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AAQ, definitely important to keep darchei sholom – also, to UJM, the achronim are medayak into the words “with” in that gemara; the consensus is that they do not neee to be together; see the taz i quoted above who talks about it
Ujm, I did but quite some time ago. Is this a prerequisite to be taken seriously in cr? I can as well say that those who live on an island connected to American continent don’t understand the country. I once interviewed with a big five consulting company o’h. They suggested one of two departments: nyc and the rest of the country. You had to choose, ad these are totally different worlds According to them
Re: being thankful to everyone, I finally had an experience I dreaded davening in a shul with emunei peshuta, who live blissfully in a world without covid… thanks to all my cr friends who prepared me mentally for such experience.your descriptions were very much on target.
Are you under the false impression that emuna pshuta is an insult?
Were you in Chicago? My husband said there was a guy in shul with two masks.
Others consider the view that Meiri wrote his major work to appease non Jews not very credible. How many rishonim advocated consistent positions just for such reasons?!
You seem to follow no true Scotsman fallacy: if a sefer contradicts your teachers, then it’s written for non Jews or by a zionist and thus not a true talmid chacham. This way you eliminate everyone who disagree with you.Also, it seems that Meiri was not widely printed until 1900s and thus was not as embedded into mesorah as other rishonim, and as you are saying.
No, I was in one light mask out of respect to the locals. I just stood far away from everyone and in the corridor when sneezing people started trecking to the tissues and back. Emunah peshuta is something to respect and kept Jews going for centuries. I was in this shul before and they’re great baalei hesed and tefilah. One of the congregants wrote a heart breaking account of his sickness
edited- it is confusing to be disrespectful while describing being respectful, no? Perhaps we’ll wait til further from tisha b’av.
I’ll skip the rest of it, as you would not believe me.
When another guy in a mask came, we looked at each other as we came both from the same planet different from localsWearing a light mask out of respect? Im confused. Why does that give respect? They don’t mind you covering your face in any way you choose. And why would you risk being murdered in cold blood since you have already repeated ad nauseum that attending a shul with murderers is more than probable death? How do you make those statements and then demonstrate that you really don’t believe that at all.
Regarding the sneezing, my husband had an awful non covid virus and chose to sit in the back. The one person in shul with a mask sat down next to him. Regardless how much he sneezed, the man did not move and instead my husband decided that he would relocate himself. I guess if it’s more political than health related it can cause some inconsistent behaviors.
Avirah, so how does Rashi explain Shimon ben Shetach returning a precious stone to an Arab? A Jew should always try to do a kiddush HaShem and not do a chillul HaShem. BTW, the Rema says (CM 259:7) that if there is a dina d’malchuta to return an aveida one must do so (in general, we are not required to treat them better than they treat each other, and according to Roman law, an aveida belonged to the finder – finders keepers, losers weepers). See also Rambam according to Be’er HaGolah CM 266:2 and Mammon Yisrael – Halachos of Others People’s Money by Rav Pinchas Bodner, pg. 153 regarding gentiles who believe in Gd and have the rule of law. See also on this Sheeta Mekubetzet Baba Kama 113a in the name of the Meiri. Both Rav Hirsch and Rav Kook say that the Halacha is like him.
Always, someone once said that there are three places: the City, the island, and the rest of the world.
Avi- i have always used that line (yet in other forms) but it loses it’s humor coming from someone who believes there are two, e”y and galus 😉
UJM, the gemara does not say “We are obligated”. It says we are permitted. Without that gemara it would be forbidden.
But the gemara is not addressing an individual, who is dealing with his own money, and has the right to squander it on things that are not tzedaka, if it makes him feel good. It’s addressing a gabbai tzedaka, who is dealing with hekdesh money and has an obligation to be careful with it.
AAQ, also we have times when rishonim wrote things that were interpreted to be intended only for their time snd audience; many hold that the rambam wrote that there is no such thing as kishuf and sheidim to get jews away from such things that were culturally widespread in Egypt; the rambaN dismisses medrashim in his debates with Christians, while his actions were understood to only be permitted in that context
It’s not an issue of “convenience”, it’s an issue of, is this sefer going against pashut pshat and mesora from chazal? If it is, then we are open to exterior explanations… it’s not to fit some yeshivishe myopia as modern people claim. If chazal and rishonim say that the world is 5781 years old, then anything else we find should be made to comport with that, not the other way around. If chaz say that hashavas aveida stam is assur, and one sefer says a wild chidush that it’s not because of the way you learn the sugya normally; i.e. they’re automatically meyayesh because goyim dont return lost items al pi rov, or because of hafksras mamonam, or other pshatim, but a wild chidush that it’s only because they wouldn’t return ours….you can ask a ton of kashas on that pshat; why would the halacha of ownership and gezel depend on their attitude towards us? If one person steals, it doesn’t mean you can steal from him
Saying that it was a necessary contrivance is the more reasonable assumption
Avi – shimon ben shatach was making a kidush hashem…very simple. Re, the meiri; while it’s possible that the reason why his psak is not mentioned in the achronim, as in the nosei keilim and gedolei poskim, is that they didn’t have access to it – that’s not clear. I didn’t invent the idea that he wrote that psak under duress; it’s in….i believe the aruch hashulchan, but i have to check into it.
And yes, i do dismiss the psak of people who are incapable of seeing past the egel hazahav of zionism; it’s actually a pretty good litmus test to see if someone is motivated by emotion or pure daas torah, because the impulse towards it was extremely powerful….im pretty sure if i had lived under oppression as they did i would have fallen prey to it as well. It doesn’t mean someone is a bad person or unintelligent, just that to pasken halacha to the extent that i will be machnia my daas to them, one need be of a purely torah mind, and adding in nationalism, haskalah, rebbe-messianism, feminism, or other abberations to your Judaism disqualifies one from being so.
Re, rav hirsch; he wasn’t the only yekkishe rov who said that, but prior to his time, none of the yekkishe poskim report it. That includes the aruch lenair. It’s not a stretch that if the meiri wanted to keep peace with goyim, that rav hirsch would not also be so motivated…even more so as he was trying to package judaism in a way that would be appealing to enlightened german jewry.
It doesn’t change the fact that the rishonim and achronim; rambam, tur, rosh, ran, rif, mechaber, rema, sm”a, shach, chelkas mechokek, gr”a, nesivos, rav Akiva eiger, chasam sofer…. dismiss it by omission. The fact that it is appealing to rabbonim who were justifying judaism to its detractors in a hostile environment doesn’t change that we have no reason to pasken like it whatsoever.
Humanism and other such foreign motivations don’t count; if this would be any other shailoh you wouldn’t dig up a meiri and change established halacha based on it. Or mayeb you would, which is even scarier. The chazon ish in michtavim writes that we cannot do so and that whatever prints of the rishonim were in the possession of the achronim are halacha, all else is “ravcha lemilsa”
Avira,
1. If they wrote it for generations they intended it for generations. Similarly, there were millions of nevi’im in Tanachic times but most said things that were only for their times. Whether something is applicable in a specific time and place is for the poskim to say.
2. Everyone knows that the Meiri’s writings were not known in their times. There are also many instances where a pesak is not mentioned because the writer did not see it.
3. If omission is rejection, why do anti-Zionists keep harping on thee three oaths?
4. “I do dismiss the psak of people who are incapable of seeing past the egel hazahav of Zionism”. Nu, I dismiss the pesak of those who repeat the sin of the spies.
5. The Meiri’s pesak is a sevara. If non-Jews act justly we cannot be worse with them. One can just as easily say that those poskim who spoke harshly about non-Jews were influenced by bad relations in their times and places. The Be’er haGola, however, wrote what he wrote (CM 348,5) around the time of the theChmielnitzky massacres. Perhaps he saw them as punishment for these actions. BTW, the Netziv says in his introduction to Sefer Bereisheet that the Avot were called yesharim because that is how they always behaved, even with the lowliest pagans.it is well known that reb moshe gave tzedakkah to institutions for the mentally challenged.
Avi; id think you’d be the first not to compare rishonim/achronim with neviim. If they had written “this is only beshaas hadchak” on the label, I don’t think it would have accomplished their goals at all. It’s up to those who are the baalei mesorah to understand what’s meant ledoros and what’s not. The vast majority of rav hirschs torah is ledoros and i am among his avid fans and admirers. There are, however, certain things that must be understood in the context of the state of german jewry. Modern people LOVE this academic context-oriented approach when it comes to dismissing the chasam sofer etc, or saying that the rambam was just parroting Aristotle cv”s, but when it comes to their own sacred cows…..the payos come out and we can’t question the context of unusual statements made by yechidim that don’t fit the framework of chazal. Why is it ok to say that chazal believed in the existence of the fire breathing salamander “just because the goyim did” but not ok to say that rav hirsch advocated for social justice to win the favor of the masses of german jewry who were falling away en masse? It’s hypocritical snd intellectually dishonest.
I never said that rav hirsch et al wrote about goyim because of his influence cv”s, by having good relations with them. I said that he was doing kiruv and packaging yiddishkeit in a way that’s palatable for newcomers and people educated with progressive and universalist ideology. Think of what aish hatorah does. Did rav hirsch argue with chazal that goyim who dont keep the 7 mitzvos bekavanah have no olam habah? There’s even a machlokes in the gemara in sanhedrin if goyim who DO Keep the mitzvos have it. Did he argue on the punishment of a mechalel shabbos? No, but he didn’t talk about it much either, because he had a goal, which he accomplished – the yekkishe community is along, if not the most staunchly traditional community in the world with their minhagim and adherence to halacha.
The kav hayasher, rav kordenoiver, was the rov of frankfurt a while before the aruch leneir; he probably had good relations with the gemutliche germans too, but that didn’t stop him from writing all about tumas akum, romemus yisroel, etc..
To clarify my position on the meiri and omission; even if the rishonim and achronim didn’t have access to it, fhe fact that the gedolei poskim, asher mipihem anu chayin, do not mention it, means that they learned the sugya differently and that the halacha therefore should follow the overwhelming majority who omit this exception to chazals rule that it is assur to return a goys aveidah. That’s different than the falacy of the omission of the 3 osths (it’s quoted A LOT in the rishonim and achronim…the rambam, ramban, tashbetz, rashbash, maharal, many others) but 5hat misses the point that the 3 oaths ARE A GEMARA, so the question is why aren’t they mentioned, not why are they….here it’s the opposite, here we have a chidush from a rishon…if it’s not mentioned, it’s clear that it’s not halacha. If a gemara isn’t mentioned, we ASSUME THAT A GEMARA IS A DIN, because it’s a Gemara….we then ask why it’s not in the tur and mishneh torah, and there are answers given. Either it’s stam a kefira in bias hamoshiach, as the satmar rov wrote, or it’s not a din per se, but an exhortation not to do it because there will be redifos chas veshalom (rav belsky zt”l), either way the gemara says not to do it so we don’t do it. It’s not like other things that the rishonim say are not nogaya anymore, like the refuos in the gemara which tosfos says are not nogaya, or mayim emtzaiim, there we have rishonim who bring the gemara and say why we don’t follow it. Here by the shevuos no kadmon says that it’s not nogaya.
Yes, if you learned the sugya of hafkaras mamonam and yiush with the rishonim you’d see that the meiri doesn’t fit at all. You seem to be very good at finding mareh mekomos for things, but i believe that your strength in bekius needs to be built around learning sugyos be’iyun, of which I’ve seen little example.
Also, who says the majority of goyim are mayshiv aveidos? I believe that they don’t. I don’t think most goyim put up signs or ads in papers that they found a diamond ring. The only thing theily seem to be careful with is returning dogs. Hamayvin yovin.
Yashrus doesn’t mean we treat goyim like yidden. Hashavas aveida is a special mitzvah, like Rashi says, between yidden. It’s not for goyim inherently, absent kiddush/chilul hashem tangents
Also, while the torah worlds rejection of zionism was due to it being an admixture of foreign junk into torah, the canard of the meraglim is exactly the opposite….the meraglim felt that they had to rely on their own power and seeing how great and powerful the canaanim were scared them. Real jews believe it’s Hashem that lrotects us, not the Uzi (aptly called “my strength”). The sin of the spies was in denying the strength of hashem and only believing in their own kochi veotzem yodi.
No anti zionist rabbi ever said anything bad about eretz yisroel. here we go again with the circular logic of “if you say something bad about the shmad state, you’re slandering eretz yisroel!”. Eretz yisroel lechud and medina lechud. They’re not baalei batim over my holy land. Saying that the zionists were wicked and that they spread an evil immoral toeva-infused culture into the palace of hashem is NOT lashon hora against eretz yisroel.
Saying that such things are ok to be in the holy land IS LASHON HORA itself, that the land is some secular political entity, or the early zionist land-god nordic influence of the connection between man and land. To make an avodah zara out of eretz yisroel… that’s truly the sin of the spies on many levels
Lower, don’t tempt me.
Rav Aryeh Levine gave a donation to the Israeli relief efforts in Biafra. He said, “They too were created in HaShem’s image”.
> who says the majority of goyim are mayshiv aveidos? I believe that they don’t.
you live in NY. I once left a purse at a busy building in the South. Came back a week later and retrieved it. Even in NorthEast, we had people calling us up after finding an ID in the purse.
Again, ma nafka mina? The only way not to do Kiddush Hashem is to return anonymously. One Rav told me that he specifically invited the person to come to his shul office to pickup the lost item to increase Kiddush Hashem.
Avi; would you mind telling us where you got the story of rav aryeh levine from? You’re good at mareh mekomos
The nafka mina is in the intent; one person gives chessed leshem his avoda zara…chessed leumim chatas, and a yid gives it for Hashem. Same action, different reaction; the oved avoda zara is punished and the oved Hashem lehavdil is rewarded. And yes, the opportunity to make a kiddush hashem is gevaldig – i remember once a guy ended up on the cover of the new york post because he returned a ton of money that he found in a desk that he bought at a yard sale; his obviously frum appearance was everywhere.
What would have happened if he would be dressed as a modern orthodox jew with a name like morris? Would there have been a kiddush hashem for everyone to see on the cover of the paper? Something to think about
I was saying that even if we accepted the meiri, which we have no reason to do, it wouldn’t apply in most cases…maybe it would in your location.
Syag, LOL
I almost posted that I indeed was in two masks and whether the guy who was coughing near me was your husband
But then I thought this would be too cruel to ask in case he was, and in case he wasn’t! And now you posted this yourself. Refuah shleima to your husband.A possible reason to be in one mask. If you are way out of how they behave, they can take it as a serious disapproval of their behavior, which is at this stage inappropriate: it was in a state with high vaccination rates and some people wrote publicly that they got covid, and from the description that they posted openly but our mod is even embarrassed to publish, surely more did.
If you think I enjoy davening 6 amos from the community, I am not. I was very sad.
more sad is your thought that that was the reason for the deletion
Avira, people will see that I am Jewish just by my name! Who else would always ask questions? As r Steinsaltz haya omer: Eskimo have 100 synonyms for snow, Arabs for sand, and Jews for question.
I was not clear about nafka mina: I am asking what is practical difference for us when returning an object to a jew or a nonjew. What I can see: anonymity. Maybe also returning something that will embarrass a Jew, say who stole that object. What else?
” If you are way out of how they behave, they can take it as a serious disapproval of their behavior,”
more likely they will just think you have a different way of doing things. But as I said, If you are worried about insult, then you are obviously not worried about your health. And as I also said, I guess if it’s more political than health related it can cause some inconsistent behaviors.
I am sorry you found it sad to social distance. I would have thought that was just the way things are done. Maybe with 2 masks you could have sat closer. Who knows.
Syag, you are right, there are many gray areas here. One Rav who gets shailohs on this issue, says that reopening turned out harder than closing. In one nice shul here that has a lot of space, the pattern I noticed that real doctors still have masks on, while Rabbis and PhD do not. I felt like an imposter.
I am getting more appreciation for Gemora discussions where everyone agrees that 4 tefahim is too much for sechach, and 3 is Ok, but what about between 3 and 4…. These intermediate cases are really making things complicated. But if you approach it with intellectual curiosity, it feels better. In this case, I tried to balance my own view on what is right with not offending the locals. I think distance was less visibly jarring to them than being over-masked. After all, their local cougher was trecking for tissue and back as much as I did. He might have been the only one who noticed that I was making circles around him, but he did not look like he cared much.
“I tried to balance my own view on what is right with not offending the locals. ”
There’s no issue of offending people. They aren’t judging you as you are judging them.
“I think distance was less visibly jarring to them than being over-masked. ”
Again, what are you talking about?? Your masks and your distance aren’t “jarring”! (Seriously?) They don’t care. Your willingness to be less careful is not their doing. It comes from knowing the danger doesn’t really exist. If it did, you would never compromise for perceived insult.
“After all, their local cougher ”
You do realize there are other viruses besides covid out there, right?
“but he did not look like he cared much.”
I think he really cared a lot but was afraid of jarring you with overjudgementalism so he just wandered around hoping you wouldn’t have him thrown out.
Avira, you are way out of date. “Morris” is from a couple of generations ago. Today MO Jews also give their kids Hebrew names. I guess they figured that if other groups can give their kids ethnic names they can too. BTW, Rav Moshe’s letterhead had an English side where his name was given as Moses Feinstein.
In the case you cited, the person bought the desk on Craig’s List, not at a yard sale, and the CNN article mentioned that he is an Orthodox rabbi.
In any case, when the recipient sees that the person is wearing a kippa or modest dress he will figure it out. There is also not only the issue of kiddush Hashem but also avoiding a chillul HaShem. If it is discovered some reporter will dig out the fact that he is an Orthodox Jew and trumpet it.Rambam quotes two pesukim by the mitzva of providing tzedaka to non-Jews:
הֲרֵי נֶאֱמַר (תהילים קמה, ט) “טוֹב יי לַכּל וְרַחֲמָיו עַל כָּל מַעֲשָׂיו”. וְנֶאֱמַר (משלי ג, יז) “דְּרָכֶיהָ דַרְכֵי נֹעַם וְכָל נְתִיבוֹתֶיהָ שָׁלוֹם
Pretty clear that there is a much deeper and fundamental aspect to “darkhei shalom” than just ‘keeping the non-Jew’s happy…more like emulating God and extending mercy to all his creations, as per the pesukim.
As for the Meiri, various poskim pasken like him or present a similar position such as Rav Yaakov Emden, Tzitz Eliezer, Rav Henkin, Rav Kook, Rav Ahron Soloveitchik and Rav Dovid Zvi Hoffman.If you don’t respect a godol hador because they are a “Zionist”, you have bigger problems than whether to give tzedaka to non-Jews.
Syag
> There’s no issue of offending people. They aren’t judging youI mean that they’ll think that I am judging them and might get offended or upset. Post-vaccine, this does not sound appropriate.
> Your willingness to be less careful is not their doing. It comes from knowing the danger doesn’t really exist.
I did not compromise, I moved way away. By now, I am boke on airflows, I did a bunch of experiments in different buildings, and can estimate based on volume of incoming air, ventilation locations how much air is re-circulating. The only thing not visible is how good air filters are and when they were changed. One Rav told me that they were careful and changed the filters but did not know what kind. There is a lot of mechanics and statistics that people do not understand and then discuss in public, hopefully it will make into high school curricula in 10 years!
“After all, their local cougher ”
>> You do realize there are other viruses besides covid out there, right?
this is an important question. People should realize that if they have symptoms, they should, most probably, not be in public. There is less flu and common cold now, so there is a high chance this is Covid. by the time one realizes that this cough (or stomach issue) is not same as usual, you already infected others. Even if assume you got your regular allergies, there is a high chance your assumptions are wrong (to be complete, there might be a reverse starting as people catch flu with going out and losing immunity after a year). Second reason is, even if are sure, you should not go out of moris ayn and hillul Hashem you will create. People with flu should not go out either.
Also, wear a mask for allergies. I recently realized I did not have allergies last 2 years. got them back when taking mask off.
>> so he just wandered around hoping you wouldn’t have him thrown out.
He did not wander “around”, he wandered towards me, and I was pretending to “wander around” while wondering where he will wander next. I always wander during davening where I can, so it was not a big deal, and it was his shul anyway.
boruchbrown123> a much deeper and fundamental aspect to “darkhei shalom”
Agree whole-heartedly. And Talmidei Chachamim merabim D. Sh. It got to be something important if someone has to take his time off learning and go appease some random non-Jew!
> If you don’t respect a godol hador because they are a “Zionist”,
He is not the only one. A lot of people – on all sides – enjoy quoting only people they respect and call it “everyone agrees”. If Beis Hillel would do that, we would have never heard of Beis Shammai, and will be totally unprepared when Moschiach comes.
@AAQ, “I am boke on airflows” Really, you have MS in mechanical engineering? your a IH? I never knew that.
“There is less flu and common cold now, so there is a high chance this is Covid”
So…actually false. There are three different cold virus circulating hete and in some other cities as well. One is a lot of coughing and laryngitis, other 2 so closely resemble covid…but aren’t. And guess how i know. Because people who had it tested negative for covid. Do i know you can’t shake that belief that some communities are just ignorant super spreaders but you ate creating and perpetuating machlokis.
And most people can expect that someone with a cold, not covid or flu, will most probably show up to shul, cough and all, while hopefully being cautious about it.
“even if are sure, you should not go out of moris ayn and hillul Hashem you will create.”
So here’s the thing. Mares ayin and chilul Hashem have specific halachik criteria. You seem to use those terms loosrly to mean, “something that makes religious people look bad” that isn’t how it works. In that same way you can’t create your own definition of hakaras hatov, tircha for the tzibur, tzedaka or kindness based on feelings. There are halachas defining these terms.
Gevalt – you quoted the last part of the halacha of the rambam and are…again….missing the first part of the same halacha regarding ger toshav, which the rambam says “yereah li” “it appears to me” that one must dl gemilus chasadim and derech eretz LIKE A JEW, making a clear distinction between jew and akum., Then he turns to akum and says “afilu” akum, meaning don’t think that since im saying to treat a ger toshav like a yid that a goy whos oved avoda zara you should treat like garbage, since tzkvu chachamim, the chachamim commanded us to feed their poor, etc (omitting.hashovas aveidah and other mitzvos), because of darchei sholom. “Harei neemar” with this the rambam brings 2 pesukim for 2 different ideas, the 2nd pasuk of vechol nesivoseah sholom means that the way we behave should lead to sholom, and the first pasuk is anyone’s guess, but if we are to say like you that it’s advocating altruism “lishma”, we wouldn’t need the two pesukim, would we? That would be enough of a reason without nesivoseah sholom…rather i think the two pesukim refer to the two people discussed in this halacha, the first pasuk of rachamav al kol maasav refers to the ger toshav and the 2nd, referring to making peace, refers to the akum
Have you ever “learned up” a rambam before?
Also, would you mind telling us where the tzitz eliezer and rav yaakov emden say such things?
Rabbi Dovid tzvi hoffman would not be surprising, as i mentioned sbove, yekkishe rabonim started going with this shita around the time of rav hirsh.
Rabbi kook’s use of it is no more convincing to me than his assessment of the nevala-painting Rembrandt as a “tzadik” because of his painting of the tosfos yom tov.
The term “gadol hador”…there were no zionist rabbis who were acknowledged by the entire torah world as being its leader. Whereas the converse is true – dati leumi people accepted the chazon ish, rav Moshe feinstein wnd rav elyashiv despite not being at all from their camp. The yeshiva and chassidish world did not accept rabbi yoshe ber soloveitchik as a leader of the generation, nor did they accept rabbi kook after the gedolim vegan distancing themselves from him.
There’s a reason why in no mainstream yeshiva will.you find the books of rabbi kook or rabbi yoshe ber soloveitchik, though the latter you will sometimes come across.
every dati leumi yeshiva has an igros moshe.
Assuming arguendo that there is such a prohibition on yidden providing charitable funding to goyim or goiyeshe mosdos, would that also apply to yiddeshe mosdos who receive funds from yidden and redistributing those funds to third parties who aren’t yidden. For example, would anyone argue that Hatzalah cannot provide emergency assistance in the case of an accident or disaster affecting both goyim and yidden living in close proximity. Can a chabad house share emergency donations with anyone adversely affected by a natural disaster. Or would such a prohibition be narrowly focused on one-on-one assistance from a yid to a non-jew.
Worth noting in addition is that no other rishonim who bring this gemara mention the pesukim of the rambam or anything else; it’s not in the shulchan aruch or nosei keilim
Gadol; the gemara says one is not allowed to save the life of an oved avodah zara, even if paid to do so, except in a case where hatred of jews would become increased (mipnei aivah). Today’s goyim who believe in monotheism are not subject to that prohibition and one may save their lives regardless of the aforementioned, though it definitely is not an intrinsic obligation.
As it happens to be, the halacha i quoted above – ain mefakchin alav es hagal, that we are prohibited from saving the lives of ovdei avodah zara, should be proof enough that darchei sholom was never intended to mean more than promoting peace with goyim (mipnei aivah is different, it allows that which would normally be a worse sin, darchei sholom allows a lesser sin, though this is my own chidush and I’m not going to stand by it should it be disproven)
If saving their lives or healing them is assur, feeding them if they’re hungry should be no different, absent darchei sholom in the latter and aivah in the former
@AvirahDeArah
I can help you out with that first pasuk you’re struggling with there. Rambam also quotes it in Hilchos Avodim 9:8..
“Cruelty and arrogance are only found with idol worshippers, but the descendants of Avraham Avinu who Hashem granted upon them the goodness of the Torah and commanded them with the laws and statutes, they are righteous and merciful on all. Similarly, with regards to the attributes of Hashem that we are commanded to emulate, it is written “His mercies be upon all his works.”Pretty clear that Rambam views this ‘being merciful to everyone’ business as a pretty big deal…wouldn’t you say?
I can’t see any indication in the Rambam that the first pasuk is referring to the first part of the halacha, and the second to the last (Rambam could easily have structured it like that). The simple reading seems to be that both pesukim are pertinent to the whole halacha.
Have you ever “learned up” a rambam before?
BTW, Rambam and Ramban healed non-Jews. Ramban also delivered their babies.
Avirah, we have a positive commandment to keep alive gerim toshavim. The Maharatz Chayot, Rav Kook, and Rav Herzog say in accordance with the Ritva that while according to Rambam the bet din does not formally accept them if we know that people keep them we treat them as if they are gerim toshavim. As for mefakeach hagal, the Chatham Sofer says that in our time we do it because otherwise non-Jewish doctors will not treat Jews and there might even be pogroms.
Avi > Morris” is from a couple of generations ago. Today MO Jews also give their kids Hebrew names.
This Moshe/Moses is ok b’dieved, but there is a little busha involved: Please call Moishe. There is no Moishe here, only Moses. Ok, please call Moses. Moishe, someone is calling you!
We are trying to give kids Jewish names that will not make them want to avoid in whatever environment you are, like David, Aaron, Ruth, Miriam, Joseph, etc. A second name gives a kid an extra chance if he is uneasy about the first. Another shita, that we do not subscribe to,
edited
common > Really, you have MS in mechanical engineering?
Thanks for the tochacha, I have a PhD in a related engineering, but I am indeed not qualified to build anything, even a Sukkah.
I read up specifically on airflows [some of the work published last year was fascinating – such as measuring air flows in simulated airplanes] and did some experiments myself in several offices and shuls to measure CO2, particle levels – that are proxies for how much air re-circulates and particle level indicates how much air is filtered and and how much comes from outside (I can do calculations, my MS is in Applied Math). I ran the results by a couple of “real” engineers. And I think I know when to send for a real mechanical engineer, like you. What were your recommendations for your shul/school/office?
Syag> Mares ayin and chilul Hashem have specific halachik criteria. You seem to use those terms loosrly to mean, “something that makes religious people look bad” that isn’t how it works.
Every time I learned this sugya, the Rabbonim indeed bring expansive definition of this, regardless of the Rav’s hashkafa. A pretty Haredi Rav said that he stopped a maskless person dressed as a Jew in the street when there was a state gezera on outside masks and explained to him that this is Hillul Hashem. The next day after gezera was off, he was walking without the mask and joyfully questioned why I do. so, his major concern was Hillul Hashem not anything else. (I answered because I found my humra, I later updated the answer – because it helps me keep my mouth shut, although it is not really true)
So you respond by supporting my point? Then how do you explain using these halachik terms according to your fancy? I figured you didn’t know better, now you say you knew but you like your way better?
Syag, I gave you just one example where a Rav applied Hillul Hashem broadly to a person not wearing a mask. But maybe either you or other posters can help us with their definition of moris ayn/hillul Hashem.
He didn’t apply it broadly, he applied it.
“you or other posters can help us with their definition of moris ayn/hillul Hashem.”
What do you mean by “our definition”? What I’ve been trying to explain on all these threads is that we don’t get to revamp/upgrade/redifine halachos, as you have implied many times. Unless you mean something else?
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