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Joseph,
How long/often does a name need to be used before it is considered a “traditional”? And how do “new” names, such as “Chaim” (no one in Tanach or Shas has that name), become acceptable?
Is this explained in any sefer from R’Chaim somewhere? (I apologize for not reading through that other thread).
DaasYochid,
Yes (my rebbe and presumably newbee’s rav). However, it is only if he KNOWS that he will have taiva/pleasure from the rescue.
Sam,
Yes, at least according to the Bais Yosef. See Bais Yosef, Yoreh Deah 195, divrei hamaskil “V’kasav od b’Terumas Hadeshen” and Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 195:16-17.
Another problem with OU “chalav stam” is that the OU allows milk from cows which have had their abomasum pierced. If your posek holds that this makes the cow a treifa, OU chalav stam is just treif (because the cows that get pierced are more than 1/60).
R’Chaim Kanievsky has a list of “legitimate names”?? I have a very hard time believing that.
Joseph,
I was responding to a post by mik5 who was upset about seeing people shaking hands with women. My point is not to advise anyone to shake hands with women, everyone should ask their own shaila. My point was this: “Bottom line, don’t get upset when you see frum Jews shaking hands with women. Dan them l’kaf z’chus that they asked their Rav before doing so and know that yesh l’hem al mi lismichu.”
Now, as it happens there is a machlokes haposkim about whether derech chiba is an objective standard or a subjective standard. Arguably it is a machlokes between the Mechaber and the Rama. And the Toras Hashlamim (Yoreh Deah 195:15) certainly seems to hold it’s subjective. The posek under whom I learned holds that derech chiba is subjective (as does Rabbi Yitzchak Weinberg in his sefer on yehoreg vaal yaavor) and therefore when it comes to shaking hands a person must make a split-second asessment. I am only not mentioning his name because it might identify me.
mik5,
The Chazon Ish paskened as you wrote. Rav Moshe paskened as wrote (although Rav Moshe acknowledged that many erliche talmidei chachomim disagreed with him). If you hold, like Rav Moshe and the Chazon Ish, that shaking a woman’s hand is an issur d’oraisa then of course you are right.
But if you hold that m’ikur hadin shaking a woman’s hand is not an issur d’oraisa and/or is mutar altogether, then hefsed mamon or hefsed merubah can be a basis for allowing it.
You might ask “if it is mutar why do you need the hefsed altogether?” The answer is that notwithstanding the ikur hadin in America one should be machmir like Rav Moshe under normal circumstances. But if there is a situation of hefsed most morai horaah in America will be meikil.
“Nowadays you can get a Rav to say just about anything and give any sort of heter for any sort of nonsense.”
That is ridiculous. If you “heter-shop,” maybe. But I am not talking about finding the one Rav in town that will matir something. I am talking the most likely answer you will receive. I personally learned the gedarim of shaking hands from my rebbe long before it ever became nogeiah (pardon the pun) l’maaseh.
Halacha, in our days without a Sanhedrin, is determined by the consensus of morei horaah. There are many piskei halacha from the Chazon Ish that are not followed by the vast majority of Talmidei Chachomim. There are many piskei halacha from Rav Moshe that are not followed by the vast majority of Talmidei Chachomim. And there are issues for which there is no widespread consensus, where there are multiple camps with different shittos. Ask your rav for your own personal shailos, but don’t impune the frumkeit of others when they are just following the psak they received from their rav or their rabbeim.
Newbee and DaasYochid,
I submitted a post explaining that the two of you are arguing over something that is a machlokes haposkim but for some reason the moderators haven’t put it through.
In short, Rav Moshe holds derech chiba is objective. Other poskim, such as Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac Weinberg, hold that it is subjective. It is question of how to understand the Rambam.
Joseph,
I mentioned 2 names, Rav Yaakov and Rav Shimon Schwab. I have discussed the question personally with multiple “yeshivish” rabbonim. I am not saying their names because when someone asks a personal shaila, the response is meant for him alone, not for publication unless the rov says so. Rabbonim are often reluctant to publish heterim because they do not trust that the heter won’t be misunderstood/extended. This is why modern written sefarim are always more machmir than what you find when you ask a rov a question personally (and why english seforim are most machmir of all). There are thousands of frum, erlich baal baatim that will shake a woman’s hand in a business situation based on the advice of their rov. You are dreaming if you think that this is anything but a mainstream view.
Mik5,
Do you know that “hefsed mamon” and “hefsed merubah” are commonly used terms in halacha? There are many things that are allowed in cases of loss of money, more things that are allowed in cases of a signficant loss of money (hefsed merubah), and if the loss is more than a third of your assets, even bitul esaih d’oraisa is mutar. Frankly denying the concept of hefsed mamon is much closer to kefirah than using hefsed mamon as a basis for a heter.
Joseph,
First of all, Rav Moshe acknowledges in his teshuvos that there were rabbonim who disagreed with him as to whether shaking hands was derech chiba. Second, Rav Yaakov (m’pi hashmuah) and Rav Shimon Schwab both disagreed with Rav Moshe and the Chazon Ish. Third, I have spoken with multiple rabbonim on this issue, it is very common question. The almost universal response I have received was: try to avoid hand-shaking situations as best you can, but if someone sticks out their hand you can shake it quickly (or with a “wet fish”).
My rebbe (who I will not name for obvious reasons) is a substantial posek in his own right and he holds that derech chiba is subjective (so it depends on a rapid self-assessment).
Feivel, hugging is different because it is objectively derech chiba.
mik5,
If that is genuinely the Chazon Ish’s position, it is certainly not the mainstream opinion. I have learned the sugya and discussed the issue with multiple rabbonim. Many, if not most, poskim would hold that if a woman sticks out her hand you can shake it quickly to avoid embarassment and/or potential loss of money. Some would limit this ruling to cases where you know that there will be no feelings of chiba.
Only negiah derech chiba is yehoreg v’al yaavor and only if the woman is Jewish or married (nidda is only d’rabbanan for non-Jews). According to some “derech chiba” is subjective and would depend on a self-assessment of potential for chiba when shaking hands (one posek said that shaking hands can be a question of d’oraisa on either side, so that if you decide there is no potential for chiba you have to shake to avoid embarassment and if there is potential for chiba you cannot shake because of the issur nidda).
According to others, e.g. Reb Moshe, “derech chiba” is objective and the question is how to asses shaking hands. If shaking hands is objectively an act of chiba, then it would be yehoreg v’al yaavor (presumably this is how the Chazon Ish holds). If shaking hands is not objectively an act of chiba, then it would not be yehoreg v’al yaavor.
Bottom line, don’t get upset when you see frum Jews shaking hands with women. Dan them l’kaf z’chus that they asked their Rav before doing so and know that yesh l’hem al mi lismichu.
My favorite illogical argument:
Extrapolation from the observed to the unobserved is a valid method to draw conclusions about the way the world works because we have used this method successfully in the past.
Colored shirts are definitely not a problem in BYCC (or anywhere else for that matter). You have to sign that you do not have a TV to send your child there.
Lior,
7 altogether (5 at night and 2 by day). Everyone was in close walking distance, so they walked home.
I don’t know the answer to you last question.
Boruch Hashem we had a great Shabbos at my house. We invited many of our non-religious neighbours for the Friday night and Shabbos day meals using the Shabbos project as a convenient excuse for something we really wanted to do anyway. It really allowed us to break the ice and we had really enjoyable meals with good feelings and promises to return all-around.
The Shabbos Project in my mind is not about getting people to keep one Shabbos, it is about the frum community reaching out to their less fortunate bretheren and showing them a little of what makes Shabbos, and by extension Torah, special. Hopefully, that small experience will blossom into something greater and more of Am Yisroel will have a conection with Hashem and Torah.
Randomex,
I think you are being naive as to how the world would react to Israel’s reinvasion of the West Bank. While the war might be intially viewed as justified, the subsequent occupation will bring us back to the current status quo. Some new group will arise within the West Bank claiming to represent the Palestinian people as a partner for peace and renewed independence.
I agree that they should have their own state. But I know there are security concerns about Israel not being able to control some strategic areas the details of which are beyond me. I am loathe to assume that this is something that can be done easily.
I do believe, however, that once the Palestinians have their own state it is likely that they will eventually use it to launch a war against Israel, requiring Israel to reinvade and restarting the whole conflict again.
One story I find very relatable from Avraham Avinu is when Sarah asked him to send away Yishmael and Avraham didn’t want to do so. For Avraham this was expelling his son from his home. Avraham ultimately does it because he knows it is what Hashem wants but it is still a very bad thing in his eyes and very painful.
I think we see multiple times in Tanach and Chazal that Avraham Avinu viewed Yishmael as his son, and loved him very much. Avraham had a very hard time giving Yitzchok such primacy over Yishmael. Such cruelty to his flesh and blood was very difficult even though it was the right thing to do.
A parent that has to take a hard-line with a rebellious child for the good of the rest of the family can surely look to Avraham for inspiration.
A lot of alternative medicine has been subject to controlled studies. Some alternative medicines work for some conditions, most do nothing and some are harmful.
Read “Trick or Treatment” by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst.
Torah.org has excerpts from Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan’s essay. According to Rabbi Kaplan it is a three-way machlokes Rishonim:
1. R’Chasdai Crescas holds that there is intelligent life on many other worlds (that is how he understands the Gemara in Avoda Zara 3b).
2. Rabbi Yosef Albo (baal sefer HaIkarrim) holds that only human earthlings are intelligent life.
3. The Sefer Habris holds there is intelligent life elsewhere but they do not have free will. Only humans have free will.
No. The whole point of Reish Lakish is that one’s predestined wife will never be so bad as to become a Sotah, in other words Hashem doesn’t saddle a person with such a rishanta as a wife as a matter of mazal. The only way to have such a woman as one’s wife, is to “earn it” through one’s own bad maasim.
I believe that Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan has an essay about whether there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe. I think he concludes that it is a machlokes Rishonim.
PAA,
I will admit that I was learning the Gemara according to Rashi (I even think the language of Rashi in contrast to Tosafos Shantz is mashma like my pshat), so I took it as a given that the Gemara’s question was on Reish Lakish as well. Hence I was bothered that according the Gemara’s teretz Reish Lakish was only talking about second marriages, this seemed dochek, and it led me to my current pshat that Zug Sheini, as used in the Gemara, doesn’t mean second marriage.
According to my understanding, Reish Lakish is saying that if a person’s wife becomes a Sotah it is siman that she became his wife not be because of predestination but because of his bad maasim. In other words she is his zug sheini (according to my reading). I don’t see why that is shver.
PAA,
I am maskim that the loshon of Tosafos, especially in Moed Katan, is ambiguous and certainly not more in favor of my pshat. It is the content of Tosafos’s question that I think is better according to my pshat.
In regards to your second paragraph, you have not answered my question. My question is that the answer in the Gemara in Moed Katan doesn’t require an ukimta but according to you the Gemara in Sotah does require an ukimta. It would seem therefore that the answer in Moed Katan is better and Tosafos should ask his question in reverse.
According to me, while similar the two answers are different and the one in Moed Katan is significantly bigger chiddush and therefore Tosafos can reasonably ask that the Gemara in Moed Katan should say a smaller chiddush. Why is Sotah a smaller chiddush? Because from Sotah all you see is that you can change your mazal to your own gain or detriment, but you don’t see that you can change someone else’s mazal even if they don’t deserve it. In Moed Katan the Gemara is saying that through tefillah a person can change someone else’s mazal even if the other person doesn’t deserve it!!
On Reish Lakish, the mashmaos of the Gemara is that Reish Lakish statement was his introduction to the learning of Sotah, implying that a person would only have a wife who was a Sotah if he was a rasha himself. It would be a very odd introduction to Sotah if it only applied in a minority of marriages. I think the answer according to you, requiring a second marriage ukimta to Reish Lakish is very dochek and sort of defeats the purpose of what Reish Lakish was saying.
P.S. Thank you for brightening up my workday with a little learning!
PAA,
The phrase ???? ??? ???? ????? ???? ??? doesn’t mean that say the case over there was referring to a second marriage, it means that Shmuel is worried about a ??? ???, i.e. your second, earned, match. Shmuel was referring to a ??? ??? in terms of the how it would be possible that “yekadmenu acheir.”
The language in Tosafos in Moed Katan is just quoting the language in the Gemara in Sotah, meaning in terms of whether or not you have to fear someone else coming and taking your shidduch, this is something you should not have to fear if it your zivug rishon (predestined match) but you do have to fear if it is your zivug sheini (non-predestined match).
I am maskim that the Maharetz Chayes (mis)understood the Gemara like you and therefore has a question on Tosafos. But Tosafos understood the Gemara like me and therefore the Maharetz Chayes’ question falls away.
Furthermore, according to your reading of the Gemara, Tosafos should have asked a reverse question: Why doesn’t the Gemara in Sotah answer like the Gemara in Moed Katan? The answer in Moed Katan, that maybe someone will take her away with tefillah (i.e. break the mazal), which doesn’t require placing limits on statements that were made stam.
Most importantly, your way of reading the Gemara in Sotah doesn’t answer the Gemara’s question. The Gemara is medayek that Kinui is a bad thing and quotes Reish Lakish who would start Sotah by saying that a person only gets a wife who is a Sotah if he is/was a bad person himself. The Gemara then asks from Rav and the memra of 40 day prior to yetziras havlad. If the Gemara’s answer means that a person only get’s a wife he deserves by a second marriage that would imply according to Reish Lakish there are no Sotah’s from first marriages!?! Kenit zain a za zach.
PAA,
Fakert, Tosafos’s question is much better according to me. I think I might not have been clear enough. Zivug sheini does not mean Second Marriage. It means Second Match. A person has a predestined match that is set well before he or she is born. That is your first match. However, because Ain Mazal L’Yisrael, you can break that destiny and thereby warrant a new match. This new match is not predestined at all and requires Hashem to rework creation. I am happy that I was mechaven to the Beer Sheva and the Chasam Sofer b’shem the Arizal. I think this is pashut pshat.
Asks Tosafos, if that is the case what is the Gemara’s question on Shmuel in Moed Katan, because a person does not know if he has earned a second match, one that is not predestined, he should absolutely be permitted to be m’arus on Cholo Shel Moed because maybe this girl is his zivug sheini. That is a very good question.
Ma shein kein, if you learn that zivug sheini means a second marriage Tosafos’s question is very weak. The mashmaos of Shmuel’s statement in Moed Katan, and the halacha, is in no way limited to someone’s second marriage. It is therefore not surprising that the Gemara did not want to use this answer.
(I am maskim that the Tosafos Shantz is saying not like me, but I think that Rashi and Tosafos are like me)
The Shidduch a person can earn by breaking out of his Mazal. So zivug rishon is the person that is announced 40 days before yetziras havlad. If a person manages to break their Mazal they can earn a zivug sheini which is based on merit. Because this requires a reworking of all of creation a zivug sheini is extremely difficult to accomplish.
GabbaiSheini,
I was thinking the same thing. Girls go to E”Y to young. It would be nice if the norm could be for Bais Yakov’s to have post-high school programs for two years and girls would only then got to Seminary in E”Y. Let them enter the shidduch market at the same age as boys.
PAA,
I think you are learning wrong pshat in Sotah 2a (the phrase “zivug sheini” as used in the Gemara doesn’t mean a second marriage). Just sayin’.
Randomex,
Look up the Gemara (which is discussing that very issue). It is at the end of the first perek of Yevamos.
Doesn’t Shmuel say in the Gemara (somewhere at the end of a first perek?) that the aseres hashvatim mixed with the non-Jews and were declared by Chazal to have a din akum?
To Crisis of the Week and the OP:
There are plenty of counter-arguments to whatever this young man read on the internet. The internet is full of poor arguments for atheism. Have the kid speak to someone who actually knows something about science and philosophy. Depending on how sophisticated the child is, there are different books I could recommend.
As many have written, miracles are a poor basis for faith unless they happen to you personally (and even then “yesh belibo dofi”). That being said extended encounters with true talmidei chachamim past and present can be a very strong basis for faith, not based on miracles, but based on the combination of genius, integrity, and loving-kindness of the Gadol.
I have personally had borderline miraculous things happen to me where I have seen the efficacy of tefillah. When they happen your emunah is very strong, but after time passes and the impression lessens you start to rationalize them away.
His sefer on Sanhedrin, ??????? ???, is used (to the extent the yeshivish velt learns Sanhedrin).
crisisoftheweek,
People here are not talking professional “mekubalim,” that prey on the desparate. They are talking about tzadikim, men of integrity, who might have instances of extra insight beyond that which is apparent from use of the normal 5 senses.
I recall Rabbi Avigdor Miller saying on one of his tapes that Ruach Hakodesh, as it is used in post-talmudic seforim, means a form of siyata dishmaya to make the right decisions and say right pshat.
PAA,
We can criticize ISIS from a religious perspective (i.e. we are right and they are wrong) or from secular perspective (they present a current, active threat to everyone in the Middle East, while Israel does not). The problem is only if you mix the two. I don’t see a problem criticizing ISIS for its brutality and cruelty so long as Jews and Judaims today are not similarly brutal and cruel.
000646, you wrote:
“You can judge “morality” of a group or ideology objectively by looking at it and seeing if it imposes suffering on the world or does the opposite.”
There are two problems with this position. First, as you yourself hint at, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to determine what will impose the most suffereing over the long term. ISIS might argue that they are causing a lot of suffering in the short term but in the long term the world will be vastly better off under a thousand-year world-wide caliphate. There is no way to demontrate, or even provide evidence, that ISIS is incorrect.
Second, and more fundamentally, by what objective means did you determine that “suffering” or the lack thereof, is the most important thing? Maybe truth is the most important? Maybe justice is the most important? My what objective means did you determine that it is moral and good to avoid suffering and immoral and bad to cause suffering?
I suspect that your “objective” standard, is really just your personal subjective likes and dislikes. You dislike suffering and so you call it immoral.
As a matter of fact our batei din were never bloodthirsty the way ISIS is. Executions were extremely rare. But that is beside the point. The main difference between us and ISIS (and us and the Nazis and every other bad group that ever lived) is that we were right and they are are/were wrong.
Meaning, there is no objective, outsider, point-of-view that can be used to examine the actions and positions of any group from a moral perspective. Our morals and values are shaped by the society we are brought up and reside in. Very little, if anything, can be said to be objectively bad.
Klal Yisroel received a direct transmission from the Creator of the Universe as to what our morality should be in many different situations. The same Creator that revealed that infanticide, in general, was wrong, also said that in the special circumstance of the shiva umos, it was required.
We, and modern society that was influenced by us, find the killing of children to be so repellant specifically because we have imbued the value of the sanctification of life into society as a whole. I do believe that the mitzvos are meant to achieve that effect on us, making violence against the innocent repugnant to us.
Sam2,
Rabbi Bleich discusses this “psak” on surrogacy in one of his Contemporary Halachic Problems books.
writersoul,
The likelihood of a mutation occurring in any given generation is unlikely, but here we know there was a mutation and that mutation is no more likely to have occurred with Levi than to have occurred with Aharon.
In other words, every mutation is an unlikely event but they have to have occurred sometime, and Aharon is as good a place as any, especially considering that it is primarily Kohanim that have the gene.
PAA,
That is based on a midrash in Targum Yonason ben Uziel that Leah davened and Hashem switched the fetuses.
Rashi brings down a shita that Dina married Shimon (with whom she shared both father and mother). There is also a midrash that Dina married Iyov.
Sefer Hayashar is also of unclear origin and reliability.
That being said, I would recommend adding to the contract the following: “I am signing this contract and committing to these rules with the understanding that they are subject to reasonable exception in my best judgment as parent to my child.”
The reason a Rav would counsel someone to lie on such a form is because the school knows that their rules, as written, are extreme, and that the parent and student body are not following them. In fact, in many cases the school itself doesn’t follow the rules as written.
As such the terms in the contract are a guzma, an exaggeration, and because both parties know it is an exaggeration, it is not a lie to sign it even if you have no intention of keeping it literally (so long as you have intention of keeping its real meaning/purpose).
Mashul l’ma hadavar domeh, if it is common among shadchanim to lie about the ages of older singles, then it is mutar for a given shadchan to “lie” about a given single’s age because everyone in the field knows that you have to take the ages given with a grain of salt.