Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I meant that those who are authorities on the arizals Torah, do not go with that opinion
AAQ, the kuzari is uniquely passionate against the study of philosophy, which is the foundation of the derisha vechakira approach that some take. He says to have emunah based on mesorah, as I described above.
The rambam, who championed philosophy, also writes clearly that one may not undertake such an approach to emunah before learning shas and poskim. I don’t believe anyone among us is on such a level in our time.
Shlomo, I don’t think you understand my post. I’m not trying to prove the truth of our emunah. I’m supplying an answer to the OP’s first question, which is identical to the kashya rav yosef albo asked on the rambam’s inclusion of bias hamoshiach in the 13 ikkarim. Part of the answer to that question is that we have a chain of succession in authority as to what the ikkarim are – the same way we have a chain of command in deciding any other halacha question. Amoraim accept the tanaim, rishonim accept the amoraim, achronim accept the rishonim, and we grope in the dark to understand any of them.
Marx;. Asei lecha rav!
Shalom, they usually go after settlers and har habayis people. That’s a fact. This is an exception, far, far from the norm.
Lubavitcher, so satmar, belz, ger, spinka, sqver, and everyone else are immodest?
Maybe try “we don’t hold it’s tznius” instead of dismissing half of klal yisroel as immodest. Might be a good idea to take a look at the state of tznius in crown heights before accusing others of immodesty.
Actually, don’t take a look, it would be assur.
Square; you bring up several points that are important to discuss.
1. You’re mechaven almost verbatim to the position of Rav Yosef Albo in ikkarim who disagrees with the rambam regarding bias hamoshiach’s ikkar status based on your logic. He says that something that is a machlokes(even one against hundreds) cannot be considered an ikkar of our emunah. The fact that the gemara itself not only is docheh rav hilel, but says uncharacteristically “shara lei marei”, that his (rav hillel’s) master should forgive him for saying such a thing. So maskanas hagemara is that rav hilel isn’t just a minority view, it’s an intrinsically wrong position. That being said, how can we call it an ikkar if an amora didn’t hold of it?
Achronim give answers to this kasha of Rav Albo. One answer I saw years ago is that an undisputed ikkar is that nevuas moshe rabbeinu was bigger than any other navi before or after him. Rav Albo would seem to agree with this (he doesn’t question it, as far as I remember). Wheb Miriam took issue with Moshe distancing himself from Yocheved, her cheshbon was that other neviim had not been commanded to do so, and that she felt this was an error. Miriam it seems, did not at that point accept that Moshe was greater than all the other neviim (including herself), and that she can disagree with him. When she was shown that she was mistaken, that ikkar was established. Torah doesn’t exist in a vacuum; halacha expands and takes the form of the decisions of those imbued with such authority; tanaim, amoraim, rishonim and achronim. What was a possibility in the time of Miriam was not possible in the times of rav hillel, and what was possible in the times of rav hillel is not possible in the times of the rambam. Rav elyashiv’s statement regarding rabbeinu avrohom ben horambam’s opinions of chazal/science applies here as well “he was able to say it, we cannot”.
2. There isn’t just one source for what your rebbeim told you. It’s all over rishonim like the kuzari, rabbeinu yona, and tons of achronim, ranging from rav hirsch, the gr”a, chazon ish, ramchal…you can find a long list in the perush on the chovos halevavos called “lev tov”, printed in many standard editions of that sefer. In the hakdama to shaar hayichud he goes through it.
3. Emunah based on mesorah isn’t childish; it’s the acknowledgment of jewish history being filled with divinity and awareness of Hashem. It’s the understanding that our nation stood by har sinai, and that its authenticity shouldn’t be any more suspect than the American revolution. Havchana, seeing Hashem in creation and history, isn’t derishah vechakirah; it’s advocated by basically everyone.
Ubiq, we’re in agreement that it’s phb”k, which is a category including all sorts of baked goods that aren’t halachikally bread. All of them have the same halacha, which is that one makes mezonos and al hamichya, unless one eats 4 bayim (or other foods together with the mezonos food to that amount).
An interesting shailoh discussed by some achronim is what the halacha is if someone ate cake, then hamentash, then pretzels. He ate bread me’ma nafshach, because one shita’s bread is another one’s phb”k. Before he eats the hamentash, he could say that he holds like the one who says that cake is phb”k, and that hamentash and pretzels are bread. Once he eats the hamentash, he can say he holds like the shita that pretzels are the only thing that’s truly bread, so he can say that he ate phb”k. But once he eats all three, then who would hold he didn’t eat bread? He lechora would have to wash and bentch on the last thing he ate,even if it’s not shiur kevias seudah.
This chumra isn’t mentioned in mishnah berurah as far as i know.
Ujm, I took issue with TS claiming that chabad doesn’t hold of payos “because of the arizal”. Those who follow the arizal by and large DO have payos. It’s a chabad minhag, and they are the exception in the chasidish world, and in a minority among those who are into the arizal/kabalah.
Aboose, I named 4 because those are massive mekubalim who come to mind who I know for a fact had payos. The rashash was a towering authority on arizal, as was rav fishel eisenbach. I was mainly trying to refute TS’s implication that if one is following the arizal they would per force not have long payos.
Ubiq; did rav belsky tell you specifically a “side dish”? In yeshiva everyone quoted him as saying “2 slices and even a bite/ma shehu more” would require hamotzi – he wasn’t completely convinced of it in any case, as he told me directly to follow the minhag ha’olam.
He also was wont to say that apple juice makes no difference in the status of dough, and that shu”a is discussing thick juices which make a very significant change in taste and other characteristics of the bread. He said even if the dough had 3/4 apple juice and 1/4 water it would still be hamotzi; he repeatedly told us that mezonos bread is a contradiction in terms, and did not accept any of the marketed mezonos breads as being such.
The phb”k status of pizza stems from its filling, according to rav belsky.
Coffee, I would liken that to the division of the shvatim on har eval and har grizim. Rav Belsky said that the shvatim who received the klalos aren’t cursed, or inferior shvatim – they are people whose main mode of avodas Hashem is yirah, and the ones who received the brachos are geared towards ahavas Hashem.
It’s known that the feminine is associated with gevurah/dinim, and the masculine is chesed/rachamim. It would explain why a daughter has that gematria; she is from yirah/dinim/gevurah, while the zachor is metzad chesed/ahavah
TS, the overwhelming majority of mekubalim have/had payos, i.e the leshem, rashash, rav fishel eisenbach, and today’s rav gamliel Rabinowitz, rav elya ber wachtfogel, and many others.
Ujm, i didn’t think of mentioning the size issue – it’s more relevant to volume, because even a small difference in thickness can amount to an extra kezayis
Pizza that is baked with cheese and sauce can be considered a form of pas haba bekisnin, bread that has pockets. The gemara says that such a food is unique, in that it requires a bracha of mezonos/al hamichya, unless one eats enough of it that is a shiur ot “kevias seudah”, the amount of food one eats during a meal. Even if he eats other things aside from the PHB”BK, they combine to fill this measurement.
There are 3 different opinions as to what defines the term “phb”k”. Some hold that it’s any bread-like dough that’s sweetened (a cake), others hold that it’s a pie type of food with a filling(hence the term”kisnin”, pockets), and a minority view is that it’s brittle(like pretzels). We rely on all 3 opinions independent of one another to make mezonos and not hamotzi, unless one has enough of it (or some of it with other food to combine) to have a meal. The Mishna berurah says that this amount is “3 or 4 bayim”,, or egg sizes, which is the equivalent of 8 shot glass sizes of food. Counting the “fluff” is a shailoh.
Pizza has a filling and is hence pas haba bekisnin. However if the dough is baked separately, it is definitely hamotzi. A slice has a lot more than this shiur, yet there is an argument to be made that the shiur describes a seudah, and one slice of pizza as it is eaten culturally isn’t a meal. We may also rely on the stricter opinions for kezayis and say that the slice doesn’t have 4 bayim. The common minhag is to only make hamotzi on two slices, and rav belsky told me that i personally can rely on this. (The implication was that each person should ask their own shailoh).
Yitz, other chasidim from lita, like stolin, did have payos. Litvishe definitely had payos before the gezeros – look at pictures of litvishe gedolim from before the 1860s. Afterwards they dropped it or put it behind their ears, but most litvishe jews (maybe 70%) dropped it entirely. I’d venture that most of the gedolim did keep it however, including verifiable photos of the chofetz chaim, rav chaim brisker, rav elchonon vasserman, rav boruch ber, the alter of slabodka, rav chaim ozer, rav chaim shmulevitz, and many more. Other gedolim, like rav chatzkel, did not have payos.
Juxtaposing chabad and litvishe in this regard is inaccurate; chabad had vastly different minhagim despite being in close proximity. They wore streimels before the last rebbe, while stolin didn’t.
Sorry, that should say “this story is in the sefer merosh amanah, or a different anthology of rav shach’s writings/stories”
Regarding long/short jackets – yidden did not dress like goyim abd merely copy their fashions. The yekkies were so called and criticized for changing their dress simply because the German goyim switched to short jackets. The rest of klal yisroel for many decades maintained long jackets, in Europe, sefardi countries, and yerushalayim. With the winds of haskalah, the litvishe caved and helavei it was the worst thing we did…be’avonosainu horabim it was around that time that the women stopped covering their hair, largely for the same reasons.
Rav shach in a parshah sefer called “merosh amanah”( i believe this story is found there, if not it’s in a different anthology) told
a chasidishe bochur in ponevezh yeshiva was having a hard time in shiduchim, because while he dressed chasidish, he was more aligned with the litvishe hashkofah and wanted that lifestyle. Litvishe girls didn’t want him, and chasidishe girls weren’t a fit. He asked rav shach if he can change to short jackets, and rav shach told him that there’s not a chisaron with short jackets – the olam hatorah wears them. But there is a maalah, an advantage in long jackets. They are a higher level of tznius, so changing for the sake of shiduchim isn’t valid hishtadlus, since it involves a slight yeridah. It’s like how rav moshe feinstein ruled that a shul with a balcony for the women’s section cannot change to a same-floor divisiob, since it’s a yeridah – it’s not bad in itself, but we don’t go down in kedushah, we only go up when we’re able to.
Inquisitive, using a judaicized version of non Jewish languages is a custom adopted by almost every community of jews in our galus. Your examples are a proof of this. It was and is a means of maintaining a separation between us and goyim(open pesukim – ve’avdil eschem min ha’amim – i have separated you from the nations…Hashem said it himself, not the “hasidic rabbis”) as well as an alternative to using lashon kodesh for mundane matters. It has an even more important role in today’s time, as we are more integrated due to necessity in the non jewish world than we were in Europe.
“For some reason” is not at all difficult to comprehend; as you mentioned, it was the norm in most Jewish communities for millenia. So the reason why chasidim speak differently than goyim isn’t a historical anomaly; what you might ask is why chasidim didn’t make a yiddish/ladino/judeo-farsi/judeu-arabic/judeo-aramaic out of English. The litvishe in Lakewood practically do, with vocabulary heavily influenced by yiddish/hebrew/aramaic. Chasidim would probably say that we’re not on the level of pre war jewry and we need to try our best in ikvesa demishicha to maintain whatever we can from our forebears. Halacha (especially the rema) constantly reminds us of our inferiority in Torah compared with previous generations. We don’t know how to identify kosher grasshoppers, we don’t know how to differentiate between “thick” and “thin” mixtures regarding taaruvos, we don’t know how to make soft matzos, we don’t (for the most part) know how to do nikkur, the list goes on and on. People who learn halacha aren’t bothered by the axiomatic principle of yeridas hadoros, while it is a foreign concept to those outside of the yeshivos.
The gedolim of our time(including my rebbe) have said that usually we go down in generations slowly, with the current generation still being able to conceptualize the previous one – after the loss ot the wonderous pre war yeshivos, the gedolim say that it wasn’t a yeridah, it was a nefilah – a cataclysmic fall, to the point where our best hope is to cling to whomever we have left from that time with a humble awareness of our meager stature.
From that perspective, it’s no wonder there aren’t any decidedly “American” minhagim (aside from pizza for melava malka and making krias hakesuba into a kibbud, but i digress), nor is there an American yiddish in the formal sense – we’re not forming “nusach america”, the way European jews 1000 years ago were able to do.
Rambam yesodei torah 6,8, based on shabbos 116, a sefer torah that was written by a heretic is burned, even with the names of Hashem.
If we burn a sefer torah so as not to publicize heresy and heretics, how much worse is it when heretics “pasken” laws that flout halacha and call it a Jewish state?
Aboos; there is no halachik requirement but there IS a source, as you yourself admit that it’s a hiddur. Hiddurim have reasons and sources, and in this case, it was an almost universally observed minhag until the goyim outlawed it/haskalah made jews want to look less jewish.
Chasidim didn’t start the minhag by Ashkenazim or copy it from temanim. Litvishe and almost all other European groups of jews did it until the mid 1800s. The fact that our minhagim, though not found in gemara, were kept by temanim only serve to prove the universal language of torah, which transcends cultures and continents.
Every time the government passes a law that is against halacha, they are burning sifrei torah and we don’t protest
Participant; the English biography “the rebbe” records the satmar rebbe saying this, that the chitzonim grab on to it if it’s longer. The picture on the cover is one of the pictures which has his payos longer – I don’t have an answer for that
1. I believe it was in the time of the netziv; there was a gezerah against having long payos, and the litvishe poskim held that it wasn’t yehereg velo yaavor, and started putting them behind their ears, but the divrei chaim held that it was. The netziv was moser nefesh for it.
2. I don’t think it was general anti semitism; there were often gezeros regarding how Jews dress; the shtreimel is part of that history.
3. What is the reason some people curl their Peyos? No idea
4. Why do some wear their Peyos over their head/under their Yarmulka, coming out on the other side of their face? That’s the minhag by gerrer chasidim. Rav wolfson’s reasoning could apply here, but best ask a gerrer chossid.
5. How long should the Peyos *ideally* be, not considering antisemitism or other external/non-halachic factors? The satmar rov said that it shouldn’t be longer than the chin
6. What is the reason some people have *no* Peyos hanging from their sides (i.e. not even hidden behind the ear)? It’s a minhag, not a din, and once there was a hault to the minhag in many places(and in places like Germany, where the reason was less than noble), many families didn’t restart the minhag.
AAQ, it’s something most parents teach their kids, whether they’re Jewish or not. It’s common sense, but it’s not something I was particularly worried about, even though I’m on the overcautious/, nervous side regarding health issues b’chlal. I was a very fidgety kid and my parents picked their battles. I’m not saying it’s the right thing to do, but I don’t think I got colds very often; it could be that my immune system is used to it due to my never having been careful about such exposure.
There’s an established link between gingivitis and heart disease. One cannot contract gingivitis from doorknobs. I don’t believe that even a frequent cold poses any serious issue.
Huju, there’s ample evidence of non-chasidishe jews having long payos in most communities, including austria- germany, lita, poland, galitzia, and others. Among the litvish, the netziv was moser nefesh to keep his payos long and out. Rav Belsky would often say over that yemenite jews refer to their payos(which are identical to chasidim’s) as “simanim”.
I’m still cautious about touching my face after touching things like doorknobs and other heavily shared surfaces. I was never conscious of it before, because in my mind the worst I’d get is a cold or the flu.
Rav Moshe Wolfson says that having payos behind the ears circumvents a kabalistic problem of mixing beard hair with payos hair, though I would imagine he admits that the direct cause for the change (payos behind the ears, or not at all, i.e rav chatzkel) was anti semitism.
It’s for the above kabalah reason (according to rav wolfson) that the minhag in chabad is not to have long payos.
That’s a really good point! You can daven maariv from plag hamincha, while it’s still shabbos, so preparing for maariv isn’t necessarily hachana for a chol activity
Reb E, by your logic, one should be allowed to clear a table since it can be used theoretically for shabbos, clean dishes, and make beds, because all of those things are items that are used on shabbos – just like a siddur.
Reb E, hachanah from shabbos to yom tov and vice versa is regarding the pasuk of vehechinu, that one must have all the necessary foods one will use on yom tov available to him at the onset of YT, and not that it should be nolad(not in existence at bein hashmashos), or in a state of unavailability (grogros utzmukim).
Those issues have no bearing on, for instance, making beds a few minutes before shabbos ends, speaking out plans for melacha to be done after shabbos, etc… that’s a derabonon issue of dabeir davar. The siddur shailoh has nothing to do with hoil and “hachanah derabbah” as the poskim refer to it.
We pasken there is no muktzeh at all on shabbos (baya 2b). Yet there is the other type of muktzeh (tiltul).
Reb E – that muktzeh is the latter category; it has to do with the preparedness of items at the onset of yom tov. Figs and raisins that were left on a rooftop to dry before yom tov are muktzeh on yom tov even when they dry, because they were inedible (not “muchan”), because he js “maktzeh”(puts aside) daato mehem, he puts them out of his mind.
These issues are discussed throughout mesechta baya, in many mishnayos – the machlokes BH and BS regarding ruffling chickens to mark which one will be used for yomtov, etc..
Ho’il is used regarding that form of muktzeh, not the gezeros of tiltiul/moving items that have no function on shabbos/yomtov. Where do you find in poskim that ho’il is used regarding that type of muktzeh? Baya happens to be my “favorite” mesechta if you will…. I would feel funny if there were something glaring like that that i missed, but if there is I’d like to know.
TS – you and benephraim are conflating hachanah with muktzeh.
Muktzeh: area of halacha that deals with –
A) moving items that have no shabbos use, are expensive and liable to be damaged, or are routinely used for forbidden purposes. (Moving an item that has a use for weekday and shabbos and is not used for a forbidden activity, such as a shabbos/yom tov/ weekday siddur, poses no issue, nor does a weekday siddur, because it is not used for a forbidden activity, it is not expensive/liable to be broken, and ot has a purpose – it can be read and studied). The reasons for this prohibition are subject to a machlokes rishonim. Rambam holds it is so that the way we move items should be different on shabbos, the same way our dress, speech, and walking are different, i. shabbosdik.
B) items that were not available/ready to be used at the onset of yomtov are called muktzeh. This is a machlokes tannaim and we pasken like rebbe yehudah hanasi, that there is such a concept on yom tov but not on shabbos. According to rabbah it is deoraysoh. A person is “maktzeh” , puts these items aside in his mind from useage on yom tov.
It could be you are confusing the two issues because rabbah calls his muktzeh “hachanah”, since whatever one uses on yom tov must be “muchan”, prepared and ready to be used at the onset kf bein hashmashos.
That has nothing to do with the prohibition of preparing food, items, or making plans on shabbos for weekday useage/activity.
Imagine a man who wears a special beketishe lekovod shabbos every week. He maintains it meticulously, and looks forward to honoring shabbos with it every Friday night. One day, his son tells him “ta, did you ever get that beketishe checked for shaatnez? It says wool on the label”.
To his horror, this hero of kovod shabbos somehow forgot to check. He had been wearing shaatnez for perhaps decades. His refilos, though he was shogeg, were not niskabel. He cries and mourns. But he moves on. He recognizes his place in the world and the awesomeness of Hashem, and that he can do teshuva no natter what. Hashem will forgive him even if he intentionally wore it, and certainly if it was accidental.
Realizations are difficult. It takes fortitude and the ability to stand humbly before the ribono shel olam and accept that we aren’t perfect – we make mistakes, whether due to inattention, miseducation, just not “chopping” or other issues. We try our best and know that Hashem knows our fallibility and weaknesses. He is yodeah yitzram, ki heim basar ve’dam.
To not be able to accept the imperfections in ourselves leads to sholom bayis disasters… often husbands reject culpability due to their unwillingness to accept that they were wrong, even though they know it deep down. People lose their businesses over not being mevater. Teachers lose students when they refuse to accept that they’ve erred. And ovdei Hashem like yourself, who shudder at the thought that they’ve been mistaken for decades can lose the chashivus of their avodah if they insist on being right – the choice is yours.
I am leaning towards thinking that it’s mutar in any case, but the emotions behind your thankfully honest reply are not befitting someone who cares deeply about shabbos and Hashem.
Huju, i respect your honesty and ability to admit when you’re mistaken.
Ujm, it’s different because the next parshah is read during the week and by minchah, so you don’t see something that’s only for chol, משא”כ by the siddur, it’s being placed to a chol tefilah.
Benephraim; muktzeh is not being discussed here. This is a question of preparation for weekday.
Placing it for maariv would seem to be hachanah, like removing dishes from a table without time to use it again before shabbos ends. This is a very miniscule action, and i can hear it not being called a maysoh melacha at all. The bookmark is probably attached to the siddur too, which means you’re moving one part of an entire cheftzah.
Good shailoh
Marx, the gemara i quoted above indicates that it’s assur. An argument can be made that privately is different, but that depends how you learn pshat in the gemara. Even if in private, i think there’s still a chashash of kilkul, because she can go out. It’s also a zilusa, not bakovodik for a bas melech.
The minhag is/was to use graggers, “klap”, or stamp your feet by haman(i do the latter). There never was a minhag to make noises so loud that it causes discomfort to many people, and causes them to possibly lose concentration on listening to every word (an important but neglected halacha)
My mistake; I didn’t notice the word “woolen”. I wear mostly cotton. I follow minhag ha’gra for many things (my family is related to the gaon), this being one of them.
I’ve gotten everything except pen marks out with shout, 2 coats, 5 minutes apart
See chazon ovadia purim page 176, based on gemara kesuvos 65a that it’s not proper for women to drink/get drunk; they are therefore not obligated in drinking at all on purim.
More sources;
sefer moadim uzmanim vol 2 siman 190
Shevet halevi vol 10, 18 :2
Orchos rabeinu vol 3 97 records in the name of the steipler that women should drink a small amount of wine, but not to the level of any sort of inebriation.
Shimon, you’re being motzi laaz on hundreds of legitimate chasidus’en
Nevermind… I found it, it’s chagigah 27
Reb E, ot says afilu hareikanim shebach – do you have a source for it applying to poshei yisroel?
What I meant is that when a person with daas baalei batim finds himself at odds with learned people, and his common sense tells him that he’s right, chances are that he’s wrong – not always, but especially if he sees that the Torah community as a whole thinks differently, he should ask himself….are my thoughts the product of my learning? If so, how much more does my work environment/college/media consumption impact my “common sense” and my hashkofa? Rav chaim’s words are much more relevant nowadays than when he said it.
Marx and ubiq; I thought it was clear that I’m being only semi serious
Learning mussar is vastly different from gemara, especially in certain circles where anything mussar/hashkofa oriented is looked at as being mysterious and “hecher”. If he’s from certain yeshivos, and you’re from…say, chaim berlin, it might explain it.
Interesting how in a purim thread, i used your screename as part of a reply – did i inspire you to open an account?
3 minutes is abrupt; sometimes a guy’s abilities and learning personality come out later. It’s also not derech eretz and is extremely offensive to the other bochur/yungerman – especially if he’s been dumped before, which is likely based on what you’re aaying.
Daas baalei batim is “hepech” of daas torah(rav chaim brisker), so if you’re an average jew, just flip what you consider to be common sense and you’re probably thinking in the way the Torah want you to.
Ujm, our tefilin, daled minim, and tzitzis are unquestionably of higher quality than what we had hundreds of years ago – it’s not being motzi laaz on previous generations, but if we have the efsharus of making matzos without the many shailos that (at least our) hand matzos invariably have, then ma tov uma naim