Volume 43 Number 49
Produced: Fri Jul 16 6:45:54 EDT 2004
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Autopsies
[<chips@...>]
Avot & Mitzvot/Bnei Noach
[Leah Perl Shollar]
Beit Lechem Yehuda - who is he?
[Gil Student]
Candle lighting time when husband accepts shabbat early
[Joshua Hosseinof]
Chassidic Garb
[Yisrael Medad]
false piety
[<chips@...>]
Google ads
[David Charlap]
Origin of the Streimel
[Mike Gerver]
Pictures and Articles about aliyah from USA
[Jacob Richman]
Yahrzeit Program For Hannah Rachel Werbermacher
[Moshe and Elise Kranc]
Yehoshua ben Nun's daughters
[Naomi Graetz]
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From: <chips@...>
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 17:39:51 -0700
Subject: Re: Autopsies
Even if one wants to ignore all the reports that casts doubts on the
benefits of autopsies in deaths not related to public health (ie:
plague, smallpox), a layman can not determine that anything less than
50% must be of enough benefit to abolish the ban on autopsy. The
previous and present generations' Psakym haDoras were not ignorant of
the claimed benefits of autopsies.
In addition, there are autopsies and then there are 'kosher'
autopsies. Of particular potential is mentioned here
http://www.impactlab.com/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=2656
-rp
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From: Leah Perl Shollar <leahperl@...>
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 12:46:52 -0400
Subject: Avot & Mitzvot/Bnei Noach
> [Note: The opinion that the Avot followed the Mitzvot and that the Avot
> had the status of B'nei Noach are not mutually exclusive, as far as I
> understand. The understanding of the status of the avot as B'nei Noach
> vs Yisrael is likely an early disagreement. Mod]
As I recall learning from Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller OBM, the Avot were
obligated first as Bnei Noach, but took on mitzvot as Midat HaChassidut.
Where the mitzvot contradicted their obligations as Bnei Noach, they
obviously kept the Bnei Noach mitzvot. The example that I recall was
Yaakov's pledge to marry Rachel. Although it is forbidden to marry two
sisters, once he had pledged to marry her, this committment was binding,
whereas the two sisters halacha was Midat HaChassidut.
Leah Shollar
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From: Gil Student <gil_student@...>
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 16:09:45 -0400
Subject: Re: Beit Lechem Yehuda - who is he?
R. Tzvi Hirsch ben Azriel of Vilna
NYPL Catalogue:
http://catnyp.nypl.org/search/tbet+lehem+yehuda/tbet+lehem+yehuda/1,16,28,B/frameset&FF=tbet+lehem+yehuda&2,,2
Harvard Catalogue:
http://128.103.60.91/F/STCJBK9UP2RRAHBV1C41Y6GDY56FN1VXRCDXSART8LT6RMUSHK-01597?func=find-acc&acc_sequence=009058485
Gil Student
<gil_student@...>
www.aishdas.org/student
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From: Joshua Hosseinof <JHosseinof@...>
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 13:06:20 -0400
Subject: Candle lighting time when husband accepts shabbat early
I've noticed from reading the shabbat bulletins of the synagogues in my
town, that during the summer when there are early shabbat minyanim on
Friday nights to accept shabbat early, they print one candle lighting
time for the early minyan, and the "regular" candle lighting time of 18
minutes before sunset for the regular minyan. The implication from the
schedule is that if a husband attends the early minyan, then the wife
should light candles at or before the time that the husband accepts
shabbat in shul. One person I asked about this said that it was based
on a teshuva from R' Moshe Feinstein.
I've seen the teshuva in Igrot Moshe (Orach Chaim vol 3 #38), where he
distinguishes between people who accept shabbat at an earlier time as a
rule throughout the year because of a minhag, in which case the wife
must follow the husband's minhag, versus the situation where people only
make early shabbat in the summer because they don't want to eat so late,
in which case he says that the wife is free to light candles at the
regular candle lighting time.
The relevant section in Shulchan Aruch appears to be OC 263:17 and
possibly 263:10 but it seems ambiguous to this issue. So I still don't
see any clear reason why all of these synagogues are implying that the
wife must light candles at the same time the husband accepts shabbat
early.
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From: Yisrael Medad <ybmedad@...>
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2004 13:12:27 +0200
Subject: Chassidic Garb
Fay Berger wrote:
"When my mother AH saw the chasidim in their garb
she exclaimed "Azai hoben di pritzim gegangen in Lita!"
This is how the "lords" dressed in Lithuania!
gegangen, i think, means "walked about". there's another root for to be
dressed.
Yisrael Medad
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From: <chips@...>
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 17:39:50 -0700
Subject: Re: false piety
> The fact is plain and simple: This was a Chillul Hashem of great
> magnitude. I can't see any halachic grounds whatsoever for someone
> not to greet someone "b'sever panim yafot" [pleasantly] in general,
> and not to give directions to a lost traveler in particular.
What makes you think that this situation is something new and has never
been discussed before? The Gemorah talks about it and not helping out
someone because they are of the opposite gender is considered a classic
case of false piety
-rp
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From: David Charlap <shamino@...>
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 11:42:02 -0400
Subject: Google ads
Although this is off-topic, I want to correct a popular misconception
about Gmail that Meir recently propagated to Mail-Jewish.
Meir wrote:
>
> I don't like free g-mail because Google intends to scan their
> subscribers' outgoing and incoming email to send targetted advertising,
This is what many people are saying about Google's service, but it is
not true. Their FAQ page says what they're really doing:
http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/about.html
They do scan subscriber's mail to target ads. But these ads take the
form of unbtrusive pieces of text in the web-page margin. This is no
different from what their search engine tools do. They will not be
sending spam into your mailbox.
A screen-shot of what this looks like can be found here:
http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/screen2.html
-- David
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From: <MJGerver@...> (Mike Gerver)
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 18:47:21 EDT
Subject: Origin of the Streimel
Jonathan Baker suggests, in v43n47,
Maybe it's not Polish, but Hungarian? The usual pictures of
Attila the Hun show him wearing a hat much like a streimel -
cloth/leather dome, big fur edge.
There is no etymological or ethnological relation between Huns and
Hungarians, as far as I can tell. Though the Hungarians themselves have
a myth that there is-- see Kate Seredy's "The White Stag," a marvelous
book that I first read when I was 10. In that story, Attila the Hun is a
hero, rather than a villain. Since that was the first place I had ever
heard of Attila, I started out thinking of him as a hero, and never
really got used to thinking of him as an archetypical villain, even
after I learned that almost everybody else in the world did.
Mike Gerver
Raanana, Israel
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From: Jacob Richman <jrichman@...>
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2004 12:58:25 +0200
Subject: Pictures and Articles about aliyah from USA
Hi Everyone!
Congratulations to the 400 olim who made aliyah this
week from the USA.
I posted articles and pictures on my site at:
http://www.jr.co.il/pictures/israel/history/usa-aliyah.htm
If you do not see July 2004 on the top of the web page,
hold the control key and press the F5 key to refresh your
browser.
If you were at the airport (JFK or Ben Gurion) and you took
pictures, please send them to me and I will post selected ones.
May the aliyah from the USA grow and bring more Jews back
to their homeland, Eretz Yisrael.
Shabbat Shalom,
Jacob
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From: Moshe and Elise Kranc <mekranc@...>
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2004 12:00:15 +0200
Subject: Re: Yahrzeit Program For Hannah Rachel Werbermacher
>> I am curious how one determines who is buried in an unmarked grave. I'm
>> sure that archeologists and historians have various tools for this sort
>> of thing, but I'm wondering what they are.
I went to the seudah shlishit in honor of the Maid of Lublin last
week. As I heard the story there, they started their search in the
registry of graves kept by the Chevra Kadisha of Har Hazetim. There.
they found her listed (full name plus a notation that this was an
important woman), along with the coordinates of her burial plot They
then went to that location and found an unmarked grave there.
In any case, whether this is the real grave or not, I find it very
moving that so many people identify with her story and want to make some
connection with her.
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From: <graetz@...> (Naomi Graetz)
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2004 9:40:09 +0530
Subject: Yehoshua ben Nun's daughters
Chana Luntz <chana@...> writes:
> The source for this is Eruvin 63b in which R' Abba bar Papa explains
> that Yehoshua ben Nun was punished (by having no sons) because he
> prevented Yisroel from engaging pru u'rvu. This was because there was
> a halacha that it was forbidden to have marital relations when the
> Aron [ark] and the Shechinah were not in their place, and since he did
> not return them to their place on a certain night when he could have
> done, all of Yisroel were prevented from the mitzvah. (The idea being
> that the punishment was a form of midah k'neged midah [measure for
> measure]- because he prevented Yisroel from having children that
> night, he was not permitted a surviving son).
In B.T. Megillah 14b, it is written that "Rachav the Prostitute
converted and married Joshua....Joshua did not have sons, but he had
daughters. Eight prophets who were also priests came from Rachav the
harlot." Perhaps he was lucky not to have had sons. In that uncertain
era, they would all have been expected to be fighters like their father
and he would have suffered from their untimely deaths--this way he had
the nachas of seeing his grandchildren etc. grow up to be prominent
members of the community.
Naomi Graetz
Ben Gurion University of the Negev
<graetz@...>
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End of Volume 43 Issue 49