Yeshiva

"Es" and Naming

2011-11-27T19:36:00.007-05:00

A transitive verb takes a direct object. In Hebrew, this object is preceded by the word es. But there is a caveat to be entered. Transitive verbs come in two kinds. Crudely speaking, a transitive verb represents an action taken in regard to an object. Now, sometimes, quite often actually, this object (its existence) antedates the action taken, as represented by the verb. However, in other instances, the object is brought into being by this action; it did not exist previously. Now, if we look around, we find that it is not in all instances that the direct object of a transitive verb is, in the Torah, preceded by es. Often it is; but sometimes it isn’t. What accounts for this? Without yet explaining it, I want to suggest that the situation bifurcates itself with whether the object of the verb in question is being brought into existence by the the action represented by the verb or it is not being brought into being but, already existing, is merely acted upon. In the letter case, there occurs an es; in the former one, not. It is as if the es implied that there was something there for the designated action to operate upon.

To this it will immediately be objected that the verse uses es with bereishi bara elokim. And here, the heavens and earth are represented as being first brought into being! This, to be sure, is a seemingly powerful rebuttal. But in amelioration, I want to suggest that the situation there is distinctive, in that not only did the object of the verb not yet exist, the materials from which it was to be composed were not in existence either. In other words, the heavens and earth were to be created ex nihilo. Indeed, the object in question was matter itself (see the Ramban). Now, I want to further suggest, that the reason that es is not used in conjunction with an object that does not already exist is that there is a lack of definitiveness; and an indefinite object does not command an es prefix. This indefiniteness arises from a state of affairs in which an object needs to be formed by means of a certain composition of preexisting matter; and the manner of composition is (as yet) unknown. It is indeterminate. However, where it is to be created ex nihilo, there is no unknown quantity, matter, to speak of. The object is thus independent of any unknown source. Consequently, it is not wanting in definitiveness. So it is suitable for taking an es prefix.

Good. But now another, seemingly more formidable problem comes to the fore. In countless places in the Torah we find es omitted in conjunction with an object that already exists. Furthermore (to make matters worse), we find one and the same object sometimes prefixed by es, sometimes not. A case in point (actually a series of them) is the use of es in this week’s parsha (Vayeitzei), where the word for a name - sheim - occurs several times in the position of a direct object, fully complemented by an es prefix. Thus we read: (Bereishis: 30,11) vatikra es shemo gad. And a few verses ahead we find vatikra es shemo asheir. There are similar other such instances. Yet, remaining ensconced in this very same context, we also find vatikra shemo re-uvein, vatikra shemo shimon, and other comparable instances in which the leading es is omitted. How are such disparities to be accounted for (on my theory)? Is giving a name creating something new or not?

Let us try to reason it through. Should shemo re-uvein be prefixed by an es or shout it not? On the principle that es is used to prefix an existing object but not to prefix a non-existent one, it might appear that it should not. After all, the name re-uvein had not pre-existed; it was first being formulated by Leah and applied, for the first time, to the newborn (unnamed) child. This logic would, then, account for all those instances in which sheim was not prefixed by es. But what about those instances in which it was? Perhaps we can conjure an entirely different logic. Perhaps, true though it be the the infant was newborn and being named for the very first time; nevertheless, the name that he was given was not per se new. The name had a semantical, connotative origin, delineated in the verse itself as an explanation of Leah’s decision to name him thus. Moreover, it was being applied to the infant who had already been born and, therefore, very much in existence. (Vatikra shemo... can thus be parsed something along the lines of vatikra es hayeled besheim...re-uvein.)

This thinking, then, accounts for the instances in which es is used. But seemingly, it has got to be one way or the other, not both ways! Why, then, do we find vacillation among the verses in this regard – seeming inconsistency?

Here, then, is what it occurs to me to say. There are, indeed, two ways in which to refer to something (designated by the direct object of a transitive verb). One is as a fully specified independently existing thing. It needs merely to be identified, that is, picked out. Its description (or, at least, one of them) is presumed already known. The other is as something not so definite and not so objective. Its identity is not presumed already known but is furnished in place through description, provided in the very context in which mention of it is made. In the latter case, there is no occurrence of es; only in the former.

One and the same type of thing can be referenced in either way: as something needing merely to be identified or as something with whose essence acquaintance has first to be made. So it is with, for example, a newborn’s name. The name can be thought of as preexisting, taking the shape of an idea previously encountered, familiar from other contexts. It is merely being here re-applied. It can, on the other hand, also be thought of as conjuring up something novel: a newly configured aspect under which something is to fall, one whose contours have yet to receive definitive concretization. In the latter case only is a process of dynamic creativity at work. For this reason, it makes do without an accompanying es.

In the one case, the act of naming is conceived as merely specifying. The child is conceived of as inherently having a name; the mother (in this instance) does something to it, by specifying its identity. It is as if the name per se had preexisted. All that was needed was for it to be called something or other. It could be called any of a number of things. Whatever it is called, it remains the child’s name, something (a name) which the child had all along. It is as if an as yet unnamed child already had a name (which awaits being called something)! Perhaps the idea is that the name a child is ultimately given is one it had had all along – existing initially in an inchoate or undisclosed state. The act of naming merely crystallizes it or reveals it. In any event, in the other case, though, a name is thought of as something brought into existence through the act of naming.

It would be interesting to see if this theory is borne out. If it is, it will then turn out that es is withheld not only in connection with objects that reference things first being brought into being but, as well, with objects representing preexistent things whose contours have not, however, been (adequately) fully defined – and whose definitions therefore await elaboration from the very contexts in which these objects appear.

There Is No G-d Other Than You

2011-11-26T20:38:00.000-05:00

Ein elokim zulasecha. How is this to be read?

A) Other than the G-d that You are there is none.

B) A “god” other than You there isn’t (i.e., does not exist).

Only on reading A is the word elokim holy.

More on the Bechor

2011-11-18T08:10:00.001-05:00

The Gemara struggles to understand why the Mishnah found it necessary to enumerate all these cases and not rely on our independent inferential powers. The Gemara offers that, if the Mishnah had only mentioned the case of buying a fetus from a goy, we wouldn’t have inferred the case of selling one to a goy because, by selling a fetus to a goy, the seller divests it of its sanctity. And although this distinction is irrelevant to the animal’s status as a Jewish-owned one, it might still have impacted on our disposition to treat the two cases alike as far as the requirement to redeem a first-born is concerned. In might have led us to think that the case of selling should incur an obligation to redeem, so that the amount expended in fulfillment of this requirement might serve as a penalty for the injustice of relieving the animal of its sanctity. Notwithstanding the fact that the animal is not Jewish-owned and, therefore, not subject to the Torah-imposition of redemption, we might nevertheless have supposed that the injustice perpetrated by causing the animal to be relieved of its sanctity would justify a rabbinic imposition of such a penalty and a requirement to treat the animal as if it had conformed to the specifications of a first-born donkey with regard to which the obligation to redeem applied. So that we are not thus misled, the Mishnah made it a point to specify the case of selling a fetus to a goy in its enumeration of instances with regard to which the obligation to redeem is relaxed.

Peter Chamor

2011-11-16T17:29:00.000-05:00

Ok. Suppose you’re a Jew and the one next to you is goy. His donkey is carrying an as yet unborn offspring, and you buy it from him. Assuming that this will have been the first offspring that the donkey in question has produced, are you obligated to treat it as a peter chamor and redeem it? The Mishnah says no. Now suppose that you have one (you have a donkey that’s carrying an offspring) and you sell it to him (the as yet unborn offspring). The Mishnah says two things. First, you are not really allowed to sell it to him. And second, if you sold it to him anyway, you are not obliged to treat it as a peter chamor. What if you and the goy are partners in the ownership of a donkey or of its as yet unborn foal? There too, the foal is not treated as a peter chamor. What, now, if you have entered into an arrangement with him, whereby you get a share in the donkey’s offspring, receiving some of them? Here too, the firstborn offspring you receive is not subject to the requirements of peter chamor. What if, instead of an arrangement whereby you receive some of the produce of his donkey, you enter into one by which he receives some of the produce of your donkey? Are you required to treat the firstborn foal of this donkey of yours as being subject to the laws of peter chamor? No. In each case, the criterion of being that of a yisra-el has not been met.

Character

2011-11-13T11:10:00.000-05:00

Befallen with calamity, the Shunamis had come to see Elisha. Upon approaching his abode, she was initially met by Geichazi, who immediately asked her how things were. She responded saying things were fine. Only when, finally, meeting with Elisha did she reveal her true state of desperation and anguish. Evidently, she hadn’t come just to brood. Her mission was purposeful and urgent. Her example is a true inspiration and merits a lot of contemplation.

Certainty and Doubt

2011-11-11T08:25:00.001-05:00

Within thirty days, if someone forgets mashiv haru-ach, he’s supposed to repeat. If he’s unsure, he’s also supposed to repeat. Suppose he’s unsure but he does not repeat. Suppose, further, that in point of fact (kamei shemaya galya) he said it. Does he miss out?

When they said that someone who is unsure has to repeat, did they assimilate it to the case in which someone has no doubt that he failed to mention it, in which case they impose on him to repeat? Or did they not assimilate this case to that one, but instead said that this is what you do to resolve your doubt: take the stringent path and act as if you knew that you had not said it? On the first view, they assimilated the case of doubt to the case of certainty objectively, giving them the same status and, therefore, the same ruling. (Their thinking may have been that chances favor his not having said it. THEY thus resolved the question for him and rendered their ruling.) In the one case, like in the other, they obligated him to repeat. On the second view, by contrast, they did not pronounce on the objective status of the situation but, instead, addressed themselves to the subjective condition (characterized by a state of doubt) of the individual, instructing him how to go about in resolving this inner tension.

There is something to be said for the suggestion that on the resolution of this latter conundrum depends the resolution of the former.

The Obligation to Give

2011-11-10T12:34:00.000-05:00

In the Shulchan Aruch it says that someone who is approached by a poor person asking for a donation is not allowed to let him go empty handed. He needs to oblige him. To this Reb Ya-akov zl stipulated that it applies only when being approached by the poor person himself. It does not, however, apply when someone is approached by someone who collects in behalf of a poor person or poor people. Much less, he added, does it apply when someone is approached via a mailed solicitation.

It happened that someone announced in shul that he was authorized by the administration of the shul to appeal to the congregation for funds for the benefit of a certain cause. The members of the congregation made pledges in response to the appeal. It transpired, however, that he had made his claim falsely and had never been so authorized. Reb Ya-akov zl ruled that the responders were not required to honor their pledges, and that their pledges were considered to have been made in error and were, therefore, not binding.

(Adapted from Bemechitzas Rabeinu)

Hatov Vehameitiv

2011-11-09T09:19:00.000-05:00

Shebechal yom vayom hu heitiv hu meitiv hu yeitiv lanu... Ostensibly, it isn’t so! On any given day, He does good for us on that day, for that day. What He did for us yesterday was good for us then. It is not, however, good for us now, today! What is good for us now is what He does for us now. Similarly, what He will do for us tomorrow will be good for us tomorrow. But it seemingly has nothing to do with what is in our interest vis-à-vis today! So, then, why does not the mevareich stop at saying: shebechal yom vayom hu meitiv lanu?

From this we see that it isn’t so. We see that His having done good for us yesterday is in our interest today, and that He will bestow good on us tomorrow affects us today and makes it good for us in the very present. Why so? Because an isolated benefit, as good as it is, pales in comparison with a continuous one. If I receive something as an extemporaneous gift, I may be very pleased and ingratiated to my benefactor. But my worries aren’t over, as I’ve still got the future to think about. When, on the other hand, I receive something that is ongoing, it makes a difference to my exultation and gratitude in the very present. I am secure and provided for! This is the sense by which I am overcome.

But there is also another point. A person doesn’t live just for the present day. To meet his goals, a person needs a whole expanse of time, the greater perhaps the better. Consequently, I am grateful to Him today not only for what He does for me today but, equally, for what He has done for me yesterday and the day before, inasmuch as the past has been crucial to my ability to accomplish what I’m trying to accomplish today. And the sustenance that I will receive tomorrow, and so on, is likewise essential to by ability to bring my accomplishments of today (and yesterday) to fruition in the period lying ahead. Therefore, I’m never just grateful for His beneficence to me today; I’m always grateful to Him for the good He has already bestowed upon me and for what He will bestow upon me going forward. All of this matters to the present, which is importantly continuous with, and linked to, the past and the future.

And it goes even beyond this. On any given day, He does good for us not only for today but, also, for yesterday and tomorrow. By sustaining me today, He makes it so that what I did yesterday will potentially reach fruition, which is a goodness vis-à-vis yesterday. And by the same token, He makes so that it will be good for me tomorrow, whose success depends on what will have foregone today. By sustaining me today, He makes it so that yesterday was good and so that tomorrow will be good, in addition to making today good.

(Of course, in a more literal vein, you could interpret it as saying that, with regard to each and every day, He either did good for us, does good for us, or will do good for us.)

* * * *

ADDENDUM

On each and every day, He did us good, He does unto us good, and He will do for us good. Why so? Isn’t it rather that on each day He does us good: period? That He did us good is something that occurred prior to today; that He will do us good looks to beyond the present day. Does it not? All He does today, though, is what is good for today! On the other hand, it is true today that He did us good yesterday, and that He will do us good tomorrow. But why is this important? The answer is that the good of the present, the past, and the future are inextricably intertwined. Today’s good builds on yesterday’s and supports tomorrow’s. The good that He bestows upon us has a long-term trajectory. Today’s good is but an element of the total good, in which it takes its appropriate place.

Another thing: Apart from the fact that the continuous span of good bestowed upon us is all intra-connected, we want to thank Him each day for all three of what He has done, what He does, and what He will do. We have so much to thank Him for...all the time!

* * * *

With regard to each and every day it is true that He has (previously) done good for us, He does good for us, and He will do good for us. I want to thank Him for all three on each and every day.

Furthermore, they all connect, in a significant way, to what He does for us today. What He did for us yesterday led up to the good He does for us today. And what He will do for us tomorrow flows out from the good HE does for us today. Past and future good meet in the present.

My ability to appreciate the good of the past is heightened by my perception of the good of the present. My appreciation of the present at the same time makes it possible for me to recognize and acknowledge the good that the future holds in store, which will improve on and further my present condition. In each case, one good leads to the next.

The good that He bestows upon us is not discrete. It is continuous and multifariously integrated and interconnected. It forms a seamless web.

How One Pays

2011-11-08T09:13:00.000-05:00

In Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat, it is ruled that any excess of funds raised for the benefit of a given indigent person belongs to this indigent person. In other words, if more money was raised than this person needed to extricate himself from his squalor, he gets to keep it. Even if he had already gotten out of his predicament before the entire sum of money was depleted, the residue is his for him to use at his discretion. Reb Ya-akov zl was approached for an explanation of this seemingly enigmatic ruling. Why not return the excess funds to their donators, or direct the monies to someone else who is a needy state? His reply was that the indigent person paid for the entire sum collected in his behalf through the toll it took on his honor and sense of dignity. It was not money got for nothing: the beneficiary paid dearly through the disgrace he endured. This is why the Shulchan Aruch goes on to rule that, in the event of this erstwhile poor man’s demise, any remaining funds is passed on to his inheritors. It is also why, Reb Ya-akov continued to explain, it is ruled that, if he is a kohein, he is entitled to reject a particular presentiment of teruma on grounds of its being beneath his dignity. As someone whose honor has been sacrificed and compromised, he retains the discretion to spend it as he sees fit. (From Bemechitzas Rabeinu)

Form and Matter

2011-10-23T10:08:00.000-04:00

Bereishis bara elokim eis hashamayim ve-eis ha-aretz.

What does bereishis mean?

In the beginning. The verse says that in the beginning G-d created heaven and earth.

What does this mean?

It means that heaven and earth were the first things G-d created.

Does Rashi interpret the verse this way?

No. Rashi offers two possible (alternative) interpretations.

What are they?

The first is homiletic. The verse is understood to mean that because of the Torah and because of the Israelites, both of which are called reishis, G-d created heaven and earth.

The second transforms the verb bara into a noun and reads the verse as saying that in the beginning of G-d’s creation of heaven and earth. Accordingly, the verse is not saying that heaven and earth were, sequentially, the first things to have been created. Instead, the verse is detailing what heaven and earth were like when they were initially created. It is saying, in particular, that veha-aretz hayesa sohu vavohu.

Does the Ramban agree?

No, he vehemently objects.

What does he say?

He says that bereishis is to be understood as meaning the first. The first things that G-d created, the verse tells us, were heaven and earth.

How does the Ramban get around Rashi’s objection that the creation of water preceded the creation of heaven?

The Ramban offers an original way of understanding the thrust of the verse and of the verses that follow.

What would that be?

He distinguishes between matter and form.

Isn’t that an Aristotelian distinction?

I suppose it is.

According to the Ramban, the first things to have been created were two types of formless matter: heavenly and earthly. For reasons of manageability, we’ll confine our attention to the earthly type.

Did Aristotle posit a primordial formless matter?

This is a good question: but our subject is not Aristotelian philosophy.

The verse of bereishis is understood to mean that the first thing that G-d created was formless matter (called in Greek yehuli). Its creation constituted creation ex nehilo, something out of nothing. The remainder of the story of creation, on the other hand, is a story of the forms that G-d went on to impose on this original matter (formless). It is, in other words, not a story of creation ex nehilo.

How does the Ramban interpret the second verse: veha-aretz...?

He understands the words veha-aretz hayesa sohu vavohu as an allusion to the transition from formless matter to formed matter that G-d’s initial creation had undergone. The words veru-ach elokim merachefes al penei hamohyim, in turn, give a description of the initial form that matter took. In particular, it ascribes to it the form of the four elements: water, earth, air, fire. (The Greeks knew of this too.) (Here the Ramban seems to offer a Ptolemaic view of the cosmos.) With this initial arrangement in place, G-d went on to fashion the earthly world. On the first day He created light, and so on. In so doing, He was working with materials that had already been created.

I see.

Drama on the Parkway

2011-10-18T19:49:00.000-04:00

It was the second day yomtov, sukos. I was making my way up Ocean Parkway, headed for the Bodners. I had just gotten through davening at the Mir, shacharis and musaf including, of course, the duchaning. We were going to have the yomtov se-uda. It was to be very yomtov-dik, the tables set majestically and the suka walls adorned magnificently with no-i suka. Lighting fixtures would be found gallantly suspended from the spaces interspersing the expanses of sechach, illuminating the interior and enhancing the ambiance immensely. The suka was to be filled to capacity, bla”h, family surrounding the methodically configured tables, sitting in neatly arranged chairs, close-together enough to economize, small enough to fit, but big enough to comfortably accommodate. Children would leap to and fro, making joyous noises, music to the ears. Obedient they would be, cleaving to every order to quiet down and stand still as to the roar of a royal trumpet. At length the masterly recital of the Kidush would commence, each word enunciated articulately and rendered melodically. All attention was concentrated on the blessing over wine, the intention, on the part of all assembled, to be yotzei through the reader’s agency felt palpably. Then would come the washing, then the betzi-as hapas, then the fish, and then, finally...the question.

* * * *

Something on the order of an hour before, as I stood listening to the shali-ach tzibur as he repeated the amida and anticipating his arrival at the section designated for birchas kohanim, I found myself caught by surprise by something on the page of the sidur. It had to do with the nusach of vesei-areiv (other say, veserav) that is recited in the midst of the birchas avoda during the chazaras hashatz of musaf, just ahead of the enunciation of the duchening. The birchas avoda begins in retzei and, ordinarily, concludes with vesechezena eineinu beshuvecha letzion berachamim, whereupon the chasima, baruch ata heshem hamachazir shechinaso letzion, is recited. The formulation of vesei-areiv is, when it is recited, inserted toward the end of retzei.

In the nusach that we, benei ashkenaz, follow, the vesei-areiv addition, which is, indeed, incorporated into retzei, occupying the trailing part of it, closes with vesechezena eineinu beshuvecha letzion berachamim. And in this respect it resembles the ordinary birchas avoda (which is to say, retzei). However, there is something that contravenes this similarity. After the usual vesechezena, and before the final chasima, there occurs the following insertion: vesham navadcha beyira kimei-olam uchshanim kadmoni-os. This is something that is not usually said in retzei. And in conjunction with this change, there occurs another, this time affecting the chasima of the beracha. Instead of concluding, as we usually do, with baruch ata hashem hamachazir shechinaso letzi-on, we conclude: baruch ata hashem she-osecha levadecha beyira na-avod. I found myself puzzled by this realization and couldn’t put my finger on the reason for it.

As I pondered the perplexity, I noticed something else in the sidur. It featured an alternative formulation that it imputed to the benei eretz yisra-el – displaying the two formulations side-by-side. In this other formulation, which in most respects concurs with the first, ashkenazik one, the words vesham na-avadcha... occur not immediately following the words vesechazena but, on the contrary, right before them. Concomitantly, the beracha concludes in the way in which it ordinarily does, with the vesechezena clause. In addition, the chasima takes its ordinary form, baruch ata hashem hamachazir..., as well. This only added to my consternation. After all, both formulations were of the same content, but for a seemingly minor juxtaposition of clauses toward the end. More than being puzzled by the difference in the two formulations of the inner content, I found myself bewildered by the differing chasimos. Given that the content of the two formulations was identical in both cases, why should a slight modification in the sequencing occasion a major change in the chasima?

* * * *

As I sat at the suka table partaking of the delicacies and enjoying the ambience, I took the initiative to pose this question to the host. It did not take him long to respond with a ringing reply. He made the (now obviously simple) point that a beracha’s chasima reflects the content of the closing segment of the beracha’s inner content. This is something of which I had not been fully aware. I had thought that it simply reflected the inner content as such, without regard to whether it occurred later or earlier in the formulation of the beracha. On the basis of this assumption of mine, I deduced that, the content in the two cases being substantially the same, there ought not be any difference in the respective chasimos. This is something on which Reb Moishe (Bodner) corrected me (in effect). He made the point that a chasima reflects the specific content that closes the inner formulation of the beracha. And since, on the reading of nusach ashkenaz, the close reads vesham na-avadcha..., the appropriate chasima is, indeed, she-osecha levadecha beyira na-avod.

As to why the two formulations differ internally, this is an interesting historical question.

* * * *

When it was over, I had Reb Moishe & Co shychyu to thank not only for the delectable se-uda and festive atmosphere, but also for the splendid insight into the davening.

Appendix to the Previous Post

2011-10-11T12:14:00.000-04:00

Reviewing the last post, I had a thought. I had said that the reason for using the singular al chet in the first three sections was that the single chet of rebellious disobedience was referred to. Any chet committed, no matter what the motivation, instantiates the general concept of rebellion toward, kevayachol, the Al-mighty. This represents an all-encompassing chet; and it is the subject of confession in the first three groupings.

However, it occurs to me now that there is an alternative way of viewing the matter. Drawing on the same basic ideas, we might explain the use of the singular in the first three sections in the following way. In the these sections, the focus is not on the different aveiros considered from the perspective of their defining prohibitions. It is, rather, on them considered from the perspective of the motivation (techunos hanefesh) leading up to them. When regarded in this way, acts of sin are not subsumed under universal classifications, like: eating this or doing that. Each act is particular and unique. It is simply and purely ill-motivated, ill-begotten. (It is rebellion.) It is, you might say, sui generis: an instance unto itself. So it is singularly formulated as a chet, meaning an individual instance. In the fourth section, on the other hand, chata-im are, as noted, delineated by the obligations they incur. What obligation a given perpetration of a chet incurs depends on the prohibition – the category – under which it is subsumed. Moreover, each type of obligation is incurred by any of multiple such prohibition-categories (e.g., different types of aveira obligate the same karban). Accordingly, the plural form – al-chata-im – is used, to denote these various aveira types.

What We Confess To on Yom Kipur

2011-10-09T10:07:00.000-04:00

We begin the al chets by saying al chet shechatanu lefanecha be-ones uberatzon. Then we continue with the whole litany of al chests. My question: Once we’ve said the first al chet, be-ones uberatzon, we’ve covered all the ground. Any chet is either a chet be-ones or a chet beratzon. There is no other possibility, no middle ground. What then is the purpose of continuing with the whole list of other al chets? It seems superfluous!

Another question. As we get to the fourth grouping of al chets, we encounter a change in language. Instead of saying al chet, in the singular, we begin to say al chata-im, in the plural. Thus, al chata-im she-anu chayavim aleihem ola, etc. This new question is in two parts. First, why should there be this change of expression from the singular to the plural? Wouldn’t it have been more congruous for the entire listing to follow a single, consistent form, whether it be the singular or the plural? And second, on the face of it, the plural form is the correct! What justification is there for formulating all the preceding al chets in the singular form? For example, al chata-im shechatanu lefanecha besimhon leivav would seemingly have been preferable to our al chet shechatanu lefanecha besimhon leivav. After all, it is a whole slew of individually committed chata-im (acts of transgression), all falling under the general rubric of besimhon leivav, that we are expressing our remorse for! Or so it would seem.

What I want to suggest is that there are two aspects to the repugnancy of chet. There is, on the one hand, the chet itself. By this I mean, every chet defines a category of action (or inaction, as the case may be) that is deemed intrinsically repulsive and undesirable. The Torah’s mitzvos teach us what modes of behavior need to be avoided on the their own account: whether it be partaking of certain foods; engaging in certain relations; doing work on Shabbos; doing this, that, or the other type of work; and so on. The fact that a given act instantiates one or another of these classifications makes it sinful and inherently offensive. In this way, it wears its repugnancy on its sleeve.

But then there is also another aspect. Any chet that is committed constitutes an act of rebellion (merida) against the hegemony of, kevayachol, the Ribono Shel Olam. This is because the mitzvos of the Torah represent (the definition of) His will vis-à-vis us, His chosen people. They tell us, as it were, what He expects of us. So when someone flouts one of them, he is manifesting disobedience and rebellion against His will. This is something that all chata-im share in common. Whatever the classification that a given aveira belongs to, its perpetration constitutes an act of disobedience, and of refusal to subject oneself to His will. This, then, is point one.

In addition, I want to interject another item of background perspective. I said that to perform one aveira or another was to commit a sin of (general) disobedience. But I want to enter a refinement on this point. Disobedience is not monolithic: there are different ways of evincing disobedience. Furthermore, they emanate from correspondingly different internal states of mind or traits of character (techunos hanefesh). Ones, for example, is one state of mind, ratzon another. Simhon leivav is yet a third. Even things like neshech umarbis and machal umishteh, for example, represent inner tendencies of the person (just as much as they represent forbidden acts). As a rule, when the Torah prohibits a certain act, the Torah is, at the same time, faulting the inner state of mind that prompts and motivates its performance. The prohibition against the act may be viewed as, at least in part, an admonition that the tendency to perform it should be uprooted – as if to say, its presence stands at the root of the problem.

With this as background, I want to suggest that the viduy is structured so as to have us confess to each of the two aspects separately: the common (disobedience-based) and the individual (act-based). The first three sections of the al chets, I want to say, occupy themselves in making confessions for disobeying and rebelling against His will in the myriad specified ways. For as said, there are different ways of evincing rebellious disobedience. Each one introduces its own failing, its own character flaw. Thus, for example, disobedience of, kevayachol, His will can be demonstrated through carelessness as much as through deliberateness; it can be displayed through speech no less than through haughtiness; through sight as much as through flight. And so on down the line. Each al chet expresses another way in which sinful rebelliousness may be manifested and brought into being. However, the fact notwithstanding that each al chet represents another (particular) way of exemplifying rebelliousness, the basis of their repugnancy is ultimately one and the same: it is rooted in the fact that His will has been disobeyed. This being so, it is understandable that the singular term, al chet, should be used. For in each case, it is one unitary chet that is confessed to: the act of rebellion.

Al chet shechatanu lefanecha betifshus peh, for example, is to be understood as a confession to the act of rebellion, performed through the use of tifshus peh. And similarly for all the other of these al chets.

The situation changes, however, once the fourth section is reached. In that one, the focus turns to aveiros taken in their individuality. We move from confessing to committing disobedience, in its various guises, to confessing to performing acts that are intrinsically repugnant, as demonstrated by the fact that the Torah has proscribed them. We do not enumerate the different categories of sin themselves, as that would make for a very long list. So instead we encapsulate the different sins under heads corresponding to the obligations they incur: But it is individual (types of) sins that we are discussing (no longer the single sin of disobedience). Consequently, we invoke the plural form, al chata-im, in expressing them.

Ones and ratzon do not refer to types of sin but to ways of exhibiting rebelliousness. They are but two ways among a whole slew of others, which are given expression in the al chets comprising the first three sections. True, every sin committed is either ones or ratzon; but it is not in every act of sinning that willfulness or inadvertence stands out as the most salient psychological (motivational) characteristic.

The Wondrous Mechanism of Repentance

2011-10-03T11:47:00.000-04:00

The velt asks: The Rambam says in regard to the judgment that is passed on everyone on Rosh Hashana, tzadikim are unremittingly sealed for life; rasha-im are immediately sealed for death; and beinunim are left suspended. If they perform teshuva, the balance is tilted in their favor, and they are spared and earn life. If they fail to do so, the scales are tilted in the opposite direction, and they are doomed and meet their fate. Why is it that the Rambam singles out the mitzva of teshuva as if it were the one good deed that a beinuni could perform so as to have the scale tipped in his favor? There are myriad mitzvos, and doing a sufficient amount of any of them should ostensibly be effective in tipping the scales in his favor!

To this I wanted to offer the rejoinder that the Rambam holds to a concept of teshuva that identifies it with azivas hachet, which is to say, total abandonment of the transgression. This abandonment is its core essence. When a person transgresses, the tally of his transgressions is incremented and, in time, comes to exceed that of his merits, i.e., good deeds. When he mends his way and ceases to commit transgressions, his good deeds are gradually increased, ultimately reaching the point where they are trailed by the count of his offenses. This is what abandoning his transgressions accomplishes. And this is, in part, what the Rambam means when he says that teshuva has the effect of tipping the scale in his favor.

In other words, the Rambam is taking the position that to set this person's standing aright it won't do (for him) simply to add to the cumulative store of his mitzvos so that it will outweigh that of his aveiros. It's not about numbers. And in this respect, the mitzva of teshuva is no exception: it's not a matter or adding this particular mitzva to the total mix. For the Rambam, the only dependable way of altering this person's standing (with its attendant consequences) is by eradicating the (effect of) the particular transgression he committed (that for which he is enjoined to do teshuva). This is what makes doing teshuva efficacious. It targets this particular aveira, and it has the effect of ridding the person of it. For it is the presence of this aveira that is precipitating this person's lopsided imbalance. His teshuva accomplishes its eradication by having him completely abandon it.

But actually there is more to it. For it is not sufficient that the erstwhile transgressor should simply mend his ways, in the sense of ceasing to do bad and doing only good, from here on in as it were. By this alone, the blot on his record remains unaltered. He has, after all, committed transgressions in the past, and they are not left undone. To clean his record, they need to be undone; which is to say, he requires kapara (atonement). Achieving it calls for teshuva: but teshuva must now be understood as entailing more than just ceasing to commit the transgressions of the past. It requires a positive act done in the present, one of taking upon oneself never to repeat one’s transgression and resolving decisively to do only good going forward. This in turn entails showing remorse for the evil that one has perpetrated; indeed, it requires articulate confession.

But neither is this enough! The requirement of total abandonment remains in place; and until one has displayed this latter, one has not completed fulfillment of one’s teshuva (and kapara) obligation. Yet, the satisfaction of this latter element lies in the future: it depends on the individual’s capacity for carrying through on his voiced determination. How, then, could the kapara take effect now? And it must take effect in the present; for if it doesn’t, then what’s to keep this individual from succumbing to the fate ordained by his sins immediately?

This, I imagine, is what prompts the Rambam to say that his repentance and dedication must be of such intensity that the Knower of the Hidden testifies in regard to this individual that he will not repeat his transgression. This is not merely a point about the intensity of the feeling. It is an answer to the question: if kapara requires teshuva, and teshuva requires azivas hachet (total abandonment), how can one possibly achieve kapara until one has lived his life (when it is already too late!)? Who is able to say that the person has abandoned his transgression with such a degree of finality? The answer: kevayachol the Ribono shel Olam Himself! Only He knows that his psychological abandonment is such as to keep him from lapsing as time passes. If it is, his act of teshuva has been consummated, and he merits forgiveness (kapara) at once: he is spared the depredations of his transgressions’ consequences.

So to repeat, teshuva requires azivas hachet. Azivas hachet has two aspects. On the one hand, it consists in the fact of abandonment, which is to say, non-repetition of the transgression. It is this aspect that accounts for the ba-al teshuva’s not incurring the fate of someone overladen with transgressions. His slate is thereby reconfigured. At the same time, however, it includes a component of strong disavowal, which is a psychological state. This latter serves to confer immediate kapara for the transgressions already committed. Encapsulated in it is the fact that there will be no future relapse. This is what gives (this aspect of) teshuva the power for the individual to avert the consequences of the sin that has been committed. It makes it now so that the slate will be reconfigured in this individual’s favor.

May we merit to achieve complete teshuva.

Sanhederin and Semicha

2011-08-31T16:55:00.000-04:00

Here are some of the details of the mitzvah to appoint judges, as expounded by the sages. [This continues the exposition of the Chinuch’s text at mitzvah 491.]

The first set of details addresses the seating arrangement of the seventy Sanhederin. The ablest among them would be seated below the Nasi (also known as the Rosh Yeshiva). He is given the title Av Beis Din. The remaining sixty-nine would be seated alongside the Nasi in a sequence reflecting their learnedness and their age. That is, the more learned someone was, the closer to the Nasi would be his position in the series. If two (or more) individuals were of equal rank as far as learnedness was concerned, they would be seated earlier or later in the sequence based on their age. They formed a semi-circle, so that each one would be visible to everyone else.

Apart from the main judiciary body, that is the Beis Din Hagadol, two additional judiciary bodies, comprising twenty-three judges each, would be stationed nearby. One would be situated at the entrance to the Azara; and the other would be situated at the entrance to the Mount of the Temple. The most learned individual of each of these bodies served as the Head of his respective body.

The only ones qualified to be appointed to any of the judiciary bodies (big or small) were individuals possessed of wisdom and deep understanding of Torah knowledge. They also had to possess some amount of knowledge of other areas of inquiry – including, for example, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, astrology, sorcery, and magic. They needed to be able to fall back on knowledge of these areas of expertise, in case circumstances demanded it. In addition, in order to qualify, a person – whether a kohein, a leivi, or a yisra-el – had to have privileged pedigree, sufficient to make his daughter eligible for betrothal to someone of the priestly lineage (kehuna). That it is so is derived from the verse vehisyatzvu sham imach, which is interpreted as implying that the judges that Moshe would appoint had to resemble him (in point of pedigree). [And so too for judges generally.]

Now, the only ones who could be appointed to a judiciary body, whether it be the Sandederei Gedola or the Sanhederei Ketana, were individuals who received ordination. Moshe our teacher performed ordination by hand upon his pupil Yehoshu-a – as it is written vayismoch yadav alav. He likewise performed ordination by hand upon the seventy elders whom he had assembled (to form the original Sanhederei Gedola). They, in turn, performed ordination upon others, who in their turn performed it on yet others…continuing a process that culminated in the last of the properly ordained. However, the ordinations performed subsequent to those conferred by Moshe differed from those of his in that they were not performed by hand. Instead, the issuers of ordination would carefully examine the candidate receiver of ordination. If he was found to be well versed in the knowledge of Torah; if, further, he proved himself to be well informed and of sound mind; and if, finally, he exemplified a set of personal traits that included love of truth and detestation of inequity in all its forms – then, provided that he glowingly passed all these tests of personality and intellectual ability, he would be pronounced ordained by three people who included in their number at least one who was himself ordained. Thenceforth, he would be designated with the appellation of rebbi (which is to say, master-teacher). He would, from that point onward, be empowered to adjudicate matters pertaining even to the imposition of fines.

There are numerous additional details that pertain to the qualification for appointment to judgeship. They are spelled out and discussed with due amplification in Tractate Sanhederin.

Appointing Judiciary Bodies

2011-08-29T11:04:00.000-04:00

The Chinuch goes on to say: Judges are to be appointed over cities and, also, over the entire Jewish nation. Here is how it works. Each and every city is to have a judiciary body consisting of twenty-three appointees. Assembled in one central location within the city, they are referred to as sanhenderei ketana. They are to be chosen from amongst the choicest of the city’s intelligentsia. In addition, a body called the beis din hagadol, consisting of seventy judiciary appointees, is to be assembled into a central location in Yerushalayim. Atop the seventy is to be appointed an additional one who is to serve as Rosh Yeshiva or, as he is also referred to, the Nasi – making for a total of seventy-one. Importantly, they are all to function in the singular location especially designated for the purpose. Now, it will happen that some locales will be too small in size to purvey sanhederei ketana (small judiciary bodies) of their own. In such a case, a panel consisting of three judges should be appointed in lieu of a full-fledged (small) judiciary body. To the extent that they are able to adjudicate an issue on their own, they are empowered to do so. If, however, the resolution of an issue should be beyond their reach, they should then escalate the matter to a higher court.

Similarly, a contingent of law enforcers should be stationed along the periphery of a city, to oversee the goings on in the city’s streets and byways. They should exercise oversight over the commercial dealings of the city’s inhabitants, making sure that they are not infected by improprieties of any kind. The command from which these injunctions derive is that expressed by the verse shofetim veshoterim titein lecha bechal she-arecha. Thus the Sifri: “From where it is derived that a judiciary body is to be appointed with jurisdiction over the entirety of the Jewish people? In this regard is it written shofetim veshoterim. And from where it is derived that one judge should be appointed to stand above all the others? It is derived from titein lecha. And from what source, further, is it known that each and every tribe should have its own body of judges? The textual source in this regard is bechal she-arecha. Raban Shimon ben Gamliel contends that the source is from the juxtaposition of the words lishvatecha veshaftu. This is understood as meaning that a command is imposed on each and every tribe to carry out the judiciary function over itself. And what is the intention behind the phrase veshafetu es ha-am? It connotes that the people are to be judged forcibly.”

This is not a transient mitzva, but a permanent one.

What is the mitzva’s rationale?

It is to get people to conduct themselves in a righteous way. Ideally, people will be self-motivated to conduct themselves properly; they will not need to be prodded by external forces – such as a system of judges and law-enforcers.

However, conformance to the desirable way does not come naturally; it needs to be induced. Imposing it on the people, by force, acclimates them to it. Arousing fear in people makes them dread the consequences of ill-begotten behavior. It helps get them accustomed to doing good.

Once having become accustomed to conducting themselves properly, the people will acquire a natural propensity toward exemplary conduct. The point will be reached where they lovingly embrace justice and lawfulness, requiring no externally imposed inducement. Such is the power of habituation through compulsion. It is as effective as nature itself in bringing people to a state where the motivation to do right comes from within.

With the state having been reached where people are following in a just and faithful path and choosing to do good, the good with attach itself to them; and the Al-mighty will derive satisfaction from them.

The Command to Appoint Judges

2011-08-28T13:26:00.000-04:00

The following is a paraphrase of the text of the Sefer Hachinuch, at the beginning of Mitzvah 491.

In this week’s parsha, Shoftim, we are commanded to appoint judges and law enforcers. Why? So that they will compel the people to perform the mitzvos of the Torah. What else will they do? They will force those who have diverted from the the way of truth to return to it. They will also issue edicts, clearly obligating the people to do what is required of them and ought to be done. They will, likewise, issue decrees, delineating certain practices as being unworthy of people’s occupation. And there is more. They will establish and enforce protective barriers, rules intended to safeguard people, so that they do not perform actions that are prohibited. What advantage does having these safeguards offer? It spares people the need to decide for themselves on a case by case basis. Having to exercise one’s own discretion on a continuous basis can be fraught with danger: it exposes people to the possibility of erring and succumbing to temptation. By requiring people to conform their behavior to the protective rules that serve as barriers, the judges distance the population from the pitfalls associated with coming into close contact with (spiritually) hazardous conditions. It helps reduce people’s vulnerability to falling short and transgressing.

The command to appoint judges is governed by certain specifications. Among them is a specification that mandates that judges be selected from the those in the highest tier of greatness (righteousness).

An Aberration

2011-08-22T22:42:00.000-04:00

I would like to see if McGrath’s piece can be used as a springboard from which to launch a discussion of moral education. The dominant Schefflerian view (see MEDI) is that morality is like science, and that therefore moral education is like science education. With science, there is no finished theory: theory is perpetually in the making. There is, however, a critical method that science deploys; and, in it, reasons are adduced back and forth for the viability of current theory, and for its possible modification or withdrawal. In education too, current theory is not presented as if it were final. Or at least it shouldn’t be. Instead, it is presented along with the reasons that have been adduced in its support; and students are encouraged to assess those reason and decide for themselves whether they are adequate to the support of the theory that they are alleged to support. Students are, that is, invited to approach received theory in a critical spirit. In this way, educational activity in relation to science is seen to be modeled after scientific activity (or the scientific process) itself.

Scheffler says that it is this way in the domain of morality too. Morality should not be looked at as a finished code, one that is to be educationally imbibed or ingested. Current morality is a point of view that emanates from an ongoing process of rational deliberation. It is exactly like science. Popular convictions are subject to change, in light of outcomes of this ongoing deliberation. What morality really is, is nothing more and nothing less than this process of ongoing rational deliberation about social affairs and interrelations. Sure, students can, and should, be familiarized with current moral thinking. But this is merely ancillary to what moral education should really do. It should introduce students to a way (a method, if you will) of deliberating morality, one that relies on adducing reasons and seeing how far they stand up to scrutiny, offering alternatives if need be, and so on and so forth. Because this is the essence of morality itself, it should likewise be made the core of moral education.

Note: Does this mean that current morality should be followed and practiced in no more than a tentative (questioning) spirit? If so, this may be where the weakness of the Schefflerian approach lies.

McGrath’s thinking serves as a counterweight to this point of view. From her perspective, science is real (not experimental), and morality is no less real than science. Taking this as her point of departure, she comes up against a conundrum. There appears to be an important asymmetry between the empirical domain and the moral one. In the empirical domain, deference to expertise makes sense. It is, in any event, widely regarded as making sense. When someone seeks knowledge about something, he naturally consults a recognized expert (an authority); and he is (epistemically) warranted in accepting what he learns by doing so. On the other hand, says McGrath, when one is confronted with a moral question needing to be resolved, one does not fulfill one’s moral responsibility by acting on the basis of (moral) information obtained from another party, no matter how expert this other party may be deemed to be. Focusing on the notion of moral knowledge, she contends that one does not acquire moral knowledge through the testimony of others. (Consequently, action taken on the basis of such putative knowledge is morally impugned.) This, despite the fact that, in the empirical realm, well-chosen testimony is regarded as adequately supportive of a claim to knowledge.

McGrath’s stress is on the (alleged) fact that we are not prone to regarding moral action taken on the basis of deference to a presumed expert as being truly moral action. This, contends McGrath, poses a problem for realism. For on realism, there is a fact of the matter about this or that moral question; and provided that information about it has accrued to the moral agent in a justifying/justified way, this should suffice to such an agent’s attaining moral knowledge and performing a moral act on the basis of this knowledge. For what else might be missing? McGrath devotes the bulk of her treatment to probing possibilities as to an answer to this puzzle.

I want to suggest that there are important repercussions for a theory of moral education here. According to the premise of this puzzle, morality cannot be taught by conveying moral facts, principles, or what have you. The matter may be cast in the form of a dilemma On the one hand, it should seemingly be possible to teach morality in this way. If realism is true, then it is (as McGrath contents) facts that count. (And so too for science!) And these facts should be teachable. (Morality teaching should be entirely assimilable to, say, history teaching.) On the other hand, if McGrath is right, then moral realism notwithstanding, morality cannot be taught by the mere conveyance of facts. This, because to teach by conveyance of facts is to rely on the authority/expertise of the teacher as purveyor of the facts which, ex hypothesi, is illegitimate where morals are concerned. This, then, raises the question not only of why not but, perhaps more urgently, of whether morality lends itself to being taught at all. If a Scheffler-type approach proves unviable/untenable (as per the above-mentioned objection), then, just maybe, moral education is entirely doomed.

I want to devote the remainder of this paper to probing whether there is, indeed, cause for despair about the prospects of a viable moral education.

Of Tape Recorders and Shtenders

2011-08-21T10:13:00.000-04:00

It was Erev Shabbos Parshas Eikev. The zeman hadlaka had arrived, and it was already beginning to become ominously cloudy on the outside. Showers were virtually definitely in the offing. After hadlaka, I set out at once for Kabolas Shabbos at shul, in the beis medrash of the Mirrer Yeshiva, in hopes of outpacing the imminent onslaught of drenching rain.

But to no avail. By the time I stepped out the door downstairs, it had already begun pouring down, big time. I was wearing that full-length plastic rain cover, the one with the hood for a hat; and on that basis, I warily ventured out onto the street and walked up the sidewalk, briefly. But no sooner had I begun than I realized I needed to find temporary shelter at once. There was no point in compromising the dryness of my Shabbos pants, even if wetness threatened no more than its bottom extremes. I thereupon made my way over to the entrance of the neighboring building, where I took cover for a few minutes, until the pace of the downpour let up some. Then, off to shul I was once again, being careful to tread between the drops as best I could.

When I got to shul, I first went downstairs to the cloak room to hang up my dripping plastic rain coat. Then I went back upstairs and entered the beis medrash, where Kabolas Shabbos was just getting underway. I took my usual route to the place I sit, on the left side towards the rear. As I maneuvered over to the siddur shelf in the corner of the room, my attention was caught by the sight of a shtender standing in the back, in front of a seat, adjacent to the shelf. What was eye-catching about it was that on it was perched a tape recorder.

“What was a (muktza) tape recorder doing sitting on a shtender at the onset of Shabbos?” I wondered. “Won’t it interfere with someone’s use of the shtender and of the seat in front of which it was situated?" This would be a good question for Rav Nelkenbaum shlita,” I thought to myself, Rav Nelkenbaum being one of the roshei yeshiva of the Mir and a real bal halacha. But would I have an opportunity to ask him?

After Kabolas Shabbos came the roughly forty-minute intermission, designed to synchronize Ma-ariv with the time of nightfall. As is his wont, Rav Nelkenbaum entered the beis medrash a few minutes before Ma-ariv. As is his wont, he took a seat for the few intervening minutes in the rear of the beis medrash, not far from where I was. Actually, he hadn’t quite taken a seat, but he was just about to – on the other end of the very row of seats in which I was myself sitting. His presence thereby caught my notice; and I immediately lunged over to him and made ready to put to him my question. I had already rehearsed it in my mind, and made sure to so formulate it that it took on the aura of an halacha issue.

The question I posed was then this. Given that the Shulchan Aruch in Orach Chaim, siman 308, se-if 3 rules that it is permissible to handle (on Shabbos) a davar shemelachto le-isur if it is done letzorach gufo or letzorach mekomo, should it not be alright for someone to physically remove that tape recorder – I pointed to it – from the shtender in order to daven by that shtender? To which he responded that it was not permissible, not at least according to the Mishne Berura. In particular, he said, the Mishne Berura rules that one should not handle a davar shemelachto le-isur letzorach gufo o letzorach mekomo if another alternative is available. In the case in point, he intimated, there were plenty of other seats and shtenders at which someone who wanted to daven could sit and stand. So an alternative was indeed available!

This is the gist of what he said. (I pressed him for an answer to a hypothetical case where it was crowded and no other shtenders were available. In regard to this, he recommended tiltul min hatzad.) Naturally, I accepted his answer, at the time, surprised by it though I was.

But after a while, I took the opportunity to check out the Mishne Berura. What I found was that, to my way of reading it, the situation was other than what Rav Nelkenbaum had made it out to be. The Mechabeir states that it is alright to handle a davar shemelachto le-isur if it is letzorach gufo or letzorach mekomo. The Mishne Berura glosses the words letzorach gufo with the comment that if another davar is available to serve the tzorach, one that is not melachto le-isur, then one should use such a davar instead. In other words, one should restrict one’s use of a davar shemelachto le-isur letzrach gufo to cases where it is absolutely necessary.

Seeing this, I immediately sensed that, by any straightforward reading of the Mishne Berura, the Mishne Berura did not intend to restrict use of a davar shemelachto le-isur letzorach mekomo in a similar fashion. The gloss is a gloss on letzorach gufo only. And it seems to be stretching it a bit (much) to presume that it is also intended as a qualification on the dispensation of tzorach mekomo.

I say this because it seems to me that there is a sound basis on which to distinguish the two in this regard. Let us begin by noting that the rationale behind the dispensation of handling a davar shemelachto le-isur in cases such as these is that a davar shemelachto leisur is a relatively weak manifestation of hakta-a, and that therefore, where there is a need for its use, its weak haktza-a is not deemed a factor to be reckoned with.

Let us now zero in on the idea of need. When there is a need for something to be done, there is, in effect, a need for utilizing an instrument with which that thing gets done. Even so though, the need for this instrument is secondary to the need for getting the thing done (with its use) per se. The latter is, after all, the raison detre of the whole affair.

Keeping this in mind, we can readily distinguish between the cases of letzorach gufo, on the one hand, and letzorach mekomo, on the other, insofar as these needs serve as dispensations for handling a dava shemelachto le-isur. Where the need is legufo, the concern is with an instrument that is to be used in bringing about the desired effect. Substituting another instrument (one that is not melachto le-isur) instead in no way impacts negatively on achieving this very desired result. Consequently, fulfillment of the need is not seriously thwarted by the imposition to use another instrument. By contrast, where the need is lemekomo, what is at stake is the very thing whose realization is sought: having an uncluttered place in/on which to perform one’s activity. It is not merely a question of what instrument to use for the purpose but of actualizing the purpose itself. That other places are available is therefore irrelevant: the sought objective is, after all, centered on this place in particular.

Now, the case in point concerned a situation where the tzorach was a tzorach mekomo: the shtender was needed to daven at. So if my reading of the Mishne Berura is correct, the fact that other shtenders were available should not affect the permissibility of using the one upon which the tape recorder sat, by removing the tape recorder (in the normal way).

The Structure of the Kadish

2011-08-19T09:57:00.000-04:00

In Kadish (shaleim) we say: yisgadal...shemei raba...be-alema divera chirusei veyamlich malchusei...ba-agala uvizman kariv. And here we say: ve-imru amein. We continue: yisbarach...da-amiran be-alema ve-imru amein. This is followed by: tiskabeil...kadam avuhon divishmaya ve-imru amein. Then comes: yehei shlama...ve-akal yisrael ve-imru amein. Finally: oseh shalam...ve-al kal yisrael ve-imru amein.

Notice that the reciter is constantly importuning the congregants to say amein. Why does he have to do this? Couldn’t the congregants answer with amein without being asked by the reciter to do so (each and every time!)?

Perhaps, you will say, not. The congregants are answering in response to the reciter’s elicitation. To this I offer the rejoinder: it is not in every case that the congregants’ reply of amein comes in response to the reciter’s importuning. Consider the amein that is said at the beginning, right after yisgadal veyiskadash shemei raba.

In response, you will likely say that this instance is indeed aberrant. Not only is it perplexing why this amein, unlike all the others throughout the Kadish, is answered uninvitedly; it is, on the face of it, strange that amein should be said here at all. The problem is that the thought has not yet been completed. It is being interrupted in mid-course for a response of amein. Why should this be so? Why shouldn’t the reply of amein patiently await the conclusion of the thought: ba-agala uvizman kariv?

Here you might interject: the verse of yisgadal is a composite of two disparate thoughts. One comprises the words yisgadal veyiskadash shemei raba be-alema divera chirusei. The other, then, comprises the words: veyamlich malchusei bechayeichon...ivizman kariv. But the rejoinder to this is that, first, if this were so, the amein shouldn’t be said until after the words veyamlich malchusei. Why is it said as soon as after shemei raba?

And second, it seems incongruous in the extreme to suppose that bechayeichon...is here being inserted as an entirely independent clause (if you will). Why should the recital of the praises of the Kadish be interrupted by a prayer for the restoration of His Kingdom. It seems far more natural to suppose that the stream begun by veyamlich is a continuation of the larger stream begun by be-alema. What is being asked is that: His great Name should be glorified and sanctified in the world that He created according to His desire and in which His Kingdom will be restored...speedily. It is as if the verse had read: yisgadal veyiskadash shemei raba be-alema divera chirusei veyamlich BEI malchusei...

But on reflection, I don’t suppose this is right. I think that there is no missing bei. The verse is to be read as saying, yisgadal veyiskadesh shemei raba be-alema divera chirusei. And veyamlich malchusei bechayeichon...

Political Multiculturalism

2011-08-18T10:14:00.000-04:00

America is a democracy. It is a liberal democracy. It is democratic in that it decides political issues, issues of governance, by popular election. The public elects its political office holders. They, in turn, legislate and execute legislation. It is liberal in that it is committed to limited government, a precept enshrined in its constitution. It promotes public liberty by leaving its citizens free to go about their business without (undue) government interference.

Now there is talk of multiculturalism. Is it compatible with liberal democracy? There appear to be cross-currents of thought on this question. On the one hand, the freedom that liberalism promotes carries in its tow the freedom to freely adopt any particular cultural orientation, without impediment.

On the other hand though, the liberalism that promotes this freedom is itself a cultural orientation. As such, it competes with alternative cultural orientations, some of which are inimical to the very freedom touted by the liberal view. Accept multiculturalism wholesale, and you have exposed yourself to infiltration by cultures hostile to the freedom you cherish. You have opened the floodgates to incursion by the foes of freedom. You have set up conditions favorable to the spread of cultural opposition to the various freedoms, including the freedom to freely choose and adhere to a given culture, including liberal culture. How to escape this dilemma?

Ostensibly, it is inescapable. This, then, augurs ill for the adoption of multiculturalism by a liberal democracy. If its liberalism is to be preserved, multiculturalism must be jettisoned. Multicultural liberal democracy is an oxymoron.

Or so it would seem.

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It may be argued that there is no problem here. Contrary to what has been assumed, liberalism is not a culture. It is a culture-neutral determination not to impose a culture (which, in itself, does not constitute any kind of cultural orientation) and to leave everyone free to adopt, individually, any culture. It relies on the good sense and good will of the people to perpetuate adherence to this governing norm, and to make political choices that will keep it in place. (In and of itself, it is merely a starting point, an initial position, one whose continuation strongly recommends itself to the sensible mind.) However, by pursuing democratic procedures, people are, in principle, perfectly at liberty to adopt an orientation that is entirely at odds with this norm, and to endure the consequences. To be sure, there is a liberal cultural orientation that is diametrically opposed to the denial of individual freedom. It has its many adherents; and they abhor any form of extraneous imposition. They will cast their ballots in a way reflecting their championing of freedom. But this is something apart from the basic political norm of liberalism, makers of this case will say.

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Suppose society has a culture that promotes freedom. It encourages everyone to be free to adhere to the (political) outlook they please. Now suppose that some people freely choose to subscribe to a philosophy that says that people should be compelled to conform to certain practices. It says, that is, not that people should be free to conform to those practices if they so choose. Rather, it says that they should be made to conform if they should fail to do so of their own volition. (How it will impose its will is a separate question. It may resort to educative measures, for example.) The inevitable outcome is that the society no longer has the culture of freedom it had originally espoused. Initially, this might affect only a certain segment of the larger population. That is because the sub-culture in question presumably does not control the larger society. Consequently, only that segment over which it does exercise control will be affected. Now, this already points up the unviability of the principle upon which this society is based. The principle is, after all, meant to assure freedom to all its members. However, matters are liable to become further exacerbated. Suppose the freedom-opposing segment wrests political control of the government. This is particularly possible in a democracy, where governance is decided by popular vote. In that eventuality, the group in question is now in possession of a great deal of coercive power. Before long, everyone will come under its dominion. Individual freedom will no longer be anywhere in evidence. What this shows is that promoting a policy of freedom to be free to suppress freedom is a losing proposition. It is not self-sustaining. It eventually undoes itself. If a society values its freedom, it has no choice but to limit individuals’ freedom to actions that do not curtail other people’s freedom – their free exercise of choices.

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In political philosophy texts they ask what justifies political authority. Why should people, like me and you, submit to it? But what kind of question is that? What choice have we? Political authority is coercive. And it has the means of enforcing its mandates. It is from this that it derives its power: sheer brute force. It is too strong to be subdued by a competing power. If it weren't, it would give way. Power always goes to the mightiest. This is the way of nature. At any given moment, a political configuration reflects perceived (strategically adjusted) distributions of power.

Telling a Na From a Nach

2011-08-17T12:33:00.000-04:00

How to tell a sheva na from a sheva nach?

Where the leading letter of a word is punctuated with a sheva, it is a sheva na.

Where two letters punctuated with a sheva occur in immediate succession, the second sheva is a sheva na and the first a sheva nach.

Where the occurrence of a letter is immediately followed by another occurrence of itself and is punctuated with a sheva, the sheva is a sheva na.

A sheva punctuating a letter that occurs right after a letter punctuated by a big vowel is, provided that this latter letter is not accentuated (i.e., does not head an accentuated syllable), a sheva na. But if the latter letter is accentuated, then the sheva of this sheva-punctuated letter is a sheva nach.

A sheva punctuating a strongly modulated letter (bearing a dagesh chazak) is a sheva na.

The sheva of the trailing letter of a word is a sheva nach (if two of them occur in succession, both are a sheva nach).

Recall: there are big vowels and small ones. A letter punctuated by a sheva that occurs right after a letter punctuated by a small vowel has a sheva that is a sheva nach. However, this applies only where the small vowel in question has not been truncated. If it has been truncated, then the sheva in question is a sheva na. Furthermore, if the letter bearing a small vowel has received a strong modulation, then the sheva of the ensuing letter is, likewise, a sheva na.

The sheva of a letter that comes right after an occurrence of the vav-of-attachment (vav hachibur) is reckoned a sheva nach (as if it had followed a small vowel).

The sheva of a letter that follows the occurrence of a letter punctuated with a big vowel is, if the letter punctuated with a big vowel is (also) accentuated, a sheva nach.

Nach and Na

2011-08-16T09:04:00.000-04:00

Last time we touched on words, letters, and vowels, focusing on the sheva. We characterized the sheva as neutral in comparison with the other vowels, which represent distinct enunciations. We noted that there were two senses in which the sheva might represent neutrality. In one, it represents the absence of vowel enunciation; and in the other it stands for an enunciation that is tame in comparison with the enunciations represented by the other vowels. We now want to point out that the former is called a sheva nach and the latter a sheva na. The nach in sheva nach connotes resting; the na in sheva na connotes moving. Another way of looking at it is to say that a sheva na is used to designate receptivity, while a sheva nach is used to suggest conveyance. When a sheva nach occurs, the affected letter does not initiate an enunciation at all. It merely receives the enunciation conveyed by the letter that precedes it, according to its vowel-indicated enunciation. That is, some letters – most – are enunciated from, as it were, the bottom; but others, as is the case with a letter inflected by a sheva na, are enunciated from the top. It is rather as if the enunciation of the vowel precedes the articulation of the affected letter – and not the other way around. A sheva na, by contrast, operates comparably to the various other vowels. The sound it represents is enunciated after the letter itself has already been articulated – or, if you will, it modifies the articulation of this letter. As a consequence of this difference, the sheva nach will be understood to necessarily occur at the close of a syllable; while a sheva na will be seen as commencing a new syllable.

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Letters are like Yidden. Take the members of a shul. Each is a soul unto himself. But taken by himself, he can’t do anything. He can’t express himself. He has got a sound to make, but he can’t vent it. So he takes a job and finds his place. Now he has a voice. Now he can make himself heard. He speaks as an occupant of the job role he performs. The role enables him to make his inner self be heard. The role per se has nothing to say. But it equips its holder with a medium through which to express himself. It not only gives him a voice; it also assigns him a position in a social structure. As a result, he is brought into relations with occupants of various positions – his own and others – in this structure. The position he occupies determines the relations he enjoys with co-members. Relations with co-occupants of the role are particularly strong. But relations with occupants of adjacent roles need not be too weak either. And sometimes these latter relations mushroom into indirect relations with occupants of non-adjacent roles. And on and on it goes. Not only that, the position itself is affected and modified as a result of its composition in occupants. They help define its very essence. In turn, the occupants are brought into relations with new sets of people. For as a result of their impact on the role they occupy, they have caused this role form relations with roles hitherto unavailable. And when roles interrelate and grow interdependent, so do the occupants of those roles. It is an ever spiraling process.

All of this impacts dramatically on the capacity of the member to express himslf and make himself heard.

Letters and Vowels

2011-08-15T10:09:00.000-04:00

There are words, syllables, letters, and vowels. Words are comprised of syllables, and syllables are comprised of letters. Letters are strung together to form syllables, which form words. Letters strung together do not, of themselves, determine the enunciation of a word. Letters hardly admit of enunciation at all, without supplementation by vowels. Vowels therefore hold the key to the enunciation of a word, conceived of as already consisting of a particular string of letters.

At the same time though, vowels are not integral components of words, as letters are. They merely make manifest the intended interpretation of a word’s letters. They indicate the patterns into which the component letters of a word enter (or fall). Of course, I’m not referring to the vowels per se. They are mere symbols. They symbolize the underlying sounds-enunciations. It is the sounds represented by the vowels that do the work of demarcating the syllabic structure of a word.

Syllables are of two kinds, open and closed. With an open syllable, the sound of a vowel trails; with a closed one, that of letter (consonant) does. However, even a syllable having a trailing vowel may be closed, if it is directly succeeded by an accentuated letter. In that case, the preceding vowel closes the syllable (to which it belongs) off.

Vowels are of ten kinds. Five of them are big; the remaining five are small. Apart from these, there is an eleventh vowel: the sheva. Whereas the ten basic vowels each define another form of enunciation (which is a modification of the enunciation of a letter), the sheva occurs where distinctive enunciation is intended as being bypassed. In other words, the occurrence of a sheva indicates something of a neutral enunciation, one that does not render the affected letter’s enunciation distinct.

We have just been told that the sheva represents a neutral enunciation. However, we have not been told what this means. As it transpires, an enunciation, as indicated by a sheva, may be neutral in either of two senses, varying with the context (situation). It may be neutral in the sense of being minimal, showing no articulation beyond the basic requirements of enunciability. On the other hand, a sheva’s enunciation may be neutral in the sense of standing for a null sound-value. Here there is no enunciation to be discerned at all. Each of these has its legitimate uses.

However, for the moment, we shall want to close on this note.

Western Philosophy, First Installment

2011-08-10T11:46:00.000-04:00

Philosophy begins with Plato, a Greek from Athens. He founded a school, regarded as the precursor of the modern university. Situated in Athens, it was called the Academy. In it he taught philosophy and other subjects as well. Politics comes especially to mind. He was especially keen on the study of mathematics, which he saw as importantly linked to philosophy. Plato flourished in substantially the 400s and early 300s b.c.e. This was the time when, shortly after the time of Pericles (the military general and statesman, famous for leading Athens to ascendency through victory in the Persian wars), Athens was occupied in the Peloponnesian wars, in which it met with defeat, having been overwhelmed by Sparta. Culturally/intellectually speaking, Athens was heir to the great literary tradition represented most notably by the works of Homer, the Odyssey and the Iliad. There wasn’t any philosophy in those works; but they did vividly portray the moral outlook (centered on honor and heroism) of the Greek culture. Apart from Homer, there is also the literary work of Hesiod, and of others, to bear in mind. However, here we shall blithely pass over all of these. We’ll conclude this paragraph by mentioning that Greek city-states, Athens in particular, were run politically as democracies in the direct sense – meaning that issues were decided by popular vote, taken in the Assemblies (with various strictures as to who was qualified to belong to the franchise). Now, as promised, to the next paragraph.

We began by noting that Plato inaugurates philosophy. But this is, of course, an inaccuracy. Plato was immediately preceded by his rightfully famous philosophy-teacher, Socrates. And as I shall point out in a moment (actually, in another post, G-d willing), Socrates in turn was preceded by yet others. Why, then, claim that Plato was the original Western philosopher? The answer is that there is something to be said for basing a narrative like the one I am developing on the notion that, to qualify as a historically significant philosopher, a figure has got to be known substantially through his writings. Socrates did not write; and though some of Socrates’ precursors did write, they are not substantially known through their writings, as their writings have been lost to us. Plato, on the other hand, famously wrote dialogues, which – judging by the consensus of opinion – stand at the foundation of all subsequent philosophical theorizing. So the choice of Plato is amply justified.

From Likutei Ma-harich On Rising in the Morning

2011-08-07T11:44:00.000-04:00

In the Gemara of Berachos, at the conclusion of Perek Haro-eh, we encounter the following: When he wakens he recites elokai neshama shenasata bi tehora...(My G-d, the soul that You have put in me is pure...). This is a blessing of thanks for G-d’s having returned to him his soul. However, it is not our custom to recite any beracha (blessing) before performing netilas yadayim – washing the hands. For the reason for our departure from the unqualified statement of the Gemara, see Rabeinu Yona’s comments to this passage in the Gemara, in which he explains that in the Talmudic era people were saturated with holiness. Consequently, they were punctilious about maintaining their sanctity, once having washed their hands. (In other words, they would wash their hands before retiring for the night and maintain their pure state throughout the night, by scrupulously refraining from touching themselves in places touching which would compromise their cleanliness.) We, on the other hand, who are incapable of steadily maintaining our cleanliness in a comparable manner, ought not to recite a blessing until having washed our hands. Consult this source for further details.

The Seder Olam states (and the Magein Avraham cites his statement at the conclusion of section 4) that one should offer praise and thanks to the Al-mighty, may His name be blessed, and enunciate immediately upon getting up [in the morning]: modeh ani lefanecha melech chai vekayam shehechezarta bi nishmasi bechemla raba emunasecha (I give thanks to You, the live, eternal Sovereign, for mercifully returning to me my soul. Immense is Your trustworthiness.) (One should pause briefly between the words bechemla and raba emunasecha. See the Yad Efrayim for more on this.) Reciting this does not require washing one’s hands, as neither a name nor an epithet is mentioned in this recitation-formula. See the Seder Olam for more on this. In regard to the intention behind the word bechemla, see what the Tola-as Yakov says in connection with the Elokai Neshama prayer, the gist of which is as follows. When the soul ascends at night On High to give an accounting of its actions, justice dictates that, if it should be found guilty, it should no longer be returned. See the Tola-as Yakov’s elaboration. The source of this assertion is the Zohar Hakadosh (Va-eschanan 269), where it said that, upon rising in the morning, the individual should offer praise to the Al-mighty for returning him his soul. It is an act of immense kindness on His part to have done so, considering that it is blemished with guilt in various ways and known to Him to be so. This notwithstanding, the Al-mighty restores his soul to his body. Consult this passage in the Zohar for further insight.

Now, the phrase raba emunasecha is to be understood in accord with the Midrash, cited by the Tur (46), which, citing the verse chadashim labekarim raba emunasecha, offers a simile: A man deposits one of his belongings to his friend for safekeeping, and this trustee returns it to him in a decrepit, ruined state. In contrast, when a man deposits his soul in a weary state to his Creator at night, He returns it to him in a renewed and much rejuvenated condition. This, then, is intimated by the phrase raba emunasecha (immense is Your trustworthiness). See the Midrash for further elaboration.

A Platonic Diversion

2011-08-05T11:48:00.000-04:00

A number of followers have been asking me to say something about Plato’s Republic – perhaps his best-known dialogue – or at least to give over its gist. In what follows, I don’t venture any original thoughts about it, but I make a sheepish attempt at giving over the gist of some of the Republic’s thrust.

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The main thesis of the dialogue is that the perfect state is one governed by philosophers kings. Philosopher kings are steeped in knowledge and have insight into the truth of things. They feel a sense of duty to go out and serve the state by providing guidance and direction, informed by their immense understanding of reality. But how does one become a philosopher king?

This forms the brunt of the story. To be a philosopher king, one has to have intelligibly apprehended the form of the good – in its myriad relations. And to master the form of the good, one needs to intellectually contemplate the various forms in their totality. For binding them together and standing at their apex is the form of the good. Having met with the form of the good, the philosopher is inevitably driven to exemplifying moral rectitude in his own conduct.

How, then, does one go about in apprehending the forms? The answer is through engaging in dialectic, a form of metaphysical study. Yes, but what sets dialectic apart from other forms of study? It is distinguished by the fact that it pays no attention at all to things as they are perceptibly manifest. It focuses entirely on the true natures of things, that is to say, their abstract forms. It reasons them out purely intellectually, without having recourse to concrete, this-worldly examples. Good; but how does one gain the capability of engaging in this kind of study? After all, it seems so remote and detached.

Plato’s answer: by undergoing a proper education, one with a focus on mathematical subjects. Pure mathematics is empirically detached, meaning that it deals exclusively in abstractions. It might on the periphery draw on tangible instances of the forms it seeks to understand; but it nevertheless engages the mind in a good deal of abstract contemplation. Its study goes a long way toward preparing the mind to dabble purely in the essences, or forms, themselves. In this way, it helps liberate the mind from the gravitational pull of sensory encounters. And insofar forth, it is an integral component of a would-be philosopher’s education. (It is by no means the sole component; but its intense study is what immediately precedes taking up the study of dialectic.)

With a contemplation of forms and an apprehension of the good, backed by ample drill in mathematics, having been achieved, the philosopher is ready to rule. Yet the public at large resists rule by philosophers. Why would this be? It is owing to the fact that philosophers exhibit an aloofness that causes them incur the ire of the uninitiated. The public is simply incapable of properly assessing their value. Plato employs the image of a cavern to illustrate the point about the philosopher’s flight to the world of intelligibles.

He says to imagine a situation in which prisoners, facing a wall, are chained to the ground, so that they cannot move about or look to the side or to the rear. Behind them, extending over the entire length of the wall they face, runs an elevated passageway, sealed at the front by a low-standing divider. The prisoners’ backs are turned to this passageway; and behind this passageway there burns, in turn, a blistering fire. A winding path leads from this point out unto the exterior of the cavern.

Now, on the passageway lying to the rear of where the prisoners are standing a procession occurs, in which puppet figures of various sorts are found carrying things over their heads and running to and fro. Owing to the fire burning in the background, an image of these goings about is projected onto the wall that the prisoners are facing – in the form of shadows. The shadows of the passing figures and objects are thus cast upon the wall for the prisoners to see. Over time, the prisoners have become accustomed to them, and have developed avid interests in the variegated courses of action that these shadowy images (seem to) take and in the fluctuations they undergo. This is no different than the way people in the real world are captivated by events pervading life in the actual community.

Bear in mind, now, that these prisoners have been chained to the wall since infancy and have never witnessed the light of day. They have never had occasion to experience things in the real: not even the objects moving in the passageway or, for that matter, the fire burning behind them. What this means is that, for them, the shadowy scene on the wall is the totality of reality.

This much is background. At this point, Plato says to imagine that someone comes along and unchains one of the prisoners. The prisoner is now free to look behind him and behold the sight of the figures and objects moving about in the background, the images of which are projected onto the wall that the prisoners face. He is now free, also, to view the fire, which is the source of the light by means of which the prisoners gain a view of the shadowy figures jumping about in front of them. Yet, this prisoner resists taking in these various sights, being, as he is, blinded by the sudden onslaught of light emanating from the fire. He is, moreover, bewildered by the entire scene and reluctant to venture out for fear of what the situation might hold in store. To him, it appears so very unreal.

He is, however, nudged by his liberator to take incremental steps and make his way out of cave. He slowly and unsteadily hazards the trek, passing the various bodies and artifices along the way. Finally he finds himself on the path leading to the exterior of the cavern. As he approaches the opening, he experience his first whiff of light’s illumination, coming from the outside. Soon he has exited the cave and been thrust into the light of day, illuminated by the sun’s rays.

Once again, he is overwhelmed by the the shining bright light and seeks escape by casting his gaze downward. He finds himself looking into a pond of water, in which are reflected images – such as his body – from above. The sight of these images is all he can muster at first. But then he looks up somewhat and begins to catch glimpses of the various objects populating the surroundings. These are the very objects at whose watery images he looked at just a moment earlier, and whose visibility is owing to the light carried by the sun’s beaming rays. As he becomes increasingly acclimated to them, he casts his gaze further upward and is met with a view of the sun itself, providing the light through whose agency the things he sees around him are made capable of being seen. At that point, he is, however, taken back into the cave.

As he enters, he finds himself fumbling about,owing to the dungeon-like darkness that prevails. He only awkwardly makes his way around, missing his steps here and there. It is rather like he can hardly abide the experience. In any event, he chances to encounter his erstwhile comrades, who heap on him the meanest kind of derision. Noticing his shaky gait, they hasten to treat him as someone who has succumbed to utter deliriousness. Just the same, he approaches them and tells them of the amazing sights he has blissfully witnessed.

He tries to persuade them of their sorry sordid state that is entirely permeated by fancifulness. They laugh at him, thinking loudly that he knows not a thing whereof he speaks. They accuse him of having stepped out into a netherworld, totally devoid of reality. He, in turn, tries his level best to impress upon them the baselessness of what their misty experience affords them and to convince them of its source in a far more imposing reality.

The moral of the story is an analogy: The world of perceptible experience is to the intelligible world of forms as the shadowy images of the cave are to sun-illuminated objects of the outside world. Just as in the tangible world objects receive their visibility through the light emanating from the sun, so too in the intelligible world the form of the good provides a driving axle to the myriad forms that are systematically interrelated. And just as in the tangible world sensory experience affords access to physical phenomena, so too in the intelligible world contemplation offers insight into abstract forms. The non-philosophical public at large is, however, resistant to this perspective and, therefore, to the rule of the philosopher king. To them, his vision of things is flawed throughout; and he is ill-equipped to hold forth effectively in the hustle and bustle of everyday social living. Philosophical rule must therefore be imposed upon the people non-voluntarily – at least at first. It is for their good. The situation in this regard invites comparison to the ridicule the liberated prisoner receives at the hands of his erstwhile fellow prisoners.

Plato is not unaware that instituting this kind of governance is a formidable task, and that initial conditions have to be set up so as to be accommodating of the requisites of implementation. To this end, he describes at length what other social arrangements have to be made. He says that the state (i.e., society) is to be divided into three classes of citizens or inhabitants: the guardians, the auxiliaries, and the artisans. The artisans produce and live a life of personal enrichment. But the guardians and auxiliaries are charged with protecting and governing the state. To qualify, they have to meet stringent standards. Having qualified, they need to undergo a formidable education. In its early phase, this education consists in cultural and literary studies, comprising music, poetry, and the various arts. But youth’s cultural exposure needs to be limited to what is worthy of their natures; and to the end of assuring that it is, the state exercises harsh censorship, banishing impure specimens of literature and art forms from the stage and jettisoning their authors and producers along with them. The point of imposing these measures is to guarantee that the young develop along desirable lines.

We would be remiss if we did not stipulate that the education that Plato advocates for youth at this stage comprises physical exercise - gymnastics - in addition to the musical, cultural studies just emphasized.

The best of the youth receive continuous promotion and go on to become guardians proper, that is, rulers or philosopher kings. The remaining select, provided they prove themselves adequate, take their positions alongside the full-fledged guardians and become auxiliaries: soldiers with military duty.

Education is but one aspect of the overall arrangement, though. The different classes, especially the lowest, have to be made to be content with their fates. Otherwise, conditions aren’t conducive to the manageable imposition of elite rulership. The state therefore resorts to feeding its citizenry myths, having the people internalize these myths and reconcile themselves to their alleged determinateness. The myths tell them that their class assignments are not arbitrary but necessary. The artisan class is thereby quelled.

However, the guardians must be dealt with specially. They have to be relied upon to defend the state; and they are expected to be able to act selflessly in behalf of the state. What arrangement might the state make to secure the guardian’s unflinching loyalty? Plato answers with a form of communalism.

He wants to see the state set aside a spatial region for the express use of the guardian class, where they live together and share common resources as one happy family. They meet as one in their common dining facilities, sleeping quarters, and recreational grounds, women as well as men. They roam freely amongst themselves, unobstructed. Property is not owned privately; people are not possessed of valuables (or other durable belongings); and wealth is not accumulated. As a result, self-interest is immeasurably diminished, and dedication to the common good is appreciably enhanced.

And that’s merely the beginning. To be added is that the nuclear family is abolished, with mating done rotationally and selectively for optimal breeding. Biological parentage is made little of, so that children can look at all adults as their forebears and adults can view children’s upbringing as a shared, collective charge. With this social scheme in place, guardians, future and present, are disabused of their preconceived notions of personal interest: they are enlisted in the cause of working toward the greater good.

They need merely to proceed with their philosophical education.

Plato acknowledges that guardians might, under these austere conditions, not themselves be as happy as they could otherwise be. But he drives home the point that guardians have to be persuaded that the object of the overall social arrangement is not to make one party, or one group, as happy as can possibly be; but rather to achieve the greatest degree of happiness for the state taken as a whole. The happiness of a part of the whole needs to be sacrificed for the maximal happiness of the whole. However, it is not, for Plato, a foregone conclusion that, on balance, guardians will not themselves be happier vis-à-vis the lives they lead.

In any event, they will make society better.

At this point, it needs to be interjected that Plato is not content simply to give an account of the structure of the good state. He wants, further, to extrapolate from this account to the case of an individual. He is interested in the question of what makes someone a good man, and of why someone should want to be good. He suggests that just as what makes a state a good state is that it is divided into classes, that each class faithfully adheres to its own role and does not venture to trespass over onto another’s, and finally that the state is governed and controlled by the one class that possesses immense knowledge and understanding; what, similarly, makes someone a good man is that his psyche, which comprises three parts – wisdom, courage, and temperance – operates so that each of its parts adheres to its own domain and does not presume to venture into that of another, and so that the other parts subordinate themselves to the dominion of wisdom. The person is therefore properly integrated and experiences optimal satisfaction as a result. His weakest aspect, the part of him that desires, may not in and of itself achieve total satisfaction. But to harp on this is to miss the point, already noted in connection with the state, that what counts is not the happiness of this or that part but, rather, the happiness of the whole. The work that his parts do has to be coordinated so as to achieve the maximum degree of satisfaction for the man as such. As a result, he is not only moral but happily moral.

Shabbos Preparation

2011-08-03T12:17:00.000-04:00

(72:7)
Everyone should do his best to provide meat, delectable fish, and excellent wine. For it is a mitzva to eat fish at each of the Shabbos meals, provided that it does him no harm. However, if it does do him harm, or even if he simply does not like fish, he should not partake of fish. The reason being, Shabbos is meant to be a source of enjoyment, not of discomfiture. In addition, he should sharpen the knife, as this too is accounted an honor for Shabbos. He should, further, put the house in order, drape the beds, and spread a cloth over the table, keeping the table covered for the duration of the Shabbos day. Some go so far as to spread two tablecloths upon the table. He should be extremely joyous about Shabbos’ immanent arrival, keeping in mind how excited he would be were he anticipating the arrival of an important person, and how far he would go to tidy up the house in such a person’s honor. All the more so should he make preparation in honor of the Shabbos Queen.... It is a good idea to taste on erev Shabbos the Shabbos food cooking in the pots – to make sure that it tastes good.

In Honor of Shabbos

2011-08-02T10:00:00.000-04:00

I have got some developing, breaking news to report. It is from the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, Hilchos Shabbos, 72:4.

I paraphrase.

It is written, zachor es yom hashabos lekadsho (Remember the day of Shabbos, to sanctify it). What this means is that a person should remember, and sanctify, it on each and every day. How so? If, on a regular day, he should happen across a desirable food item, one that is not readily encountered and, also, not immanently perishable, he should step up and procure it in honor of the day of Shabbos. Moreover, on erev Shabbos, a person is particularly strongly adjured to rise early and shop around to procure the things that will meet his Shabbos needs. He is, in fact, given a special dispensation: he may dispatch his shopping obligation before having davened the morning prayer – with the proviso that he will not thereby have arrived late for the public prayer service (tefila betzibur). Furthermore, it is preferable to do the sopping that one does in honor of Shabbos on erev Shabbos to doing it on Thursday. There is, however, an exception to this rule: when the item in question requires substantial preparation, he should obtain it earlier – presumably on Thursday – so as to be able to prepare it adequately. Something else: in regard to anything he buys for consumption on Shabbos, he should make it a point to expressly declare his intention that he buys it for the honor of Shabbos. On a related matter, among the various edicts that Ezra enacted, there is one to the effect that one should do one’s laundry on Thursday, so as not to be encumbered by the demands of this chore on erev Shabbos, when one needs to be free to tend to one’s Shabbos requirements.

(72:5)

It applies to everyone alike that, even though he has plenty of servants of whose services he can avail himself for getting his various chores done, he should still make it a point to personally indulge in some act for the express purpose of honoring Shabbos thereby. He should, in this way, seek to emulate the Amoraim. Rav Chisda, for example, is reported to have cut the vegetables thinly; while Raba and Rav Yosef would chop wood and Reb Zeira would light the fire. Rav Nachman, in turn, fixed up the house, gathering in utensils needed for Shabbos and hauling out vessels designated for weekday use. Everyone should follow in their example, and refrain from thinking that it is beneath him to sully himself with such mundane undertakings. On the contrary, it is a boon to his honor that he honors the Shabbos.

(72:6)

It is ubiquitous among the diffuse communities of Jewish people to hold to the custom of baking bread loaves in the home in honor of Shabbos. This applies not only to those who are in the practice of partaking of pas palter during the week, for whom adhering to pas yisrael on Shabbos would constitute an upgrade (in level of observance). It applies as well to those accustomed to eating pas yisrael during the week: they too are enjoined to make home-baked loaves for Shabbos. This is so that the woman of the household will fulfill the command (mitzva) of separating chala. For Adam, the first man, had been created on erev Shabbos, and – having been created first – was the chala of the world. But the woman transgressed and, consequently, precipitated his downfall. She needs, therefore, to make amends for the catastrophe she brought about. This she does by baking loaves and separating chala. Three loaves are made: a big one, a middle-sized one, and a small one. The middle one is designated for the feast of the night (Friday night). The big one is used for the daytime meal, to signal the fact that the day period of Shabbos deserves greater honor than does the night period. Finally, the small loaf is set aside for the third meal.

Teaching and Learning

2011-08-01T10:22:00.000-04:00

velimadtem osam es beneichem ledabeir bam beshivtecha beveisecha uvlechtecha vaderech uvshachbecha uvkumecha. On the face of it, the verse says: You should teach them (the laws) (to) your children, to speak in (or about) them, when sitting in your house...

A question that arises is: What is the force of to speak in them? Is it to be understood as saying, teach your children to speak in them? In other words, get your children to speak about the laws: this is what you are enjoined to do (in your teaching). Or, is it rather to be understood as saying that you should teach them (the laws) to your children, so that they will...later, of their own accord (as it were), come to speak of them? We put this aside for a moment and raise another matter, one that is indifferent to the two sides of the question just raised.

The verse says, to speak in them...besivtecha beveisecha – when you sit in your house. It sounds as if it is saying that you should teach them to your children, so that they will speak in them when you sit in your house and travel on your way, etc. Which seems incongruous! Why would you want to anchor your children’s study to the intervals and highlights that punctuate your routine/schedule? You would think that their study sessions should, rather, be pinned to judiciously selected segments of their respective schedules!

Perhaps, someone might say, this is what it means. The mode of expression merely switches from addressing you to addressing them. However, the suggestion of a switch like this occurring in mid course seems a bit excessively farfetched. So what then?

Another suggestion: beshivtecha beveisecha applies, not to when they, the children, should learn/speak of them, but rather to when you should teach them (i.e., your children). Do your teaching to your children when you sit in your house...is what the verse is saying. This sounds plausible. We need, it light of this suggestion, to reconsider the two sides of the question raised up front.

That question concerned the object of teaching: what is it that we are enjoined to teach our children? On one view, ledabeir bam addresses this matter, asserting that you are enjoined to teach your children to speak in them, meaning in the laws of the Torah. One question for this view concerns the word osam. On the face of it, it is out of place. Apart from this, there is also the consideration that, if what you are enjoined to teach is that they should speak in them, it is a bit hard to understand why this teaching should be anchored to discrete intervals in your daily schedule. Ostensibly, you could hammer in the importance of studying and speaking in learning on an opportunistic basis – whenever the occasion arises. Finally, is it really plausible to assume that we are being told to teach our children to speak about the laws? Does it not make more sense to say that that we are being enjoined to actually teach them the laws? It would seem to me that the answer is yes: the object of our teaching should be the Torah itself.

On this understanding, the intent of ledabeir bam is not that of supplying an object of teaching but, rather (to repeat), to accentuate that the point of teaching them the laws of the Torah is to get them not only to practice the mitzvos but also to speak of them and to study them – and, in turn, to pass them on to their young. This, then, accords with the last suggestion made, the one, namely, that beshivtecha beveisecha... is a characterization of when you should do your teaching: do it at all sorts of times of the day, under a variety of circumstances. On this view, the object of teaching is specified by the word osam (thus accounting for its presence) – which alludes to the laws. Do your teaching of the laws, the verse says, as you engage in pivotal activities throughout your day.

I believe that the verse’s stream of cantillation supports this reading of the verse. An esnachta occurs under the word bam, signaling a separation from the immediately ensuing beshivtecha... Beshivtecha is thus freed up to modify the leading verb velimadtem.

Equally important, this reading of the verse makes it out to run parallel with the corresponding verse in the first parsha of kerias shema. There it says: veshinantam levanecha vedibarta bam beshivtecha beveisecha... This latter verse, ostensibly, tells you to do two things: teach them to your children and speak in them. It then tells you to do these things under various circumstances, at various junctures of the day. These specifications pertain to both of the injunctions enunciated. (Proof: once again, an esnachta occurs under bam.) Consequently, it is the command to teach that is being qualified by the stated specifications as to when. Thus the one parsha is revelatory of the proper reading of the other.

And incidentally, there may be another respect in which the first parsha sheds light on how the second is to be read and understood. We had occasion to fuss over the phrase ledabeir bam; and we settled on the understanding that it was an allusion to a future payoff of the effort to teach children Torah: they will, in time, come to study Torah (speak of it) on their own. However, pursuing the method of extrapolating from the first parsha of kerias shema to the second, we are afforded another perspective on the interpretation of this phrase. We may understand ledabeir bam as meaning that you should teach them to your children so that you will speak in them, as you do so. You will thus be teaching and learning at all hours of the day. Indeed, you will be teaching and learning at once! This reading creates a really neat symmetry between the verses of these two parshios – which makes the reading compelling in the extreme.

Predication Primer

2011-07-31T10:17:00.000-04:00

This is meant as a supplement to my comments of three posts ago (“Esoteric”). It provides some general background.

A sentence consists of a subject and a predicate. A subject specifies what the sentence is about. A predicate says something about it.

A subject uses a noun to refer to something. A predicate uses a verb to express something that is done – by the thing specified in the subject.

There two kinds of verbs, transitive and intransitive. A transitive verb takes a direct object. This is because a transitive verb expresses action done to something. The thing on which action (as expressed by the verb) is taken (or performed) is referred to by the direct object of the (transitive) verb. This is, of course, a noun. Consequently, a sentence featuring a transitive verb has two nouns: one used by the subject and one used by the predicate. The structure of the sentence may be represented as: noun—>verb—>noun. (Example: Yosi hits a ball.)

An intransitive verb differs from a transitive one in that it does not take an object. The action expressed is, so to say, self-contained. With an intransitive verb, the sentence structure looks like: noun—>verb. (Example: Yosi sits.)

We have thus far considered the basic sentential components of subject and predicate and the words from which they are built – noun and verb. For added accuracy, we would do better to speak not of nouns and verbs but of noun phrases and verb phrases. Here we want to introduce a third type of phrase: a prepositional phrase.

A prepositional phrase may be appended to a noun or to a verb. In what follows, I will be interested solely in its attachment to a verb. It has two parts: preposition and object of the preposition. You all know what a preposition is; so there’s no need for me to elaborate on it. Suffice it to say, a preposition shares something important with a transitive verb, namely, that it takes an object (which in the case of a verb we refer to as a direct object). Needless to say, this object is represented by a noun.

A prepositional phrase may be appended to an intransitive verb (here we are not interested in its application to a transitive verb). When it is so appended, it yields the sentence structure: noun—>verb—>preposition—>noun. (Example: Yosi sits on a chair.) With this result, the (intransitive) verb is found to relate, indirectly, to the object of the preposition.

Love of Kindness

2011-07-29T14:29:00.000-04:00

I was listening to Rush Limbaugh over the radio when I remembered something that had occurred a long time ago. It happened when I lived in Boro Park in the neighborhood of Emunas Yisroel, which I would frequent. To many of the talks of Rav Wolfson shlita, the spiritual leader (otherwise known as The Mashgiach, because he has held the position of Mashgiach in Torah Vodaath) of Emunas Yisroel, I would then go.

In this one instance, I was sitting among the gathered, listening as Rav Wolfson talked about a topic of which I have no recollection. Among the things he said was one that really caught my attention. He raised a question.

In the Shemoneh Esrei we say the beracha of sim shalom. In it, we express ourselves, saying: ki be-or fanecha nasata lanu hashem elokeinu toras chayim ve-ahavas chesed. The statement implies, seemingly, that (kivayachol) the Al-mighty has given us two separate things: toras chayim and ahavas chesed – meaning, a Torah of life and a love of kindness. This raises the question: we can all agree that He has given us a Torah of life. However, what is the basis for saying that He (kivayachol) has given us a love of kindness? Some of us are, after all, more prone to this love than others.

Rav Wolfson shlita, undoubtedly, went on the explain that we have in fact been endowed with a distinctive love of kindness, why this is so, and what the nature of this love of kindness is. In all candor, I have no recollection of what he may have said. My purpose in writing is to suggest that the question is spurious to begin with – or, at least, may be spurious.

There is a way of reading – or should I say parsing? – the statement that prevents the question from arising. It is to read the statement as referring not to two things but to one – characterized by two special features. That is to say, the statement may be read as saying that He gave us a Torah of life and of love of kindness – both epithets characterize the Torah itself. That the Torah is a Torah of life speaks for itself. That it is a Torah of love of kindness follows from the fact that the Torah teaches and encourages love of kindness. It is saturated through and through with this motif – in its laws and in the history it conveys. This is why I say that the question raised that evening in the beis hamedrash fails to get off the ground, given this perspective.

But, of course, anyone is free to adopt an opposing one.

Imperatives: Categorical and Conditional

2011-07-28T10:58:00.000-04:00

In today’s post I would like to report to you on an Asvan De-oraysa from Reb Yosef Engle zl. He cites the Ramah in the laws of tzitzis who comments to the effect that the fact notwithstanding that, although women are not obligated in tzitzis owing to the fact that it is a time-dependent positive mitzvah, they are nevertheless permitted to don a tzitzis-bearing garment and recite a blessing upon the mitzvah, if they should so desire, and are deemed non-commanded doers of a mitzvah in so doing; nevertheless it remains improper for them to do so, inasmuch as it gives the appearance of taking on airs, which is categorically frowned upon. The Ramah buttresses his contention by pointing out that even a man is not required to wear tzitzis unless he freely chooses to don a four-cornered garment. So much for what the Ramah says. The Asvan De-oraysa seeks to take issue with the Ramah’s position that it is only on account of the fact that it is unjustifiably taking on airs that a woman is counseled not to don a talis outfitted with tzitzis. The Asvan De-oraysa wants to argue that no fulfillment of the command to wear tzitzis accrues to the woman who garbs herself in a talis to which are affixed tzitzis, at all; and that therefore this woman would be prohibited from reciting a beracha on garbing herself thusly. That no command is fulfilled by such a woman is, he wants to say, an outcome of the fact, cited by the Ramah, that the mitzvah of tzitzis is never a direct, categorical obligation on a person, even when the person is a man.

He sets out to develop a proof to the effect that a woman’s wearing a talis with tzitzis attached counts for nothing at all. His starting point is a Minchas Chinuch who comments on a Tosefos in Suka, which asks why lecha is needed to disqualify of stolen suka. Let a stolen suka be disqualified (invalidated) by dint of the fact that it is a mitzvah haba be-aveira (hereafter mhb)! To this, the Minchas Chinuch offers a striking reply that runs along the following lines. There are, he says, two kinds of positive commands (mitzvos). One kind is such that performance of the specified act is intrinsically sought. Examples abound and include such mitzvos as tefilin, lulav, etc. The other kind, by contrast, is such that the specified act is not intrinsically sought. It is merely instrumentally needed as a means of preventing a prohibited state of affairs from arising. Thus consider suka: the obligation to eat in a suka is not intrinsically sought. For had it been intrinsically sought, it would not have been left to a person’s discretion whether to partake of food and incur the obligation or not to and not incur the obligation. The obligation would have been imposed categorically and not conditionally (or contingently). As it is, a person is free not to eat at all, if he so chooses; he is imposed upon neither to eat nor, a fortiori, to do eating in a suka. The mitzvah merely states that, should he voluntarily decide to partake of food and to eat, then he should do his eating in the suka. What this means is that the performance of the act – in this instance, the act of eating in a suka – is not intrinsically sought. It arises, rather, from a need to prevent a state of affairs from arising in which the person is eating outside the suka – which is undesired. So explains the Minchas Chinuch.

With this as background, we come to the explication of the principle that one does not fulfill a mhb. The Minchas Chinuch’s first step in delineating it is to disabuse us of the spurious notion that mhb invalidates the object with which we seek to perform a mitzvah – the case in point being a suka whose acquisition has been effected by unlawful means – thus rendering the act performed by using this object unqualified. Not so, he says: the impact of mhb is not at all analogous to that, say, of a (disqualifyingly) broken lulav, where the object is rendered invalid and therefore makes it so that an act performed by its use fails to meet the requirements of the command to perform an act using the object in question. But if this is not the operative mechanism behind mhb, then what is?

Lurking behind the Minchas Chinuch’s explanation is the following understanding. There are three things of which we need to be cognizant in considering the matter. There is, first, the object with which a mitzvah is performed. It must meet the defined specifications, if the act performed by its means is to qualify as fulfilling the designated mitzvah. (Thus, for example, a lulav must not be broken if it is to qualify.) Next, there is the performance of the act itself to consider. It must meet the necessary criteria. (A big part of what makes it a proper performance is that fact that it is performed using an object of the requisite kind.) Finally, there is still another element: it is this. The act – as fully qualified in itself – needs, further, to be accepted in fulfillment of the command. It needs to be suited for acceptance – which is to say that it needs to be deemed acceptable. It is, says the Minchas Chinuch, in regard to this last aspect that mhb enters as a desideratum.

An object’s having arisen by way of an aveira (sin, transgression) does nothing to thwart the object’s inherent validity or to impugn the integrity of an act in which it is playing a part. That is to say, it affects neither of the first two aspects of the completion of a mitzvah. The object’s having been acquired, or brought into being, through illicit means interferes, merely, with the ability of a performance that draws on it to bring about the requisite acceptance. Apart from this, however, its status as a mitzvah-object, capable of being used to discharge one’s obligation, remains intact.

Working with this understanding, the Minchas Chinuch infers that the principle of mhb applies only to the first of the two categories of positive command – that in which an action is intrinsically sought. It does not, however, apply to the second category. For only where the first category is concerned does acceptability enter as a desideratum. But where the sole purpose of a commanded act is to avert a circumstance in which something undesired is performed (for example, to prevent a state of affairs in which someone is eating outside the suka from arising), the act, considered in itself, is not something whose performance is sought. It is merely a means of obviating something repugnant. The issue, therefore, of this act’s acceptability never rises to the fore. This being so, there is nothing for the fact that the object with which the mitzvah is being performed originated in sin to infect and render ineffectual. All that remains to consider is the integrity of the performance of the act per se; and this, as noted, is not something that mhb can impinge on. This, then, is why lecha is needed to disqualify a stolen suka. Without lecha, mhb would be powerless to disqualify the performance.

So much for the Minchas Chinuch.

At this point, the Asvan De-oraysa steps up and seeks to adapt the Minchas Chinuch’s logic (as regards the inapplicability of mhb to non-categorical mitzvos) to the case of a mitzvah performed by someone who is not commanded (e.g., a woman in regard to time-sensitive mitzvos), in an ingenious way. The question his reasoning addresses is: why should someone not obligated in a mitzvah nevertheless be able to fulfill the mitzvah (by performing it)? His argument is that someone not commanded – such as a woman in regard to a time-dependent mitzvah – is able to attain fulfillment of the particular mitzvah only where it comes from the class of mitzvos whose performance is intrinsically sought. For there the element of acceptance enters as a desideratum; and a woman is able to achieve acceptance by exercising her free volition in fulfilling the command, despite not having been commanded. In other words, the element of acceptance provides a wedge with whose help a non-commanded person may enter. On the other hand, where the element of acceptance is absent – as it is in regard to mitzvos whose performance is merely instrumentally sought – an exempted person has nothing to latch onto in attempting to fulfill the mitzvah.

The very idea of fulfilling a mitzvah is, in that case, somewhat attenuated; what is really implicated is the negative idea of advertence. But someone not commanded is not someone whose abstinence averts a proscribed state of affairs. So given her exempt status, a woman can, in relation to time-sensitive commands, do nothing to advance the cause of avoidance. Her eating outside of a suka is not undesired; consequently, her eating inside one does nothing to avert an undesired state of affairs. It is entirely ineffectual. To put it starkly, her eating outside a suka is as good as her eating inside one; the situation is entirely indifferent to it. Ergo: her performance cannot constitute a fulfillment of the command.

Now, considering that, as the Ramah indicates, tzitzis falls into the classification of instrumental, conditional commands, owing to the fact that the individual is not imposed upon to don a garment of the appropriate kind but, rather, to wear tzitzis if he independently decides to don such a garment, it follows that a woman, who is totally non-commanded in regard to this mitzvah, would fail to fulfill the mitzvah, should she voluntarily act to perform it, and that therefore she should certainly not recite a beracha in conjunction with her act.

The Asvan De-oraysa buttresses his reasoning by drawing on a Tosefos in Kidushin, which suggests that, if it were not for the presence of a pasuk expressly disqualifying women from performing certain of the services associated with bringing a korban (animal sacrifice), the fact alone that the service of a korban requires being accoutered in the priestly garments and women are not permitted to wear those garments would not suffice to clinch the issue in favor of their not performing the service – the reason being, the very state of affairs whereby women are not commanded to wear the priestly garments guarantees that, in failing to wear them, they are not lacking them. Where there is no requirement there is no lack, resulting from failure to abide by the requirement. But if they are not lacking them, then their not being accoutered in them would per se be no obstacle to their performing the service (for it would be as if they were wearing them!) – but for the explicit pasuk, disqualifying them.

The Asvan De-oraysa concludeds that, mutatis mutandis, the same holds for a woman’s donning tzitzis. Since the mitzvah of tzitzis is not positive, in the sense of enjoining the person to wear a garment requiring it, but rather negative, in the sense that, once worn, the garment should not be lacking in tzitzis; and, further, since, given her exempt status, a woman’s failure to affix tzitzis to her garment cannot constitute a lack with respect to the garment she wears; it follows that when she does affix tzitzis to the garment she wears she accomplishes nothing at all, as far as fulfilling the mitzvah is concerned. The Asvan De-oraysa goes so far as to express himself by saying that a woman’s not wearing tzitzis (on the four-cornered garment she is wearing) is exactly the same as her wearing tzitzis. It is as if she were wearing tzitzis! And to support this, he cites the Gemara in Avoda Zara that says that, the fact notwithstanding that we derive from a pasuk that someone uncircumcised is unfit to perform circumcision, a woman is, nevertheless, qualified to do a circumcision, because she is as if she actually were circumcised. The Asvan De-oraysa interprets this as meaning that, since a woman is not in the kind of physical state that circumcision is meant to extricate a person from, she is accounted as actually being circumcised. That circumcision has not physically been performed on her does not detract from her status in this regard.

Similarly, by the very fact that she is exempt, a woman is not lacking tzitzis when the garment she wears is not adorned with them. But if she is not lacking them, it is exactly the same as if she were actually wearing them! Consequently, it is impossible for her to fulfill the mitzvah – by physically wearing them. They add nothing to her initial condition at all.

After some additional dialectical treatment of the topic, the Asvan De-oraysa considers the possibility that, by the forgoing reasoning, a woman should not be allowed to recite a beracha on sitting in a suka either, given that one is not required to eat in a suka but, only, to eat in a suka if one decides independently that one wants to eat. Suka is not a mitzvah whose fulfillment is intrinsically sought but only instrumentally so. Consequently, it shouldn’t be possible for her to fulfill the mitzvah! But he demurs, explaining that the situation with suka is importantly different from that of tzitzis. For in the case of suka, it is not the case that the mitzvah to eat in it is contingent on the realization of a prior condition: namely, the formation of an intention to eat. Rather, the mitzvah of suka is teishvu ke-ein taduru.

This means that the mitzvah is to live in a suka in precisely the manner in which one ordinarily lives in a home. Now, living at home is not about staying indoors all of the time. It consigns certain kinds of activity to indoor conduction, while countenancing other activity types as belonging to the outdoors. Neither does it demand that activities whose place is in the home actually be engaged in (in the home). It leaves it to the home-dweller’s discretion whether to engage in activity – such as eating and sleeping – whose place is in the home, or not to. All this is discretional. What is positively expected is merely that any activity whose place is the home will, if engaged in at all, be conducted in the home. And, says the Asvan De-oraysa, since suka life is meant to simulate home life, the suka dweller is entitled to the same exercise of discretion as he enjoys when living in his home. This is part and parcel of the fulfillment of the obligation to settle in a suka. It is teishvu ke-ein taduru.

Accordingly, there is nothing conditional about the mitzvah of suka. Far from being contingent and conditional, it is categorical. It demands that one conduct oneself as if living at home all throughout. Fulfilling this imperative, though, allows ample scope for deciding for oneself if and when one wants to eat and sleep. But when one eats and sleeps, one had better do it in the suka. This being so, a woman is quite capable of fulfilling the command as a non-commanded doer of the mitzvah. As such, she very well makes a beracha.

By taking this stance, the Asvan De-oraysa has distanced himself from the position taken by the Minchas Chinuch to the effect that suka constitutes an instrumental type of mitzvah and has only conditional (not categorical) force. Consequently, the Asvan De-oraysa is likewise deprived of the possibility of availing himself of the Minchas Chinuch’s answer to the Tosefos’ question about mhb in relation to a stolen suka. Evidently, this is a price he is willing to pay. May all be well upon us and all of Israel.

Something Bordering on the Esoteric

2011-07-21T12:52:00.000-04:00

In the verse (Parshas Pinchas, Bamidbar 26:3) it says vayedabeir moshe ve-elazar hakohein osam be-arvos mo-av al yardein yereicho leimor. In the text we learn that G-d commanded Moshe and Elazar to count the Jewish people (from age twenty and up) in the aftermath of the plague that had consumed a large number of Jewish souls. In this verse we find Moshe and Elazar conveying this imperative to the children of Israel. But the verse employs the word osam. And it is unclear how this word is being used and, therefore, how exactly the verse is to be read.

It would be nice if we could translate the word as meaning with them and, therefore, the verse as saying that Moshe and Elazar spoke with them, meaning the with the Jewish people,...concerning the matter of the count. This is a very straightforward way of reading it – and, in fact, the way that the Seforno and the Even Ezra adopt. They have no compunctions about the verse’s use of osam.

However, others are not as sanguine. These latter are impelled by the fact that, taken straightforwardly, osam does not translate into with them. To say that osam meant with them would be to say that that it functioned as a prepositional phrase, combining the preposition with and the pronoun them. And this would make it suitable as an occupant of the position following this verse’s intransitive verb vayedabeir. It would make it possible to read the verse as saying that Moshe and Elazar spoke with the Jewish people.

However, in point of fact, osam does not standardly mean with them. Taking the meaning with them is rather reserved for the word itam (or imam). Osam, rather, means them. It is a simple pronoun, with no preposition attached. Consequently it is not suited for occupying the position of a prepositional phrase in a sentential clause governed by an intransitive verb. If it is to appear in a predicate at all, it would have to occur in a predicate in which a transitive verb governed; and it would serve as the direct object of this transitive verb.

This is why the Targum Onkelos is not content to read the verse after the fashion of the Seforno and Even Ezra. In fact, it is not only Onkelos who objects to this seemingly straightforward reading. There is also Rashi to consider. Here is Rashi’s gloss: diberu imam al zos shetziva hamakom limnosam. (Speak with them about this, that G-d has commanded for them to be counted.) The reader of this Rashi might be tempted to correlate Rashi’s invocation of the word imam with the verse’s use of osam. In that case, Rashi would come out siding with the reading of the Seforno and the Even Ezra, after all. He would be interpreting osam as imam, or with them; and he would be reading the verse as saying that Moshe and Elazar spoke with them, that is, with the Jews. However, a glance at the Sifsei Chachamim quickly disabuses us of such a naïve reading of Rashi.

Here is the understanding of the verse that the Sifsei Chachamim attributes to Rashi: Moshe and Elazar spoke (with them) regarding this thing, that is, the counting of the Jewish people. In other words, osam does not correlate with imam. It correlates, rather, with this thing – which is to say, the commanded counting of the people. The motive for this departure is, evidently, a dissatisfaction with translating osam as having the meaning with them (imam). Treating osam as meaning with them is objectionable on the grounds that one looks in vain for the presence of a preposition, such as with, in the osam construction. There is none to be discerned. It is a pronoun, meaning them, plain and simple.

Now, admittedly, it is not entirely clear what the nature of the alternative that Rashi, according to the Sifsei Chachamim, offers is. There seem to be two ways of parsing it. One is to say that, like the Seforno and Even Ezra, Rashi understands the verb of the clause, which he naturally understands to be vayedabeir (speaking), to be intransitive. Consequently, it cannot be complemented by a direct object but only, if at all, by a prepositional phrase. Rashi, furthermore, identifies the prepositional phrase as being: al zos, meaning about this (thing) – this (thing) being a reference to the counting of the Jews. Al is a preposition, meaning about; and zos is a pronoun, meaning this, which Rashi understands to be referring to the commanded act of counting. Importantly, it is this last that correlates with the verse’s use of osam.

The interesting, and important, thing about this is that, although Rashi’s reading invokes the preposition al (about), it stops short of imputing this preposition to word osam itself. To do that would be to defeat the whole purpose of the exercise. Instead, it posits al, or about, as an understood preposition, one that is merely implicit. Its object is the word osam, which provides the pronoun needed to make reference to the specifics of the counting act. Consequently, although there is a preposition operating here, osam is relieved of the burden of carrying it – rightly so.

In sum, therefore, though, on this reading of Rashi, Rashi dispenses with the view that osam incorporates the preposition with, it does not, nevertheless, dispense with the view that osam incorporates the object of a preposition – them. It does, however, reorient the reference of the pronoun them, fixing it on the command to count. This, then, is one way to read the Sifsei Chachamim.

However, there is, I believe, also another. On this latter, the departure from the approach of the Seforno and Even Ezra is cleaner, i.e., more radically complete. On this reading, the verse is made out to say: Moshe and Elazar spoke osam – the command to count in its myriad details. That is, vayedabeir is used transitively; and there is no intervening preposition bridging the verb and the subsequent pronoun serving as object. There is no place for such a preposition, given that the verse is following a transitive verb-direct object structure.

Here it bears mentioning, parenthetically, that some verbs are capable of doubling up as both intransitive and transitive verbs, dibur, speaking, being a case in point. You can use it transitively and say something like: Speak your mind; Speak your words; or Speak divrei torah. And at Bereishis 24:33 we find ad im dibarti devarai. However, you can also use it intransitively, as when you say: I will speak; or I will speak to him. According to the just proposed understanding of the interpretation that the Sifsei Chachamim imputes to Rashi, vayedabeir is here used transitively. And osam, serving as its direct object, makes reference to the commanded counting of the Jewish people.

So, in sum, we have so far identified three approaches to the interpretation of the verse. On one, the verse features an intransitive verb, vayedabeir, which is complemented by osam, taken as a prepositional phrase, comprising words for with and for them (they being the children of Israel, who are spoken to) (Seforno, Even Ezra, and possibly Rashi). On another, vayedabeir, taken still as an intransitive verb, is complemented by a prepositional phrase, part of it understood and part of it made explicit. The prepositional phrase is about them. The understood part is the preposition about. And the explicitly rendered part of it is the prepositional object osam, taken as meaning them (plain and simple). Them, in turn, is interpreted as a reference to the details surrounding the commanded counting of the Jews (Rashi/Sifsei Chachamim, on the tame understanding). Finally, on yet another approach, vayedabeir is, again, understood as serving as the main verb. It is, however, used transitively; and it takes osam, understood as referring to the command to count and the surrounding details, as a direct object. At this point, we want to complete our thought and go back and look at the Onkelos’ way of reading the verse. We will find that, structurally, it has something in common with the third view just summarized (as a possible reading of the Sifsei Chachamim), although, semantically, it shares something in common with the first view (that of the Seforno and Even Ezra).

The Onkelos glosses our verse as follows: And Moshe and Elazar the kohein spoke, and they instructed to count them... In other words, the verse says nothing about to whom they spoke. It addresses, rather, the matter of what they said. And what they said was that the people were to be counted. When the verse expresses itself using the word osam, it is indeed a pronominal reference to the Jewish people; and it does indeed serve as the direct object of a transitive verb. The verb, however, is not to speak – vayedabeir – but rather to count. This, moreover, is an understood verb, gathered from the context and not expressly indicated in the text itself. This is Onkelos’ interpretation.

Now, as said, structurally, the pattern followed is that of the Sifsei Chachamim on the more radical reading. For the structure of the relevant clause is: subject, transitive verb, direct object. At the same time though, the idea that osam refers to the Jewish people is preserved. And in this there is symmetry to the understanding of the Seforno and the Even Ezra (and, also, possibly Rashi). Furthermore – as is the case with the Sifsei Chachamim’s approach – the idea of counting enters into the composition of this clause. Only, it does not occupy the position of object (as it does for the Sifsei Chachamim), but rather that of the verb. At the cost of having to yank in a governing verb – to count – from the outside (as it were), the Onkelos is enabled to interpret osam in what seems is the textually natural way, as a reference to the Jewish people who were being addressed, and at the same time to execute the interpretation in a way that is faithful to the standard grammatical use of the word osam – as a simple object.

The upshot is that we are confronted with two views as to whether osam can be used to mean what itam is typically used to mean – that is, with them. Rashi (unless understood in the Sifsei Chachamim’s way), the Seforno, and the Even Ezra hold that it can; whereas Onkelos (and Rashi as understood by the Sifsei Chachamim) holds it cannot. On what, then, does this disagreement turn?

Can osam be used for itam? To answer this, we need to consider the question: Do osam and itam come from the same root? To get a purchase on this, we need, first, to consider that the root-source of both osam and itam is the word es. In either case, es is inflected so as to incorporate a pronoun meaning them. We need, next, to consider whether the two words osam and itam come from the same es or from disparate eses. Are there, then, two eses or only one?

This much we can acknowledge axiomatically: osam comes from the es of es and itam comes from the es of im. Here I need to digress for a moment and explain what I mean by the es of es and the es of im. For the most part, in the Torah, we find the word es used in two (seemingly different) ways. In its most ubiquitous use, it prefaces an object – as for example in es ha-or. I call this the es of es. At other times though, es is used as a synonym for im. Thus, es ha-elokim hishalech no-ach. This, then, would be the es of im. In a straightforward sense, the word osam derives from the es of es, and the word itam derives from the es of im. This concludes my digression. The question before us, therefore, resolves itself into the question of whether these two eses are actually disparate roots or one and the same.

On the assumption that they are disparate, and that osam comes from the one (the es of es) and itam from the other (the es of im), it is understandable that inflecting the word es so that it incorporates a pronoun for them should yield divergent outcomes - osam and itam, respectively - depending on the es-word being so inflected. Different roots have different (phonetic) instantiations when operated on inflectionally. On the other hand, assuming that the two eses are at bottom the same, and that therefore both outer forms (osam and itam) come from – and are underpinned by – this one root, logic would suggest that the construction obtained by appending a pronoun for them to this root should have the same outer form in either case.

Yet osam and itam obviously do not share the same outer form. This (prima facie) tells in favor of viewing the two es words (es of es and es of im) as differing in root. Still, it does not deal the opposing view a devastating blow from which it cannot recover. The difficulty posed for the opposing view may be mitigated by the consideration that, after all is said and done, the word itam serves a linguistic purpose that could not be served without it (by the presence of osam alone). It affords us a word that builds exclusively on the im sense of es and carries the meaning with them univocally. (The itam formulation means nothing but imam.) Granted that the route followed in leading from the root es to the outer manifestation of itam appears obscure to us. The fact, nevertheless, remains that a new word form (itam) had perforce to be introduced. Inevitably, its construction was not going to follow normal procedures. If it did, they would have resulted (presumably) in osam, which would have left the new word without any distinguishing marks by which to tell it apart from the naturally generated osam. Itam had of necessity to take its own form; and that makes its seemingly devious appearance acceptable. (But, as we shall want to say, introducing it does not have the effect of debarring the inflection got by incorporating the pronoun into the original es, straightforwardly, from serving in the capacity for which the special inflection, itam, is especially introduced.) The supposition that the es of es and the es of im are at root one therefore retains its viability.

On this, I want to say, does the issue of whether osam can be used for itam depend. If there is but one es, such that both itam and osam derive from it, then even after/with the introduction (as it were) of itam, it remains possible for osam to be used as itam. For in principle, there is no reason why the forms should vary. Although itam has been introduced to provide an unambiguous way of expressing the sense of with them, this is not meant to debar osam from working alongside it and, occasionally, taking the same meaning. Sharing the same root, it has every right to do so. If, on the other hand, osam and itam come from different/desperate es-words, such that the es of im needs to take the form itam when inflected to incorporate a pronoun for them, then osam is incapable of doing duty for itam.

The Seforno and Even Ezra take the former view; Rashi and Onkelos take the latter.

That Pivotal Moment!

2011-07-20T17:17:00.000-04:00

The following is a comment I contributed this morning to Lori Palatnik's Lori Amost Live blog on Aish.com. The theme of her video post was Pivotal Moments.

I was about to start high school. I had been attending a yeshiva elementary school from the very beginning. But I hadn’t developed much of a taste for learning Gemara. One day, I ventured into a local yeshiva beis medrash where men, of various ages, were learning Gemara with chavrusos (study partners). I was somewhat taken aback, as I had not previously had a firsthand look at intense Torah study in action. While looking, I caught notice of someone I knew from the neighborhood; and he saw me too. He made his way over to where I was standing. He pointed to several of the people who were engrossed in learning atop their Gemaras. He told me how they had been maintaining rigorous learning schedules for quite a number of years. Some of them had no other DAY JOBS and simply stuck to learning as a day-long, life-long occupation. But others had jobs and/or professions that they would engage in for the bulk of the day. But when the anticipated hour finally arrived, they would bolt out of their offices, labs, or what have you with fierce determination and head straight for the beis hamedrash in which he and I were presently standing and talking. They would spend the next few hours in uninterrupted, rigorous learning. They did this day-in-and-day-out over a span of quite of few years. And in fact, a number of them had already grown into accomplished talmidei chachamim (Torah scholars) and were recognized and sought out as authorities in Talmud and halacha. Listening to him, I was truly overwhelmed. I was overcome with ambition and formed an urge to dedicate myself to serious learning and strive to attain considerable heights in Torah knowledge and understanding. That was the moment when I resolved to pursue my high school studies within the confines of a reputable yeshiva, where I could immerse myself in Gemara learning in a very serious way.

Second Specimen

2011-07-13T14:37:00.000-04:00

Today I composed (and sent off) another becoming-acquainted-request letter to a Frumster member that I thought I would publish as a post. Please pardon the indulgence.

Hi. I was browsing. Suddenly I came upon your profile. Immediately I took an interest. I was overcome by the enchantment of the elements of your story. Thereupon I decided to make contact. I wanted to introduce myself and open the floodgates to the possibility of our forging a connection. But I was soon overtaken by the realization of a reality. The reality was that I did not hold premium membership. Consequently, I would not be empowered to read your message, were you send me one in response to a message that I were to have sent you. Consequently, what would be the point of my sending you a message in the first place? I pondered this question intently, wanting, as I did, so diligently to open up a line of communication with you. Suddenly something profound dawned on me. It was this: I could send you a message without being deterred by the fact that any return message you were to send me would be one I was unable to open up and read, owing to the fact that I lacked premium membership. Here’s why. In the message I sent you, I could include my email address – notstamaguy at gmail dot com. That way, you would be able to respond to me, if you so chose to do, regardless of my lack of entitlement to read messages coming in to me at this website. I pondered this idea; and after a while, I came away convinced that is was very viable. So I wasted no time in composing this message and sending it off to you instantaneously. And now that you have almost finished reading it, you have got your options open before you. One of them is to write me back at my email address and allow us to engage in correspondence that, hopefully, will prove fruitful and, so to say, feed on itself. Of course, taking this route would only make sense if you possessed the desire to enter into a mutual involvement with me for, at least, exploratory purposes. But if you do, I encourage you emphatically to go ahead and do it, because I really think you’re neat!

Shalom uvracha,

Sruli

Autobiographical

2011-07-12T21:02:00.000-04:00

I hang out in Flatbush.

Until a few years ago, I hung out in Boro Park, where I did a lot of my growing up. But not all of it. I had done the earlier part of by growing up in the Midwest. I would return to the Midwest to take my high school education.

Up to a point, all my education was traditional yeshiva education. In elementary school, I learned the alef-beis, how to daven, Chumash, Chumash-with-Rashi, Mishnayos and, finally, beginning Gemara. In the upper elementary grades, I was also exposed to a fair amount of halacha, particularly Kitzur Shulachan Aruch. In the highest elementary grade, I received my initial introduction to works of musar: Orchos Tzadikim, Mesilas Yesharim, etc. (I neglected to mention that the curriculum also covered a certain amount of Tanach.)

As already indicated, upon completion of elementary school, I ventured out into the Midwest to attend a major yeshiva high school. My level of learning rose precipitously. From the very first, the method of instruction took a major leap forward. Previously, my classmates and I would (try to) sit at our desks, while the rebbi, sitting up front and facing us, would read a passage from the Gemara for our benefit. We would listen as attentively as possible, following the progression of his recital in our own Gemaras, which lay open (to the right page) upon our desks. Quite frequently, the rebbi, interrupting his reading, would look up and endeavor to explain to us, orally, a fine point of Talmudic reasoning. Some of us would comprehend it; some of us would not. He would routinely dote on a student whose understanding was suspect, demanding that he repeat the explanation in his own words. When the poor student proved incapable of obliging, our rebbi would next heap his attention on another student, to see if he might fare any better. Soon enough, it would become patently evident that a sizeable number of students had been left virtually clueless. At that point, the rebbi would repeat the explanation once more for everyone’s benefit. He might even retrace his steps in the reading, and commence his recital from the point at which he had originally begun. To us, sitting at our desks, this was a lesson not merely in Gemara study; it also taught us how to exercise patience and tolerance in relation to our fellow Jews.

As I had begun to say, once having arrived in yeshiva high school, I found myself confronted with a drastically altered approach. However, at this point, I’m afraid I will need to extricate myself from autobiographical mode and slip into profile mode. If you really are interested in knowing the rest of the story, you will undoubtedly flash me a message, expressing your interest. Then we can take it up together offline, or at least offsite. So let me just finish off by telling you that, after high school, I continued onto yeshiva beis medrash. And after that I went to a fancy shmancy university up in Boston where I studied philosophy and tried to gain a lot of fame. Eventually, I returned to Brooklyn and, thank G-d, made a lot of money working in computers and, also, teaching college. Here in Flatbush, I keep the company of the finest benei Torah and daven in the most select of batei medrashim. Still, there’s no reason for you to be intimidated by me, as I exude a lot of personal warmth and am, in fact, quite approachable.

I could go on and on; but as you can see, I’m trying to keep it manageable.

Ve-imru Amein

2011-07-11T22:19:00.000-04:00

I would stand outside the door. People would walk by. Some would greet me. Some by a shake of the head. Some by saying something. Some, I would greet first. Sometimes, the rosh yeshiva Reb Chaim Epstein shlita would pass by, and offer me a greeting. Sometimes, the mashgiach Reb Moshe Wolfson shlita would do the same. Obviously, they didn’t do it because I was important. They did it to give succor to a poor, pathetic Jew.

One Friday night (Shabbos), as I stood there, I thought to ask: We conclude the Shemoneh Esrei by saying oseh shalom bimromav hu ya-aseh shalom aleinu ve-al kohl yisrael ve-imru amein. This is recited during the silent Shemoneh Esrei that we each daven individually. Whom, then, were we addressing when we said: ve-imru amein? I pondered and I pondered; and the more I pondered, the more I became perplexed by the question. When the chazan recites oseh shalom at the conclusion of the kadish, the problem does not arise. He can be understood as addressing the congregation. Indeed, the congregation responds, saying amein. But whom am I addressing when I say it, daveing the shtileh (silent) Shemoneh Esrei?

Presently, Reb Yisroel Meir Kirzner shlita walked by. I treaded toward him, greeting him with an inspired Gut Shabbos! Having received his reciprocative greeting, I blurted out, “May I ask something?” Receiving his affirmative indication, I proceeded to put my question before him. Not missing a beat, he responded, evincing a teasing demeanor. He said: “Could it be that it was the malachim who were being addressed?” Befuddled totally, I ventured no answer: I let him continue on his way, without my having said anything further.

Then there’s what happened the next day. In shul, on the corner at Mincha Gedola, I met Rabbi Kupitz (may he be well) and put the question to him. Giving me a sympathetic ear, it occurred to him to mention that I might want to consult the Magein Avraham to Shulchan Aruch Orach Cha-im, siman 61 se-if 3, in hilchos keri-as shema. I might find some pertinent discussion there. I followed through; and lo and behold, illuminating goings on unfolded before me.

Permit me to explain. The halacha says that, although one is generally not allowed to interrupt one’s recital of keri-as shema with speech, one is permitted to do so at certain points in the reading, for certain defined purposes. Pursuant to this caveat, the Mechaber says that it is, likewise, permissible to interrupt one’s reading of keri-as shema in order to answer kadish, kedusha, and barechu. The Mechaber goes so far as to say that these latter may be responsively recited even when the reader finds himself in the midst of a verse of the keri-as shema. (By contrast, the more standard dispensations only apply when the reader has completed a verse or a chapter.)

To this the Rama adds that, according to some, one may interrupt one’s reading also to utter the amein that is answered after the beracha of hakeil hakadosh and, also, the amein that is answered after the beracha of shome-a tefila. Having cited this opinion, the Rema goes on to adopt it.

We now come to the Magein Avraham. He wants to know why these two ameins enjoy the same status as kadish, kedusha, and barechu as far as interrupting one’s reading of the keri-as shema is concerned. In answering, he cites the Beis Yoseif (in the name of the Mari-a) who comments that these ameins have the status of kedusha; and this for the following reason. The amein of hakeil hakadosh marks the conclusion of the first section of the Shemoneh Esrei (the praises), while the amein of shome-a tefila concludes the second section (bakashos/requests). But, he continues, the amein following the beracha of sim shalom does not share this status; and one may not interrupt one’s reading of keri-as shema to answer it.

He is, in effect, bothered by the question: if the amein of hakeil hakadosh and that of shome-a tefila are considered words of kedusha, owing to the fact that they, respectively, mark the conclusion of another of the sections of the amida, then the amein of hamevareich es amo yisra-el bashalom should follow suit, considering that it marks off the third section of the amida (the section of thanks). To this he offers the answer that the amein of sim shalom is different, in that a yachid (individual) recites it as well, at the conclusion of the Shemoneh Esrei. (The ameins of hakeil hakados and shome-a tefila, by contrast, are only recited by the tzibur – congregation – during chazaras hashatz.) The kedusha-status of this amein is therewith diminished – and, as a result, this amein does not have the power to interrupt the keri-as shema.

In so saying,it is important to note,the Beis Yoseif is alluding to an opinion that holds that everyone privately says amein at the conclusion of the (or his) Shemoneh Esrei, after the beracha of hamevareich es amo yisra-el bashalom.

Now, having cited this opinion, the Beis Yoseif goes on to cite a contravening one. It is that of the Levush, who notes that we do not go by the view that the individual says amein at the conclusion of the Shemoneh Esrei: we don’t follow this opinion. Accordingly, for us, the amein said after hamevareich es amo yisra-el bashalom is the same in status as the amein said after hakeil hakadosh and shome-a tefila. It enjoys the same level of kedusha. Therefore it has the same power as they to permit us to interrupt our reading of keri-as shema in order to answer it.

But as a counterweight to this view, the Beis Yoseif (cited still by the Magein Avraham) cites another view, that of the lch, that one should not interrupt the keri-as shema to answer the amein of sim shalom, after all. The reason he gives is this: True though it be that we don’t insert amein at the conclusion of our private recitals of the Shemoneh Esrei, we do nevertheless say amein when we follow up the Shemoneh Esrei with the refrain, oseh shalom bimromav hu ya-aseh shalom aleinu ve-al kohl yisra-el ve-imru amein. What the lch is suggesting is that this amein is somehow equivalent to (or a substitute for) an amein that might have been inserted at the conclusion of sim shalom – as far as diminishing the kedusha of the the amein said publically after the recital of sim shalom and, thus, rendering it unfit to interrupt the keri-as shema is concerned.

What we want to take away from this is the notion that ve-imru amein as said privately at the end of the amida serves a purpose akin to the purpose that amein at the end of the beracha of sim shalom serves, for those according to whom it is there uttered privately. And what is this purpose? Presumably: marking off the end of the amida.

(The observant critic will persist: “Fine, that explains why we say amein. But it does little, if anything, to assuage our concern over saying ve-imru amein. The lone, silent reciter of Shemoneh Esrei has no-one to whom to address this injunction!” Might it be, though, that he is addressing his fellow congregants? The rejoinder will be forthcoming: “No way! He is, as repeatedly said, saying the silent Shemoneh Esrei.” But perhaps not. Perhaps he has already finished the Shemoneh Esrei. He has, after all, already enunciated the verse: yihyu leratzon imrei fi... Perhaps, then, the oseh shalom prayer is a post-Shemoneh Esrei addition. In that case, it is not an intrinsically silent petition. One can address one’s fellow congregants in reciting it. Perhaps.)

After finishing with the Beis Yoseif, the Magain Avraham cites the Mateh Moshe as saying this: Even someone who davens as a yachid should say ve-imru amain after oseh shalom, at the end of the Shemoneh Esrei. For he speaks to the malachim (angels) who guard him.

When I next saw Rav Kirzner, I made sure to tell him that I knew what he had meant, standing with me one Shabbos night in winter, out there on the street.

Vesein Tal Umatar

2011-07-10T21:11:00.000-04:00

This is my English rendition of a piece from Bemechitsas Rabeinu

Faith in Prayer

Reb Yakov Michoel Hirschman shlita (head of the kollel in Toronto) related the following. He had been a student of the gaon Reb Aharon Kotler ztl. On the latter’s passing, he was among those who accompanied the casket carrying Reb Aharon to its final resting place, which was in Eretz Yisrael. In the year in which this occurred, Eretz Yisrael had been beset by a devastating draught, from which the population suffered agonizingly. At the site of the burial, a certain elderly Jew was present; and he volunteered that he had received a tradition harking back to the elders of the generation that said that if, in a time of draught, a righteous person should pass away, a samartut ratuv (wet cloth) should be placed in the grave along with the deceased. Doing this will symbolize that the tzadik prays for rain, he adjured. They did as he had advised when they buried the gaon ztl. And on the night immediately following the burial, exceedingly strong rains poured down from the sky. When Rabeinu was told this story, he retorted that he did not believe that following this man’s prescription was in fact the cause of the rain. He averred that what precipitated the rain was the fact that this was the night on which Jews throughout the reaches of the Diaspora began to recite vesein tal umatar (“and give dew and rain”) in the Shemonah Esrei prayer. He expressed himself, saying: “And what do you think – that this is nothing but a wagon full of dirt!?”

A Letter Specimen

2011-07-06T10:31:00.000-04:00

Frumster is running a promotion.

Frumster has two kinds of members: basic members and premium members. All members, whether basic or premium, can set up profiles, which may be viewed and read by all other members. All members can also receive messages sent them by premium members. But they cannot receive messages sent to them by basic members. It is not that their inboxes are set up so as not to be able to accommodate messages coming from basic members. A member’s inbox can accommodate any message sent to the member. The reason a member cannot receive the message of a basic member is, rather, that a mere basic member is not given the capability of composing and sending a message to another member, period. Consequently, there are no basic member-messages to be received by any member: they are simply not brought into existence. This means that it is not only a basic member who cannot receive the message of a basic member. Even a premium member cannot receive a basic member’s message, owing to the fact that a basic member simply lacks the capacity to initiate a message.

Now, I just got through saying that all inboxes, whether those of premium members or those of basic members, are capable of receiving messages. (As noted, ordinarily they will receive the messages only of premium members, since basic members lack the capacity to send messages.) At this point, I need to enter the caveat that there remains an important difference between a premium member’s capacity to receive messages and a basic member’s. A premium member can not only accumulate messages in his inbox; he can actually read those messages. A basic member, on the other hand, though able to accumulate incoming messages (coming from premium members) in his inbox, is not empowered to actually read them. To be able to do so, he needs to take out a premium subscription. Consequently, the power of a basic member is distinguished from the power of a premium member in two fundamental ways: in regard to being able to compose and send messages; and in regard to being able to read messages that have accumulated in one’s inbox.

Now, as indicated, Frumster is running a promotion. (It runs a promotion like this from time to time.) The promotion is geared at basic members – like me, for example. It enables them to write and send messages. These messages can be received by basic and premium members alike. However, the stricture against being able to read an incoming message remains in effect. And the basic member taking advantage of the promo (like any other basic member) has no access to them. By enabling basic members to contact other (premium) members by of way of their messages, Frumster’s promotion is setting up an inducement for a basic member to take out a premium subscription (which of course costs money). For he will undoubtedly send out messages to various (premium) members. These targeted members will receive them, and some of them will likely respond with a message of their own, directed to the inbox of the originating basic member (who is taking advantage of the promotion). When that happens, the basic member who had sent the initial message will feel an uncontrollable urge to read and, possibly, answer his new interlocutor’s response-message. But Frumster won’t let him do either of these unless he subscribes in a premium way.

With this as background, I want to conclude this post by including a letter specimen of my composition, be”H – sent to a (premium) member earlier this morning.

I was moved by your friend's description of your personality, and also by the sentiments and aspirations that you have personally expressed. I have now resolved to approach you unabashedly and ask you for your cooperation in exploring a shiduch situation involving the two of us. I am what you might call a sincere black-hatter, since I do wear a black hat. Not only a black hat but, also, a dark suit, especially on Shabbos. And I'm, b"H, serious about learning and davening and doing mitzvos. But like you, I have a side interest in secular literature, and I actually studied philosophy in university. For example, I know Plato's Republic backwards and forwards. Anyway, I want to ask you if it would be alright with you if we pursued the prospect together. I'd like to mention that I'm particularly impressed by the emphasis you put on raising your son - may you have much nachas - and, iy"H, future children properly. Before signing off, I need to mention that to reach me, you'll have write me directly, as I'm not a full member of this site and, therefore, cannot read messages sent to me by way of its facilities. So if you have the inclination to get back to me, which I personally hope you do, please write me at: notstamaguy at gmail dot com.

Thank you so much, and bracha v'hatzlacha to you,

Sruli

Laws of Shabbos from the Kitzur

2011-07-05T17:46:00.000-04:00

Here I begin to render into English the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch at the beginning of the Laws of Shabbos: 72:1.

The holy Shabbos is the great sign and covenant that HKBH gave us, so that we may know that He fashioned heaven, earth, and all that they contain in six days and rested on the seventh day. This is, indeed, the foundation of our faith. Razal (our sages) teach us that Shabbos is as important as the entirety of all the mitzvos; and that one who properly observes the Shabbos is equal in standing to one who fulfills the entirety of the Torah. Moreover, someone who desecrates the Shabbos is the same as someone who denies the entire Torah. The verse in Ezra supports this when it says: And You descended on Mount Sinai, and You gave Your people Torah and mitzvos. You also told them about Your holy Shabbos.

72:2 Anyone who publically desecrates the Shabbos is accounted a non-Jew in all respects. If he should touch wine, it is rendered prohibited. The bread he bakes is considered bread baked by a non-Jew. So too for a dish that he cooks:it is as if a non-Jew had cooked it. (For more, see below at 72:38.) By publically is meant in the presence of ten people. It is not, however, necessary that they should actually observe him in the commission of his act. It is sufficient if they are aware that he has committed it.

72:3 This is why the prophet offers commendation and says: Praised is the person who will do this, and the man who holds steadfastly to it – the one who will guard the Shabbos and desist from flouting it... The prophet says as well that someone who keeps the Shabbos as it is commanded to be kept and, also, honors it and makes it enjoyable to the best of his ability – such a person merits to be rewarded not only in the World to Come but also in This World.

On Bennett Avenue

2011-07-04T22:12:00.000-04:00

Arriving in WH after a drive up the FDR, I parked my car on Bennett Av and walked astride the street, making my way over to the beis hamidrash. Entering the room, I noticed that the rosh hakolel was sitting in his seat to the side of the auron, opposite the front-most wall. He was deeply immersed in a piece of learning; so I approached most cautiously, not wanting to disturb him unduly. I waited respectfully until he voluntarily looked up and recognized me. Quickly, I lunged forward, extending him a hand and offering a profuse greeting. Receiving me graciously, he responded in kind and sought at once to put me at ease.

He motioned for me to take a seat alongside him, understanding full well that I had come to discuss something with him. We began by exchanging the customary pleasantries, preparatory to getting to the matter at hand. At that point, I drew out a Gemara from under my arm and began fumbling my way through the pages, so that I might open it to a certain one. When the sought page was apprehended and appeared before me, I pointed to a Tosafos situated somewhere around the uppermost section of the daf.

The rosh kolel skimmed it intently, taking care to refresh his memory as to its content. Once satisfied, he turned to me, signaling preparedness to listen to what I had to say. I thereupon initiated the process by saying that there was something I didn’t understand. The rosh hakolel interjected smilingly, assuring me that ability to acknowledge lack of understanding was requisite to being able to achieve the same. Reassured, I proceeded to articulate the source of my difficulty.

Lest there be confusion, let me assert unceremoniously that the Tosafos in question is found in Maseches Berachos, 37a. Its d”h is: borei nefashos rabos veshesronom. What it says is that the word vechesronom, as used in this context, means necessities, i.e., things without which one cannot survive: for example, bread and water. Tosafos goes on to say that the phrase comprising the words al kohl ma shebara lehachayos bahem nefesh kohl chai means things without which man could perfectly well do, i.e., things that were created to give man pleasure: things like apples. So according to Tosafos, the beracha alludes to these two classes of thing: necessities and luxuries.

Something that emerges from Tosafos’ explication is that the word vechesronam, as used here, refers not to man’s deficiencies, which is to say, his needs, but rather to things that meet man’s needs, i.e., the food types that are necessary for satisfying man’s nutritional requirements. This is observation number one.

Observation number two is that on Tosafos’ reading, the phrase al kohl ma shebara introduces the second classification of things but not the first. This seems to make the beracha’s formulation somewhat asymmetrical. My question was this: why enter into an interpretation that incurs these two apparent anomalies, when an alternative interpretation that nicely averts them is at hand? The interpretation I have in mind is this: He creates many living things and, also, their deficiencies, i.e., the things they lack and therefore need - sources of nourishment, most notably. He creates these (living creatures) over and above, that is, in addition to, His creation of things (food) with which He sustains every living creature and meets its needs. The implication is that the creation of the latter chronologically preceded the creation of the former, which of course is true. G-d created foodstuff, through which His subsequent creations – animals, man – would receive sustenance, before creating animals and man. By the time He had created the creatures whose sustenance would depend on the availability of food, He had already created the food.

Duly pondering my suggestion, the rosh kolel acknowledged that I had a point.

That the Gra Inspires Kant

2011-07-03T15:10:00.000-04:00

I was reading in the new Artscroll biography of Rav Gifter zl (110) that, in his talks, he would expound on the power of the Torah to influence the course of affairs in the world. On at least one occasion, he made mention of a point that he attributed to Rav Daniel Movshovitz zl of Kelm. It was a point to the effect that the Gra’s greatness in learning had the power to influence events and bring it about that the genius of philosophy Immanual Kant, who lived contemporaneously with the Gra, was able to produce his magnificent treatise on the metaphysics of morals (which history has treated as a masterpiece of Enlightenment thinking). He was saying, in effect, that the aura of intellectual clarity and revelation of truth that the Gra’s presence and learning had evoked created a worldly atmosphere in which profound thinking could flourish (even among the goyim).

To me, the remark is very telling. As great a philosopher as Kant may have been, he was merely a modern philosopher. His work possessed nothing of the grandeur and gravitas of that of his classical, Greek forbears: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle – especially Plato. Personally, when I read Plato, I can’t help but to think that he must have been influenced profoundly by the ruach haTorah prevailing in his era, whether or not he had firsthand acquaintance with Torah teachings.

When historians of philosophy, like Bertrand Russell for example, raise the question of the source from which the impetus to think philosophically arose in the time of the Greeks, they are entirely oblivious to the fact that it is the ko-ach haTorah, which is the ko-ach ha-emes, that made it possible. (Of course, they would be right to plead ignorance.) The intensity of the Torah’s presence in the world – the way it is studied and practiced – doesn’t contain itself, and perforce spills over to affect general man’s capacity for conducting inquiry.

Russell is right. It is truly amazing that, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a group of Greeks should have developed an interest in, and a penchant for, philosophy (and science). Where did it come from? Russell’s attempts at an answer are hardly convincing. The answer is ours. Intellectual history needs to be viewed through the prism of Jewish history. When Plato was writing the Republic and his other masterful dialogues, the Jews had been driven into galus bavel (the Babylonian exile). Their kedushas haTorah was being torn away from its abode in the holy land and made to spread outward in various directions. Is it any wonder that it influenced Greek thought? It was inevitable.

(Note: It says chochma bagoyim ta-amin torah bagoyim al ta-amin. Ostensibly, why are the two connected? Why would it even occur to someone that, because gentiles can be acknowledged to possess wisdom (or knowledge), they can also be acknowledged to possess Torah? They may study hard and conduct all sorts of inquiries and investigations; but they don’t relate to Torah at all! The answer: Torah-wisdom inspires general wisdom: the former is the source from which the latter derives its impetus. Still, the gentile’s wisdom stops at general knowledge. It does not penetrate all the way to Torah.)

The Return of the Service

2011-06-30T18:58:00.000-04:00

We say: retzei hashem elokeinu be-amecha yisra-el uvesefilasam vehasheiv es ha-avoda lidvir beisecha ve-ishei yisra-el usfilasam be-ahava sekabeil beratzon us-hi leratzon tamid avodas yisra-el amecha. Translated roughly, this says something like this: Be accepting, Hashem our G-d, of Your Jewish people and of their prayers; and restore the service, and the sacrificial offerings of the Jewish people, to the sanctum of Your house. Accept their prayers with love; and may the sacrificial service of Your Jewish nation always be accepted.

It occurs to me to comment that, seemingly, this embodies a redundancy: a duplication of expression. The second sentence appears to be a mirror-image of the first. In the first it is asked: a) that the Jewish people’s prayers be accepted, and b) that the sacrificial service be restored to the holy Temple. The second sentence, though changing some of the wording, seems to ask for these very two things, in parallel.

What it occurs to me to suggest is that: they are indeed parallel. In both are prayer and services the subjects of request. The difference is temporal. In the first we are placing ourselves in our current location in exile and asking to be restored to yerushalayim with the coming of mashiach. We seek to be returned, so that we may perform the prayer service and, also, the sacrificing service in their designated place. By contrast, in the second sentence, we are placing ourselves in the period after the redemption has occurred. We are situated in yerushalayim, and we have the beis hamikdash in our midst. Inhabiting that setting, we ask that the prayers and the sacrifices that we actually do offer should receive acceptance by G-d.

Reading Birchas Hazan

2011-06-29T09:33:00.000-04:00

In birchas hamazon we say hazan es ha-olam kulo betuvo… I understand this as meaning the following. [G-d] Who feeds the whole world with His goodness, with kindness, and with mercy. He gives bread to every fleshen creature, for His kindness is everlasting. In His immense goodness, He has never deprived us. Nor, because of His great Name, will He ever deprive us of food. For He is a G-d Who feeds; and He supplies provisions unto all. And He does good unto all; and He puts food within reach of all of His creatures, the ones which He has created.

Note

2011-06-28T09:15:00.000-04:00

Note: The just concluded series on the nusach hatefila consists of the seven preceding posts. The first in the series is designated Form and Content; the last, The Paradigmatically Fleeting Request.

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In Korach, people gange up on Moshe and Aharon and accuse them of illegitimately appropriating high office for themselves, whereupon they are eradicated from the face of the earth. Then it says that Hashem tells Moshe to do such-and-such in order to demonstrate plainly that the tribe of Levi has been designated as holder of high office, and that to it exclusively has performing the associated duties been assigned. No longer will there be room to question it.

I asked: Didn’t taking this step supply the people who were obliterated with a (posthumous) defense? Didn’t it imply that, until the commanded demonstration would be carried out, there had, in fact, been a basis for thinking that the Levite’s didn’t legitimately hold office? Didn’t it suggest that the actions of those who ganged up defiantly on Moshe and Aharon may have been excusable, after all, and that these people were not wholly culpable? Didn’t it, then, somehow legitimate their actions? After all, they hadn’t had the benefit of the demonstration that was first now going to be performed.

I thought to answer and to explain that no: it didn’t provide a retroactive defense of these people. The situation had changed. The before and the after were not the same. In the original situation, it had been inexcusably wrong to commit such an atrocity. Moshe had been the undeniable leader and teacher: he rightfully commanded the people’s trust. There had been every reason to abide by his dictate in this matter. Consequently, the people who committed the offense were held to account: they were deemed culpable, punished, and rightfully destroyed. The state of the world at that time called forth this higher level of conscience.

However, once they had committed their act of rebelliousness (and the consequences ensued), the situation had changed. It was inevitable that it should because, after all, actions affect the world. Offenses and wrongdoings have their impact; they leave traces behind them; and these traces are transformative. As a result, the world had undergone a spiritual metamorphosis. The hitherto unthinkable had henceforth become (more) thinkable: the world had deteriorated. From this point onward, people could no longer be held culpable for this particular offense, without first having been shown a palpable demonstration that to the tribe of Levi did higher office veritably belong.

This is what I thought to say.

The Paradigmatically Fleeting Request

2011-06-26T17:36:00.000-04:00

At this point, we encroach upon the berachos of teka beshofar, hashiva, viliyerushalayim irecha, and es tzemach. They share something important in common, thematically speaking. They are all concerned with the geula asida. As such, they do not represent perennial bakashos. Let (kiveyachol) the Ribono Shel Olam answer our prayer by sending us mashiach; and we will never enunciate the prayer again. It will have served its purpose – may it be soon. The bakasha is therefore fleeting in the sense previously described; so it is no wonder that the beracha does not bear a ki-clause.

Parenthetically, we earlier lumped re-ei ve-anyeinu with perennial bakashos, seeking to justify its embodiment of a ki-clause. Yet, by our present reasoning, this bakasha would seem to call for the suppression of a ki-clause. After all, the bakasha bespeaks redemption: ugaleinu meheira lema-an shemecha. And its chasima reads: go-el yisra-el. However, the perplexity here is no more than superficial. For Rashi in Tractate Megila makes it plain that the beracha of re-ei ve-anyeinu does not pertain to the ge-ula asida, for which are, as we have seen, already set aside four others of the bakashos of the Amida. It concerns itself, rather, with the day-to-day travails that beset us in our present situation. It asks that we be relieved of, and redeemed from, them. The need referred to is thus definitely general and ongoing; the amelioration sought is repeatable. So the beracha’s embodiment of a ki-clause is consistent with the position we have taken.

This leaves us with but the beracha of shema koleinu to take account of. But hardly anything more needs to be said, considering that shema koleinu obviously addresses a perennial need for the Ribono Shel Olam to hearken to our tefilos, and that it has a ki-clause.

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This completes the compass of our designated area of investigation. What I want to add in an extra-curricular vein is that the beracha of sim shalom does not, strictly speaking, number among the bakashos of the Shemoneh Esrei. It is, after all, positioned in the third section, designated for expressions of thanks. This notwithstanding, the fact cannot be gainsaid that it seems to ask for something, namely, that the A-lmighty grant us peace. I won’t take up the question of why it is, then, arranged with the berachos of hodo-a rather than with those of bakasha. I will simply assume that it is possible to ask for something in a beracha of hodo-a. The observation I would make, then, is that what is asked for – that peace be on us – is something for which there is a perennial need. This being so, it ought to follow, per our adumbrated understanding, that the beracha would embody a ki-clause. Yet, seemingly it does not. Where is it?

To this I want to offer the suggestion that, perhaps, the last stanza of the nusach embodies a ki-clause, without, however, employing the word ki. It reads: vetov be-einecha levareich es amecha yisra-el bechal eis uvchal sha-a bishlomecha. One may raise the question: why is this (statement) inserted here? Interestingly, the Avudraham weighs in on this, and he wants to interpret the clause as requesting: May it be good in Your Eyes to bless Your people yisra-el at all times with Your peace. In other words, he interprets vetov be-einecha as meaning what would be meant if the word yeheye were inserted: vetov yeheye be-einecha. (And nusach ha-ari actually renders it this way.) However, on the thinking I am proposing, vetov be-einecha may be read in a more literal way, as stating that (kiveyachol) Hashem Yisbarach favors blessing His people with peace. The statement is inserted here to justify, if you will, the request for peace, which is of a perennial nature. It justifies it by appealing to the fact that it is of (kiveyachol) G-d’s character to favor us with peace. It is, then, as if the statement had embodied the word ki.

The Year

2011-06-24T09:03:00.000-04:00

Re-ei ve-anyeinu and refa-einu fall into the category of what we’ve called perennial bakashos. It is therefore understandable that the formulation (nusach) of the berachos should include a ki-clause. What is, initially, not as understandable is why the following beracha, bareich aleinu, does not similarly end in a ki-clause.

Bareich aleinu is a bakasha for parnasa: material sustenance. The need is perennial, ubiquitous, and ongoing. Why shouldn’t this beracha feature a ki-clause, then? The answer, I suggest, is that the bakasha of bareich aleinu does not ask for sustenance in a general way. It reads: bareich aleinu hashem elokeinu es hashana hazos...uvareich shenoseinu kashanim hatovos. In other words, it is a bracha for a year, one year in particular: this year. It is a bakasha for the year in which we are presently standing, asking that it be good, productive, abundant, sating, and sustaining. The year is an ephemeral interval: it comes and at goes. It is fleeting. When the year has passed, we will no longer be reciting a bakasha for it. Instead we will be asking for the fruitfulness of the new year that will have superseded it. And so on and on.

In sum, confined to one specific year, the beracha is particular rather than general in its reach. I think that substantially the same logic applies to al hatzadikim and velamalshinim. In the former, mention is made of peleitas sofereihem. In the Artscroll, this is rendered “on the remnant of their scholars.” (I don’t have a Birnbaum.) To speak of a remnant is to make specific reference to a given historical era. In this era, there were such remnants. In praying for its tzadikim, an individual community appeals for the special protection of, first and foremost, its leadership, who stand at the forefront and provide direction. The bakasha then proceeds to single out other well circumscribed groups – the elders of the community, the newly converted – for additional safekeeping. By dividing the population and isolating certain of its segments, the signon – tenor – of the bakasha makes it plain that its focus is trained, not on people in general nor on the entire march of history, but rather on the community momentarily enunciating the prayer.

I would venture the speculation that the Yakum Purkan and Mi Shebeirach tefilos that were instituted much later than the Shemoneh Esrei, and that we recite on Shabbos before Musaf for the well being of the congregation: its rabanim, teachers, community leaders, askanim, students, and congregation-members and their families – that it was inspired by the thrust of the bakasha of al hatzadikim that we recite in the Shemoneh Esrei. If so, then these Shabbos prayers reveal how the later generation conceived the intention behind the bakasha of al hatzadikim. It shows that they viewed it as having a localized community orientation.

Comparable considerations apply to velamalshinim, which was only later introduced in response to the exigencies of the particular period. It singles out a certain segment of the population for doom and seeks amelioration from the travails plaguing a given moment in history. It does not bear a universal mien. It has no ki-clause.

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Al hatzadikim is a perplexing beracha. Why do we single out tzadikim from among all other people for special consideration? Don’t we all want and need protection? Also, by the time we’ve gone through the entire beracha, just about everyone has been mentioned (for we say ve-al geirei hatzedek ve-aleinu and, also, vesim chelkeinu imahem). So what is the point of going about it piecemeal, starting from the tzadikim, and working one’s way downstream? Further, why is the remnant of their scribes singled out for special mention? And who, in our day, are these people: the remnant of their scribes? Are there any? B”H our Torah community is growing by leaps and bounds; it is not at all obvious to me that there are any remnants to speak of? Perhaps in earlier generations (perhaps in the generation recently gone by) – but now?! If this is a general, ever-applicable beracha, and if it pertains to a constant, ongoing need, why make reference to peleitim whose presence or absence varies with historical contingencies? Similarly, why do geirim need to be singled out for special mention? Significantly, why do we ask that those who trust in Hashem be rewarded? Keviyachol Hashem is known to reward everyone for every good thing performed? Why, further, do we ask that our lot be cast with theirs – as if to say we ourselves fall short in the area of bitachon (trust in G-d) and need, for favorable treatment, to be tagged along with those who are strong? Paradoxically, we follow up by declaring ki becha batachnu! If this is a general bakasha, all these things seem perplexing.

But if my suggestion is in the right, then, when we recite this beracha, we are representing ourselves and speaking in behalf of our own community (however large or small it be looked at as being). We single out special segments of the community because of our deference to them or because of a special interest in their welfare. It is as if we owe them special recognition, and we want to show that we are solicitous of these people’s well being. The beracha was instituted with an era in which there were peleitim in mind. But we adhere to the original formulation, regardless of era. And because we don’t want to be too bigoted or favoritistic, we seek to be inclusive and say: Amply reward all who truly trust in Your Name. But we are concerned about our entire community, not just isolated segments; so want to be even more inclusionary. Therefore we add: Cast our lot with theirs, because we trust in You.

To Ask to Repent

2011-06-23T09:31:00.000-04:00

After ata chonein comes hashiveinu; and after that comes selach lanu.

Hashiveinu does not feature a ki-clause: its words of bakasha run up all the way to the chasima. If we are right, this would indicate that what is asked for in this beracha is a one-time favor, and that the need for this favor is fleeting. Yet, what the beracha asks for is that we be returned to Torah; that we be drawn closer to His service, meaning that we be made to serve Him better; and that we be reverted to a state of complete repentance before Him. On the face of it, these are not one-time needs, but perpetual ones. Our devotion to Torah needs to be steadfast, and to persist continually and not let up. How, then, can this bakasha rightfully be construed as having a fleeting nature?

But I think that this line of reasoning misses the point that we are asking for complete return to G-d’s service (teshuva sheleima), and that we are asking for assistance in achieving true teshuva. True teshuva is everlasting; it is not provisional or temporary.

To see this, we need to reflect on the core essence of teshuva. We need to be reminded of the Rambam’s assertion that teshuva incorporates regret and consummate abandonment of the transgression. He characterizes this repulsion-ridden distancing of oneself from one’s erstwhile foibles and offenses as carrying with it a high degree of zeal and intensity. So zealous and determined is the repenter, the Rambam says, that the One Who Knows Things Hidden – (kiveyachol) G-d Himself – can bear testimony on this individual that he will never repeat his offenses, going forward. We may be weak and never entirely sure that we will not succumb to temptation in the future and revisit the flaw – the fault – for which we are now repenting. Nevertheless, what we seek and try to achieve when we engage in teshuva is thorough disassociation from the forbidden act that we performed (or failed to perform, as the case may be). We want our detachment from it to be so consummate, and to embody such finality, that it will be (all but) certain that we will never return to our wanton ways – at least as far as this particular shortcoming/transgression is concerned.

So from the point of view of our thoughts and our intentions, those that are uppermost in our mind as we recite the petition for teshuva (in hashiveinu) – from this vantage point, we are asking for (what we hope will be) a one-time favor. We are asking to be returned to Him so consummately that the need won’t rearise for us to ask for this in the future. It is a fleeting request.

Selach lanu, on the other hand, asks for forgiveness. It is predicated on the realism that people commit transgressions for which they require and seek pardon. Consonantly with the prerogative of bechira, it does not importune for the total eradication of sin. This prayer fully expects people to return to itself over and over. It is a perennial request, asking for something that is repeatedly needed. It thus features a ki-clause.

The Favor of Intelligence

2011-06-22T09:53:00.000-04:00

Over the course of the past three posts, we’ve drawn attention to an outwardly asymmetry in the composition of the bakashos of the Amida (Amida = Shemoneh Esrei). Some do close with a ki-clause, while others do not. In the previous post, we ventured an explanation, invoking the notions of rationale-giving and appealing to Divine attributes. We distinguished between two kinds of bakasha: fleeting and perennial. And we advanced the suggestion that featuring a ki-clause or not featuring one bifurcates itself along the lines of whether a bakasha expresses a perennial request or a fleeting one. The reader is referred to that post for fuller elaboration. At present, we are saddled with the task of testing our suggestion. If we are right, then any beracha of bakasha that we encounter in the Shemoneh Esrei that includes a ki-clause will be found, upon examination, to ask for something whose need is ongoing, general, and perennial. And conversely, any bakasha, the tenor of which is fleeting, will be observed to omit the ki-clause. On the surface, the test seems simple to administer. Yet, it may turn out to tax our deliberative faculties more than we might have anticipated.

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We have already had occasion to observe that the very first bakasha, ata chonein, does not incorporate a ki-clause. The words of bakasha that read, chaneinu me-itecha de-a bina vehaskeil, extend all the way to the chasima, without the intervention of a clause beginning in ki. This immediately poses a formidable challenge to our thesis. It is, after all, quite clear that what we ask for here is something that is needed on an ongoing basis: it is a perennial need. We are asking that we, all of us, always have the capacity to think and to reason and to know. Our cognitive endowment, our intelligence, is our lifeblood; it is what enables us to function as human beings and to experience humanity. It is therefore essential to our very existence. The need, moreover, persists on and on. Having been granted wisdom in the here-and-now, we remain in need of it going forward. Wisdom having been imparted to people in this part of the globe, it continues to be sorely needed by the denizens of other geographic regions. The point is so obvious that it requires no further elaboration. Consequently, according to the tenor of our discussion, the bakasha for da-as ought to conclude with a ki-clause. Yet, it appears not to.

This conundrum has an answer. We jumped too hastily to the conclusion that ata chonein fails to feature a ki-clause. It actually does feature one – albeit in a somewhat concealed way.

Let us observe that the bakasha of ata chonein stands out from among all the other bakashos in that it is prefaced by a declaration: ata chonein le-adam da-as. None of the other bakashos does anything similar. I submit that this opening declaration is a disguised (if you will) ki-clause. Coming in at the opening of the bakasha rather than at its conclusion, it does not employ the word ki. But this notwithstanding, what the beracha does in this opening stanza is justify – and provide the basis for – the request that immediately follows. It explains why a request for intelligence is in order, pinning this request on the fact that the A-lmighty, Kudesha Berich Hu, possess the attribute of favoring man with da-as – wisdom. And since favoring man with wisdom is within the purview of (kiveyachol) G-d’s attributes, we are justified in appealing to Him for His constant, universal bestowal upon us of this kindness.

As to why this beracha places the rationale/justification – the ki-clause – at the beginning rather than at the end, various explanations may be offered. To illustrate just one: it is done as a way of demarcating this (newly entered) section of the Amida, which is occupied in bakasha, from the section that preceded it, which was occupied in giving praise.

Divide and Conquer

2011-06-21T09:51:00.000-04:00

THESIS: I maintain that all and only those bakashos that bespeak perennial requests, in the sense explained in the preceding post, are complemented by a ki-clause. Those berachos, on the other hand, that express what I have called fleeting bakashos – they are consistently devoid of such complementation. Let me begin by saying why this should be so.

For what are we entitled (or empowered) to ask? Put simply, the answer is: for the fulfillment of our needs. Therefore, a bakasha that singularly addresses one of our needs is a bakasha we are entitled to make. A fleeting bakasha is such a bakasha. It asks that G-d grant the request for a specific thing. Once the request has been granted, the thing is no longer needed; so the request falls away. It ceases to be invoked.

With a perennial request the situation is different. After the request has been answered, it remains in full effect. And this, in two senses. In the first place, we continue to plead it (without letup). The instance that has, thank G-d, been ameliorated is but one of countless others like it that await Heavenly intercession for the good. We repeat the bakasha again and again, each time prompted by as-yet unmitigated instances of the malady in question. And second, when we make a request like this, we do not do it with merely the one instance with which we are immediately confronted in mind. We generalize the request and formulate it so that it subsumes untold unspecified instances within its compass. We, in effect, ask that G-d fill the need wherever it happens to exist: now, then, here, there. We ask that He persistently relieve us of this (generic type of) distress, whenever/wherever it may (not) be found to occur.

What this means is that, in pleading a perennial bakasha, we extend our sights beyond the limitations of the here-and-now. We transcend the concerns of our current situation and of a particular need. We seek to generalize and universalize, as it were; and we ask the A-lmighty for overall, all-inclusive protection and amelioration. This being so, our entitlement to issue the request is brought into question. After all, we are not strictly confining it to a perceived need. We are venturing out, and seeking protection from suffering or danger that we are unaware of and that may not as yet have arisen. On the principle that we are entitled to daven only for the fulfillment of a need – a real one – there would be a lot to be said for the idea that we are not entitled to make a perennial request. Except for one consideration...

We may ask that G-d give us something that His very attributes indicate that He will give us. We may appeal to an attribute and ask that He favor us with a kindness that arises from it. We may put our request by saying that He should act in accord with that certain attribute. When we do this, the fact that the request is perennial, and that it reaches beyond the present exigency and subsumes non-encountered instances under its aegis, is irrelevant. It is irrelevant because (kiveyachol) G-d's attribute is unbounded. This invocation of a Divine attribute is what the ki-clause represents.

When we ask for something particular whose need is immediately felt, we do not need to rationalize the request. It is something for which we are granted the power to pray. We can utter the prayer straight out. Thus the absence of a ki-clause in a fleeting bakasha. However, when we ask for perennial salvation, we can do so only by appeal to an attribute. We must rationalize our request and say: grant us this, because it is in accord with Your essence (Your mida or attribute) to grant precisely this sort of favor. Offering this kind of rationalization is, I want to suggest, the distinct mission of the ki-clause.

Having come to an understanding of what the ki-clause does and why it is needed, it devolves on us to probe the extent to which our theory is borne out by the data. We already know which of the bakashos feature a ki-clause and which of them do not. At this point we will want to examine them severally, for their conformance – or otherwise – to the principle here enunciated. Let’s hope to do that, bs”d, in the ensuing post.

Requests

2011-06-20T10:44:00.000-04:00

In the preceding post we talked about the Shemoneh Esrei and we raised a question about the two distinctive patterns that the different berachos of bakasha seem to follow. Some close with a ki-clause and others do not.

We ventured the thought that a ki-clause serves to justify the request we have made by giving a rationale, as it were, for (kiveyachol) Hashem’s intercession in fulfilling the request. Pardon our sins, we say, because You are a pardoning King. And so on and so forth. But we were left with the question of why only certain of the bakashos are singled out for closure with a ki-clause and not the others.

In this post we hope to begin to close in on this question. Let us begin by surveying the terrain and seeing which bakashos do and do not feature an appended ki-cluase. Taking it from the top we find that the first bakasha, ata chonein, appears not to. It reads: chaneinu me-itecha de-a bina vehaskeil. Immediately the chasima follows: baruch ata... So no expression of justification appears to be backing up this request. Next we move on to hashiveinu which, as noted in the previous post, does not embody a ki-claus. Turning to the third, we encounter selach lanu, which as, again, noted, does have a ki-clause. This brings us to re-ei ve-anyeinu. Very patently, it has a ki-clause: ki goe-l chazak ata. The same holds true for refa-einu, the following beracha. When we encounter bareich aleinu, though, we notice at once that it is without a ki-clause. (This, of course, assumes that you are davening in nusach ashkenaz, which you may not be.) Moving on to the next several up the line, we observe that neither teka beshofar nor hashiva shofeteinu nor velamalshinim nor al hatzadikim nor vilirushalayim irecha nor es tzemach has a ki-clause. At this point we encounter the final of the berachos of bakasha, shema koleinu; and immediately we notice that it does have a ki-clause.

This concludes our inventory. Now, with the terrain staked out perspicaciously before us, it will behoove us to ponder it closely and see whether any incipient underlying principle rises to the surface. I would like to claim that, with some due penetration, we may in fact be able to discern the roots of a principle of demarcation that governs the entire spectrum of the bakashos of the Shemoneh Esrei. I hold that at the foundation of this emerging principle of demarcation lies the following kernel of insight.

There are two kinds of thing we may ask for. One is such that, once our request has been answered and the need sought has been provided, the request becomes null and void: it falls away entirely. A request like this holds good only for so long as it has not been met; once it has, it is as if it had evaporated into thin air. It has, we may say, become unfounded. By contrast, other requests are requests for things that are needed on an ongoing basis. A single fulfillment of it does not deactivate the request, going forward. The request remains in force, seeking repeated acts of fulfillment – in relation to like manifestations of the need, occurring over time and in unforeseen places. They are, if you will, perennial requests...ones that keep reinserting and reasserting themselves. They are distinguished from the fleeting requests, spoken of a moment ago.

On this foundation, I want to say, does the difference between those bakashos that culminate in a ki-claue and those that do not rest. The explication of this is what I’ll want bs”d to come to in the next post.

Form and Content

2011-06-19T10:06:00.000-04:00

In the Shemoneh Esrei, we recite eighteen berachos. The prayer in its totality is divided into three parts. The first, consisting of the first three berachos, enunciates praises of G-d. The last, consisting again of three berachos, expresses thanks to G-d. In between are sandwiched what were originally twelve but then grew into thirteen berachos of bakasha – supplication. In these latter, we beseech G-d for the fulfillment of our various needs, each such need being attended to in one of these berachos.

In what follows, I will focus on the middle berachos, those of supplication (bakasha). I want to suggest that the format in which these bakashos are encased follows one of two different patterns. One format expresses bakasha from beginning to end. (My discussion pertains to the part of a beracha – or bakasha – that precedes the chasima, beginning in baruch ata.) Its content is fully occupied in bakasha per se. The other, though occupied preponderantly in bakasha, adds something to the bakasha before closing. What it adds is what, formally speaking, I will call a ki-clause. As I understand it, the function of a ki-clause is, if you will, to rationalize the baracha. It is to provide a justification for asking for whatever it is that we ask in that beracha. It seems to embrace the presumption that, unless we can justify asking for something, we are not well positioned to ask for it. In this sense, a ki-clause lends external support to the bakasha. It empowers us to make it, if you will.

What I have been saying can best be brought out by illustration. The second of the berachos of bakasha is hashiveinu. Its formulation (nusach) reads as follows: hashiveinu avinu lesorasecha vekareveinu malkeinu la-avodasecha vehachazireinu bishuva sheleima lefanecha. These words exhaust the content of the bakasha, running all the way to the beracha’s chasima. It will be noticed that nothing is said that does not bespeak bakasha per se.

This, then, illustrates a bakasha formulated according to the first pattern. Now consider the very next bakasha. It reads thus: selach lanu avinu ki chatanu mechal lano malkeinu ki fashanu ki mochel vesole-ach ohta. We observe that the bulk of the bakasha is indeed devoted to expressing our request to G-d for forgiveness. However, before it draws to a close, it appears to divert from its thrust and invokes an extraneous statement, specifically: ki mochel vesole-ach ata. These appear to be words of rationale or justification. It is as if we were saying: “Why, Kiveyachol, grant us forgiveness?” “Do it because You are a forgiving and pardoning King.”

Now, go through all the berachos of bakasha, and you will find that they fall into either one these patterns: either they exhibit a ki-clause or they do not (and that those that do not do nothing other than articulate the bakasha). The question is, therefore, why this divergence of formulation? Why the absence of thoroughgoing consistency in formulation? Why should we need to justify our request in this manner? Why couldn’t we make it without resorting to such justification? What, further, is the nature of the justification we offer? And if indeed a justification is called for, why then not append it to each and every request we make throughout the entire range of bakashos? Why are some singled out for this sort of supplementation, with the other ones remaining unaffected at all? In other words, what principle of differentiation is operative here?

(Please stay tuned for the next post, bs”d.)

To Recapitulate

2011-06-17T09:30:00.000-04:00

So far, we’ve touched on the Gra’s test for learning Torah lishma; Manoach’s distrust of his wife’s intelligence; the difference between buttons and a necktie as far as gartl-substitutes are concerned; the question of the uniqueness of the twelve months; the difference between posting mareh mekomos well in advance and posting them at the last minute; the idea that the whole system of breaking up the text of the Torah into pasukim, as we know them, is founded on the mesorah of the keri, as opposed to that of the kesiv; the assimilation of davening unthinkingly to idle talk; methods of parsing the formulation of Baruch She-amar; the definition of a congregated body of Jewish people; and the ideal of being faithful.

And in this particular post, we’ve touched on the enumeration of the various things that this blog has, bs”d, so far touched on.

Acting in Good Faith

2011-06-16T08:51:00.000-04:00

This story is adapted from one cited by the Aruch and attributed to the amora Rav Chanina or the amora Rav Ami, depending on the girsa.

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Lovely looking and adorned in enchanting jewelry, a girl was on her way home to her father, when she began to lose her bearings and feel faint. She needed something to eat or drink. Wandering about, she spotted a well, to which was affixed a bucket hanging from a rope. She grabbed the rope, hoping to lower the bucket into the water and fill it. But in the event, she was pulled down by the weight of the bucket and made to fall into the well. She had had her fill of water and sought to make her way out of the pit. But she was confronted with the reality that there was no way for her to maneuver her way out. Out of sheer desperation, she then let out cries and screams.

This went on for some time, when suddenly a passerby caught wind of the girl’s agonizing cries. He drew himself close to the source of the shouts but could not make out the identity of the being emitting them. It was too dark. He yelled into the pit, addressing himself to the being emitting the cries, and asking whether it was human or otherwise. The girl rang back that she was indeed human and desperately needed help in finding her way out of the pit. The passerby, in turn, was determined to discern whether this was in fact the case. He demanded of her that she swear to the verity of her statement, with which demand she complied and swore. He thereupon inquired with her as to how she had gotten down there and received her candid retelling of the turn of events. At which point he asked her whether she would be willing to be wedded to him, if he should pull her out of the pit. Immediately thereupon, she indicated her agreement to do so.

But no sooner had he pulled her out and caught a glimpse of her than he developed an urge to couple with her forthwith. Sensing this, she hesitated not a moment to ask him from what people he hailed. Answering her, he told her that he was a Jew from such-and-such a place and, also, a kohein. Responding in turn, she gave the location of her home, adding that – like him – she was a member of a highly reputable Jewish family. Then she scolded him, complaining that someone who is holy and exalted enough to have been designated by G-d for special status (as a kohein) among all the Jews – that someone like this should not be acting in so animal-like a fashion and trying jump right into (illicit) relations while circumventing the legitimate process of chupa and kidushin.

She sought to egg him on to follow her to where her father and mother were situated, so that she might become betrothed to him in an acceptable (respectable) way. Instead, he offered to enter into a compact with her, committing themselves to one another for marriage. Receiving her commitment, he made it a point to ask her who would bear witness to their pact. Hearing his quest, she felt hard pressed to offer a satisfactory solution. But just at that moment, as if out of nowhere, a weasel suddenly passed by in front of them. Prompted by this, she went on to insist that Heaven, the weasel, and the pit would attest to the fact that nothing deceitful had been lurking between them.

Satisfied, they took leave of each other and went their separate ways. The girl remained steadfastly faithful to her pledge. She received a steady stream of inquiries from would-be suitors seeking her out; but in case after case, she held firm in her declination and wavered not an iota. Things grew increasingly intense, with the pressure mounting for her to acquiesce in the proposals made in behalf of the most admirable of young men. It got to the point where she felt she had no way out, other than to resort to the tactic of warding off her pursuers by feigning lunacy and engaging in modes of conduct unbecoming a true Jewish princess. She would tear at the clothing of anyone who dared to approach her and rent her own clothing as well, resigning herself to lying in tatters.

Before long, the locals had caught on and ceased to entreat her. No longer would they queue up in front of her door but backed off entirely, as ever before. Alone she sat, with barely anyone one with whom to chat, awaiting his anxiously anticipated arrival.

With him, on the other hand, it was an entirely different story. Arriving home, he quickly put what had transpired out of his mind and settled in with the hustle and bustle of ordinary life. He took to a livelihood and gave free reign to his desire to marry. He married a woman who, in due course, became impregnated and bore him a child, a son. Three months had passed, and the child was bitten by a weasel and succumbed and died. She became pregnant again and bore him a son, another one. But this child fell into a ditch and succumbed to his injuries, dying from them. She took her husband aside and said to him that, if their children had died a normal death, she would have recited tziduk hadin and left it at that. But they had both died a death strange in the extreme; and for this there had to be some kind of an explanation.

She sensed that he had a story to tell her and adjured him to let her in on it. Whereupon he recounted for her benefit the whole train of events, commencing with his hearing the cries of the girl coming from the hole and culminating in his agreement to return to her for marriage – with a weasel and a pit bearing witness. Taking a divorce from him, she admonished him to go back to the woman who had been appropriated for him as a wife, by the Creator of the Universe.

He made his way over to her town and inquired with the locals as to her whereabouts. He was told that the woman he was seeking had gone mad and suffered from uncontrollable seizures. He was given to understand what she did to anyone who as much as attempted to approach her. So to her father he went and there and then gave vent to the story in its entirety. He expressed himself earnestly, taking upon himself full acceptance of any defects with which she might be smitten. The father appointed a witness, testifying to all that the man had undertaken. And thus did this kohein venture to approach the sad and forlorn woman, whom he had treated unfairly and of whose trust he had proven himself unworthy.

On being approached, the woman initially reacted in what had become her typical fashion: by trying to rip at his clothing and forcing him to keep his distance, on pain of sustaining damage to anything he might be holding. Undeterred, the man engaged her in conversation and made especial mention of the weasel and of the ditch whose testimony had so much earlier been invoked. She responded in kind, saying to him that she had stood by her word and refused entanglement with other parties, with whose entreaties she had been helplessly flooded. In their minds and in their hearts they found comfort and repose, as they basked in a profusion of calm and serenity. They engaged in procreation and were fruitful and multiplied – with both offspring and an abundance of possessions.

An Assemblage of People

2011-06-15T09:09:00.000-04:00

Women go to shul, and they stand (or sit) behind the mechitza. The question arises: When they daven standing behind the mechitza, are they performing tefila betzibur? Ostensibly, to daven tefila betzibur, a person has got to be situated in the room in which the tzibur is davening. Place is of the essence: it defines the tzibur, as it were. The question is therefore: when a part of the place – the room – is cordoned off by a mechitza, are the two sides of the mechitza considered the same place (room) as far as defining a tzibur is concerned? Or are they considered places each unto itself?

Seemingly, the resolution to this question will determine the resolution to a related question. If some men stand on one side of the mechitza and other men stand on the other side, and neither side by itself contains a minyan of men, do the men standing on either side combine to form a minyan? A Yes answer to the first question would seem to imply a Yes answer to the second.

In Bemechitzas Rabeinu, it is reported that Reb Yaakov Kaminetzky z”l gave a Yes answer to the first question. He is reported to have said that someone standing behind the mechitza and davening synchronously with the tzibur was performing tefila betzibur.

Someone might think to ask: How could it be otherwise? If the women standing behind the mechitza weren’t technically davening with the tzibur, what would be the point of their coming to shul in the first place? A rejoinder is, however, ready to hand. For it is brought down that, when someone is unable to attend a davening in shul and, therefore, to daven with a tzibur, he should nevertheless endeavor to calibrate the timing of his davening so that it is coordinated – temporally coincides – with the tzibur’s davening. It is the next best thing to actually davening as part of a tzibur. Accordingly, it would make sense for women to come to shul in either case, since, however the situation be in regard to the positional status of the other side of the mechitza, by being in attendance they would be able to effectively coordinate their davening with that of the tzibur.

And even this would be nothing to be made light of.

Syntactic Structure

2011-06-14T10:04:00.000-04:00

Baruch ata hashem: ha-keil ha-av harachaman hamehulal befi amo meshubach umfo-ar bilshon chasidav va-avadov uvshirei david avdecha nehalelcha hashem elokeinu bishvachos uvizmiros negadelcha unshabeicha unfa-ercha venazkir shimcha venamlichacha malkeinu elokeinu

This excerpt is from Baruch She-amar. Question: how should it be parsed? Ostensibly, there are two viable ways. One is as follows.

Baruch ata hashem: ha-keil ha-av harachaman hamehulal befi amo meshubach umfo-ar bilshon chasidav va-avadov. uvshirei david avdecha nehalelcha hashem elokeinu. bishvachos uvizmiros negadelcha unshabeicha unfa-ercha venazkir shimcha venamlichacha malkeinu elokeinu.

The other is as follows.

Baruch ata hashem: ha-keil ha-av harachaman hamehulal befi amo meshubach umfo-ar bilshon chasidav va-avadov uvshirei david avdecha. nehalelcha hashem elokeinu bishvachos uvizmiros. negadelcha unshabeicha unfa-ercha venazkir shimcha venamlichacha malkeinu elokeinu.

I’ve seen it done one way in some sidurim, and the other way in other sidurim.

There is also a third method of parsing, found in some sidurim. It goes like this.

Baruch ata hashem: ha-keil ha-av harachaman hamehulal befi amo meshubach umfo-ar bilshon chasidav va-avadov. uvshirei david avdecha nehalelcha hashem elokeinu bishvachos uvizmiros. negadelcha unshabeicha unfa-ercha venazkir shimcha venamlichacha malkeinu elokeinu

But I'm not so sanguine with this one. Two prepositional phrases, uvshirei david avdecha and bishvachos uvizmiros, are modifying the same verb nehalelcha. That seems a bit unusual.

Anecdotal Interlude

2011-06-13T17:42:00.000-04:00

A disciple approached his master disconcertedly, complaining that it is said that one who refrains from engaging in idle talk for a period of forty days merits witnessing Eliyahu Hanavi’s revelation, and that he had met this condition and, yet, not been revealed to by him. To which his master incisively responded: “Have you not prayed during this forty day period?” The disciple assured him that he had. “Well, then, retorted the master, have you recited all your prayers with the proper concentration?” The disciple thereupon drew a blank, suggesting that he may not have. Whence the master rejoined: “In that case, you would have engaged in idle talk after all. For is not praying without concentration tantamount to indulging in idle talk?!” (Adapted from a story attributed to Reb Yaakov Kaminetsky z”l, in Bemechitzas Rabeinu.)

Speaking and Writing

2011-06-12T20:01:00.000-04:00

The Aseres Hadibros – which we read on Shavuos – has what is known as a tam ha-elyon (upper cantillation) and what is known as a tam hatachton (lower cantillation). They affect the demarcation of the Aseres Hadibos’ verses and, consequently, the vowelization of their words and the cantillation of the entire running text. The Biur Halacha (494:1) writes that, depending on whether one is following the upper or lower method of conatillation, the demarcation of a verse may or may not coincide with the articulation of a given dibur (or commandment). With the lower method of cantillation, verse structure is independent of dibur articulation. Accordingly, a given dibur may be broken up into several verses (sentences); and, conversely, a single verse may comprise multiple diburim (commandments). By contrast, with the upper method, there is a direct (one-to-one) correspondence between diburim and verses.

The Biur Halacha further explains that tam ha-elyon follows the kesiv (as opposed to the keri). (Note: the kesiv and the keri are both part of the Mesora.) In the kesiv – meaning what is reflected in the way that the Torah is actually written – each dibur constitutes a parsha (demarcated by blank space on either end) in its own right. Look in a sefer Torah, and you will see that even a two word dibur occupies a parsha unto itself, and that, likewise, a relatively long (multi-verse) dibur extends for the full length of a self-contained parsha. According to the Biur Halacha, then, on the level of kesiv, the boundaries of a parsha determine the beginning and end of a verse (and thus how its words are to be vowelized and cantillated). This, then, is why, using tam ha-elyon, each dibur, taken in its entirety, receives expression as an integral verse. On the level of keri, by contrast, verse structure and parsha structure are quite independent. Consequently, diburim and verses follow their separate courses.

This is significant, because if we generalize the point and apply it as a principle, it means that the entire system of verses in the Torah holds good only on the level of keri. On the level of kesiv, on the other hand, verses continue until the end of a parsha has been reached. All the text falling between one parsha and the next counts as one verse. Our whole tradition of parsing the passages of the Torah as we do is due to our adherence to the level of keri. There is one tradition for how to write the Torah (kesiv), and another for how to enunciate the text (keri).

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We speak. And we write. In both cases, we use a system of symbolization. In the former case, it is a phonetic system; in the latter, an inscriptional one. Are the two parallel? Or is there an order of priority presiding over them? Might spoken language be prior? In spoken language, sounds serve as symbols. They combine with other sounds and create compounds that have connotations. We hear these symbolic sounds and, also, the larger structures that they form, and we immediately and effortlessly associate them with a meaning. We apprehend their meaning directly upon hearing them.

More concretely, the constituents of language are words. Words are composed of phonetic sounds. Our language determines which ordered constellation of sounds counts as what word. Then, in writing, we use a system for representing the words we use in speaking. How do we represent, in writing, a spoken word?

There seem to be two possibilities. One is to say that our written words do not represent spoken words as such but, rather their meanings. This is, in effect, to deny that we use writing to represent spoken words. The situation relating spoken and written words is, rather, as follows. A spoken word has meaning; and its written correlate has a corresponding meaning. The two systems are mutually independent: they are not hierarchically arranged with respect to one another. It is rather like having two disparate languages – each using its own linguistic elements to represent a shared collection of meanings.

This is one way of looking at it. At first blush, it is a strange way. It does not account for the fact that there obviously is a systematic relationship between the language we speak and the language we write. Seemingly, our written language would be drastically different if our spoken language were any different from the way it is.

But there is, it seems, also another of looking at it. It is to say that a written word, unlike a spoken one, does not relate directly to an associated meaning. There is a mediated relation, which works as follows. A written word represents its spoken correlate, which in turn has a meaning. The written word thus comes, indirectly, to acquire that meaning.

This raises the question: how does a written word represent its spoken correlate? Not in an arbitrary way: there is a system. Written words are comprised of elements that are letters. Letters represent sounds – or sound-values. An ordered combination of sounds amounts to the complex sound of some certain (sounded) word. The inscription of this word, consisting of an ordered sequence of letters, where the respective sound-values of these letters map onto the sounds that comprise the corresponding sounded word, thus comes to represent this sounded word. In a more derivative way, the meaning that this enunciated word represents is then appropriated by its written counterpart – which may then be said to represent this meaning, too.

There is a progression here that runs as follows. In the first instance, discrete letters represent distinct phonetic sounds. At one remove, a series of letters represents the complex sound created by combining and sequencing their sound-values. This complex is the sound of a word; so the word comes to be represented by this sequence of written (or inscribed) letters. Finally, at yet another remove, the complex of letters whose respective sound-values combine to represent a phonetic word – these letters create an inscriptional rendition of the word, one that represents the very meaning that the phonetic rendition of this word itself represents. This last is, however, only a derivative accretion to the inscriptional form.

This is so interesting that it’s worth repeating and elaborating upon. Spoken words are built of discrete sounds (a series of phonetic elements). In their written correlates, these discrete sound elements are represented by letters. The individual phonetic sounds of which a word is composed have no representational efficacy. All they have is combinatorial efficacy, meaning: they may combine to form a word that does have representational efficacy. They also serve to provide something for the component letters of a written word, one with which they are correlated, to latch onto. Each of these phonetic elements is represented by another in the sequence of the word’s component letters. It is the combination of these sound-units in a word that creates something – a symbol – that represents, or correlates with, external meaning.

There is, therefore, a little irony here: the sound-components of a sounded word have no representational efficacy; yet, the letter-components of the written word, used to represent the sounded components of a sounded word, do have representational efficacy. They each, individually represent a sound component in the corresponding spoken word. A correctly formulated series of these sounds represents an entire such spoken word. This is how spoken language comes to generate written language.

But notice, to thus grant that a written word represents is not to go so far as to grant that it (directly) represents what its spoken correlate represents, namely, a meaning. The component letters of a word, taken separately or in combination, have no representational efficacy vis-à-vis external meaning. Its spoken correlate is what it represents. It is the spoken correlate, in turn, that relates directly to a meaning. (We may perhaps say that the written representation of the spoken word indirectly represents the meaning that this spoken word represents.)

The first of these two views treats spoken and written language as being on a par. The second puts spoken language on a pedestal and gives it priority. Written language is seen as at a remove. It is as if, first, there was only the spoken word; and subsequently, the written system of words was encoded to facilitate communication where speaker and hearer are separated, by distance or by time. But even with the introduction of written language, it remains subordinate to spoken language, in that it represents spoken language and not what spoken language itself represents (meanings).

On a third way of looking at it, however, the situation is reversed. The written word is primary. It is composed of certain letters. The combination in question of letters defines this word. The letters are given sound-values. The word thus acquires a sound-form. The spoken word arises – and with it comes the evolution of the spoken language.

Knowing and Being Able to Repeat

2011-06-10T12:02:00.000-04:00

Scattered about through the old shtetls of Europe were two kinds of rabbis. Some rabbis really knew how to learn. They were proficient in the intricacies of Talmudic dialogue and had accumulated substantial amounts of Talmudic learning. Others weren’t nearly as sophisticated. They merely managed to get by. They could understand the Talmudic material that they would read in a perfunctory manner; and they could then rehash it for the benefit of the listening public. But they did not innovate or show much in the way of erudition. Now both these types of rabbis held their regular discourses (known as drashos) at the appointed times throughout the year. Shabbos Hagadol was one such designated time, among several others.

It was customary for a rabbi to draw up a list of Sources Consulted, also known as Mareh Mekomos. It displayed the various sources that had been tapped in constructing the treatment of the topic that he (the rabbi) was to deliver. It would be hung up on the wall of the synagogue where everyone could see it – in advance of the actual giving of the discourse. People would consult these sources, so that they would be better prepared to follow the ins and outs of the rabbi’s sometimes mentally wrenching discursive dialogue. However, customs varied as to how much in advance of the discourse the Sources Consulted listing would actually be hung up.

In some towns, they would be hung up well in advance, perhaps as much as two weeks in advance of the drasha date. If, for example, it was a Shabbos Hagadol drasha, the listing might be hung up as early as on Rosh Chodesh Nissan! Typically, rabbis following this custom were from the first category: their learning ability was first rate. Their drashos were truly masterpieces of Talmudic erudition. Being well prepared for them was of the essence, if the people in attendance were to profit from their efforts in following and properly comprehending the flow of the exposition.

In other places, by contrast, the List of Sources would not be posted until the last moment – not much before the discourse was scheduled to be delivered. These were, characteristically, places whose rabbi fell into the second classification: they could scrape together a discourse but not show any profound insights or modes of entanglement. Posting Sources was, for them, merely a formality, and didn’t impact too much, one way or the other, on listeners’ ability to comprehend. Such rabbis might even feel threatened by the prospect of their listeners’ receiving a heads-up in regard to the anticipated content of their drasha.

In the Haggada of Passover we read: yachol merosh chodesh talmud lomar bayom hahu. I assume that the reader is familiar with the literal understanding of this passage. However, homiletically, it may be interpreted as an allusion to the state of affairs just discussed: Yachol, meaning if the rabbi is really capable (he is accomplished and has a great deal of learning capacity), then merosh chodesh, meaning that he will have posted his list of Sources Consulted (as early as) on Rosh Chodesh. However, if talmud lomar, meaning he is merely capable of rehashing Talmudic material that he has come across, then bayom hahu, meaning that he will likely wait until the very day of his drasha before hanging up a list of his Consulted Sources. He is in no hurry.

Singular and Plural

2011-06-07T09:06:00.000-04:00

On Shabbos we say, mekadesh hashabbos. On Yomtov we say, mekadesh yisrael vehazemanim. Grammatically, Shabbos is singular; zemanim is plural. On Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur we also use the singular. We say, mekadesh yisrael veyom hazikaron and mekadesh yisrael veyom hakippurim, respectively.

The explanation of the two last seems pretty straightforward. Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur both occur once through the span of the year. Hence the singular rendering. A corresponding explanation is at hand for Yomtov. Yomtov occurs multiple times during the year: there is Pesach Shavuos, Sukkos, and Shemini Atzeres. Hence the plural inflection of the noun zemanim. But this raises a question about the singular inflection of the noun Shabbos. Shabbos, too, occurs multiple times through the course of the year. Why, then, does it not receive the plural form in the beracha – which is recited in the Shemoneh Esrei and in Kiddush?

Ostensibly, we can answer as follows. Yes, Shabbos occurs multiple times; but each occurrence is an occurrence of the same day, Shabbos. And it has the same kedusha, the kedusha of Shabbos. In other words, we invoke the traditional genre-species/type-token distinction. Each occurrence of Shabbos is of the same kind, even though it is a numerically discrete instance of this kind.

We can go on to explain the difference between the beracha for Shabbos and the beracha for Yomtov in these terms. With Shabbos, there is one entity – kind, type, etc – of Shabbos that occurs repeatedly throughout the year. With Yomtov, on the other hand, there are multiple such entities (types, kinds, or whatever you want to call them). Pesach is its own entity, Shavuos is its own, and so on. Seemingly, each has its own type of kedusha. That of Pesach is not the same as that of Shavuos, and so on. (One may raise the question, though: Why are they lumped together in one nusach haberacha? Why isn’t there a separate beracha that reads mekadesh yisrael vehapesach, and similarly for the others?) Accordingly, we use the plural inflection of mekadesh yisrael vehazemanim.

A question that, however, remains pertains to Rosh Chodesh. We use the plural form: mekadesh yisrael veroshei chadashim. Arguably, Rosh Chodesh is repeated twelve (or thirteen) times during the year. It is the same sort of entity each time – just as one and same entity of Shabbos is unitary, as it is repeated throughout the course of the year. Why, then, does the beracha of Rosh Chodesh not follow the model of Shabbos and take the singular form? Why do we say, roshei chadashim rather than rosh chodesh?

Perhaps we should draw the conclusion that each month, and therefore each Rosh Chodesh, is an individual entity, set apart from all the other months. One Rosh Chodesh is not a repeat of the preceding one or of the next. It is unique: an entity (or type) unto itself – Nissan, Iyar, Sivan, etc.

If so, why? Let me leave it to you for your contemplation.