Volume 41 Number 90
Produced: Wed Jan 21 5:34:19 US/Eastern 2004
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Does potential spouses really have to tell everything (4)
[Shoshana Ziskind, <FriedmanJ@...>, Tzvi Stein,
awayz@netzero.net]
Fish, Meat, and Milk
[Leah Aharoni]
Hebrew Grammar Article
[Caela Kaplowitz]
Learning Aggadah from Halachah
[Yehuda Landy]
Names: Ari, Aryeh, Mordechai, Esther, Moses, Aaron
[Leo Koppel]
Saying the names of other gods
[Robert Israel]
Schools paying tuition to other schools
[Hillel (Sabba) Markowitz]
Torah and other sources of Knowledge
[Matan Shole]
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From: Shoshana Ziskind <shosh@...>
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 23:43:02 -0500
Subject: Re: Does potential spouses really have to tell everything
On Thursday, January 15, 2004, at 06:20 AM, Russell J Hendel
<rjhendel@...> wrote:
> Susan Shapiro, Tzvi Stein, Shoshana Ziskin, all speak about the
> necessity of disclosure -- the point was made that "not telling" is
> deception.
Huh? I think you misread my post. I said that you shouldn't NEED to tell
anything necessarily and that everyone should go to do yesharim and when
you start a shidduch someone involved calls dor yesharim and gets an
answser. This way you don't have to tell anyone anything. First of all
dor yesharim doesn't just test tay sachs so if they say you're not
compatible you still don't know why you're not compatible. It couuld be
canavans for all you know. Not tay sachs. And if you find out you're a
carrier of something (which you don't know what it is) how is it going
to benefit anyone by disclosing that you're a carrier of something but
you don't even know what it is. Just use dor yesharim and that takes
care of everything.
-Shoshana ZiskinD
PS In general I don't think that its realistic for spouses to share
absolutely everything with each other.
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From: <FriedmanJ@...>
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 10:10:51 EST
Subject: Re: Does potential spouses really have to tell everything
Consider a women who was divorced once and is seriously going out
with someone. She had been raped a while back but she decides that
if she tells this to her prospective husband it might turn him
off. Is she obligated to tell? If so what is the source of the
obligation? One person said (about Tay Sachs) she has to tell and
if she loses the marriage thats "tough". But in light of the story
with Rav Chiyahs wife maybe she doesnt have to tell. Again: She
too is a person.
YES, she is obligated to tell. Absolutely. Have you any clue what being
raped does to a woman's psychology? It impacts on everything, especially
male/female relationships....and intimacy and parenting issues.
And if there is bi-polar disease, heart disease, breast cancer,
schizophrenia, Down's Syndrome, Tay-Sachs and a criminal parent in the
background, that too should be disclosed.
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From: Tzvi Stein <Tzvi.Stein@...>
Subject: Re: Does potential spouses really have to tell everything
>Is it really true that you have to tell your spouse everything about
>yourself? Or everything about yourself that is marriage related?
As I said, only things that would likely affect the unsuspecting spouse or
the marriage itself must be disclosed.
>Consider the well known story of Rav Chiyas wife who had difficulty
>having children. The talmud relates that she disguised herself and asked
>her husband if the commandment of procreation was on the man or
>woman. When he answered, "on the woman", she promply took a sterility
>cup. It was only later that he found out. The Talmud does not seem to
>indicate that she violated any laws of deception.
I'm having a hard time understanding the relevance of this story. I
thought the discussion was about disclosing information before an
engagement or wedding. All the events of this story happen *after* the
couple was already married.
>She had been raped a while back but she decides that if she tells this
>to her prospective husband it might turn him off. Is she obligated to
>tell? If so what is the source of the obligation?
My position would follow what I said above, only things that would
likely affect the unsuspecting spouse or the marriage itself must be
disclosed. If it were the case that the rape was only a tragic event in
the woman's past and would have no real bearing on the marriage, I would
say there's no obligation to disclose it. But unfortunately,
practically speaking, that is usually not the case. Often a rape has
long-term traumatic effects on a woman, including her ability to have a
normal sex life with a future husband, which would definitely fall under
the category of something that would likely affect the marriage, so I'd
say it must be disclosed. One exception to that would be if, following
the rape, she had already succeeded in having a normal marital
relationship (i.e. a previous marriage), perhaps with help from therapy.
Then since it no longer threatens to have any effect on the future
marriage, I'd say it need not be disclosed.
>One person said (about Tay Sachs) she has to tell and if she loses the
>marriage thats "tough".
That "one person" would be me, and I actually said the opposite. Since
being a Tay Sachs carrier has no effect on the other spouse or the
marriage (provided the other spouse is not also a carrier), I had said
that Tay Sachs status was something that did *not* need to be
discolosed.
>I think there is a point here. After all she too is a person
And so is he. To paraphrase the Talmud (refering to a quite similar
situation), "Why is her blood redder than his?" She has no right to
cause harm or loss to someone else to prevent loss to herself. That
logic would also justify a poor person stealing from someone who has
something he needs... after all, the theif, too is a person.
>After all every day people get married who have not told everything.
I don't see the relevance. I'm sure there are a great many things that
people do every day that everyone on this list would agree are
completely unethical.
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From: <awayz@...> <awayz@netzero.net>
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 00:59:05 -0500
Subject: Re: Does potential spouses really have to tell everything
To add to Russell's message: What about telling a date if you had done
things that are punishable by Karies?
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From: Leah Aharoni <leah25@...>
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 12:43:12 +0200
Subject: Fish, Meat, and Milk
1. As far as I am aware Sephardim do not eat meat and fish together too.
2. As some posters have noted, the Beit Yosef mentions not eating fish
and milk together, but one of the acharonim (the Shach or the Taz IIRC)
comments that this is a scribe's error (taut sopher) and the accurate
meaning of the Beit Yosef is to prohibit the mixing of fish and meat.
All the best,
Leah Aharoni
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From: Caela Kaplowitz <caelak@...>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 06:39:47 -0500
Subject: Hebrew Grammar Article
>From: Eugene Bazarov <evbazarov@...>
>Perhaps someone can help. I am looking for an English article on the Das
>Torah view of historical aspects of Hebrew Dikduk. That article should
>deal with questions like: Does Grammar change? Who were the Massorites?
>Is every punctuation mark/accents from Moshe at Har Sinai? Are there
>variations of dikduk within Chumash/Tanach? etc etc. I am interested in
>the Torahdiker point of view. I would prefer there to be as many
>original sources as possible.
I would also be interested in this kind of material about grammar in the
Torah. If you reply to Mr. Bazarov off this list would you please send a
copy to me as well? Thank you.
Caela Kaplowitz
<caelak@...>
Baltimore, MD
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From: <nzion@...> (Yehuda Landy)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 12:59:33 +0200
Subject: Re: Learning Aggadah from Halachah
> See the RABD's critique on R. Zerahyah haLevi at RIF Berakhot 12a, s.v.
> Ba'aya. Both premises suggested by the contributor are rejected. He
> rules that even a Ka-Zayit (less than satiating amount) obligates one to
> say Birkat haMazon mid'Oraita, and he suggests that the other opinion -
> that less than satiating is d'Rabanan, is somehow associated in R.
> Avira's d'rashah about the angels.
>
> Yitzchak Etshalom
Dear Rabbi Yitzchak
Thanks for the source. By the way your closing staement "and he
suggests that the other opinion - that less than satiating is d'Rabanan,
is somehow associated in R. Avira's d'rashah about the angels" is not
there but rather can be found in MT Berachot 5:15. Either way I was
correct, Rav Avira's who made the statement is of the opinion that the
biblical obligation to bentch applies only if one is satiated. His
statement is reflecting an already existing behaviour of K'lal Yisroel
as I explained in my earlier positng.
Yehuda Landy
P.S. Somehow I forgot to sign my name on the original posting. Sorry.
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From: Leo Koppel <wallyut@...>
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 08:36:07 -0700
Subject: Names: Ari, Aryeh, Mordechai, Esther, Moses, Aaron
Ari and Aryeh both occur as personal names in the TNK. Why should not a
Biblical name have variants? In English we have Joan, Joanne and
Joanna.
Marduk and Astarte (the source for Esther) were definitely worshipped at
the time the story is supposed to take place.
A long time ago when I studied ancient Greek, I studied some of the
anti-Judaism polemic as well as the apologia in ancient (actually mostly
koine) Greek. One source remarked on the similarity between Moses and a
common Egyptian name like Ahmoses and between Aaron and a common
Egyptian name that I have forgotten.
Leo Koppel
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From: Robert Israel <israel@...>
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 10:48:37 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: Saying the names of other gods
Another curious case is the name "Phoebus", which is a name of the Greek
sun god Apollo, but was used by Jews (there is some dispute about
whether Phoebus comes from Feyvush or the reverse: see e.g. articles in
soc.genealogy.jewish at
<http://www.google.ca/groups?selm=v03010d03b253dc77579a%40%5B128.148.19.87%5D>
and
<http://www.google.ca/groups?threadm=179.15b71f16.2b72a49c%40aol.com>)
Robert Israel <israel@...>
Department of Mathematics http://www.math.ubc.ca/~israel
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2
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From: Hillel (Sabba) Markowitz <hsabbam@...>
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 13:40:29 -0500
Subject: RE: Schools paying tuition to other schools
>From: Carl Singer <casinger@...>
>I don't know the full details, perhaps someone who's a school
>administrator can step in. But in certain circumstances this allows a
>teacher to have pre-tax income used to pay their child's tuition at
>another school. So, for example, if a teacher makes $25K / year, they
>can have $5K sent directly to another school in order to pay for one of
>their children's tuition. They thus make $20K taxable income and pay
>less income tax than if they made $25K and paid tuition out of their
>pocket.
This used to be done in Baltimore as the rationale was that since a
valid perq. is a tuition reduction for a teacher within a school, an
exchange of tuitions by schools (such as tuition in a boys' school while
the parent teaches in the girls' school) would be legitimate. However,
the schools here stopped the practice when they were informed
(officially) that it was illegal tax evasion.
I do not know the current practice as my children are no longer in the
elementary schools nor does my wife teach in those schools any longer.
Hillel (Sabba) Markowitz - <sabbahillel@...>
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From: Matan Shole <thinkoncemore@...>
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 14:41:59 +0000
Subject: RE: Torah and other sources of Knowledge
>One, medicine deals with physical ailments unlike the Torah is not a
>medical book
Some will quota hafoch ba dkula ba. Apparently the mishna is to be
understood (like the Meiri) that everything in Torah is found there, not
everything in the world (like which stocks to pick).
>I feel psychology is a form of medicine.
A feeling is not a very good raaya. Find me a Gemarah and then we'll
talk. That a rabbi once made a comparison isn't much of a ra'aya.
>The implication is that even consulting doctors required a special
>dispensation from the Torah, a dispensation not given for Zen, unless
>you can show me a source.)
By your argument, we'd need a special passuk to allow us to choose what
type of toilet paper to buy, since otherwise how do we know. I think we
can better understand the drasha as allowing the doctor to heal, despite
the fact that sometimes the doctor may err and hurt someone.
>Torah and philosophy is an old disagreement among the rishonim. It is
>pretty much moot in today's postmodern society which no longer values
>philosophy like it used to be.
For someone who has studied ancient and modern philosophy, I don't see
the accuracy of your statement.
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End of Volume 41 Issue 90
