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Pashut pshat is definitely how R’ Henkin explained it, and in fact that’s how R’ Chaim Kanievski explains it in the Shoneh Halachos which you linked. But even if you somehow say that the Chazon Ish was referring to the Mishnah Berurah even individually, then nolens volens he is also referring to the Beit Yosef and the Magen Avraham individually. Aside from the impossibility of this (since the Magen Avraham often disagrees with the Beit Yosef, and the Mishnah Berurah often disagrees with the Magen Avraham and often disagrees with the Beit Yosef), it would come out then that every ruling of the Beit Yosef is like a Sanhedrin, yet Ashkenazim rarely follow him when he is opposed by the Rema and/or the great Ashkenazi Acharonim.
DaasYochid:
That’s not what the Chazon Ish wrote. What he wrote was:
??? ??? ?????? ??????? ??? ?????? ??? ????? ??? ???? ??? ??? ??”? ??”? ???”? ???? ???? ?? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?”? ??? ????? ?????? ??? ???
??????? ????? ????? ???? ??? ?? ???? ???
To quote R’ Y. H. Henkin again:
“The CI says only that a ruling of the Bet Yosef and MA and MB all together– and that no one disagrees with– is like a ruling of the Sanhedrin, ayen sham.”
And he further points out that “The CI could hardly have thought that MB alone is like the Sanhedrin, as he disagrees with him in practice dozens of times.”
By the way, I think that part of R’ Schachter’s point in that shiur was that the Mishnah Berurah didn’t have a mesorah for how to pasken. Which might be related to the other point about him not being a practicing Rabbi.
Sorry, I don’t have Yeshurun.
When he says “pesak hamekubal” I assume he means the accepted halachic practice, and that the Mishnah Berurah didn’t care as much about it.
In a somewhat similar vein, R’ Michael Broyde wrote:
As to whether the Mishnah Berurah was the de facto, go to sefer in Europe, having not lived then, I don’t know. All I can say is that I have never heard anyone who had lived then, say that the Mishnah Berurah was accepted, while I have heard people who had lived then, say that it was not accepted. Additionally, I pointed out earlier that the popularity of a sefer does not necessarily reflect on its halachic acceptance.
I don’t think it was cheating. But it was giving a dishonest impression of himsel.
Earlier today I was seriously considering posting the following line:
I’m just waiting for Popa to say “money, money, and money”.
I guess I had underestimated him.
Regarding the Rambam and shechita of tzedukim, the Chazon Ish discusses it in Yoreh Deah Siman 2. R’ Hershel Schachter says it over in a shiur at yutorah entitled “Q and A – Tanach, Textual Differences in the Torah, Deciding Halacha, Choosing a Profession” at around.
I was just going through that shiur again to quote in the Aruch Hashulchan thread, and I see here that I wrote “at around” without actually giving the time. So now I will rectify that: It’s at approximately 25:28.
Ok, I went through my files and I found a shiur in which R’ Schacter said it. It’s entitled “Q and A – Tanach, Textual Differences in the Torah, Deciding Halacha, Choosing a Profession” and is available on yutorah.
If the moderators want to allow the link, it’s:
He discusses it at approximately 58:18.
Coincidentally, in the same shiur, at approximately 49:49, he says the story I quoted earlier demonstrating why you have to know all of Shas. It’s actually two separate stories which he says one after the other.
shulchanhashalem:
I understand why you would not accept my anonymous report about R’ Herschel Schachter. Though he has said it in shiurim which are available on yutorah. I will try to locate one of them.
It happens to be that I just remembered that I have a copy of an interview of R’ Schachter which was printed in Kol Hamevaser in 2010, in which he says this idea. Here are two quotes from it, about the Mishnah Berurah:
The Mishnah Berurah then picked up on that idea and took it further. The truth is that the Mishnah Berurah is really more appropriate for benei ha-yeshivah and not for balabatim, since yeshivah bachurim usually have the luxury of being machamir, whereas balabatim generally do not. They used to quote in the name of Rav Henkin that the Mishnah Berurah is meant for yeshivah bachurim while the Aruch ha-Shulchan is more for balabatim, because the Aruch ha-Shulchan is often noteh le-hakel (tends more to be lenient).
And:
[emphasis added]
Anyway, all good points as far as Harry’s luck is concerned, but you seemed to say his success was incidental and not by design or skill.
I agree that much of it was by design. My point is simply that it was not through Harry’s skill or hard work. Which I guess explains why he was put in Gryffindor – Ravenclaw and Slytherin are for those with skill, Hufflepuff is for those who work hard, and Gryffindor is for those who engage in activities without the requisite skill/work (and perhaps have guardian angels protecting them), and to make it sound good they call it “bravery”.
Ok, I think I might have let out too much of my cynical side. I do acknowledge that Harry’s courage definitely contributed to his success. But he was catapulted to success/fame on the skill/work of others who are rarely given credit.
Since this came up in my previous post:
I raised this point back on page 2, namely that Harry had won Malfoy’s wand, not the Elder Wand. People responded to me that as long as you gain the allegiance of one wand, you automatically gain the allegiance of all wands of that person. When I questioned why that should be, sirvoddmort said “she makes the rules”. But actually, saying that JK Rowling makes the rules doesn’t even address the issue. Because Harry based his plan on the knowledge that he gleaned from Ollivander.
Let’s see what Ollivander told him:
matters. Much also depends upon the wand itself. In general,
And:
out of his pocket and handing it to Ollivander.
Brittle. I was forced to make this shortly after my kidnapping, for
Peter Pettigrew. Yes, if you won it, it is more likely to do your
Ollivander swallowed.
And:
I do not know. Its history is bloody, but that may be simply due
to the fact that it is such a desirable object, and arouses such
passions in wizards.
So we see that all Ollivander told Harry was that winning a wand will grant you its allegiance. He does not say anything about other wands owned by the same person. So who told Harry to make such an extrapolation, especially considering that there is no compelling reason why it should be true first place? At the very least, he should have asked Ollivander about this specific point if he was staking the entire future on it. And Ollivander specifically said that he did not know if this rule applied to the Elder Wand.
So Harry’s “outsmartingness” was actually complete foolishness based on an illogical extrapolation of a principle, and an application of the illogical extrapolation to a situation where the world’s expert was explicitly unsure as to whether the principle itself even applied.
Saying “she makes the rules” does not address this.
NeutiquamErro:
It may not be as bad as I make it out to be, but I personally would be devastated to be sorted into Hufflepuff, due to the implications.
But you can always assume that you got chosen for being hard working and not because you are a reject.
Regarding luck, I was just using it as a generic term for things accomplished not through his own skill/work. My point includes the fact there were greater wizards orchestrating events.
Also, he didn’t “outsmart” Voldemort. He simply had access to information which Voldemort didn’t have access to. And anyway, I still hold that his “outsmartingness” shouldn’t actually have worked (see my next post).
And when I mentioned all villains making the same mistake, I wasn’t referring to Harry Potter; I was referring to all stories.
NeutiquamErro:
Hufflepuff didn’t only take the rejects. They specifically chose those who were loyal/hard-working. They just also took the rejects. So it’s not quite as bad as you make it out to be. I would probably rather be in Hufflepuff than Gryffindor (except that Gryffindor has a better view), and I would certainly rather be in Ravenclaw. I also view Slytherin as better than Gryffindor, but in practice there might be good reasons to avoid going to Slytherin.
Speaking of Harry’s luck, I find it fascinating that throughout the series, Harry almost never accomplishes anything with his own skill/hard work. Things are always done for him or he gets incredibly lucky.
Book 1: The only notable thing he did was catch the key, which somehow he was born as the greatest flyer ever.
Book 2: He didn’t do anything remarkable. A sword came out of the hat just at the right moment, and a phoenix happened to heal him when he ahould have died.
Book 3: In one of the few times that Harry worked hard to accomplish something, he mastered the Patronus charm, which is pretty commendable. That was about the only notable thing in this book (other than somehow defying all rules of existence and logic with a time turner – see earlier in this thread for my still unanswered kashya on that.)
Book 4: This book is probably the prime example. Harry literally had everything done for him. Someone else put his name in the cup. Someone told him what the first task was. Someone basically told him what to do in the first task. (Maybe he should get credit for learning the summoning charm, except for the fact that had he been an even half decent student, he would have already known it.) Someone basically told him what the second task was. Someone told him what to do in the second task, and gave him the necessary supplies. Someone was eliminating obstacles for him in the third task, and even eliminating contestants as well. Then Voldemort could have killed him on the spot, but of course he had to toy with his victim first, and gave him back his wand.* Then Harry offers the feeble attempt of a disarming charm and gets lucky that his wand connects with Voldemort’s. Then the echoes of his parents tell him exactly what to do. In sum, he literally did nothing on his own in this book.
Book 5: He foolishly puts all his friends in danger, which actually leads to Sirius getting killed. Then precisely at the moment when Voldemort’s spell is about to kill him, Dumbledore swoops in and saves him.
Book 6: He earns a sterling reputation in potions by using someone else’s work. He again puts his friends in danger, though this time none of them died.
Book 7: He and his friends infiltrates the ministry with barely a plan, though luckily they escape. Someone basically gives him the sword.
He gets captured and Dobby rescues him. Someone lets slip that the cup is in Gringotts. Again, he leads an expedition with barely a plan, but luckily (thanks to a dragon) they escape. He sees in a vision that the diadem is in Hogwarts and he just happens to have stumbled across it the year before. Then Voldemort’s curse doesn’t kill him. Then he is able to beat Voldemort because he has the allegiance of Voldemort’s wand.
In sum: Harry is not anything special. He always has someone helping him, or is simply in the right place at the right time.
But at least he’s better than Ron, who in seven books, did all of two useful things.
* Why is it that every villain makes this same mistake?
NeutiquamErro:
The “subtle implications” I was referring to, were not based on the threee main characters perspective. Gryffindor is made to seem like the best house. It’s always mentioned first. Many awesome wizards/witches were in it. Their crest is a lion.
Speaking of “hero material”, I would be more likely to describe it as hotheaded impetuousness. Especially Harry. There were many occasions where he played the hero. Did he have a plan in any of them? No. If not for the fact that he somehow always gets lucky, he and his friends would have been dead many times over. The need to be a hero is not a good trait, I think.
Why is it that people think that Gryffindor is the best? It’s definitely subtly implied in the books. But when you think about it:
Gryffindor = bravery
Slytherin = cunning/ambition
Ravenclaw = intelligent
Hufflepuff = hard work
I think Gryffindor’s characteristic is the least important. Why would anyone want to be in Gryffindor?
secretagentyid:
Do you mean 35b? There he says ???? ???????? and ?????. Though I don’t know of a Rashi that says ???? ???? ??.
Either way, you’re bringing a Rashi against explicit pesukim, an explicit Pirkei D’rabbi Eliezer, an explicit Gemara, and an explicit Rosh.
Regarding the proof from Yevamos, I was assuming that if he’s not a man then he is a woman. He wouldn’t be a child just because he’s not married. And his bones would only melt if he’s past 20.
Also, I did Shticky Guy’s Strange Quiz and I got a different result.
The quiz is designed in a way such that you will automatically end up having to choose a country beginning with “D”. I chose Dahomey. Then for an animal that begins with “Y” I chose Yak. For a color beginning with “K” I chose Keppel. So I was 0/3 on Orange Kangaroos in Denmark.
While I was doing the quiz, I figured that someone might say that Dahomey is invalid because the country is now called Benin, so I also did it with Dominican Republic as my country which led me to Crab as my animal which gave me Bistre as my color. So I was again 0/3.
Once someone brought up this thread, I disagree with I can only try’s solution to frummy in the tummy’s riddle about the three guys and Bin Laden. In I can only try’s solution, the one who figured out which color hat he was wearing did so by making presumptions about what the other two guys would be thinking. Now these presumptions were on the fact perfectly logical. So why didn’t the other two guys figure it out too? Well there are two possibilities:
1) They lacked the capabilities of logical reasoning.
2) They would have in fact figured it out; they were just slower than the third guy, and the deal was that only the first guy to figure it out gets to live.
The problem is that either of these two possibilities render the third guy’s thought process invalid. His response was based in the fact that neither of the other two guys had figured out that they were wearing black hats. Well if they lacked the capabilities of logical reasoning, or were slower than the third guy, then the fact that they didn’t figure out that they were wearing black hats doesn’t prove anything.
Now it could be that frummy in the tummy was trying to preempt my point when he said:
It could have been Huey or Dewey who figured it out as well, but Louie happened to be faster today.
But it doesn’t really preempt it because it’s basically the same as my second possibility – if they weren’t so quick on that day, (then in the hypothetical scenario where the third guy had a black hat) they might not yet have figured out that they were wearing red hats.
In other words, none of them should ever be able to figure out what color hats they are wearing because they only gauge they have of the speed of each other’s thought process is how quickly they figure out which color hat they are wearing, by which time the game is over.
shulchanhashalem:
I pointed out that popularity of a sefer is not indicative of what the accepted psak was.
Regarding the methodology, I have heard R’ Herschel Schachter say it multiple times.
shulchanhashalem:
I’m not claiming that the Mishnah Berurah is the only sefer ever to use such a methodology. My point is that some poskim didn’t like that methodology, especially because it often changed the established halacha.
The fact that people wanted copies of the Mishnah Berurah does not indicate that it was accepted l’halacha. I own a lot of seforim which I don’t pasken in accordance with.
I quoted the sefer Minhagei Lita back on page 3, about how the Mishnah Berurah was not accepted. So I’ll quote two specific examples that he gives:
1) “The Magen Avraham takes issue with the Ari’s decision and concludes that even the Ari agrees to expose the actual fringes. Although the Mishnah Berurah with the Magen Avraham, he does not mention the prevailing custom does not follow the Magen Avraham. No one in Lithuania wore his tzitzis hanging out as people do today, not even the Rabbonim, not even in Radin” [emphasis added]
2) “Despite the suggestion of the Mishnah Berurah to repeat the word zeicher to acomodate the opinion that the reading is zecher, in the Telshe Yeshiva and most other places in Lithuania they did not repeat it. In fact, according to former talmidim, they did not observe this custom even in Radin, where the Chafetz Chaim had his Yeshivah.” [emphasis added]
If you have any counter-evidence regarding these two examples or about other cases, I would be interested in hearing it.
Also, I’m not claiming that the Gra’s popularity is entirely due to the Mishnah Berurah. All I’m saying is that it definitely contributed. My point was that like the Mishnah Berurah, in his time the Gra was not generally followed.
MDG meant the first; I meant the second. That’s why I altered his joke.
The main issue with “counting” acharonim is as R’ Schachter says, that there was a “psak hamekubal” and the Mishnah Berurah changed it. Let’s say for example that the Chayei Adam had access to twenty acharonim and the Mishnah Berura had access to 40 acharonim and therefore overturned many of the Chayei Adam’s conclusions. Well let’s say that I have access to 60 acharonim, so now I overturn the Mishnah Berurah’s conclusions. And soon someone will have access to 80 acharonim and he’ll overturn my conclusions.
People who lived in Europe at the turn of the century, have testified that the Mishnah Berurah was not followed – even in Radin. Similarly, the Gra was generally not followed, even in Vilna, except by his talmidim. In fact it’s very likely that the Mishnah Berurah contributed to the Gra’s popularity.
I didn’t say that no great mechabrim were not practicing Rabbis. It’s just that one of the reasons why many poskim favored the Aruch Hashulchan is that in a choice between two works which serve the same purpose, it’s better to use the one which was written by an actual practicing Rabbi.
My syllogism:
1) ?? ????? ????? ?? ??? (Shavuos 29a)
2) ??? ???? ???? ?????? (Rosh Berachos Chapter 3 Siman 13)
3) Ergo, ??? ???? ???? ?????
It depends if the punchline is meant to emphasize the lack of prophet in Yeshivos, or the plethora of profit in Seminaries.
There is a joke that Yeshivot are non-prophet institutions.
You’re missing half the joke. Here’s the full joke:
Q) Why do seminaries learn Nach and Yeshivos don’t?
A) Because Yeshivos are non-profit organizations.
R’ Mordechai Willig, in ??? ???? volume 38, wrote:
??????? ???? ??????? ??? ???? ???? ????? ?? ???? ????? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? ?????? ????? ??? ??? ????? ?????? ???? ????? ????”? ????? ??????? ???? ??? ?????? ????”? ???? ??? ????? ?? ???? ?? ??????
SaraCFL:
No need to apologize. But can you clarify? Are you saying that your mother and brother counted one pomegranate and it had exactly 613 seeds? Are you saying that they counted many pomegranates and consistently found that they had exactly 613 seeds? I personally have counted several pomegranates and never found one with 613 seeds. Also, even within a specific variety, there are always different sizes. It does not seem particularly logical that there could be a variety in which every pomegranate has the same amount of seeds, because there isn’t any variety in which all the pomegranates are the same size. Now it could be that within one variety, all the pomegranates are somewhat similar and therefore there could be a variety in which the average pomegranate has 613 seeds, but as I pointed out to Sam2, there wouldn’t be any way to determine that. If you counted 1000 pomegranates and came up with an average of 613 seeds, you could just count one more pomegranate and the average could change to 614 seeds. Now it’s also possible that the rabbinic statements about pomegranate seeds, were not intending to be so precise; in other words they simply meant that there are around 613 seeds, perhaps say, as range of 550-650. It’s possible, but it would be severely limiting their statements to an approximation about one variety. And I still wouldn’t be sure if that could be, because it’s possible that even within a variety there is a big range of size. In the pomegranates I have counted, I have gotten some closer to 600 and some closer to 1000. Now I don’t know if they were all the same variety, so I am speculating somewhat.
“Indeed, a husband should prevent a wife from doing this and not allow her to go out more than once or twice a month, as is necessary.” [emphasis added]
Comlink-X (I only just realized that it’s a capital X):
I was making a joke that POE’s Law is actually PAA’s Law and you must have misspelled it.
Your defense will be accepted once you come up with a way that “having pictures of girls dating (i.e. a picture of a girl on a date) would help,”
to justify understanding Lior’s statement that way.
Do I have to assume that any statement someone makes is a logical argument?
I got my hands on a “Tzuras Hadaf” edition and I saw that the statement is indeed the Rema’s.
I found a string of text. The problem is that if when I posted the earlier string of text here, it somehow made google forget about the other page, then posting another unique string of text would also cause google to forget the other page. But they don’t call me Patur Aval Assur for no reason – I found a unique string of text and I reversed it and posted it here (and noted that you should reverse it), so that the other page would still be the only page on the internet with that unique string of text. But alas, the moderators did not approve the post.
I haven’t yet seen anyone who claims that there was any change in nature. I also don’t think anyone specifically said that every pomegranate has 613 seeds. They mostly just said “pomegranate” or “the pomegranate”. Though I have seen several different versions. Some just say “it has 613 seeds”, some say “more than 613 seeds”, some say “seeds like the number 613”, some say “only 613 seeds”, and some say “many seeds”. Also, a few of them express varying degrees of skepticism.
I don’t think any of them said what SaraCFL said, that it’s only one variety of pomegranate.
From an interview with Yossi Green:
Jewish Community Radio: Mr. Green, I ask this of a lot of different musicians that we interview; what exactly is Jewish music?
Jewish Community Radio: Almost like Simon and Garfunkel.