment? Maybe because in this case Rav Ashi holds mesayei'a is chayav. This is not compelling, but I don't know how else to explain it.

3) "David (i.e., Tehillim) for this matter will strengthen in his heart the love of his Creator." NB seems to hold like Baal Hatanya and not Nefesh Hachaim about torah lishma and tehillim. Baal Hatanya holds Torah Lishma is dveikus, love of Hashem & Torah, and saying Tehillim can lead to this. Rav Chaim of Volozhin in Nefesh Hachaim says Torah Lishma is studying Torah because you like it, for its own sake. Nefesh Hachaim brings a Rosh in Nedarim to support his opinion.

4) "we do not find isur mosif unless another prohibition is added or an obligation" – this is machlokes nosei keilim See Bach, Shach and Taz by basar bchalav (Siman 87) would the issur of basar b'chalav be added onto a piece of treif meat – chaticha naasis neveilah wouldn't apply to mechaber on a piece of treif meat but would apply to basar bechalav. Not sure how that halacha fits with NB.

5) "see Chagiga 9b that an adulterer's sin continues because he cannot rectify it."
Chagiga 9b says arayos is me’uvos lo yuchal liskon because you can never make her muteres l’baalah. It might be considered an isur moshech (a continuous sin) – Rogatchover in Tzofnas Panei’ach, Pinchas (Bamidbar 13, pp. 261-3) says that murder and being boel a non-Jewish woman are isur moshech, that continues on. Could be that arayos of eishes ish is also moshech, it continues, because there is a permanent effect on the woman – she is forbidden to her husband – because of the aveira. (In regard to murder, think of the passuk kol dmei achicha tzoakim when Kayin killed Hevel, Hashem said the voice of the bloods of your brother cry out - bloods for his blood and the blood of his descendants who will not be born now that he was killed.)

6) Is a sin of arayos, like eishes ish, considered bein adam l'chaveiro or bein adam l'makom? NB says eishes ish has two parts, the bein adam lamakom, and bein adam lachaveiro part in that he makes the woman forbidden to her husband (it's a sin against the husband).

Rambam seems to hold arayos is bein adam lamakom. See Hil. Teshuva 2:9 - "Teshuva and Yom Kippur only atone for aveiros bein adam lamakom like someone ate something forbidden or had a forbidden relationship (ba'al b'ilah asurah)." This is probably incest arayos, but Eishes Ish probably also has a bein adam lachaveiro aspect.

Gra in Aderes Eliyahu, Haazinu (Devarim 32:5), says there is a third category of sins - bein adam l'atzmo, and that arayos are part of this group.

Noda Biyehuda - Part 6 (end)

2009-10-01T23:43:00.001-04:00

In memory of Rabbi Meyer Juzint, Harav Meir ben Harav Hakadosh Rav Moshe zt"l, whose yahrzeit is on the second day of Sukkos.

That which you mentioned from his hasmadah inlearning, his broken spirit and his watching his speech is a great foundation upon which to rely. He should make an oral vidui to fulfill “and my sin is always before me,” and be remorseful. Now, one must do vidui on a small sin, even a dirabanan. He had a relationship with this woman, so before his marriage he was forbidden to marry her daughteras we see in Yevamos, perek Nosin al haanusah, but now that he is married he does not have to divorce her as is explained by Rambam and Shulchan Aruc E:H 15:33. Since before the wedding he transgressed a dirabanan and need remorse he must distance his mother-in-law from his house; she should not come at all, for if she does, he must divorce his wife according to the Rama there, se’if 27, and certainly he may not live in her house. Chazal said: whomever lives in the house of his in-laws… certainly here where he already stumbled.

Even though I am lenient in fast, etc. for this man, to exempt him without anything is impossible, especially because of the consistency of the sin. Hasmadah in Torah is paramount. He should learn things of substance like mishnayos in great depth with Tosfos Yom Tov, Shas, Poskim, Tanach, and also mussar books – Chovos Halevavos from after Shaar Yichud to the end and the Shla where he does not discuss Kabbalah, and Hilchos Teshuva of the Rambam. He should cling to the songs and praises of King David (i.e., Tehillim) for this matter will strengthen in his heart the love of his Creator. But other prayers and supplications from the past few generations he should distance himself (one line I’m unsure how to translate). At every midnight he should cry on the destruction [of the Mikdash] and for the exile. Since he is a weak man and he learns much Torah he should not fast in the summer, when there is extreme heat like Tamuz, except for Erev Rosh Chodesh, and the rest of the summer he should fast one day a week, except Elul when he should fast 2 or 3 days, according to his strength, and he should fast every day of the Aseres Yemay Teshuva, and in the winter from Cheshvan until Nissan he should fast three days a week, and one of them should be a complete fast of an evening and the following day. He should do this for three consecutive years (corresponding to the three years of his forbidden relationship) and if he consistently wakes at midnight and midnight does not pass and he is till asleep, and if he stands guard until the light of day, and not necessarily standing, but sitting is okay, as long as he does not “batel”his Torah learning and Tehillim from midnight, then he can lighten his load a little from the fasts and fast only twice a week in the winter.

More acts of penitence – you already mentioned that he does not sleep on a bed at all, and it is sufficient. He should distance himself from laughter (schok – probably includes joking around) – he shouldn’t for three years; what place does happiness have while he mourns for his sin. He should not look at women. These whole three years during the week he should not drink wine of any type of a warming drink except tea with sugar and sometimes a little coffee. On his wife’s onah night he may drink these drinks and I will not tell him what his onah is; he is not allowed to steal his wife’s onah, and it depends on his temperament and nature, and he should choose the middle path and he should not be too strict with what is permitted to him, and Chazal have said “the left [hand] pushes away and the right draws near.” And he should to tevilah for keri. After the end of three years in the second three years he fast Monday and Thursday in the winter and for the summer he should do like the first three years, and in the second three years he may sleep on a bed if he wishes, and according to his strength (if he is well enough to have a rough bed, he should have that and not a more comfortable bed). For the rest of his life he should fast once a week in winter and in the summer erev Rosh Chodesh to fulfill “my sin is always opposite me” and between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur he should fats every day (except Erev Yom Kippur – Ed.).

You mentioned he is wealthy, so he should give a lot of tzedaka. And how good it will be if he follows the teshuva set out by the Rokeach [in this matter of charity]. I currently do not have the Rokeiach to to look, but he should see the fasts for eishes ish, and maybe also for niddah because he wasn’t careful about her niddah days [if he was already being boel an eishes ish]. He should multiply the number [of fasts] three times according to the Kneh Chachma and the total days he should redeem with tzedaka according to the calculation of S”A O”C 334 each day is 12 coins, should be 18 coins according to the Magen Avraham’s calculation (34) in the name of Terumas Hadeshen, and he should distribute it to tzedaka if possible without his wife’s instruction, and still he should fulfill the fasting I arranged, “and may the Merciful One forgive the sin” and turn from his sin and be forgiven.

That which I said he should also fast for Nida, the prohibition of nida comes over the prohibition of a married woman because it is an issur mosif, since the nida becomes prohibited to her husband. That is only if their first adultery was when she was a nida- then he also violated nida, even though [the prohibition of] being a married woman came first, still it is an isur mosif, but if the first adultery was when she was not a nida, then immediately she became forbidden to her husband because of her infidelity, then when she became a nida, the isur nida does not come at all, because nida is not an isur mosif to anybody, because she’s forbidden to everyone because she is married, and now she’s even prohibited to her husband because of her infidelity, and even though the prohibition of nida is stricter that her being unfaithful in that nida carries a punishment of kares, a prohibition does not cover another prohibiton (ein issur chal al issur), not even a strict issur on a less strict one unless it is issur kolel or issur mosif. Then if they committed a second act of adultery when she is a nida, he is only liable for eishes ish and not nida. To suggest that nida is issur mosif since it takes effect on an unfaithful woman, even though we are impure for the dead, there is a difference in halacha to also be a nida in regard to imparting tumah upon your chair – my heart does not agree with that because in all of shas we do not find isur mosif unless another prohibition is added or an obligation (like another punishment) but through method of transmitting tumah is not an issur or obligation to be considered isur mosif. And to say that there is an additional obligation according to the opinion that one who enters the Temple mount today in a state of tumah receives Kares, for kedushas mikdash never left, and if isur nidda is added for that it should be added also here, for adultery – I don’t know of any source that nidda is another obligation when she enters har habayis, because there is already a liability of kareis for entering the mikdash in a state of tumas mes. And I saw in the sefer Kaftor Vaferach a question why don’t we offer the daily and mussaf korbanos and all communal sacrifices and korban pesach nowadays [after the destruction] because we pasken we may bring korbanos in the absence of the Beis Hamikdash (note: the opinion that one may enter har habayis today does not agree with this)? He answered since we don’t have a kohen meyuchas. But we know of kohanim meyuchasim, we could bering a korban pesach, this woman on pesach may enter the courtyard of the Mikdash and eat the korban pesach in a state of tumas mes, now that she is a nida, a prohibition was added in regard to pesach, so let the prohibition be added in regard to adultery? This depends on the opinion that the kedushas mikdash did not end, I doubt this and the matter needs investigation.

That was to teach for another situation such as where the huband was accidentally (shogeg) obligated for coming to the mikdash in a state of impurity, in that case we say one prohibition does not cover another prohibition. But for repentance, he is certainly obligated to repent for all prohibition he violated, even if ein isur chal al isur. For more sins he is considered a bigger rasha. This is a machlokes tanaim Rabi Yosi and Rabbi Shimon in Yevamos 32b … the difference is to bury him among complete reshaim. So even if he only receives one punishment because of ein isur chal al isur, his evilness is increased because of the additional prohibition to bury him among completely evil people, so he must doe teshuva for it. Tosfos there s.v. bein writes that Rabi Shimon holds even if this act includes two prohibitions, since he is only punished for one of them he is not burined among completely evil people, to Rabi Shimon his evilness was not increased due to the second prohibition, then he would only need teshuva for the first sin, and to Rabi Yose he must do teshuva for both, and in a machlokes Rabi Shimon and Rabi Yosi the halacha follows Rabi Yosi.

This is the end of the teshuva.

Happy Sukkos

2009-09-29T10:01:00.003-04:00

Unfortunately there are very real problems of sexual abuse in out communities. Thankfully, we have someone who works on behalf of the victims and tries to stop abuse before it starts. Instead of putting pictures of those "gedolim" who protect and enable pedophiles in your sukkah, put up this picture of Harav Chayim Soloveichik. He is an outspoken voice in defense of our children, and putting this picture up in your sukkah will hopefully raise awareness of this important issue and show pedophiles that they are not welcome.

If you bring your children to open, public events during the Chag, such as a Simchas Beis Hasho'eivah, please keep an eye out on your kids. An open, community-wide event is an opportunity for innaproproate activity by these people.

Chag Samei'ach.

Nida Biyehuda - Part 5

2009-09-27T18:58:00.000-04:00

That which you asked me to arrange an order of teshuva for this baal teshuva and you mentioned he is weak and can’t fast so mauch, you also mentioned the amazing hasmada with which he learns day and night and does not say unnecessary things and does not sleep in a bed at night. Now, you asked a difficult thing, for I usually do not answer questions for which no answer is found in the gemara and poskim, for we have not found in all the Talmud the unmber of fasts for each sin according to its severity. True, the verse states "return with fasts." But the number of fasts is not in Tanach of the gemara, but Mussar and Teshuva books go into great lengths in these matters but most of their words are based on thoughts from the stomach (in Yiddish we call this a boiche sevara, a thought from the stomach, meaning you’re using your stomach to think instead of using your head -Ed.) without any basis. And each book quotes from the next oe but they have no foundation. We find in these books many stringencies and many leniencies and it is difficult for me to answer, especially after I see that this man is a young Torah scholar he should arrange his own Teshuva, especially because these Mussar books are very accessible. But because you want to know and he is weak and is a young Tora hscholar I will not hold myself back from commenting. Now his sin is very grave - adultery with a married woman is very serious. And he did it very often over three years and he was with her I nthe house and he was obviousle wit hher many, many times and would he have the years of Mesushelach (the oldest man ever - 969 years) he would not be able to fast enough to counter the sin according to the Teshuva system of the Rokeiach, which is based on Kabbala, and we cannot compare his words to the later works (apparently he means compared to those Mussar books which he just said have no basis). And the Knei Chochma said for those who return [in repentance] it is sufficient to do teshuva of the same weight for that sin three times has no basis. And if someone who did an aveira for which you would receive malkos 20 times and he was warned each time, would three sets of malkus suffice? Beis din will punish him according to the number of warnings. And an explicit mishna says if they told [a nazir] don’t drink [the wine] several times, he receives multiple sets of malkos. And that which he said with the third time the sin is stained on his neshamaand there is nowhere for the fourth time [of the sin] to [affect his neshama], this has no merit. Is his son the only thing affected? It makes problem in higher [worlds (see Nefesh Hachaim, Shaar 1 - Ed.)] and Chazal said on the verse "Vatishkach kel mecholelecha (Haazinu)....I don’t look at these types of books, but I remember a little from my youth.
All this would be important if fasting was the main part (me’akeiv) of teshuva. But it is not; fasting is subordinate to Tehsiva, and the main teshuva is leaving the sin and verbal confession (vidui) with a broken heart and deep heartfelt remorse and a desire to love the Creator (Hashem) and that is returning to Hashem . Everything else is subordinate to this. Know, there is no doubt that Teshuva affects full atonement and this is explicit in Tanach and in both Talmuds and in all the midrashim. The prophet Yechezkel said "when a rasha returns from his wickedness..." "All the sins that he sinned will not be remembered. And there is no doubt that in the time of the Sanhedrin if he violated a capital sin if the witnesses did not come for many years and in the meantime he did teshuva and fasted so much, beyond what th eRokeiach says, and after the Teshiva the witnesses testified against him in Beis Din certainly the Beis din will not take his teshuva into accountand they will give him the punishment of sekila or sereifa etc. according to his sin. This matter is hard to understand, for Teshuva helps and he already turned away from his sin and he received atonement, why is he killed? We don’t kill innocent men! Yet the mishna says if someone guilty of a capital crime did teshuva the beis din cannot firgive him [and they must give hi mthe punishment he deserves]! So it is the gzeiras hakasuv [that we kill him] for if we allow teshuva to push off the punishment, we will no longer have a system of capital punishments. Whenever someone will be guilty he won;t be killed because he will do teshuva. Since Hashem wanted go give punishments of death for a small number of sins so people will be afraid of transgressing them, teshiva will not help for a capital crime. If you think a certain teshuva regimen is the main part of teshuva it should have been told to Moshe at Sinai, and then why shouldn’t teshuva help to save one from capital punishment? Even though there will be some who don’t do teshuva, and there are some thinkgs to do like sit without clothes in front of bees [to get stung which should be for teshuva] or to roll in snow [and the pain should be for teshuva] and other similar things mentioned in these teshuva books, and whoever does not do this will get killed by beis din, even fasting won’t work if the witnesses come to beis din before he was able to fast all the days he needed to fast. ..But fasting is not the main thing; real teshuva is sincere remorse. This can be achieved in one moment...

Even though there are four levels of forgiveness - Chazal said if you transgressed Kareis or misas beis din, Teshuva an Yom Kippur [hold your punishment in abeyance] and yissurim (sufferings) will cause you to achieve forgiveness - seems to show that yissurim are the main part of the forgiveness? I answer that it’s true that you need yissurim, Chazal said even trying to take three things out of your pocket and you only got two is yissurim, see end of perek yesh b’Eirachin. And it’s true that the Rokeiach is kabbala and he gives a specific teshuva for a sin, that’s external to help the baal tehsuva break his stubborn heart to be able to have remorse in his heart. As long as his heart is not broken he cannot have remorse. Someone who is able to break his heart though Torah study , I would be very lenient in the number of fasts. But remorse and a broken heart and cerying is very important and one who cries privately is praiseworthy. For the main Teshiva I see this man has already made great strides - he hasn’t sinned with this woman since he got married two years ago even though they still live in the same house. Gemara end of Yoma says who is a baal teshuva? When the same [opportunity to] sin came once and twice and he was aved from it. Rav Yehuda said it must be the same woman during the same time period, and that was fulfilled with this man. Still, while it was the same woman, it’s not really a similar situation because now this man is married, but when he sinned he was a bachelor, and I do not know if he stopped sinning with her from teshuva or because his wife would have found out about it.

Noda Biyehuda - Part 4

2009-09-27T01:13:00.002-04:00

Two, we must understand the lenient opinion in the Yerushalmi, and to say it agrues on the Bavli is unsatisfactory. The Yerushalmi’s phrase “k”h is great that it pushes off the mitzvah if it’s a lo taseh, for a certain amount of time [lit. one hour]” is strange. Why the double useage of mitzvah and lo taseh, just say lo taseh! Rather the intent of the Yerushalmi is that k”h pushes off a mitzvah. When? The condition is for a lo taseh in a passive situation, but not actively. Now the Yerushalmi is exactly like the Bavli in that it only allows temporary suspension of the prohibition of shatnes because of k”h. Now the question is if you find your own garment has shatnez, how can the Y consider that passive, and Bavli calls it active? So I feel the amoraim in Y argue on the same point as the amoraim in the Bavli, Makos 21b: [how are you chayav many times for wearing shatnez?] Rav Beibo said when you take it off and put it on again. Rav Ashi says if you keep wearing it for the amount of time you could have removed it [you’re chayav]. To Rav Ashi, wearing it and not taking it off is considered an act of wearing shatnez, for if not, how could be chayav malkos, for the rule is there is no malkos for a passive violation? So he holds keeping it on is an action. And Rav Beibo holds you need to take off and put on multiple times to do an act to receive malkos. So the two opinions in the Y. accord with the two opinions in the Bavli…Now we understand that [Rav Beibo] who considers this passive – but only temporarily, not to keep wearing that garment indefinitely. If so, it follows that if you see someone wearing shatnez, since it’s a mitzvah to stop him from doing an aveira, but that is suspended because of k”h, only temporarily.

If so it is clear he must tell the husband that his wife was unfaithful so that he separates from her. The question is, as you asked, must he tell the husband in a situation where the husband may not believe him since he does not have two witnesses? I feel this is no argument [and he still must tell the husband] since he must do what he can to stop the man from sinning [by remaining with his unfaithful wife] even when it’s not certain, he must take care of his responsibility [and tell the husband] for it is no worse than the regular mitzvah of hochei’ach tochiach es amisecha, reproaching your fellow about which the Gemara Shabbos 55a says just because you know [it’s wrong], does he know?

This is instructive in the situation where a “stranger” knows that a certain woman committed adultery. But in this situation this man was the adulterer and he influenced her sin, and he wants to do teshuva he must remove the stumbling block in all ways possible and ensure his fellow won’t sin because of him either (about this see Chagiga 9b that an adulterer's sin continues because he cannot rectify it). Nothing stands in the way of Teshuva but Chazal’s intent was for strict teshuva. Still he must do all he can and if the husband does not believe him, he should hope to attain teshuva and the Master of Mercy (G-d) should accept his teshuva with mercy.

And that which you asked – if he informs the husband and he does not accept it, must he tell a beis din and inform them? It is simple that he only tells the husband. If the husband believes him he will separate from his wife and all is well, and if does not believe it, what good will going to the beis din help? The husband doesn’t have to believe him, and what will beis din do here? Not only is he not required to go to beis din, he may not even be allowed to go to beis din, and if he does he might deserve malkos midirabanan like the incident it Pesachim 113b where Tovia sinned, Zigud testified against him [alone; there was no other witness] and Rav Papa gave lashes to Zigud for allegations against Tovia which could not be proven because there were not two witnesses to Tovia’s act. Even though Rama in S”A C”M 28:1 says only for an incident which already happened would it be considered tale-bearing, but if it is to stop someone from sinning you may testify [which would imply in this case he may go to beis din]. Even if there is a doubt that the beis din will believe him, as the basis of this (the Rama’s) ruling is from Semag Lo Taseh 213: one man may not testify agains a man…we learn from here one man who knows something about his fellow where he cannot impose an oath (in monetary matters one witness may compel an oath) may not testify, and if he does he receives lashes for giving the other person a bad name. And that which we find in Kiddushin (Daf 66a) where one witness told a man his wife had been unfaithful, Mar Shmuel told the man if he believes the account like it was delivered by two witnesses he should divorce her, and Mar Shmuel did not castigate the single witness, and also a similar incident in Perek Hanizakin…[why was one witness believed and not punished]? To stop someone from committing a sin [of remaining with his unfaithful wife] it is different [and one witness may testif]. There, it was not certain that the husband would believe the witness, still Mar Shmuel did not punish him – the man told Mar Shmuel, the Beis Din, and not the husband! (NB shows from the text of the story the man must have told the Dayan, not the husband) Also, Mar Shmuel did not say the man should have told the husband? We can say in that situation the husband was not around, so he told Mar Shmuel, expecting the husband to believe him. But if the witness told the husband about the offense and sees he is not believed, there will be no benefit in telling the beis din, and he will only get lashes for giving someone a bad name.

And that which you were unsure about if he will confess [to the affair] in front of beis din it will give credence (raglayim ledavar) and the beis din will force the man to divorce his wife even though he’s not believed as two witnesses, as the Chavos Yair says in Teshuva 72? Even if the Chavos Yair would pasken this way, which is a matter of discussion, he is discussing a case where the wife admits that she was unfaithful and we say she only said it because she wanted to marry someone else (and by “admitting” to this her husband would have to divorce her) , in that case raglayim ledavar help…. And Yevamos 24b since the matter is disgusting (dirty) she must be divorced, most Rishinim explain that that case is where (the husband returned home to find a traveling salesman leaving and his wife was getting dressed [see the gemara there for exact situations] so he divorced her, if she then went and married that salesman) she must get divorced from the salesman (and the case is where the husband divorced her because of this incident even though he may not have been required to divorce her), and even to the She’iltos that she must get divorced from her husband if there were two witnesses [to the disgusting case, but not witnesses to the znus itself) but here there is only one man confessing and why would we believe his and his confession about the woman?

Therefore the advice is that the adulterer should only tell the woman’s husband privately. The way he should tell according to the Law is just to say your wife committed adultery (and not with whom) for it does not matter to the husband with whom she had adultery because regardless of who it was she is forbidden to him, and why should the adulterer announce his sin for no reason? The Gemara in Yoma 86b says regarding an unknown sin “praised is the one who covers a sin.” And it is also chutzpah to declare his sin. But, logically it seems the husband may believe him more when he sees the man is confessing with remorse and they feel very true, so it’s better to confess privately and if he is humiliated by it good, because if someone was humiliated after his sin he is forgiven. I think he also must ask forgiveness from the husband because this sin has two parts – between man and heaven, for transgressing a serious sin, for which teshuva and Yom Kippur will bring atonement, and the second part is the sin between man to his fellow in that he causes his wife to be forbidden to him. For sins between man and his fellow, teshiva and Yom Kippur doen’t help, and you also must appease the hurt party, for even if one steals and returns the pbject he must appease the victim, certainly here where he cannot rectify the situation (because she will remain forbidden to him forever). (It seem NB is saying while he doesn’t have to admit that he was the guy, the husband will probably figure it out, so the man should ask for forgiveness.)

And with this, by telling the husband and not beis din, he is keeping the honor of the family intact. No harm will come, because the husband is already elderly and he won’t go and marry a new wife [if he would divorce his current wife for being unfaithful] and he is not required to divorce her (because there is not real evidence like two witnesses) and she may stay in his house and we don’t suspect that he will have relations with her, since she was unfaithful, she is repulsive to him. As we see in S”A E”H 117:1 in Rama. Beis Shmuel 8 writes without witnesses he may keep her in his house. You can’t say that is only where she certainly was adulterous wit h2 witnesses, but not here where there is one witness, and she should be like sotah … This case is not like sotah because there we need two witnesses to ensure they are not together (on the way to Beis din after she was found being alone with the other man after her husband warned her; these 2 witnesses make sure the husband & wife aren’t together in yichud because if they are the sotah process won’t work) there, by Sotah, she was forbidden to him according to the din, een though her adultery was not certain, so they need 2 witnesses to ensure they don’t have yichud, but our case we don’t need witnesses to ensure they don’t have yichud because either if the husband believes the man like 2 witnesses she will be disgusting to him and we don’t suspect he will have relations with her. And if he doesn’t believe the man, she is not forbidden to him. So he may keep her in his house and to the Beis Shmuel you don’t even need witnesses [to ensure they don’t have yichud]. But it is simple that they may not have yichud in one room because then it is eish bine’uras (fire of youth). And this way there will be no blight to the family’s honor.

Noda Biyehuda - Part 3

2009-09-24T22:26:00.002-04:00

This is Ri’s opinion, but Rabbeinu Tam says (33a end of s.v. v’afkinu) in such a situation [where the get is being annulled in order to retroactively annul the marriage] we do not say that the kiddushin are uprooted/annulled. If so this case is not like nazir who can ask [a chacham] to annul his vow of nezirus. And to Ri the matter depends on the machlokes Rashi- Tosfos in Brachos.

It seems that the Rama paskens like Tosfos, because a kohen in a house that has corpse in it and he stays and does not leave is considered doing an action (and not passive) because he actively waits in the house, similar to the gemara considering one who does not remove shatnez doing an action, even though he is already wearing it, not removing it is considered an action. See Tosfos Makkos 21b s.v. afilu tha the kohen staying in the house with a corpse is no different than one keeping shatnez on his body and might be worse than keeping shatnez on, and both are considered actions, so how does Rama Y”D 372:1 pasken that an unclothed kohen who is sleeping under the same roof as a corpse, we don’t tell him about the corpse (i.e.. that he must leave) until he gets dressed, but remaining is called an action! And to Rashi even a kohen may not become tamei in a kum v’aseh bcause of k”h! So Rama certainly paskens like Tosfos that Kohen and nazir are allowed to become tamei [for meis mitzvah]; Nazir because his vow can be annulled, and Kohen because it’s not prohibited for everyone. However, Rama really paskens like Rashi because if he held like Tosfos, how can can Rama pasken if they told him [of the corpse] he may not remain there, even if he is unclothed. But Tosfos allows him to become tamei intentionally because of k”h and there is no situation more degrading than running outside unclothed! So Rama must pasken like Rashi, and that which we originally said he’s like Tosfos, we must say he follows his opinion in Siman 303 like Rosh that by shatnez if the wearer is unaware we don’t tell him (or, here the kohen is sleeping, so it’s even more unintention than shogeg – Ed.).

I also feel even to Ri that we can uproot the marriage, we would not be lenient here (our case of the adulteress) like we are in other matters because it is more strict than other prohibitions, and it’s like a chiyuv kareis. Because regular lav does not push off yibum and midioraissa has yibum, only there is a rabbinic gzeira that the first biah is forbidden lest they do a second biah (which is not for a mitzvah) and therefore they do chalitza as we find in Yevamos 20a-b, but an adulteress who is forbidden to her husband exempts her co-wife (tzarah) from chalitza and yibum, and she is like a full ervah (forbidden relationship). Yet regular lavim, they are forbidden to their husband but permitted to their yavam (husband’s brother), so we see this sin is stricter, and if those cases aren’t pushed aside for k”h, neither is this case. Especially that to Rambam he must inform the husband [of the infidelity] just like you see someone wearing shatnez in the marketplace, even though the wearer is unintentional (shogeg), you must remove it from him!

Yet I still have a reason to say to Rambam we should not tell because of k”h. By someone wearing shatnez, many people can see him wearing shatnez and not know he is shogeg, so it’s a big chilul hashem. But here there is no chilul hashem (because nobody knows of the affair) even to do an action we say k”h pushes off an aveira….But I reject this thesis, because Rav Yehuda will consider the aveira chilul hashem, whether many people see (or are aware of) the aveira or not….Even Rosh will agree because in discussing the person wearing shatnez he says the opinion in Yerushalmi that does not require us to remove Shatnez says “k”h pushes off a mitzvah for one hour.” That only allows him to keep the shatnez on until he returns home from the market. But in our case the man will remain married to his wife for a long time, even Rosh will agree the man must inform the husband of her actions…And you might push off this diyuk I made, because perhaps the Rosh is only talking about a case where the person was wearing shatnez is meizid for that hour (when he realizes it’s shatnez until he returns home) but when it is shogeg we allow k”h even for a long time (and here the husband is shogeg). I have two responses to that line of reasoning: One, chazal only let k”h push something off for a short time, not indefinitely....

(to be continued)

Noda Biyehuda Part 2

2009-09-23T15:23:00.002-04:00

This point is a machlokes between Rosh and Rambam, based on Brachos 19b: Said R. Yehuda in the name of Rav: one who find shatnez in his garment removes it [the garment] even in the marketplace [where there are many people who will see him without his shirt]. They ask from several sugyos that k”h pushes off prohibitions, so it should push off wearing shatnez also? They answer “shev v’al taaseh” [doing nothing to violate the prohibition] is different. We see wearing shatnez is considered an act. (Even though he is not putting on shatnez now, it’s already on him, not removing it is considered an act.)

It’s a machlokes what exactly is the case of this gemara. Rambam’s girsa is “one who finds shatnez in the marketplace” and does not have “finds in his garment.” He understands this is where you see someone else wearing shatnez, you are required to remove it off of him. We see this is shev v’al taaseh in regard to the finder, but because the wearer is an act, the finder must remove it from the wearer. The girsa of the Rosh is where you find shatnez in your own garment. Therefore he paskens in Hilchos Kilayim that if you see someone else wearing shatnez and he is shogeg, the wearer is not considered to be doing a prohibited act, and the finder is just passive (shev v’al taaseh).

Rambam learns his din even when the wearer is beshogeg, as Tur YD 303 brings the Rosh as arguing on Rambam, and in Shulchan Aruch they are brought as two opinions , and the mechaber paskens like Rambam and the Rama paskens like Rosh.

Our case is exactly like that case – the husband will violate by doing an act – being with his wife who is forbidden to him, but he is shogeg, not knowing that she was unfaithful to him. And the one who knows that he is doing an aveira (the current son-in-law) is passive in not telling him. To the Rosh he may remain silent due to kavod mishpacha [being k”h]. To Rambam the son-in-law must inform the husband to stop him from violating a prohibition.

You can say even Rosh will agree here the son-in-law must tell because the husband must divorce his wife to save the wife from a prohibition because she knows she was unfaithful yet she remains married to her husband. But you can push this off because the woman doesn’t know that she’s forbidden to her husband and omer mutar is not worse than shogeg. I can even suggest to the Rambam it’s not certain that he must inform the husband because it depends on machlokes Rashi Tosfos in Brachos there. Rashi s.v. shev v’al taseh says tumah was allowed for nazir and kohen when he comes across a mes mitzvah which he is uprooting [his prohibition against becoming tamei] with an action because of k”h, there is not k”h because he was never prohibited against becoming tamei for a mes mitzvah, just like there is no prohibition for him to become tamei when a close relative dies. Tosfos s.v. Shev argues on Rashi and says it does push off the lav, but Nazir is an exception because he can have his vow of nezirus annulled, and a kohen is an exception because becoming tamei is not a law that applies to everyone (shava lakol; it’s a din that only applies to kohanim). So to Rashi a lav hashava lakol and even if it can be annulled, even as an action is not pushed aside because of k”h, and to Tosfos something that can be annulled or it’s not shava lakol is pushed off because of k”h even by doing an act.

I say that this woman who was unfaithful and became forbidden to her husband is comparable to nazir which can be annulled, because the idea of being annulled means the prohibition can be removed meikara (a priori / retroactively). The husband can do this also based on what Tosfos says in Gittin 33a s.v. v’afkinhu: can a man who is married to his niece (I assume this case was used because it is a case where he will not want his unfaithful wife to be killed-Ed.), and she has committed adultery, send her a get and annul the get after he already sent it to her? The chachamim in this case retroactively annulled their marriage. So can he do this to annul the marriage and make them not married at the time of her infidelity (and hence save her from the death penalty)? Ri says yes, and it will be like nazir. Thus Ri's opinion here is we push off the lav [of remaining with his unfaithful wife] even with a action because of k”h. (Then Noda Biyehuda has a brief discussion that this Tosfos is according to a tana that we don’t pasken like, but he concludes it is like nazir.) (About this sugya – see Rakeffet-Rothkoff, Rabbi Aaron, “Annulment of Marriage Within the Context of Cancellation of the Get “, Tradition, 15:1-2, link: here.)

(to be continued)

Noda Biyehuda Kama O”C 35 - Part 1

2009-09-22T12:48:00.001-04:00

Noda Biyehuda Kama O”C 35

This is related to the blog in several ways:
1) It discusses an issue if a woman is permitted to stay with her husband after being unfaithful without 2 witnesses;
2) Several issues crop up that are found in Gemara Makos – omer mutar (I hope to discuss that later) and a mishna on Daf 21 about repeatedly violating the same sin, you get punished multiple times; and
3) It discusses a course of Teshuva for a person to follow. Because we are in the Aseres Yemai Teshuva, this issue is inyana diyoma.

I will paraphrase the whole Teshuva (in this context means responsum, not repentance) (normally I translate directly).

Question: a man (who was single) had a relationship with an eishes ish for 3 years. They stopped their affair, and this man married her daughter(!). The man wants to do teshuva (he had already stopped the aveira of eishes ish for a while), and wants to know if he must ask forgiveness from the woman’s husband (his current father-in-law). Also, if he informs the father-in-law, that man will have to separate from his wife, because a woman who committed adultery is forbidden to stay with her husband. Also, if they were to separate it would be a scandal because the family is a well-regarded family. So is it better for him not to tell his father-in-law? Should he instead speak to the beis din? And he wants to do teshuva, so what should he do; he is a weak man who studies a lot of Torah?

The Response:
Must he tell the man whose wife was unfaithful to him to separate him from a prohibition [of staying with his unfaithful wife] where the family name will be tarnished – can we be lenient because of kavod habrios [and not tell] because kavod habrios pushes off a lo taseh? Now, kavod habrios (k”h) only pushes off as lav as shev v’al taaseh (by doing nothing) but an action for the sake of k”h won’t push it off. As far as the baal teshuva is concerned it is shev v’al taaseh, what about for the husband – he will stay with his unfaithful wife by doing a maaseh [of tashmish] but since he doesn’t know about it (the affair) it’s only shogeg? (It seems the questioner wanted to allow this, and now the Noda Biyehuda will discuss it.)

Selichos: Preparing us for Yom Kippur

2009-09-13T17:28:00.003-04:00

In memory of my uncle, בן ציון מאיר בן שמואל ז"ל, whose 55th yahrzeit is on 26 Elul

17b - Olah, connection to Viduy

2009-09-09T19:04:00.004-04:00

17b Ritva s.v. aderabah. The Gemara implies olah isn't mechaper. But olah is mechaper for asin and lav hanitak l'asei! See Rashi Vayikra 1:4, Rambant here, Baalei Hatosfos there, Yoma 36a and Gilyonei Hashas (by R'Yosef Engel) there, Rabi Akiva's opinion in Toras Kohanim 1 Dibura D'Nadav parshasa 3:8, Tosefta Menachos 10:12, Rambam Maasei Hakorbanos 3:14 (thanks to Torah Shleima 105). The Ritva answers even though olah provides kapara for asei and lav hanitak l'asei, the olah's purpose is not to provide kapara for these things; the pasuk only promises that you will get kaparah for the listed things.

My question is, on Yom Kippur we say in the viduy "v'al chataim she'anu chayavim aleihem olah." But according to the Ritva, we're never chayav to bring an olah? (I don't have an answer.)

14b - Wasn't Rabi Yochanan the Rebbe of Reish Lakish?

2009-09-08T19:47:00.002-04:00

14b : Gzeirah Shava lo gamar. Rashi says Reish Lakish didn't hear it from his Rebbi, Rabi Yochanan, so he could not learn the gzeira shava.. But Rabi Yochanan was the Rebbi of Reish Lakish! See Bava Metzia 84a.

The book Mareh Hamakom on Makos answers on p. 171 that Tosfos in B"M there, and Yevamos 57a s.v. asa says that Reish Lakish originally learned Torah from Rav Oshia, then he became a bandit, then Rabi Yochanan convinced hm to leave banditry and return to Torah. So Rabi
Yochanan wasn't Reish Lakish's only Rebbi. (To Rashi, who holds holds Reish Lakish was a bandit from his youth and didn't learn Torah until he encountered Rabi Yochanan, I don't know how to answer this question.)

Makos 8b Ritva Amai

2009-09-07T22:34:00.002-04:00

8b kusi & eved go to galus and get malkos...Ritva s.v. Amai Kari bei asks that eved and kusi are not oseh maasei amcha...and eved also, even though he is amcha in that he's chayav in mitzvos like a woman, he's not allowed to enter the kahal [marry a ksheira]. The Aruch Laner has some problems with this Ritva, namely, according to this logic you could curse a mamzer or ger mitzri within 3 generations, but such a thing is not permitted! (I have some problems with his answer.)

I think there is a simple explanation. There are two types of people who may not enter the kahal: people who have a psul, like a mamzer, and people, like eved, who lack complete kedushas yisrael. Rav Chaim Brisker in Issurei Biah 13:12 discusses that an eved after his first tvila has to do mitzvos like a woman, but he does not have complete kedushas yisrael until after the second tevila, which happens after he is freed.

The Ritva does not mean anyone who is asur lavo bekahal may be cursed. He means even though eved is achicha in certain mitzvos, because he can't enter the kahal we see he's not fully b'amcha. But a mamzer who has full kedushas yisrael is certainly amcha.

5b Ein Mazhirin min hadin

2009-08-28T14:12:00.001-04:00

5b Ein Mazhirin min hadin from Achoso

I was bothered for many years how we learn out ein mazhirin min hadin from ervah of your sister, because that is a chiyuv kares. Then the gemara learns out to ein mazhirin in a makos case from gzeirah shava rasha rasha, but that is equating makos and misas beis din. Why is there no direct limud from misas beis din, and why is kares seemingly equivalent to misas beis din?

For many years I had no answer. Yesterday I saw Rashi, Megilla 7b s.v. af. saying that kareis is like misas beis din. He doesn't explain why. It could be because if someone violating a kareis prohibition was warned for malkus, he's patur from kares, so it is like "misa" from beis din, or because "malkos bemakom misa omedes." Or because of kipa - Sanhedrin 81b - Beis Din can potentially kill someone who's chayav kareis several times.

Makos 4b Rambam's opinion of E"Z of Ben Grusha as kiyum Kasher Zamam or not

2009-08-27T23:44:00.003-04:00

Makos 4b how does Rabi Yehuda know lav she'ein bo maaseh lokin alav? The Gemara learns a meh matzinu from eidim zommemin and motzi shem ra, and the gemara rejects it because ma lehatzad hashava shebaheim shehein knas. The gemara ends up accepting it by saying Rabi Yehuda argues on Rabi Akiva and holds eidim zommemin is not knas. Let's understand this hava amina, and understand what knas is. Furthermore, the first tosfos in Makos has 2 opinions whether there is a kiyum kasher zamama in ben grusha. One answer in Tosfos, and also Rashi in Makos 2b remez, and also in Sanhedrin 10a s.v. remez, is that there is no kasher zamam in ben grusha. Do we know what the Rambam holds about this? Rabi Akiva Eiger, quoted in the Frankel rambam, says that the Rambam agrees with the shita of Rashi, but does not elaborate.

Kiddushin 3b, trying to learn source for kesef kiddushin belong to the father of the ketana tries to learn from ones umefateh, but rejects it because we can't learn mamon from knas. Then the gemara tries to learn from boshes ufegam, but rejects that also because "shani boshes ufegam d'avuha shayach begavayhu." My rebbi, Hagaon HaRav Ahron Halevi Soloveichik zt"l asked, but boshes ufegam are also knas, so why doesn't the gemara answer memona miknassa lo yalfinan? He answered that there are tweo types of knas - complete, pure knas, which is a set amount to pay. There is a second knas which is subjective. Boshes depends on who the person was, how much he or she was embarrased, so it's not a "pure" knas (these are my terms, not his). So mamon can be learned out from Knas of boshes, and the gemara can't answer "memona miknasa lo yalfinan." I think he brought as a rayah the Rambam Chovel uMazik 5:6-7, that modeh biknas patur but modeh about boshes where nobody saw the person got embarrassed, he pays because there is a new boshes when he's modeh in front of beis din.

Now, logically, eidim zommemin should be a knas - at least according to Rabi Akiv - like boshes; not pure knas, because the punishment depends on what the eidim tried to be mechayev. Then the gemara shouldn't have asked "ma lehatzad hashava shebahen she'hein knas" - because eidim zommemin is a knas from which we can learn mamon!

Rashi Makos 4b s.v. gamar explains this gemara as referring to ben grusha when it mentions eidim zommemin. Why ben grusha where there is no kasher zamam? Why not a regular case of kasher zamam? I think the Rambam will agree with Rashi. He holds ben grusha is NOT kasher zamam. Therefore there is a set punishment - 40 malkos - for eidim zommemin of ben grusha, so it is pure knas (even though we usually view knas as money, here it's malkos). Therefore I feel the Rambam holds the makos of ben grusha are not a kiyum of kasher zamam.

Makos 4a Kam Lei Bidirabah Mienei - Latzeis Bidei Shamayim

2009-08-25T22:16:00.006-04:00

4a Meiri's opinion in Kum Lei Bidirabah Mienei (KLB"M). Tosfos 4a s.v. lokin mentions Bava Metzia 91a hachosem pi parah ladush bah lokeh umeshaleim. ת"ר החוסם את הפרה ודש בה לוקה ומשלם ד' קבין לפרה וג' קבין לחמור והא אינו לוקה ומת ואינו לוקה ומשלם אמר אביי הא מני ר"מ היא דאמר לוקה ומשלם רבא אמר אתנן אסרה תורה ואפילו בא על אמו רב פפא אמר משעת משיכה איחייב לה במזונותיה ומילקא לא לקי עד שעת חסימה
See Rashi in B"M there.

רבא אמר: אתנן אסרה תורה, ואפילו בא על אמו (ונתן לה טלה באתנן - אתנן הוא, ואסור לקרבן). (ד'אתנן' סתמא כתיב (דברים כג,יט), לא שנא אמו ולא שנא פנויה; ואף על גב דאי תבעה ליה בדינא קמן "תן לי אתנני" לא מחייבינן ליה, דהא קם ליה בדרבה מיניה, כי יהביה ניהלה - אתנן הוא; אלמא אפילו במקום מיתה נמי רמו תשלומין עליה! אלא שאין כח לענשו בשתים, אבל ידי שמים לא יצא עד שישלם; דאי לא רמו תשלומין עליה, כי יהביה ניהלה - מי הוה אתנן? מתנה בעלמא הוא דיהיב לה!

וגבי חוסם נמי: תשלומין רמו עליה, אלא שאין כח בבית דין לענשו שתים, וכיון דרמו תשלומין עליה - לא יצא ידי חובתו עד שישלם; אי נמי: אי תפיס לא מפקינן מיניה. כך שמעתי מפי מורי הזקן, ויש דוגמתו בבבא קמא בפרק 'מרובה' (דף ע,ב), ושם מפורש יותר, והביא לי מורי ראיה על זה.) (courtesy of this wonderful site)

Haghos Ashri B"M Chapter 7 says: if you want to fulfill yedei shamayim you must pay, because [while] KLB"M [exempts you, that's only by Beis Din, but] lidei shamayim you are obligated, and if he grabbed the money, he keeps it. Haghos Ashri, Bava Kama chapter 4 says if Ruvein kills Shimon, even though he's put to death, he pays his (probably Shimon's) value to Shimon's heirs, and if they grabbed the money from him we don't take it away from them. Shita Mekubetzes B"K 70a s.v. Esnan brings the Meiri who brings the Chachmei Tzorfatim who say in the case of Esnan the Beis din obligates him to pay Esnan even though they kill him, because KLB"M is for damages, but here he obligated himself with a tnai, he accepted to pay it (even though he will get killed). Shita Mekubetzes B"K 56a s.v. vekasav harav haMeiri brings Gedolei Hadoros that when you are chayav bidinei shamayim to pay, you are pasul to give testimony until you pay it back.

Summary: when KLB"M exempts you, that's only that Beis Din can't obligate you. But really you are obligated to pay this. Meiri says you are even pasul l'eidus until you pay.

Makos 3b-4a mikva

2009-08-24T23:11:00.004-04:00

Makos 3b-4a: shloshes lugin mayim... is the girsa "shloshes lugin mayim chaser kortav" or does thee mishna not include the words chaser kortav?

R. Tzvi Hirsch Grodzinsky in Mikve Yisrael, Anaf Chamishi asks: We hold like Rava who is the later shita, and he says that the girsa is chaser kortav, and we pasken like rabanan who are the majority opinion, then we should pasken 3 complete lugin that a kortav of wine fell into them and they look like wine, should invalidate the mikva like the rabanan. Why don't we pasken that way? I think this is also the question of Tosfos Rabi Akiva Eiger, Mikvaos Perek 7, os 12.

Mikve Yisrael answers that we pasken like Rav in Issurim, so whichever way he paskens - whether like Rabanan or Rabi Yochanan ben Nuri, we'd pasken like Rav. Also, Chullin 26a implies Rava paskens like Rabi Yochanan ben Nuri by wine - so we pasken like Rabi Yochanan ben Nuri by wine, and because it is not clear that Rava paskens like Rabi Yochanan ben Nuri by milk, we don't pasken like him, and instead pasken like Chachamim in that case.

Makos 2b: Kofer

2009-08-23T18:33:00.004-04:00

A big yeshiva in Yerushalayim is learning Makos this zman. I'm not, but I'd like to post one post on each daf of Makos in the coming weeks (if I'm able).

Makos 2b: Venasan pidyon nafsho: Dmei nizak. Rabi Yishmael b'no shel Rabi Yochanan ben Brokah omer: Dmei mazik. This machlokes is also found in Bava Kama 27a and 40a. However, see Mechilta to Shemos 21:30 (Mechilta Mishpatim Parsha 10: 109(30): Venasan pidyon nafsho: nafsho shel mumas, divrei Rabi Yishmael. Rabi Akiva omer pidyon nafsho shel meimis.

There are two questions. First, the names of the tanaim are different between the Gemara and the Mechilta: Mechilta uses Rabi Akiva and Rabi Yishmael, but the Gemara uses Rabi Yishmael b'no shel Rabi Yochanan ben Broka, and a tana kama (one Tosefta uses Rabi Yehuda [B"K 4:6 or 7 at the end]). Secondly, the Mechilta changes the opinions of the 2 tanaim (assuming that Rabi Yishmael b'no shel Rabi Yochanan ben Broka is Rabi Yishmael), which leads to a contradiction in the opinion of Rabi Yishmael.

On B"K 6b discussing Meitav, the Gemara mentions a machlokes Rabi Akiva and Rabi Yishmael about meitav sadeihu umeitav karmo, if*bedinizik shaiminan* or *bidimazik shaiminan.* The mechilta uses the names and shitos from this gemara of meitav by kofer because of the same words, even though it's really an argument on a different matter. Why, I do not know, but that's what the mechilta did.

Malbim, Shemos 21:90 corrects the girsa of the mechilta to accord with these Gemaras, but he does not go into any more detail about how the text got garbled.

Parshas Re'eh: Tzedaka, Recession & Welfare

2009-08-10T09:55:00.003-04:00

Rabbi Dr. Aaron Levine, Economic Public Policy & Jewish Law (Ktav 1993) writes on pp. 201-204:

...Our purpose here is to demonstrate that in the Torah society full employment and price stability [very low inflation - my comment] are mandated goals for the public sector....

Judaism's charity obligation consists of of both a public and a private component. In talmudic times the public component consisted of a variety of levies for the purpose of attending to the full range of the needs of the poor. Public communal levies were never entirely relied upon to relieve poverty. Evidencing this is the talmudic dictum that if one becomes needy he does not immediately apply for public relief. His relatives and friends must first attend to his needs; only then is the community required to make up the deficiency.

In his analysis of Jewish charity law, R. Hayyim Soloveitchik (Russia, 1853-1918) advances the thesis that society as a collective, apart from its individual members, has a responsibility to relieve poverty. The purpose of the coercive levy, he posits, is not to ensure that the individual members of the community qua individuals discharge their charity obligation, but rather to allow the public sector to carry out its own distinctive social welfare responsibility. The thory that the charity obligation consists both of an individual and collective component is bolstered by by its repitition in the Torah. The charity obligation is set out once at Leviticus 25:35 and again at Deuteronomy 15:7-8. The Leviticus passage refers to society's collective responsibility to relieve poverty, while the Deuteronomy passage speaks of the individual's personal charity obligation....

To be sure, poverty cries out for both an individual and a communal response. But from the standpoint of Judaism's social welfare program, income transfers are not the ideal approach. If the needy individual is capable of engaging in productive labor, offering him a job represents a much-preferred alternative....From the standpoint of the donor, offering a job to someone in a precarious financial situation fulfills the charity obligation on the highest level....From the standpoint fot he recipient, engaging in productive labor is an ennobling experience....

...R. Baruch Epstein (Russia, 1860-1942) finds its message to be that it is improper for man to derive benefit from this world unless he engages in socially useful labor as a quid pro quo for the enjoyment received (Torah Temima, Breishis 2:16). Consonant with this notion is Rav's advice to R. Kahana: "Flay carcasses in the marketplace and earn wages, and do not say, I am a priest and a great man, and it is beneath my dignity."

When the economy finds itself in deep recession, employment opportunities will rapidly shrink. Under these conditions, the private sector's response to the crisis, will, for the most part, consist of income transfers to the needy. Given the collapsing demand for labor, society will not be practicing charity on the highest level, regardless of the ingenuity it utilizes to conceal the charitable intent of the income transfers.

In dealing with the malaise of deep economic recession, a modern government enjoys a distinct advantage over the private sector. By means of expansionary fiscal and monetary policies, a modern government is is capable of vastly increasing the available employment opportunities. Mechanically, the government substantially reduces taxes and / or increases its spending. The resulting deficit is financed by selling bonds to commercial banks or to the general public. Any initial increase in spending will result in a multiple expansion of income....

Recall R. Hayyim Soloveitchik's thesis that society as a collective, apart from its individual members, has a responsibility to relieve poverty. The distinction between what society can accomplish in poverty relief as a collective and what it can accomplish as individuals is highlighted by the technique of deficit finance. Left to its own devices, the free enterprise-oriented economy can do precious little to pull itself out of depression. But what is an impossibility for individuals, even when joined in cooperative effort, can be accomplished by society as a collective. Deficit finance, as the previous discussion has demonstrated, allows the public sector to transform the depression-ridden economy into one of abundant employment opportunities.
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I leave that without comment, but with one update: The source of the communal obligation of tzedaka as brought in the article is in Parshas Behar. Prof. Levine's source is what R. Daniel Lander said in the name of the Rav in Kevod Harav. This is also how it is brought by R. Herschel Reichman in Reshimos Shiurim, Shavuos & Nedarim vol. 1, p. 174. This is undoubetedly how the Rav said it in Shiur. However, the Shiurei Rabeinu Chaim Halevi on Bava Basra 8 seems to say it's based on Egla Arufa (see Sotah 38b). (Someone told me about it and I read it 4 times before I saw it there.) I'm not sure if Rav Chaim is saying the source of the communal mitzvah of tzedaka is Egla Arufa (and not Parshas Behar in Vayikra) or, as the Rav must have understood, that Egla Arufa shows us there is a communal mitzvah and its source is in Parshas Behar.

Parshas Eikev

2009-08-09T01:37:00.004-04:00

Quick post, a new application of a small part of a long piece I composed far away and long ago.

10:8 בָּעֵת הַהִוא, הִבְדִּיל יְהוָה אֶת-שֵׁבֶט הַלֵּוִי, לָשֵׂאת, אֶת-אֲרוֹן בְּרִית-יְהוָה--לַעֲמֹד לִפְנֵי יְהוָה לְשָׁרְתוֹ וּלְבָרֵךְ בִּשְׁמוֹ, עַד הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה.
Rashi: To carry the Aron - [referring to] the Leviim. To stand...and bless - [referring to] the Kohanim [who bless the people], and this refers to duchening.

Rambam, Sefer Hamitzvos Aseh 34, says there is a mitzvah for the Kohanim to carry the Aron on their shoulders. He says in the early years Leviim carried it because there were not enough Kohanim to do so, but the mitzvah was really for the Kohanim. He makes no reference to any other vessels of the mishkan. In fact, in Shoresh 3 he does not count the age limitation of the Leviim as a mitzvah because he holds it is not a permanent mitzvah; Ramban there argues vociferously on the Rambam for several reasons. Brisker Rav (al Harambam, second letter in the back) wrote to Rav Yoshe Ber ("Yakiri") about this. He says that Rambam is not talking about the Aron of the mishkan/mikdash at all, but of the "first" Aron that Moshe built before the Mishkan - pasuk 3 of the same Perek - a wooden Aron, and that was the Aron taken to war. This Aron was carried by the Kohanim, and it was not related to the mishkan and was thus not a temporary mitzvah which ended when the Beis Hamikdash was dedicated.

Thus the Rambam will learn this pasuk as talking entirely about the Kohanim, and they are called Leviim because they are indeed part of shevet Levi. In fact, the end of the pasuk says "ad hayom hazeh" to tell us the mitzvah to carry the Aron is a permanent mitzvah (even though the source of the mitzvah to carry the Aron on the shoulders is "bakasef yisa'u).