Volume 44 Number 74
Produced: Sat Sep 11 23:22:48 EDT 2004
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Ain't gonna work on Saturday (2)
[Daniel Lowinger, Shalom Ozarowski]
Hareidi press
[Perry Zamek]
Luach for Bnei Ashkenaz, 5765 edition, Available
[Mordechai]
Minyan From Spies
[Russell J Hendel]
Nusach
[Batya Medad]
Nusach in a New Community
[Tony Fiorino]
Rabbeinu Tam Tefillin -- chumras
[Ben Katz]
Source of Quote "Divrei Torah Aniyim..."?
[Aliza Berger]
T'fillin shel Rabbeinu Tam
[Israel Caspi]
Yiddish Names
[Ben Katz]
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From: Daniel Lowinger <Daniel.Lowinger@...>
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 08:48:58 +1000
Subject: Ain't gonna work on Saturday
Micheal Mirsky wrote:
"It's my impression that they don't get paid for what they do on
Shabbat, but rather for the preparation they do before Shabbat (like
Torah teachers)."
and similarly Carl Singer:
"paying them for their pre-Shabbos preparation and study."
If this was the case then a baal koreh and Rabbi who never turned up on
shabbos could get paid for preparing speeches and leining the whole year
round and never turn up to shule to perform!! I would love to hear of a
shule that would allow that!!
Similarly, if caterers are allowed to get money for preparations before
shabbos then if I were an financial adviser and a client wanted to meet
me on shabbos to discuss investments, then there would be no problem,
because all my preparation would have been done before hand....
My question is, why is it that some professions can work on shabbos,
while others can't??
Daniel Lowinger
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From: <Shalomoz@...> (Shalom Ozarowski)
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 00:45:02 EDT
Subject: re: Ain't gonna work on Saturday
With the Rabbi, Chazzan, Bal Koreh the "work" they are doing on
Shabbos (speech, davening, layning) is not "work" in the halachic
sense -- that is they do nothing that violates the Shabbos Av
meloches, to the contrary they are performing mitzvahs (learning
Torah, davening to haShem, Layning Torah) -- the issue of pay is
"handled" by paying them for their pre-Shabbos preparation and
study.
As a frequent ba'al kriah (and other assorted "Shabbos work"), i have
discussed this issue with a good number of people.
Question for y'all to ponder: If a baal koreh who is paid by a shul
prepares to read a parsha and then, for whatever reason, cannot come to
actually lein in shul on Shabbos, should the shul pay him? If they
don't, what does that say about the reaity of this halakha?
Kol tuv
Shalom Ozarowski
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From: Perry Zamek <perryza@...>
Date: Thu, 09 Sep 2004 09:33:50 +0200
Subject: Re: Hareidi press
Immanuel Burton wrote:
>Not being a reader of Yated, I cannot comment on this. However, in the
>United Kingdom I have seen the Hareidi press refer to the Chief Rabbi as
>just Dr Sacks, rather than Rabbi Sacks, or even Rabbi Dr Sacks.
>Fortunately this seems to be quite rare these days.
Actually, the proper form used in the English press (say, 60 years ago)
would have been: "The Chief Rabbi, Dr. Sacks*, ..." Chief Rabbi was not so
much a title as a position.
* I think it was Dr. Hertz at that time.
Shanah Tovah to all,
Perry Zamek
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From: <Phyllostac@...> (Mordechai)
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 20:57:24 EDT
Subject: Luach for Bnei Ashkenaz, 5765 edition, Available
I wish to inform the Mail-Jewish audience that I have recently gotten a
copy of 'Minhogei beis haknesses livnei Ashkenaz - luach liShabbosos
uMoadei hashono lishnas Taf shin samech heh' from Rav Binyomin Shlomo
Hamburger shlit"a of Mochon Moreshes Ashkenaz.
It comprises app. 37 pages in *pdf format (I have a copy in word format
as well, but prefer the *pdf one) and covers minhogim in significant
detail. It is of interest not only to bnei Ashkenaz ('Yekkes'), to whom
it is directed, but to other Ashkenazim as well, to interested Jews,
connoisseurs of minhogim, and scholars and talmidei chachomim in
general.
With the permission of the mechaber, I am offering to send it to
interested parties on request, free of charge.
Bivirkas kesiva vachasima tova......
Mordechai
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From: Russell J Hendel <rjhendel@...>
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 23:38:54 -0400
Subject: RE: Minyan From Spies
Paul Ginsburg v44n63 asks why we learn the requirement of minyan(a
positive idea) from the spies(a negative event)
I have advanced the idea that the requirement of minyan is a rabbinic
affirmation of Judaisms opposition to Slander. Indeed it took the
slander of just 10 people to "ruin" the possibility of the entire
community entering Israel--a very frightening thought.
Therefore Chazal (our sages) enacted that whenever we get together to
pray we should remind ourselves that even 10 of us have a great deal of
power and can significantly effect the community.
This symbolic interpretation as an affirmation of our values seems to be
the most straightforward interpretation based on the Talmudic passages
discussing Minyan--it is sort of like a perpetual reminder.
Russell Jay Hendel;
http://www.Rashiyomi.com/
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From: Batya Medad <ybmedad@...>
Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 19:38:07 +0200
Subject: Nusach
As a schvigger to a Tunisian, I must remind everyone that rigid
adherence to golus-based differences won't bring the moshiach. Now in
all seriousness, and the previous sentence is all true, prayer is more
important than custom-based nusach. The various nusachim are all
legitimate, and, Baruch Hashem, there are many communities/synagogues
made up of people from different aidot and different customs. There are
times when compromises must be reached and flexibility is important.
Batya
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From: Tony Fiorino <Fiorino@...>
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 03:03:54 -0400
Subject: RE: Nusach in a New Community
> From: Chana Luntz <chana@...>
> >Hence, in regard to private minhagim I think people moving to a new
> >community kept their old customs.
>
> I don't think that is true historically (the Rosh is an interesting
> exception) but rather the opposite, Sephardim moving to Lita for example
> adopted Lithuanian customs and davening modes (in the same way that my
> husband did and had to do in Cambridge, because that is all there was,
> the only reason he did not abandon his original nusach for good was
> because he and everybody else knew that Cambridge was a short term
> thing, and he had the intention to return to his original place. If he
> had settled permanently in Cambridge, almost certainly he would have had
> to shift to davening nusach Ashkenaz, because he would have been
> functioning in a community that only had one minyan, and only had one
> posek, and given that he was not functioning on the level of the Rosh,
> that meant he had no real choice but to switch).
I think the question of maintaining customs upon moving to a new place
has everything to do with whether there are enough people with the same
minhagim settling in a new community. Obviously a single person can
maintain his or her own nusach but is going to have a hard time
transmitting that nusach to his children unless there is a kehilla in
which the nusach is used. I don't know much about Chana's example of
Sephardim settling in Lithuania (though I'd imagine they were
essentially batel, a few scattered individuals rather than a coherent
community) but certainly after the expulsion, the Sephardim established
new kehilot in Italy, Turkey and other places in which they maintained
(for some time at least) regional minhagim, at least with respect to
nusach. In Salonica, for example, there were literally dozens of
kehilot - from southern Italy and Sicily alone there were synagogues
called Sicilia, Messina, Apulia, Otranto, and Italia - these had real
differences in nusach and minhag.
One could claim that this practice can be dated to the geonim; for
example one finds in the siddur of Rav Saadya Gaon elements od the Eretz
Yisrael rite (if I recall Saadya was Egyptian and the first
non-Babylonian to head a Babylonian academy), and this is in stark
contrast to the Seder Rav Amam Gaon - my interpretation is that Saadya
did not merely adopt to the the nusach practiced in Bavel but maintained
his own minhag or at least imported elements of it.
-Eitan
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From: Ben Katz <bkatz@...>
Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 10:19:16 -0500
Subject: Re: Rabbeinu Tam Tefillin -- chumras
I am afraid what I am about to write may offend some MJ-ers, but that
is why God put me on this Earth :-)
It is obvious at least to me, from a historical perspective, that the
reason we don't hear about a machloket in the order of the parshiyot of
the tefillin until the Middle Ages, even though tefilling were worn for
more tha 1000 years prior, is that no one seemed to mind exactly what
order the parshiyout were in. In fact, there were even sectrarian
tefillin with 5 parshiyot as I am sure many MJ-ers are aware (the 5th
parasha being the 10 commandments. Some such tefillin were found with
the Dead Sea Scrolls, as were round tefillin. [Some have argued that
the reason these tefillin were "nonstandard" is because the Dead Seac
Sect, whoever they were, were not mainstream Jews, but this is a
tendentious argument. Had the tefillion been the same people would have
argued how our traditions have been constant for 2 millenia.] It is
possible that the odd shin with 4 stems on the tefillin is left over
from a time when the maker wanted to show that his tefillin only had 4
parshiyot.)
So, I am always a bit bemused by people who use more than 1 pair, as
our chazal not only didn't do so, but didn't seem to care what the exact
order of the parshiyot were. (They did care about eliminating the 10
commandments from the tefillin, probably because of the heightened
importance given to them by the followers of Jesus, as was also why they
eliminated the 10 com. from the davening.)
shana tova
Ben Z. Katz, M.D.
Children's Memorial Hospital, Division of Infectious Diseases
2300 Children's Plaza, Box # 20, Chicago, IL 60614
e-mail: <bkatz@...>
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From: Aliza Berger <alizadov@...>
Date: Thu, 09 Sep 2004 12:24:58 +0200
Subject: Source of Quote "Divrei Torah Aniyim..."?
In the course of some bibliographic research I was asked to find the
source of the familiar quote "divrei torah aniyim bimakom echad
v'ashirim bimakom acher" "The Torah's words are poor in one place and
rich in another." Lacking an appropriate CD, I looked in Sefer
Ha-Agadah and found only a variation: "divrei torah aniyim bimkomam
v'ashirim bimakom acher" (bimkomam = in their place). Sefer Ha-Agadah
gives the source as Yerushalmi Rosh Hashanah 3:5. Hebrew Googling
yielded the following: 12 occurrences of the sentence with "bimkomam,"
and interestingly several gave the source (either Yerushalmi or a
Tosefot on Kritut Daf yud-daled, amud alef.), vs. at least twice as many
for "bimakom echad" but none gave a source for the sentence with
"bimakom echad" as far as I could tell.
I found online texts of the 2 Talmuds and Tosefta, which yielded only
the Rosh Hashanah reference (with "bimkoman" instead of "bimkomam" as
Sefer Ha-Agadah had it). No "bimakom echad."
If this was just a question of looking on an appropriate CD I would have
hesitated to send this in (although of course I am still interested in
the source of the more familiar version of the quote). But if the more
familiar version in fact does not exist in the sources - which is what I
am suspecting - it's interesting to speculate on how the quote became
corrupted.
Sincerely, Aliza
Aliza Berger, PhD - Director
English Editing: editing-proofreading.com
Statistics Consulting: statistics-help.com
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From: Israel Caspi <icaspi@...>
Subject: T'fillin shel Rabbeinu Tam
The commentary to the Vilna Gaon's siddur (which I do not have in front
of me, so all this is from memory and may not be 100% accurate) it is
told that the Gaon was asked why he doesn't put on t'fillin shel
Rabbeinu Tam. The Gaon replied that since he wears his t'fillin all day
long, it wouldn't make sense to take off the t'fillin shel Rashi - which
everyone agrees is the ikar - and to replace them with t'fillin which
are not ikar. Then he added that those who don't wear their t'fillin
all day long and who put on t'fillin shel Rabbeinu Tam in order to be
yotzei l'chol ha-de'ot are mistaken because, if one analysis the
relevant discussions in t he Talmud, it would turn out that one would
have to put on 56 [I think that's the number - in any event it is a
fairly large number] pair of t'fillin in order to be yotzei l'chol
ha-de'ot.
--Israel Caspi
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From: Ben Katz <bkatz@...>
Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 10:01:00 -0500
Subject: Re: Yiddish Names
>From: Carl Singer <casinger@...>
>In naming children after relatives who had only Yiddish names this
>tradition carries on --
There are of course alternatives - "translating" the name
(Feigi --> Tziporah) or Hebraizing the spelling (eg Elkah with a "heh"
at the end instead of an aleph), both of which are examples taken from
my own daughter.
Shana Tova
Ben Z. Katz, M.D.
Children's Memorial Hospital, Division of Infectious Diseases
2300 Children's Plaza, Box # 20, Chicago, IL 60614
e-mail: <bkatz@...>
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End of Volume 44 Issue 74