Volume 45 Number 55
Produced: Wed Nov 10 5:18:58 EST 2004
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Aliyot origins
[Andrew Marks]
Clop for "U'lchaparat Pasha"
[Immanuel Burton]
Haftarah Questions
[Mordechai]
Hebrew fonts in Word
[N Miller]
Humans are not non-kosher animals (5)
[Joseph Ginzberg, Immanuel Burton, Irwin Weiss, Yehonatan
Chipman, Leah Perl Shollar]
Modern Orthodoxy
[Mordechai Horowitz]
Rashi and Peshat
[David I. Cohen]
Rashi and simplicity (2)
[Leah Perl Shollar, N Miller]
Witnesses and a Desert Island
[Martin Stern]
Yigdal
[Immanuel Burton]
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From: Andrew Marks <machmir@...>
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 09:19:20 -0500
Subject: Re: Aliyot origins
I made a mistake in my previous post. The Gra's minhag is to have
aliyot (for monday, thursday, and shabbos mincha) be 3 pesukim for kohen
and levi, and four pesukim for shlishi, not exactly three each as I had
written. Thanks to everybdoy who pointed this out to me.
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From: Immanuel Burton <IBURTON@...>
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 08:59:45 +0000
Subject: RE: Clop for "U'lchaparat Pasha"
> and I *like* the re-reminders
> of hearing people actually saying it a bit louder when they get there.
Given that one's recital of the Amidah is not supposed to be audible to
anyone other than oneself, is it acceptable to say the words "ya'aleh
ve'yavo" loudly in order to remind others?
Immanuel Burton.
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From: <Phyllostac@...> (Mordechai)
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 15:16:07 EST
Subject: Haftarah Questions
Re the many questions related to haftarah submitted by Yisrael Dubitsky
There is a lengthy and detailed treatment of haftarah related matters in
the sefer 'Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz', cheilek shlishi (volume III), by
Rav Binyomin Hamburger of Bnei Brak, that covers four chapters and over
one hundred pages (including illustrations).
It explains that the haftarah reading is a later and lesser obligation
than the Torah reading. A thorough survey of the various types of texts
from which haftaras were/are read in different places and times is given
- e.g. collections of haftaras on parchment, printed haftaras, printed
Tanach's, complete books of neviim written on klaf, as well as citations
of many related writings of various Rabbis down through the ages.
There is a great deal of information there and I recommend taking a
look.
Mordechai
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From: N Miller <nmiller@...>
Date: Tue, 09 Nov 2004 11:29:32 -0500
Subject: Hebrew fonts in Word
The simplest solution is to go back to using Word 2000 which is imo
perfectly satisfactory. My question is why anyone would want to insert
the Hebrew backwards when Word 2000 enables right-to-left documents. It
is in fact one of the few things about gimmicky Word that are worth a
shmek tabak.
Noyekh Miller
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From: Joseph Ginzberg <jgbiz120@...>
Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 12:53:41 -0500
Subject: Humans are not non-kosher animals
>This is incorrect. Humans are kosher, which is why human milk may be
>consumed
IIRC, the Minchas Chinuch in Hilchos Gid Hanashe points out that humans
are kosher EXCEPT for the Gid Hanashe. Of course, there is still a
practical problem, as any piece larger than a K'zayis requires burial.
Yossi Ginzberg
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From: Immanuel Burton <IBURTON@...>
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 09:14:25 +0000
Subject: Humans are not non-kosher animals
In Mail.Jewish v45n50, Akiva Miller wrote:
> While it is true that we do not eat human flesh, nor drink human
> blood, nor would an adult drink human milk, this has nothing to do
> with kashrus. In the case of flesh, it is because of a prohibition
> against benefitting from a dead body, and in the case of milk or
> blood, it is because of the prohibition against doing disgusting
> things (bal t'shaktzu). Proofs for the above include: (a) if any of
> the above would get on one's pots, it would only need to be cleaned,
> not kashered; (b) if one is bleeding, one may not lick off the blood
> which has accumulated on the surface, but one may lick the bleeding
> wound if there's no accumulation.
Does this mean that the prohibition against eating human flesh is not as
direct as that against eating pig meat? If one was shipwrecked on a
desert island and one's only two sources of food were a human corpse or
a pig, which would one have to eat first?
Immanuel Burton.
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From: Irwin Weiss <irwin@...>
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 06:53:26 -0500
Subject: Humans are not non-kosher animals
Clarification: When I said that humans were not kosher, what I meant was
that, so far as I know, it is not halachically permissible to consume
human meat or organs. We can't eat meat ripped from another living
human, nor can we defile a dead human corpse by eating it and we can't
cause the death of another human so we can consume it.
(I can't believe I am writing this). Does someone feel there are
circumstances under which one consume eat another human?
<irwin@...>
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From: Yehonatan Chipman <yonarand@...>
Date: Tue, 09 Nov 2004 16:29:59 +0200
Subject: Re: Humans are not non-kosher animals
In MJ v45n52, Ari Trachtenberg wrote:
<<Is human milk clearly kosher? My understanding was that it is kosher
only for the infant, but that I could not, for example, make adult food
from it.>>
Only infants are permitted to suck milk from their mother's
breasts. Specifically: all infants are allowed to nurse up to age two
years; after that, once nursing has been inerrupted for 72 hours it can
no longer be resumed, unless temporarily stopped due to illness. If it
has been continuous, the maximum age is age four for a healthy infant
and five for a sickly infant.
However, human milk per se is kosher provided it is expressed from the
breast and placed in a vessel. There is, however, a Rabbinic
prohibition against adults sucking at a woman's breast, and one who does
so is "as if sucking a crawling thing [sheretz]" (Ketubot 60a). While
this rule is partly because of the sexual overtones, it applies to other
women as well as to men (even the woman's own husband).
See Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 81.vii.
BTW, as I noted in an earlier posting, the laws about bee's honey appear
in that same section, in the next two paragraphs.
Jonathan Chipman
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From: Leah Perl Shollar <leahperl@...>
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 09:00:25 -0500
Subject: Re: Humans are not non-kosher animals
Human milk is kosher and pareve for infants on up. If not consumed by
an infant it must be drunk from a cup. Nursing mothers should be
particularly careful with kashrus. The book "Straight from the Heart"
by Tehila Abramov and Malka Touger addresses these issues (and others)
annoted with halachik sources.
Leah-Perl Shollar
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From: Mordechai Horowitz <mordechai@...>
Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 08:41:33 -0500
Subject: Modern Orthodoxy
>From: Meir Possenheimer <meir@...>
>Am I alone in seeing the futility of the prolonged debate on "modern
>orthodoxy"? Surely, orthodoxy as opposed to piety, is an absolute term -
>either one is orthodox or one is not - and, in view of the immutability
>of Judaism, it cannot as such be subject to degrees. The guidelines of
>our religion were laid down millenia ago - orthodox simply means
>adhering to these long-established rules. Taking on chumras is another
>point entirely and must be a decision of the individual. Clearly, while
>being orthodox, people's interaction with secular society can differ,
>but in the same way as their outlook in this regard can differ, they can
>be modern *and*orthodox, but also poor and orthodox, intelligent and
>orthodox, but who would categorise them as poor orthodox, intelligent
>orthodox etc.?
We always talk about different forms of Orthodoxy. Mitnagid vs
Chassidic Orthodoxy. Yechi (German Jewish) or Lithuanian Satmar vs
Chabad. The idea we have different subgroups within the Torah community
is not new with Modern Orthodoxy.
Judaism is not immutable. It changes with every generation. Moshe
Rabbeinu never davened Shmonei Esrei, he certainly didn't own a black
hat. The idea of the Oral law is that Judaism must change, in
accordance with halacha, to the needs of the generation.
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From: <bdcohen@...> (David I. Cohen)
Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 12:32:07 -0500
Subject: Rashi and Peshat
A number of posts have grappled with the concept of "pshat" in rashi's
commentary and have noted that he sometimes deviates from his stated
goal and quotes midrashic interpretations.
Nechama Leibowitz zt"l, among others, held that Rashi was actually
extremely scrupulous in attempting to explicate the pshat. She held that
whenever Rashi quoted a merash, he felt that because of certain concerns
that particular medrash is the actual pshat of the verse in
question. Rashi was very particular in which of the myriad of medrashim
he chose to include in his commentary for this very reason. One of the
many pleasures of studying Rashi's Torah commentary is ascertaining why
he felt a particular medrash is the peshat.
David I. Cohen
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From: Leah Perl Shollar <leahperl@...>
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 11:38:55 -0500
Subject: Re: Rashi and simplicity
> When Rashi says "ayn hamikra yotzai meday peshuto" he means that the
> verse must be interpretted in context (unlike many derashot in the
> Talmud, which serve other purposes, and take verses out of context.
> The real question on Rashi, in my opinion, is why he doesn't stick to
> his guns. He often brings derashot as well.)
An excellent source of understanding Rashi is "Biurim L'Peirush Rashi"
as well as "L'Pshuto shel Mikra", both of which address the places Rashi
seems to be diverting from the pshat. As I understand it, Rashi only
turns to medroshim if the pshat explanation is not sufficiently
satisfactory. Sometimes a pshat and a medrash are brought -- in such
cases, each offers something the other lacks.
Rashi's "simplicity" is deceptive, as hundreds of super-commentaries on
his words demonstrate. Peirush Rashi is a masterpiece of concision and
depth all at the same time!
Leah Perl Shollar
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From: N Miller <nmiller@...>
Date: Tue, 09 Nov 2004 11:06:23 -0500
Subject: Rashi and simplicity
The best English word for pshat is I think 'explication' and there's
nothing inherently simple about that. There was certainly nothing
simple about Rashi.
As for explication, it's a standard feature of the French university
curriculum and is as well the basic ingredient in what is called the
'close reading of texts'--only a short step away from deconstructionism.
From Rashi to Derrida? Those French! :-)
Boyekh Miller
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From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 10:41:40 +0000
Subject: Re: Witnesses and a Desert Island
on 8/11/04 1:50 am, Wendy Baker <wbaker@...> wrote:
> Would it be possible to use the old form of marriage by schtar, rather
> than by giving something of value and the schtar, being in existance
> when the people are rescued, could then be witnessed kind of bedieved?
> I am certainly no halachacist, and this is certainly not normative, but
> wonder if this might work in, what is certainly, a difficult situation.
What Wendy presumably means by bedieved is retroacively rather than its
usual meaning of ex post facto. As far as I am aware, a shtar will be no
more effective than kessef in effecting marriage since it also requires
eidei kiyum when given. In the circumstances that only leaves biah but
this also requires eidim (at least of the yichud) and so will not
work. Thus technically their relations will be categorised as zenut -
fornication - which is a moral rather than a strictly legal halachic
problem so long as the lady immerses in the sea, which certainly has the
din of a mikveh, as and when required.
The only remotely parallel case in the Torah is that of Lot and his
daughters. I saw recently an interesting explanation of the reason why
they named their children in such a way as to make it clear how they
were conceived. After all, though they thought at the time that they
were the only surviving humans and therefore committed incest for what,
to them, were proper reasons, they must have found out by the time of
the children's birth that they had been mistaken. One would have,
therefore, expected them to try to cover up their actions rather than to
make obvious to the whole world what they had done. The suggestion I
heard was that they wanted it to be clear that they had conceived as a
result of the normal processes and that the children had a human father
so that nobody could claim they were the result of some divine
impregnation. Thus the story is recorded to prevent anyone claiming to
be the result of a 'virgin birth' even if it would besmirch their
reputation.
Unfortunately the circumstances are such that it is not possible to give
the usual advice of 'ask your local Orthodox rabbi'! Let us hope it
never becomes a practical problem for anyone.
Martin Stern
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From: Immanuel Burton <IBURTON@...>
Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2044 13:25:20 +0000
Subject: RE: Yigdal
In Mail.Jewish v45n51, Eli Turkel wrote:
> However, Rav YD Soloveitchick ZT"L opposed saying yigdal because it
> sounded too much like a catechism.
What's the problem with a catechism?
Immanuel Burton.
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End of Volume 45 Issue 55
