Volume 40 Number 56
Produced: Wed Sep 3 23:13:20 US/Eastern 2003
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Absolute vs Relative standards of Modesty
[Russell J Hendel]
Avoiding woman--Standards of Modesty (3)
[Barak Greenfield, Gershon Dubin, Michael Kahn]
Ba-eir Heiteiv
[Perets Mett]
Bailey's - milk or treif?
[Zev Sero]
Dagesh
[Caela Kaplowitz]
Kosher food at London's Heathrow Airport
[Perets Mett]
Kosher Virus/Bacteria (re spraying meat)
[Leah S. Gordon]
Mapik Hei
[Perets Mett]
A new Shabbos issue in hotels
[Bernard Raab]
Spraying Meat
[Mechael Kanovsky]
Spraying meat with milk protein
[Sam Gamoran]
Standards of Modesty
[Gershon Dubin]
Use of manuscript varients
[Ben Katz]
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From: Russell J Hendel <rjhendel@...>
Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2003 20:26:10 -0400
Subject: RE: Absolute vs Relative standards of Modesty
Emmanuel Ifrah(and Warren Burstein) correctly answered Gershon Dubin
(v40n52 on v40n51) that for purposes of saying the Shma prayer (which it
is prohibited to say in the presence of nudity) we use both absolute and
societal-norm standards.
Emmanuel cites the Ben Ish Chai who simultaneously REQUIRED women in
Muslim countries to veil their faces (because that was the norm) while
he PERMITTED saying shma in countries where married women uncovered
their hair (Because that is the norm).
Here is the way I have heard this (From Rav Aaron Soloveitchick). (a)
Certain things are ABSOLUTE NUDITY (eg Breasts). (b) Other items (like
the lower portion of legs mentioned by both Gershon and Emmanuel) are
RELATIVE NUDITY--if everyone does it then you get use to it and you are
permitted to say the shma in front of it; otherwise it is prohibited
So..if you are like me and have spent the weekends of the summer
answering mail-jewish (and not on beaches) then you are not use to
seeing womens midsections and hence it would be prohibited to say the
shma
But if (for whatever reason) you have spent time on beaches and have
seen womens midsections frequently then you are desensitized and hence
saying shma in the presence of a midsection is permitted.
Let me put it this way...what is the difference between permitted lower
parts of legs and midsections. In each case it depends on what you are
use to.
And I go back to my original point...even a reform rabbi would object if
a woman came in to his synagogue with her midsection exposed....He would
probably say >This has nothing to do with law...rather it is not >the
norm in a synagogue to go this way. (I used this to argue that in
theory the reform and charedi Rabbi have both similar values and
practices)
Respectfully
Russell Jay Hendel;http://www.RashiYomi.com/
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From: Barak Greenfield <DocBJG@...>
Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2003 16:50:16 -0400
Subject: RE: Avoiding woman--Standards of Modesty
>From: Gershon Dubin <gershon.dubin@...>
> Usually covered means by people who dressed modestly.
Ok, then what does it mean to dress modestly? Either way, you have to
either allow that erva depends on time and place, or that it was defined
in one way for all time, but you would need a specific source for that.
Barak
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From: Gershon Dubin <gershon.dubin@...>
Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2003 16:45:31 -0400
Subject: Avoiding woman--Standards of Modesty
From: Barak Greenfield, MD <DocBJG@...>
<<Then what do you mean by "usually covered"?>>
If it makes it clearer to say that it would be covered by people of
normal social graces in an era when people didn't run around the streets
in their underwear, you may express it that way.
I thought the way I put it was fairly clear.
Gershon
<gershon.dubin@...>
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From: Michael Kahn <mi_kahn@...>
Date: Mon, 01 Sep 2003 14:03:18 -0400
Subject: Re: Avoiding woman--Standards of Modesty
>The idea that women can walk around "covered up" by a few square inches
>of cloth is a new phenomenon from an historical perspective.
It goes beyond that. During the Victorian period of the 19th century men
and women were expected to keep to separate social spheres and didn't
mix much, sort of akin to what we find in today's charedi community.
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From: Perets Mett <p.mett@...>
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 14:41:33 +0100
Subject: Ba-eir Heiteiv
Emanuel asked:
> If it is so, does it also imply that one is to pronounce the name of
> the famous commentary on the Shulchan Aruch "Be'er hetev" rather then
> "Ba'er hetev"?
It has never occurred to me to pronounce it "Be'er hetev" !
I have always pronounced it " Ba-eir Heiteiv " the way it appears in
Chumash
But there is a " B'eir Hagoilo "
Perets Mett
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From: Zev Sero <zsero@...>
Subject: Re: Bailey's - milk or treif?
> Further to the T'euda, as you have likely seen, this is a certificate
> with lots of small writing, posted on a wall, usually at a distance
> where the "Kosher" can be read, but none of the small print.
You can always ask to see it
> My other point is that the bar and the restaurant are the same room.
> I think it reasonable to assume (I did not read and translate the
> t'edua word for word to look for an exclusion) that the Teudat Kashrut
> was not limited.
In the USA it is ubiquitous that, at weddings, the bar is not under the
same supervision as the caterer, and usually has no hechsher at all.
It's up to guests to order what they know to be kosher. I think this is
a result of the fact that most people do rely on the LBD list, but most
hechsherim are reluctant to give their official approval to this
practise - after all, what's in it for them?. So the client wants,
well, not Baileys, because it's milchig, but perhaps Malibu, and the
hechsher says `well, you're relying on the LBD - we haven't personally
verified that what they're saying is correct, so we can't officially
approve your using it', and the result is that the bar is not under
hechsher.
Which is fine, because, unlike a kitchen, at a bar what you order does
not affect anyone else. If you don't want to assume that Malibu is
kosher, don't order it, and the fact that five people before you did
doesn't affect you, whereas if the kitchen cooks, say, swordfish, then
if you regard it as treif then the whole kitchen is treif for you.
Also, at a bar, people tend to order drinks specifically by brand name,
so if you only order drinks you consider kosher, you are unlikely ever
to be tripped up by this practise.
I imagine that this is also the reason why the bar in an Israeli hotel
that caters to a mixed crowd might not be under a hechsher - the hotel
might quite reasonably want to serve drinks that are either actually
treif, or for which the hechsher doesn't want to stick its neck out, and
this is easily done without placing an undue burden on the the
kosher-keeping customers.
IMHO it would be a good idea, in such a case, to educate the bar keepers
on what is hechshered, treif, or in between, so they can answer
questions, and so they can guide customers who appear to be more
observant, and who might unknowingly order something that is `not for
them' (I know of grocers who do this, with products that have hechsherim
not commonly relied on in certain communities).
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From: Caela Kaplowitz <caelak@...>
Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2003 06:40:13 -0400
Subject: Dagesh
If I may add something to David Ziants' posting of "dagesh facts": A
dagesh can also indicate that a shoresh (word root) letter has fallen
out of the word. For example: "Nikach -- we will take"; there is a
dagesh in the kuf to indicate that the lamed has fallen out of the word
in that form. It is helpful to know this if you are trying to figure out
how to look up a word in the dictionary as it is a clue that there is a
missing shoresh letter.
Caela Kaplowitz
Baltimore, Md
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From: Perets Mett <p.mett@...>
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 14:39:59 +0100
Subject: Re: Kosher food at London's Heathrow Airport
> Recently, while we were in transit from Israel, we had a few hours at
> London's Heathrow airport. We found that on the second floor of the
> international arrivals building,
Heathrow airport does not have an international arrivals building - it
has four terminals (called Terminal1,2,3,4) which all handle
international flights.
> one of the food counters has (among many others) kosher sandwiches
> with the London Beth Din Hechsher. I understand that this counter
> generally carries this item. Note, though, that the branch of the food
> counter on the 1st floor (same chain) doesn't carry these. >
Kosher sandwiches ( which also have the hechsher of Kedassia) are
available at several outlets in Heathrow airport.
Most recently I have seen them in Terminal 1 near the El-Al check in
station and near the El-Al departure gate
Perets Mett
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From: Leah S. Gordon <leah@...>
Date: Mon, 01 Sep 2003 17:30:33 -0700
Subject: Kosher Virus/Bacteria (re spraying meat)
Just as we cannot assume that a Jewish person doesn't have AIDS, we
cannot assume that kosher meat is "cleaner". When I read the _Consumer
Reports_ piece on salmonella and E. coli., they also checked some kosher
(chickens?) and found at least as much yucky stuff as the main treif
brands. (I think it was more of one bacterium and less of the other.)
--Leah Sarah Reingold Gordon
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From: Perets Mett <p.mett@...>
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 14:33:18 +0100
Subject: Mapik Hei
David Ziants:
> 3. A dagesh cannot occur normally in a guttural letter: aleph, hey,
> ayin,raish (maybe reish not so certain if considered guttural or not).
> A dot in the hey at the end of a word is not a dagesh, but a mapik,
> and causes the sound to be "ah" rather than "ha", eg gevoah (= high).
I think David has abbreviated a little too much
A hei at the end of the word is normally silent - effectively it creates
'space' for the preceding vowel.
In order to indicate that a final hei is sounded as a hei, a mapik is
used
The vowel preceding the mapik hei could be a komats (many such words) -
it is then necessary to sound the hei.
A mapik hei also arises in the situation which David describes, where a
patoch genuvo (sorry I can't tell you why patoch should be feminine) is
normally printed under the mapik hei (the preceding vowel being a
choilom/shuruk/tseirei) but generates a vowel sound before the hei
Perets Mett
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From: Bernard Raab <beraab@...>
Date: Mon, 01 Sep 2003 21:05:10 -0400
Subject: A new Shabbos issue in hotels
> From: Sherman Marcus <shermanm@...>
>I noticed that in the web site for Chabad of Las Vegas, there is
>information about the hotel nearest their community. It includes a
>warning that the air conditioners must be disabled before Shabbat
>because they operate using motion sensors.
>
>I was actually wondering whether this can be overcome by hanging a
>mobile near the a/c vent. Perhaps the sensors would continuously sense
>the motion of the mobile caused by the air flow, and not be affected by
>the occupant's entry or exit. Does anyone know if this is a practical
>solution?
The typical motion sensor has an array of infrared sensors, and is
activated when a sizeable warm body moves within its field of
coverage. A mobile would probably not work. On the other hand, the
sensor in a hotel may not require motion since I assume it would be
designed not to turn off the AC when the occupant is asleep and
motionless for long periods. Therefore, although it has a low
probability of success, I would experiment with a yahrzeit candle (or 2
separated by a foot or so) near one of the sensors. If this doesn't
work, this can become a serious problem for frum travelers.
b'shalom--Bernie R.
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From: Mechael Kanovsky <Mechael.Kanovsky@...>
Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2003 13:27:32 +0200
Subject: Re: Spraying Meat
> The amount of added lactoferrin that remains on the beef after
> sprayingis comparable to the amount of lactoferrin that naturally
> occurs in the beef, aLF Ventures said.
Does anyone know if the lactoferrin is purified from
milk or is it geneticaly engineered?
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From: Sam Gamoran <Sgamoran@...>
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 11:33:05 +0300
Subject: RE: Spraying meat with milk protein
> From: Batya Medad <ybmedad@...>
> Has properly kashered/salted meat been compared to the traif, with and
> without the spraying? When I was growing up (mid last century), many
> non-religious Jews, who ate traif, bought their meat from kosher
> butchers, because it was considered "cleaner." Traif meat is left
> uncooked and certainly not salted for days. They even claim that it
> improves the texture. I highly doubt that kosher meat has the same
> bacteria count.
Consumer Reports 2-3 months ago did not report favorably on the bacteria
count in raw fresh chicken and they included some kosher ones.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Gershon Dubin <gershon.dubin@...>
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 13:46:59 GMT
Subject: Standards of Modesty
From: Michael Kahn <mi_kahn@...>
<<What parts of a man's body must similarly be covered during a bracha?
Can I make a bracha in shorts? Bare-chested? I always wondered about
this. I assume barefoot is not a problem.>>
Only the bare minimum need be covered, AND a separation (elastic
waistband is enough) be present between there and one's "heart".
For shemoneh esreh one's chest must be covered. Obviously, proper dress
shows respect for the beracha regardless if the minimum is met.
Gershon
<gershon.dubin@...>
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From: Ben Katz <bkatz@...>
Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2003 12:27:44 -0500
Subject: Re: Use of manuscript varients
>From: Michael Kahn <mi_kahn@...>
> >I would like to call the attention of the group to variation of this<
> >Mishnah as found in an MS, a variation that makes a lot of sense.
>
>I've heard that when it comes to halacha, the Chazon Ish was opposed to
>taking hidden sforim (genuzos) into account.
This is true, but the Hazon Ish is not the only opinion in the
matter. The Meiri, commonly used in yeshivot, was "rediscovered" in the
19th century. The Bach was very aware of manuscript variations, as was
the Rambam, who often sought out the best manuscripts for halachic
decision making from the geonic period as well as when he wished to
write his own sefer Torah (he used the Keter Aram Tzovah).
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End of Volume 40 Issue 56
