Milhouse

DC, how are those two ways? The case of R Akiva definitely proves that it is appropriate to identify a living individual as Moshiach when it seems to be the case, even if it might still turn out otherwise. But the fact remains that Bar Kochva was <i>not</i> Moshiach. Therefore R Akiva’s identification of him as Moshiach was mistaken. Surely you don’t dispute that. You don’t still expect Bar Kochva to return and be Moshiach. Maybe his neshomo will be in whoever does finally come to redeem us, but the actual person who is Moshiach will be someone else.

What the Rambam is telling us is that even though R Akiva was mistaken, he did the right thing, and if the same circumstances were to arise again the next day he would have done it all over again, and not been afraid to make the same mistake twice. And that we should do the same, and not be afraid of being mistaken.

You just answered your own question — look how that worked out.

No, it was a reply to Sam Klein’s suggestion.

LYT, if you’re not going to say the bracha you may as well not say it at all. The whole point of saying it is in order to be able to say the bracha. The price you pay for that is that you are yotzei the mitzvah in a way that is not as Chazal instituted it, and by the time you repeat it properly you have already been yotzei. If you say it without a bracha then you have the worst of both worlds — nimtza kereach mikan umikan!

The RMA records the minhag Ashkenaz not to say hallel after maariv at all. Obviously those who follow that minhag every year will do so this year as well. But what has that got to do with those who do say it every year, in shul? Where do you get the idea that the RMA would tell them not to say it this year, at home? R Shachter paskens that way. I don’t think he is correct, and I intend to say it. He links it to publicity, but it has nothing to do with that. The reason is because of the bracha, and that consideration applies just as much this year as any year.

R Schachter’s psak is on yutorah.org. I’m just reporting it, not saying you have to follow it.

For what it’s worth, I disagree with his psak about saying Hallel after Maariv on the seder nights. He paskens that even those who usually say it should not do so when davening biy’chidus, or even when davening with a home minyan all of whom will be at the seder. It seems to me otherwise, and I will be saying it, even though it looks like I will be completely alone both for maariv and for the sedorim.

Those who say Morid Hatal start saying it at musaf, as normal.

For those who don’t normally say it, the question is when to stop saying Mashiv Horuach. R Hershel Schachter has paskened that on musaf of the first day of Pesach they should say Morid Hatal, even though that is not their usual minhag. At mincha they should start their normal summer minhag of not saying anything.

Yid, yes, that’s precisely the point. An individual has no obligation to read the Torah, but a community does, and for the last three weeks our communities have not fulfilled this obligation. When we are finally able to do it again, let’s say for Parshas Shmini after Pesach, we will have to make up at least some of that obligation. There is a machlokes how much we will have to make up. One opinion is that we must read all the parshios that we missed, i.e. from Vayakhel through Shmini. Another opinion is that we don’t read from two sefarim, so we will read from Vayikra through Shmini. And a third opinion is that just as when an individual misses multiple tefillos he can only make up the last one, so also the community can only make up the last parsha that was missed, so we will only read Tzav and Shmini,

anhy123, the question was about the seder, where roasted meat is NOT ALLOWED. Both of your delicious-sounding suggestions are roasted, so are not suitable.

GHT, yes, grilling on the BBQ is roasting, and is not allowed at the seder. Pot roast, i.e. baked or cooked without added liquid, is not allowed either.

But baked with liquid shouldn’t be any different from cooked with liquid. After all, what difference does it make whether it’s cooked in a pot on the stove or in a pan in the oven? The main thing is that there is liquid, so it’s not a kind of roasting.

See siman 476, and the nos’ei keilim.

Goldilocks, the farmer (who I do not believe is dati) didn’t ask questions, he asked the supreme court (a body that believes it is the true government of Israel) to ORDER the Rabbanut to declare this a leap year. The Rabbanut of course has no authority to do that even if it wanted to. In addition, I believe that it is completely assur for a Rov to take orders from any government entity on how to pasken.

Joseph, they often didn’t decide whether to make a leap year until late Adar, sometimes as late as the 29th. Once it even happened that they did it on Rosh Chodesh which would have been Nissan, but chazal disapproved of that.

Mobico, having read the lawsuit I don’t believe the plaintiff is dati.

Reb Eliezer, I don’t follow your reasoning. You say the idea is dangerous because if they did it we’d eat chometz on pesach. But if they could do it it would be Purim. The problem isn’t that doing it is bad or dangerous, it’s that the people who can do it aren’t available. There was still time for them to reassemble and do it until tonight. Now it’s too late. Even if Moshiach comes tonight (US time) it’s already rosh chodesh Nissan and therefore too late to make it Adar.

This idea is very dangeous. We would eat chametz on Pesach.

If we added an Adar then it wouldn’t be Pesach. And if the Sanhedrin is reestablished today, maybe it will decide to do just that. But without a sanhedrin we unfortunately just don’t have the authority to do it.

Weddings should be done with a rabbi, the couple, and two kosher eidim.

You need a minyan in order to say the 7 brochos.

In fact now that I think about it I’m pretty sure I saw a service over 30 years ago, before there was even a world wide web, that let you sell your chometz by email.

I am looking at the letter now, and will summarize it.

First, it’s dated 2 Nitzavim 5591, and addressed to Rabbi Eliyahu Gutmacher, the rav of Pleshen, where the epidemic was happening.

Tefila betzibur should be done in shifts of approximately 15 men, starting at daybreak, and each person should be told what time to come. The same for mincha.

After davening, both morning and night, they should say a few chapters of tehilim, and then Kel Rachum Sh’mecha, Aneinu, Mi She’ana, and the Yehi Ratzon after tehillim, and also pray for the king, his family and ministers, and all the country’s residents. Also at each tefila, morning and night, after Parshas Hatamid the whole Ketores should be said betzibur, and then the Ribon that is printed in the Maamodos for Sunday after the Ketores.

To enforce the 15-man cap ask the police to station a guard. Ask the magistrate and tell him I said so, and if he refuses then write to the government here (in Posen) and you will certainly succeed if you use my name and tell them I gave you all this advice, including to say tehilim and pray for the king.

Also, collect 6 Polish groszy (known in Hebrew as “gedolim”, because of their size) per person, including unborn babies, and make a Pidyon Nefesh with the money, and send some of it to me so I can also make a Pidyon Nefesh for you, and then distribute the money to the poor.

Beware of the cold, each person should wear a flannel cloth over the abdomen. Don’t eat bad things, especially cucumbers. Reduce consumption of fruit, fish, and beer. Don’t eat to satiety, and try to eat many small meals. Be careful with hygiene, don’t let any filth lie around the house, change into clean clothes several times a week. Don’t be depressed, don’t go for walks at night, go out for a walk in the fields on sunny afternoons. Open the windows every morning to air out the rooms. Don’t go out with an empty stomach. Eat a few mustard seeds on an empty stomach. Wash your face and hands every morning with oak bark and water. Clean rooms a few times with strong vinegar mixed with rose water (presumably for the smell).

On the contrary, it’s the high threshold that is causing the problem, since it throws away votes and forces people into unnatural blocs. Though the main problem with the threshold is that votes for lists that don’t make it over the threshold are thrown away. If those votes were subject to the same transfer rules as the excess votes the larger parties get, the problem would be much much smaller. And if instead of restricting transfers to one pair of lists, predetermined by the party leaders, they allowed each voter himself to decide where his vote should go, as they do in Australia and as NYC has now decided to do, then the problem would really go away. The Knesset would really represent the people’s preferences, and a majority could be formed by negotiating with each small faction independently, just as it would if you had to negotiate with the voters themselves. Or, if no majority can be formed among the people, then there SHOULDN’T be a government imposed on them by a minority.

So sell it to me and I will sell it to a goy. I have no such silly hangups.

Assuming that “firewood” can be chometz (i.e. it’s not actually wood, it’s edible, but its primary purpose is to use as fuel, such as “shemen sreifah”), why would it be a problem? Buy it now, and sell it over Pesach. Even if you’re one of those people who (for some reason I do not understand) won’t eat chometz that was sold over Pesach, you’re not planning to eat this “wood” anyway, so what’s the problem?

On the contrary, when drinking water to wash away an obstruction in ones throat one derives no benefit at all from the water. If one could easily and conveniently spit it out afterwards one would probably do so. Ditto for swallowing water in order to wash down pills, or to wash away bile in the mouth. One has no wish to swallow the water, and does so only since it’s inconvenient or impractical not to. None of that is a benefit from the water. Hydration, however, is the primary benefit that people derive from water, just as nutrition is the primary benefit people derive from food, and therefore does not depend on pleasure of the palate.

Daas yochid, if you “just want to hydrate yourself for health reasons”, that is לצמאו. If you are dehydrated then you need water, therefore you are thirsty. It is exactly the same as eating flavorless food when you are malnourished; how could you possibly imagine that this would not be called לרעבונו, or that you would be exempt from a bracha? The principle here, as always, is אסור להנות מעולם הזה בלי ברכה, so a bracha is necessary if and only if there is הנאה. Eating flavorless food, or drinking plain water, when one is full and hydrated, produces no הנאה, therefore one says no bracha. Doing so when one is malnourished or dehydrated, i.e. hungry or thirsty, produces הנאה, therefore one does say a bracha. Anything else is פלוידעריי.

“My understanding is that if you drink water for pleasure, you say shehakol. But if you drink water simply to keep yourself hydrated, you don’t say a blessing.”

You have seriously misunderstood the halacha. Drinking to keep yourself hydrated is the only case when you DO say the bracha, since that is the only case in which you derive benefit. It is OTHER uses, such as washing down pills or bile, that do not have a bracha, because one gets no benefit from ingesting the water.

The reason coffee is not ho’eitz is because all the coffee that was put in the water is then taken out. It’s like a vegetable soup from which all the vegetables were removed after cooking.

While our modern science of physics tells us that since the soup is not pure water there must obviously be some substance of the vegetable left, and that if we were to dry out the vegetables we removed and then weigh them we would inevitably find that they weigh less than they did when they were put in, the halacha’s view is different.

The halacha’s view is that color, taste, and smell have no substance themselves, no mass, but are merely properties that a substance has; מראה אין בו ממש, טעם אין בו ממש, ריח אין בו ממש. When you cook vegetables in a soup and then remove them, the same vegetables went in and came out and all that they did while they were in the water was to impart to it color, taste, and smell. What you have left, according to halacha, is not water with particles of vegetable in it, which carry color, taste, and smell, but rather pure water that happens to look, taste, and smell differently from normal water, because it spent time closely associated with the vegetables and learned to copy them.

Therefore the bracha on the soup — or on the coffee — is the same shehakol that we say on normal water. If we were to drink the coffee itself together with the water, then the bracha would be ha’etz. Which leads us to the question of hot chocolate, and the achronim struggle to understand why we should not say ha’etz on it, since the cocoa powder is not removed but is drunk together with the water. (The achronim do not discuss chocolate itself, i.e. the hard substance that we call chocolate stam, because it was not invented until about 1800. All mentions of “chocolate” in achronim refer to hot chocolate.)

This leads to the question of instant coffee. “Reb” Eliezer, with his “daas baalei batim”, thinks it’s more obvious to say shehakol on instant coffee than on regular brewed coffee. But the opposite is true. What is instant coffee, after all, but brewed coffee from which the water has been removed? If it were indeed true that color, taste, and smell have no substance, then instant coffee could not exist. The jar would be empty. But the fact is that when we buy the jar it is full, and we take a spoon of this very real physical substance and dissolve it in water, and drink it without removing anything. So it’s harder to understand why it’s not ha’eitz.

By the way, this same principle that color, taste, and smell have no substance, is why if you spill wine into a mikveh and the water’s color changes it is pasul, but if you soak a dyeing substance in fewer than 3 login of water and remove it, and then spill the water into a mikveh and change its color, it remains kosher. The halacha regards the color that the dye imparted to the water as having no substance, while the wine obviously does have substance.

Eli (I refuse to call you “Reb”), the rise in antisemitism is all coming from Trump’s enemies. Because the Democratic Party tolerates antisemitism, while the Republican Party does not. There are no open antisemites in the GOP; any that are discovered are kicked out. But in the Democrats they are honored and powerful, and those who don’t like it are very careful not to offend them. So naturally their supporters feel free to lash out, while pointing figures at a bogeyman called “white supremacy” which just barely exists.

To the original question, Trump is not a good person. If being a good person were a requirement for being president I would have to oppose him. But he has been a good president over all. I didn’t support him in the Republican primary four years ago. My choices were Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal, and Rick Perry. But all three crashed. In November I didn’t vote for either major candidate, and I expected Trump to be just as bad as Clinton would have been. I have been very pleasantly surprised, and I intend to vote for him this year. On the other hand, if something were to happen to him I think Pence would be a much better president; he would have all of Trump’s maalos and none of his chesronos.

“We are destroying the ozone layer through carbon emissions ”

That makes no sense, even if you believe the garbage the totalitarian left is putting out. Carbon dioxide has NO CONNECTION to the ozone layer.