Volume 46 Number 78
Produced: Tue Feb 1 4:39:26 EST 2005
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Blessing for the State of Israel (3)
[Martin Stern, Sholom J. Parnes, Yisrael Medad]
Calendar Question (3)
[Ed Reingold, Michael J. Savitz, Ben Katz]
Date of Passover
[Ben Katz]
Google ads
[Saul Mashbaum]
Grammar Question
[Richard Dine]
RYB Soloveitchik and mixed seating (3)
[Prof. Aryeh A. Frimer, Jack Gross, Meir Shinnar]
Conference: Emotion & Intellect in Jewish Education
[R. Jeffrey Saks]
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From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 06:27:50 +0000
Subject: Blessing for the State of Israel
on 30/1/05 4:43 am, <DTnLA@...> (Dov Teichman) wrote:
> In shuls that recite the blessing for the State of Israel after the
> haftorah, where did the practice to stand arise? Who enacted this? Why
> would this prayer require standing more than Krias Hatorah or Chazaras
> Hashatz? (both of which do not have clear cut obligations to stand)
> (Some shuls even require the one holding the Torah to stand.)
The prayer for the Head of State of whatever country Jews lived in
(Hanotein teshu'ah in monarchies and modified versions in republics) was
said at this point after the prayer for the wellbeing of the
congregation and any prayer for the State of Israel was added after
'48. I always was under the impression that the congregation stood in
order not to raise the suspicions of the non-Jewish authorities that
this was merely a perfunctory observance which the Jews did not really
mean sincerely. In order to give it more weight, the person who had
hagba'ah usually stood up with the Sefer Torah next to the Shats. In
reality the congregation stood to honour the Sefer Torah but the
authorities did not realise this and assumed it was in their
honour. This is possibly an example on permissible geneivat da'at since
to show disrespect could have had fatal consequences.
On a related issue the prayer Hanotein teshu'ah was replaced in Germany
after WW1 by a patriotic prayer for the new Weimar Republic, which can
be found still in the editions of the siddur printed in Switzerland, but
did not gain much popularity (Jews, especially those from Germany, are
by nature rather conservative with a small c). In passing, it referred
to 'a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday when it has
passed and a watch in the night' (Ps. 90.4) which took on added
poignancy after the establishment of the Thousand Year Reich in '33.
Martin Stern
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From: Sholom J. Parnes <merbe@...>
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 21:16:17 +0200
Subject: Blessing for the State of Israel
I would imagine that because this prayer is a relatively new addition to
the service, someone came up with the idea of standing to add importance
to the prayer.
I have never come across a policy requiring the person holding the sefer
torah to stand. The person holding the torah might stand up on his own
initiative.
When I was gabbai, I specifically told the person holding the torah to
remain seated. When asked why, I would explain that the Torah can and
did exist for thousands of years without our having Medinat
Yisrael. Conversely, Medinat Yisrael would not be Medinat Yisrael
without the Torah.
This actually worked quite well at my aufruf. A cousin who is a Haredi
Jew attended the aufruf and I forsaw that he would probably have
demonstratively remained seated for the blessing for the State of
Israel. Rather than create an unpleasent scene, I asked the gabbai to
give him Hagba.
Sholom J. Parnes
Efrat, Israel
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From: Yisrael Medad <ybmedad@...>
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 07:03:52 +0200
Subject: Blessing for the State of Israel
Dov Teichman's questions regarding the Blessing for State of Israel
>where did the practice to stand arise? Who enacted this? Why would this
>prayer require standing more than Krias Hatorah or Chazaras Hashatz?
>(both of which do not have clear cut obligations to stand) (Some shuls
>even require the one holding the Torah to stand.)
First of all, apply to the prayer said for the local king, queen,
president, czar, etc. which, as far as I have seen, exists in siddurim
going back a long time.
As for "more" standing, again, I would presume that the custom started
that way do to the relative importance in which the prayer was held,
"shlom hamemshalah".
And as for sifrei torah being held up, that, I wil agree is a bit
exagerrated but it depends, as in Queens, the prayer was said just
before the Ark was closed, maybe to avoid that situation.
Fear/Respect of the Goyim is a powerful element and maybe the elements
were just transferred over to the Prayer for the State.
Yisrael Medad
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From: Ed Reingold <reingold@...>
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:12 -0600
Subject: Re: Calendar Question
> Ira Jacobson wrote about Remy Landau's Web site: <<< My trouble with this
> site (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/1584/, not the particular cited
> page) is that it gives the molad as six hours later than is normally
> given everywhere else.
It is a question of whether the molad times are given on a
midnight-based clock or one based at (average) sunset at 6pm. Both
forms of molad times are common. The "six hours later" is based on the
6pm-clock, the other is on the midnight-based clock.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Michael J. Savitz <michael.savitz@...>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 12:11:42 -0500
Subject: Calendar Question
Nathan Lamm <nelamm18@...> wrote:
<<The Jewish calendar is based on the seasons of the year: Rosh Hashana
must fall in the autumn, Pesach in the spring, and so on. The seasons
are pegged to the solar calendar, the basic (and most accurate)
reference for which is the Gregorian system in common use. So it's quite
accurate to speak of Jewish holidays falling "late" or "early".>>
Pesach must fall in the spring, but it is certainly not the case that
R"H "must fall in the autumn". The most recent R"H was on September
16-17, and the equinox occurred on September 22. Even Sukkot sometimes
begins before the equinox (which occurs on September 22 or 23). In
1994, 1975, 1956, 1937, etc. (i.e. every 19 years) the first day of
Sukkot was on September 20, and in 2013 Sukkot will begin on September
19. Or do you mean a different (halachic?) definition of "in the
autumn"?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ben Katz <bkatz@...>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 15:03:39 -0600
Subject: Re: Calendar Question
>From: Irwin Weiss <irwin@...>
>In my view, Rosh Hashana will not be late or early, this year or any
>other year. It will occur, (IYH), on the first day of the month of
>Tishrei, as it always has.
>Now, perhaps it is really September or October which occur earlier or
>later.
As judeocentric as this answer appears to be, it is incorrect,
in that early and late refer to the fixed seasons, adn the yamim tovim
can certainly be early or late in refernce to fixed calendrical events.
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@...>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ben Katz <bkatz@...>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 15:09:46 -0600
Subject: Re: Date of Passover
>From: <MJGerver@...> (Mike Gerver)
>This question has come up in mail-jewish before, but I don't remember
>exactly when, and I haven't tried to find it in the archives. But I
>think I do know the answer to your question. At the time the fixed
>Hebrew calendar was established by Hillel Sheni, the earliest omer was
>on the vernal equinox (which can fall on March 20 or 21 in the Gregorian
>calendar), and the earliest Pesach was a day before the vernal equinox.
>Since then, Pesach, and the rest of the Hebrew calendar, have been
>drifting ahead of the tropic year (the time from one vernal equinox to
>the next) by one day every 200 odd years (the exact number is something
>like 217 years, I think). So in the 1600(?) years since the time of
>Hillel Sheni, the earliest Pesach should be 7 or 8 days later, March 26
>or 27. I think it is true that March 26 is indeed the earliest that
>Pesach can fall now. It could be that I'm off by one day.
>
>Halachically, it does not create any problem that nowadays Pesach
>sometimes falls more than a month after the vernal equinox, since even
>in the days before the fixed calendar, when a Beit Din decided whether
>to add an Adar Sheni, it was sometimes done for reasons other than to
>prevent Pesach from falling before the vernal equinox. For example, an
>Adar Sheni could be added if the barley crop wasn't going to be ready in
>time to bring the omer, even if that meant Pesach would be more than a
>month after the vernal equinox.
You should read the book Calendar and Community by Sacha Stern,
a scholar and talmid chacham. In it he documents that the calendar was
probably not fixed till about the time of the famous dispute between
Babylonia and Israel in the 10th century. He cites (and reprints in an
appendix) a letter from the exilarch from the ninth century wihch shows
that even at that late date pesach could occur before the equinox. Mr.
Gerver is correct in that there were mundane reasons for adding an adar
2 such as impassable roads, which might have, in antiquity, caused
pesach to fall > 1 mo. after the vernal equinox.
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@...>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Saul Mashbaum <smash52@...>
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 22:40:21 +0200
Subject: Re: Google ads
Indeed, ads which appear on web pages are apparently generated by
computer programs which "guess" that an ad will interest those who visit
the page. This can lead to some anomolies.
An ad which appeared on the web page of a Jerusalem Post article on
Yassir Arafat's funeral depicted a yahzeit light. The caption was "Light
a candle for a loved one." Needless to say I did not click on that ad.
I am convinced that neither the advertisers or the page owner (JP)
intended any offence.
Saul Mashbaum
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Richard Dine <richard.dine@...>
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 08:15:12 -0500
Subject: Grammar Question
For a D'Var Torah I am trying to prepare, are there any examples in the
Shema (or if not, in some other well known part of the Torah) where
changing the accent on the word changes the meaning (preferably, where
changing the accent on the verb changes its tense)?
Thank you.
Richard Dine
<Richard.Dine@...>
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From: Prof. Aryeh A. Frimer <frimea@...>
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 08:34:13 +0200
Subject: Re: RYB Soloveitchik and mixed seating
Jonathan Baker <jjbaker@...> wrote:
>That's not quite what the Rav said. As I understand it, he said that
>one may not enter a synagogue without a mechitzah, even to fulfill the
>Torah mitzvah of hearing the shofar (which one might think would
>override the rabbinic prohibition of mixed seating).
That's not quite what the Rav said either. You can read the complete
statement in Baruch Litvin's Book "Sanctity of the Synagogue". The Rav
was referrring to Mixed-Pews which he felt were biblically forbidden and
which rendered all berakhot levatala and voided the fulfilment of
mitsvot. He was more lenient when it came to separate seating
Conservative synagogues - but I don't believe these exist anymore -
where you could be yotsei be-she'at ha-dehak.
Dr. Aryeh A. Frimer
Chemistry Dept., Bar-Ilan University
E-mail: <FrimeA@...>
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From: Jack Gross <jbgross@...>
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 11:22:57 -0500
Subject: Re: RYB Soloveitchik and mixed seating
> From: Jonathan Baker <jjbaker@...>
> Yaakov Gross (is this Jack Gross?)
-- [Yes. - Regards to the IBI minyan -jbg]
>> Similarly, it is reported that Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik prohibited
>> entering a Conservative Temple on Rosh Hashanah, even just to hear
>> Tekias Shofar.
>That's not quite what the Rav said. As I understand it, he said that
>one may not enter a synagogue without a mechitzah, even to fulfill the
>Torah mitzvah of hearing the shofar (which one might think would
>override the rabbinic prohibition of mixed seating).
>His target was not the Conservative movement, but those Orthodox
>synagogues in the 1950s which were taking down their mechitzot. <snip>
-- A distintion (I thank you for the correction) but not much of a
difference. Either way, the group's practices openly violated normative
halacha, yet the group's claim to fall within the fold of authentic
Jewish practice was widely accepted. The same danger is present, and
justifies keeping a distance, although the population that will be
inclined to interpret your actions as validation may vary.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Meir Shinnar <Meir.Shinnar@...>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 19:30:18 -0500
Subject: RE: RYB Soloveitchik and mixed seating
> That's not quite what the Rav said. As I understand it, he said that
> one may not enter a synagogue without a mechitzah, even to fulfill the
> Torah mitzvah of hearing the shofar (which one might think would
> override the rabbinic prohibition of mixed seating).
To be more precise, one may not enter a synagogue with mixed seating to
hear shofar. He gave a private heter, under certain circumstances, to
have a minyan with separate seating but no mechitza - even though he was
strongly opposed to it. (the circumstances were a college where if
there was a mechitza, there wouldn't have been a minyan). However, he
did view separate seating without a mechitza as different from mixed
seating.
Meir Shinnar
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From: R. Jeffrey Saks <atid@...>
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 10:23:27 +0200
Subject: Conference: Emotion & Intellect in Jewish Education
ATID's 7th Annual Mid-Winter Conference
EMOTION AND INTELLECT IN JEWISH EDUCATION:
LESSONS FROM THE THOUGHT OF RABBI SOLOVEITCHIK
Wednesday, February 16, 2005 at 7:45 PM
Menachem Begin Heritage Center
6 Nachon Street, Jerusalem
Keynote: Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter
Dean, Soloveitchik Institute
Respondents: Rabbi Chaim Brovender, Dr. Meir Ekstein, Mrs. Sally Mayer,
Rabbi Reuven Ziegler
For details and directions: www.atid.org
RSVP: <office@...> or 02-567-1719
Rabbi Jeffrey Saks
Director, ATID
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End of Volume 46 Issue 78
