Volume 7 Number 88
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Dairy on Shavuos
[Mike Berkowitz]
Frum community in Boston
[Steven Schwartz]
Greek Wisdom
[Danny Skaist]
Jason's Bread Crumbs
[Isaac Balbin]
PICNIC :-) !!
[Bob Kosovsky]
Permission to Say Kaddish
[Arthur Roth]
Public Domain vs. Private Domain -- Carrying on Shabbat
[Alan M. Gallatin]
Tekhelet
[Lon Eisenberg]
Women & Orthodoxy Vol. 7 #82
[Ron Katz]
Women's Tefilla Groups and Kaddish
[Jeff Woolf]
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From: <etzion@...> (Mike Berkowitz)
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 09:09:21 -0400
Subject: Dairy on Shavuos
Janice Gelb asks about the practice of eating dairy on Shavuos. Sefer
Ta'amei Haminhagim ("Reasons Behind the Customs") offers a few reasons:
1) To commemorate the two loaves that are offered on Shavuos, we eat
first a dairy, and the a meat meal; since each requires its own loaf, we
end up with two loaves.
2) We eat milk and honey in honor of the Torah, of which it is said (Shir
HaShirim) "Honey and milk beneath your tongue."
3) Something very, shall we say, farfetched, which I won't bother with here.
4) Since up to the giving of the Torah we were allowed to eat unkosher
meat, when the Torah was given, including these prohibitions, all the
meat utensils became unkosher, and since they couldn't be kashered that
day (it being Shabbos and Yom Tov), everyone was forced to eat dairy.
5) Based on one of the names of Mt. Sinai, which comes from the word for
cheese.
6) Because the Torah is attracted to humility, and dairy is a more
humble food than meat.
Mike Berkowitz
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From: <schwartz@...> (Steven Schwartz)
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 09:09:25 -0400
Subject: Re: Frum community in Boston
To correct Maurice Tuchman's previous posting, the Brandeis University
kosher cafeteria (i.e. the kosher section of Sherman cafeteria)
operates year-round, including the summer. It might be closed during
school holidays.
I periodically work at a nearby New England Telephone facility,
and it is a pleasure to be able to eat a -hot- lunch while traveling.
Shimon Schwartz
<schwartz@...>
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From: DANNY%<ILNCRD@...> (Danny Skaist)
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 02:42:04 -0400
Subject: Greek Wisdom
>Eitan Fiorino
>2. The second gemara (menachot 99b--R. Yishmael tells his nephew to
> find a time which is neither day not night to study Greek wisdom)
> deals with Greek wisdom, and we don't know what that is.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What, exactly, "Greek wisdom" is, seems to be the biggest point in the whole
discussion. The Chazal showed a lot of knowledge about all the sciences.
Everything from medicine, to the size of the world is discussed in the
gemorra. (Tell me that modeh b'miktzat is not psychology (If a person admits
to owing half of the amount for which he is being sued, it is worse then if
he denied everything). I doubt very much if any form of science was
considered by the gemorra as "Greek Wisdom".
danny
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From: <isaac@...> (Isaac Balbin)
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 02:06:28 -0400
Subject: Re: Jason's Bread Crumbs
| From: Bruce Bernstein <bernstein@...>
| To the best of my knowlege, which in this case comes from the local
| (Capital District, NY) Shaliach's Rebbitzen, Jason's Bread crumbs are
| not pas yisroel. Unger's however, is.
I wouldn't know Jason's from Unger's, however, my Rov had paskened
that Crumpets which were Pas Akum [non-jewish bread] was okay to eat
Lechatchillo [in the first place] because in practice, it was not
yet Gomer Asiyoso [still had some processing/toasting to be done
before one normally ate it].
I wonder whether this might also apply to such bread crumbs given
that their normal use is, say, for frying on a nice big schnitzel?
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From: Bob Kosovsky <kos@...>
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 02:06:34 -0400
Subject: PICNIC :-) !!
THE BIG DAY IS APPROACHING! THE BIENNIAL MAIL-JEWISH PICNIC IS THIS WEEK!!!
Im yirtzeh Hashem ****
DATE: Sunday, June 27 (Raindate: July 11)
TIME: 3 PM
PLACE: Donaldson Park -- in Highland Park, NJ
COST: $8-10
The directions for finding the picnic location have already been sent
out. If you decide you want to come, let me know so that I can forward
them to you.
It's gonna be a bash! Well over 60 adults and many gaggles of children
from all over will be attending! Unless you get a job with AT&T or
Bell Labs, this will be the last chance that you will be able to meet your
fellow chaverim from the Mail-Jewish list for two years! Don't miss the
chance! Send me an email message.
Bob Kosovsky
Graduate Center -- Ph.D. Program in Music(student)/ City University of New York
New York Public Library -- Music Division
bitnet: <kos@...> internet: kos@cunyvms1.gc.cuny.edu
Disclaimer: My opinions do not necessarily represent those of my institutions.
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From: <rotha@...> (Arthur Roth)
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 09:41:30 -0500
Subject: Permission to Say Kaddish
Leon Dworsky asks whether living parents need to give permission
for someone to say Kaddish even for a sibling or spouse. The answer
is an emphatic "yes" and even applies to a child. I lived for many
years in a community in which an 11-year-old boy died under unbelievably
tragic circumstances. He was hit by a car going back to shul for
Mincha on Yom Kippur, of all times, went into a coma for a year and a
week, and died on Succoth of the following year without ever regaining
consciousness. The family's grief was compounded by the fact that the
child's paternal grandfather (whose wife was still alive) refused to
give permission for the child's father to say Kaddish for his own son!
The grandfather decided to say Kaddish himself for his grandson, and
he thought that he was sparing his son additional agony beyond what he
had already suffered. The community almost universally agreed that
the father was instead being denied an outlet for coming to grips with
the tragedy. Many people including the shul's rabbi pleaded with the
grandfather to change his mind, but to no avail. It is ironic, in
view of all the recent MJ postings about women saying Kaddish, that
the child's MOTHER did say Kaddish on some sort of regular basis; I
don't remember whether she received permission or whether at least one
of her parents was no longer alive.
Note that the need for permission applies only when BOTH parents
are alive. Once one parent dies and Kaddish is said for that parent,
a person is permitted to say Kaddish for anyone at all without needing
permission. When both parents are alive, most halachic authorities
allow the father to speak for the mother as well, so that his
permission alone suffices. However, some authorities follow a less
prevalent opinion that each parent needs to give permission
separately, although this seems somewhat inconsistent with the idea
(which is universally accepted) that no permission at all is needed
from a single surviving parent after the passing of the other parent.
Arthur Roth
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From: <amg@...> (Alan M. Gallatin)
Date: Sun, 20 Jun 93 17:45:49 -0400
Subject: Public Domain vs. Private Domain -- Carrying on Shabbat
Here's a (sort of) hypothetical to chew on:
Suppose I'm in a little rural village, population no more than 2500 or so,
which was located near, well, nothing. Shabbat comes around and I learn
that there is no eruv in this village. QUESTION: Can I carry (assuming,
of course, that I am not carrying anything forbidden to Shabbat)? If so,
what, if changed in this hypothetical, would render carrying impermissable?
I understand that, even if the circumstances would TECHNICALLY permit
carrying, some might argue that I still should not so as to (a) not
violate the spirit of Shabbat and (b) not get into bad habbits for those
times when I truly may not carry. My question is an attempt to learn
more about the public domain vs. the private domain and how "the rules"
change in each.
Alan M. Gallatin <amg@...>
Duke University School of Law; Durham, NC
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From: <eisenbrg@...> (Lon Eisenberg)
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 09:37:56 -0400
Subject: Tekhelet
The Hinukh counts zitzit as _one_ mizvah, including the tekhelet.
. Yet he says that we've lost (in his day) the tekhelet, so can do
without. If it is truely one mizvah, how can we do without? The other
thing that puzzles me is that he says that the hilazon is found in the
Dead Sea (did things actually once live in the Dead Sea?).
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From: <katz@...> (Ron Katz)
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 02:42:08 -0400
Subject: Re: Women & Orthodoxy Vol. 7 #82
Regarding Rena Whiteson's question of why women have to be penalized
for the weakness of men (who would have impure thoughts while looking
at them), there is a similar situation in last week's Torah Portion (Korach).
After the rebelion of Korach, G-d commands the Priests that they (the priests)
are reponsible for protecting the sanctity of the Temple, and they
shall carry the sin if a non-priest defiles the sanctity of the Holies.
I do not have the text in front of me, but it can be found at the end of
Parshat Korach. Anyway, why should the Priests be responsible if an
Israelite entered the Temple (which he is not allowed to do) ?
Perhaps, the answer is that when G-d gives something of value to someone,
it is his/her responsibility to protect it. Perhaps, this is why women
are PARTIALLY resposible for keeping the men in check. Needless to say,
men are resposible for their own actions.
This was just a thought, and by no means an authoritative reason.
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From: Jeff Woolf <JRWOOLF@...>
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 07:27:51 -0400
Subject: Re: Women's Tefilla Groups and Kaddish
On women's Tefilla Groups and Kaddish...1) Women involved in these groups say
that they are stifled spiritually in Shul and need this occasional outlet. 2)
There is no reason for women not to say KAddish, and alone. As Joel Wolowelsky
points out in an article in Tradition a number of years ago, the Rav zt'l said
that in Vilna women said Kaddish from the back of the shul for Minha Maariv
all the time. 3) Rav Ovadia Yosef says in the second volume of Yehave Daat
that there is no Kol Isha problem regarding tefillot recited in shul. So the
woman need not have a man saying it along with her.
Jeff Woolf
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End of Volume 7 Issue 88
