Volume 55 Number 93
Produced: Mon Dec 3 5:16:32 EST 2007
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Cos Shel Bracha (3)
[Gershon Dubin, Perets Mett, k and a weiss]
Is it motzei or mezonos
[Carl Singer]
Kiddushim
[Batya Medad]
Kugel
[Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld]
No Tachanun at a Bet Knesset in the case of a Brit
[Martin Stern]
Preservation of Minhag Ashkenaz
[Martin Stern]
Requirement of eating at Kiddush
[Martin Stern]
Rewriting history
[Martin Stern]
The Sakanah Kiddush
[Gershon Dubin]
Tachanun at Mincha
[k and a weiss]
Zemanim (3)
[Dr. William Gewirtz, Mark Steiner, Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld]
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From: Gershon Dubin <gershon.dubin@...>
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 22:47:15 -0500
Subject: Cos Shel Bracha
From: <bernieavi@...> (Ed Goldstein)
> The cos of birkat hamazon at seuda shlishit is not drunk then with a
> bracha, but saved for havdala. Why not drink it as we do at other
> times after birkat hamazon?
The halacha is that, strictly speaking, birkas hamazon does NOT need a
cos. Therefore, drinking the cos at that point would be drinking before
maariv and havdala. (In other seudos of Shabbos, for instance, there's
no downside since there's nothing that you're mafsik by drinking).
When we make sheva berachos at seuda shelishis, we DO need a cos and in
fact drink it after birkas hamazon (although practice varies WHO drinks
it).
Gershon
<gershon.dubin@...>
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From: Perets Mett <p.mett@...>
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 12:23:13 +0000
Subject: Re: Cos Shel Bracha
Hang on a second! Of course we do drink the kos shel brocho after
shalosheedes - provided bentshn finishes in good time before the end of
Shabbos. However, if Shabbos is out when you bentsh, then you have a
different issue, that one may not eat or drink before Havdolo.
It is only in the latter case, when finishing after the end of Shabbos,
that one does not drink the kos shel brocho because Havdolo has to be
recited first.
Perets Mett
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From: k and a weiss <aliw@...>
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 21:32:52 +0200
Subject: Re: Cos Shel Bracha
because once you've said birkat hamazon (or in any event unless you've
washed before shki'a and are still eating) you don't eat after shki'a on
shabbat until after havdala.
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From: Carl Singer <csngr@...>
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 06:44:43 -0500
Subject: Is it motzei or mezonos
Hi. The benching at kiddish discussion led me to a tangent.
In a shiur a few months ago I heard of someone who has a "recipe" for
making French Toast in a manner that makes it motzei rather than
mezonos. (Apparently, cutting the bread up prior to the preparation,
the bread loses it identity as motzei .... I don't know all the
details)
My overriding concern is that it seems to me that the bracha to be made
over food should ideally be taken at face value. That is without
knowing the provenance of the food and without taking out my microscope
or going to a laboratory, I should know what the appropriate (bracha)
category is for the food that I am about to consume.
I have seen some packaged goods with a designation such as "Mezonos" on
the label -- clearly meant to answer this question.
Is there any requirement for the preparer or purveyor of food to extend
this in cases where determining the appropriate brocha may be obscure or
misleading?
Carl A. Singer
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From: Batya Medad <ybmedad@...>
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 06:23:23 +0200
Subject: Re: Kiddushim
> Actually, the menus as stated in all these posts do provide
> life-taking risks. Let them eat cake! Perhaps our chefs/hostesses
> should concentrate less on the sugar-loaded cakes, the addictive wine
> that causes alcoholism, the carbs that add dangerous calories, not to
> mention all that lovely heart-breaking cholesterol in the chopped
> liver and kugel. (Even Canola oil offers health issues).
Here in our Shiloh neighborhood, vegetable sticks, or whatever you want
to call, cut carrots, peppers and cucumbers are a popular part of the
standard menu.
Batya
http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/
http://me-ander.blogspot.com/
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From: Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld <seinfeld@...>
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 12:47:41 -0500
Subject: Re: Kugel
Janice's guess is right - noodle kugel doesn't qualify as "baked" for
being koveah seuda because the ikar cooking of the noodles happened in
water, they are baked afterwards, as opposed to cake and bread, which go
into the oven raw. Therefore one's "mezonos" bracha at a Shabbos Kiddush
should be on a cracker, cookie or cake.
Happy Hannuka,
Alexander Seinfeld
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From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 06:43:05 +0000
Subject: Re: No Tachanun at a Bet Knesset in the case of a Brit
On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 21:06:57 +0200, Yisrael Medad <ybmedad@...>
wrote:
> Following up on A kiva Miller's post re: "No Tachnun at a Bris", some
> thoughts:
>
> a) the "simcha overflow" seems to be a correct analysis as the din is,
> if I am not mistaken, that even if the brit milah ceremony is at a home,
> still the tachanun is not said at the synagogue although I think that is
> as long as one of the three "baalei-brit" [father, sandak, mohel] are
> present although this may be in dispute.
AFAIK it is specifically the presence of one of these three individuals
that exempts the congregation from saying tachanun. In some communities
they endeavour to daven in different shuls in order to 'spread' the
simchah to as many people as possible. This is quite distinct from the
custom in certain groups of looking for any excuse to avoid tachanun.
> c) the idea of announcing is a great one.
I have heard that in the Adass Yeshurun of Washington Heights they have
a light which is put on whenever tachanun is not to be said, whatever
the reason, so that everyone knows in advance. This is an excellent idea
but, of course, presupposes that visitors will be aware of its
significance.
In our shul one morning we omitted tachanun without warning and only
discovered later that a brit was to take place on the premises. Unlike
normal practice, there was no notice to that effect on our notice board;
I consider this to be a lapse of good manners on the part of the
outsider who chose to make use of our premises without the courtesy of
informing us - neither he nor any other of the ba'alei brit even
bothered to be present for our minyan.
Martin Stern
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 06:53:06 +0000
Subject: Re: Preservation of Minhag Ashkenaz
On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:36:00 -0500, Alexander Weil <aweil@...> wrote:
> K'hal Adas Yeshurun-Jerusalem is an Ashkenaz kehilla dedicated to
> preserving and fostering Minhag Ashkenaz in Eretz Yisrael and around the
> world.
This is a heartening contrast to the situation at the similarly named
congregation in Manchester, England, where a small cabal has taken over
and set about wrecking its minhagim by intimidating their opponents and,
where this has not resulted in their leaving, physically barring their
entrance to the premises. At present this matter is subject to a Din
Torah so I cannot elaborate but any suggestions as to how to counter
this Gleichschaltung would be welcome. As Edmund Burke is reported to
have said "All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good people to
do nothing".
Martin Stern
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From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 06:59:54 +0000
Subject: Re: Requirement of eating at Kiddush
On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 09:32:40 +0200, Yehonatan Chipman
<yonarand@...> wrote:
> Perhaps you mean that potato kugel does not contain flour made from
> wheat et al as the main ingredient -- but that certainly doesn't apply
> to lukshen kugel, which is the predominant one in Israel, nor to bread
> kugel.
Potato kugel would certainly not be mezonot, even if it contained a
minimal amount of flour for binding purposes which did not affect the
taste, nor constitute a seudah as regards kiddush bemakom seudah.
There is, however, a problem with bread kugel in that it might require
hamotsi, however little one eats, if the bread is not completely
pulverised i.e. lumps are still visible.
Martin Stern
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From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 07:03:27 +0000
Subject: Re: Rewriting history
On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 09:03:01 +0200, Leah <leah25@...> wrote:
> SBA wrote:
>> Have those who claim that the original Zionists were compatible to our
>> religion read Herzl's diaries? Where he discusses mass conversion of
>> Jews to Catholicism?
> This is a standard anti-Zionist argument, which just doesn't hold water.
However his own son, who was recently reburied in Israel, did convert to
Catholicism. However I do not know if this indicates anything about the
father's opinion but I have heard that he did not have him circumcised.
Martin Stern
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From: Gershon Dubin <gershon.dubin@...>
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 23:24:44 -0500
Subject: The Sakanah Kiddush
From: <FriedmanJ@...>
> Before we even get to eating the food, let's consider what happens
> when the mob comes out of services, in some cases shoving at each
> other on staircases, elbowing folks out of the way to get to what they
> crave!!!!! Oh what joy! A real simcha can be judged by how much
> pushing it takes to get to the choice morsels--and how nasty folks are
> to each other at the "buffet.
Why don't you come to our shul, or one of many in the neighborhood who
do the same as ours. The people (we don't **have** a mob) wait until
davening is over, set the tables and sit down to wait until the rabbi
makes kiddush. (Of course there's plenty of wine and grape juice so
latecomers can also make kiddush.) Children are only seated if adults
have enough seats to permit them. Nobody shoves anybody, grabs food, or
is anything but pleasant and sociable to each other.
Same with the rest of your description of the shul from hell-nothing
wrong that finding a decent shul won't solve!
Gershon
<gershon.dubin@...>
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From: k and a weiss <aliw@...>
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 22:27:53 +0200
Subject: Re: Tachanun at Mincha
> From: Ben Katz <bkatz@...>
> I thought sefardim didn't say tachanun at minchah. I'm also pretty sure
> in YU HS (MTA) in the 70's we davened mincha w/o tachanun
I grew up davening in a shteibel on the lower east side where we never said
tachanun in the morning (NEVER) because there was always some yahrzeit which
was honored by not saying tachanun. There was a big book of yahrzeitin of
the chassidut, and there was always at least one on any given day,
And I'm sure that at MTA in the seventies they said tachanun at mincha
because that was where I first came to say it on a regular basis.
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From: <wgewirtz@...> (Dr. William Gewirtz)
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 04:43:07 +0000
Subject: Zemanim
>From: Mark Steiner <marksa@...>
>> For the purpose of computing zemanim according to the Magen Avraham
>> (which should be used lechatchila for sh'ma in the morning), Tzait
>> HaKochavim is 72 dakot zemaniyot after shkiat hachama, symmetric with
>> alot hashachar.
>
>According to this, twilight is much longer in the summer (when the days
>are longer) than in the winter. Yet astronomically this makes no
>sense--astronomically, the twilight is shorter, not longer, in the
>summer. (In the winter, the sun sets at an oblique angle to the
>horizon, and takes much longer, therefore, to sink below the horizon
>enough to bring on the stars.)
Dr. Steiner - I am perplexed. 1) I strongly agree that the twilight
period does not vary with shaot zemaniot. 2)However, I do not agree
that twilight in the winter is longer than in the summer. Posts by both
D. Cohen and I based on calculations / calendars of R. Tuchitizinsky and
Prof. Levi and others, assume that the twilight period is defined using
depression angles. Using that construct, twilight ( a term that I assume
covers chashecha, misheyakir, alot, etc.) is shortest in the spring and
fall, longer in the winter and yet longer in the summer. How do you
calculate to reach a different conclusion??
thanks,
dr. william gewirtz
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From: Mark Steiner <marksa@...>
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 08:35:05 +0200
Subject: RE: Zemanim
Dr. Gewirtz agrees that twighlight cannot be defined using shaot
zemaniot, but suggests the use of declination angles, and I think this
is reasonable. Using declination angles, he concludes differently from
me, and I bow to his greater expertise, particularly if his figures are
based on Prof. Levi's pioneering work on the subject.
Mark Steiner
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From: Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld <seinfeld@...>
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 12:51:56 -0500
Subject: Re: Zemanim
> From: Mark Steiner <marksa@...>
> According to this, twilight is much longer in the summer (when the days
> are longer) than in the winter. Yet astronomically this makes no
> sense--astronomically, the twilight is shorter, not longer, in the
> summer. (In the winter, the sun sets at an oblique angle to the
> horizon, and takes much longer, therefore, to sink below the horizon
> enough to bring on the stars.)
The Kitsur Shulchan Aruch admonishes one to wait in the summer "until
all light is gone from the sky". This is more stringent than most people
practice today.
But I have indeed noticed that in North America, from San Francisco and
northward (all the moreso in Seattle, where I visit each summer) there
can be light in the NW sky up to 100 minutes or more after shkiah
(sunset).
I have never observed such a phenomenon in the winter.
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End of Volume 55 Issue 93
