Chazal, Ramban, & Science

The Ramban (in the beginning of Parshas Tazria) mentions the views of the Greeks and seems to imply that Chazal can be wrong in science. See here for a discussion of this topic. I put a comment there and here:

I asked a talmid of R' Moshe Shapiro who asked his rebbe about these rambans and he said that there's more than one level to the physical universe. Just like there's p'shat, remez and sod in Torah, so too by the physical universe. So if ever a gemara or rishon seems to contradict science you can just say they're talking about a deeper level of the universe than science. The ramban doesn't say chazal is wrong, he just mentions both views. They're both right!
The problem with this explanation is if it can't be detected by the eyes or ears or any physical instruments scientists use, then how on earth is it physical? It would make more sense to say certain gemaras aren't to be taken literally, but that is not the approach of R' Shapiro.
Also, the ramban about rainbows says "we are forced to believe the words of the Greeks", and he changes the p'shat in a pasuk because of greek science! Kal V'chomer to modern- day proven science.

Learn Hebrew Early

The first thing any Jew has to know to be able to Learn or Daven is Hebrew. The Torah, Nach, practically all meforshim (Rahi, Tosafos, etc.), all of davening and everything else are all written in Hebrew. The gemara is written in Hebrew/Aramaic and if you know Hebrew it will be easy to learn the gemara's language. And yet many Jews are not fluent in Hebrew! They don't understand parts of davening and chumash and can't learn gemara-rashi-tosafos-etc. because of the language barrier. Its ridiculous! And the yeshivas don't even teach them Hebrew, instead they try teaching them Gemara, etc. even though it's in a language the kids don't understand. If someone didn't know Chinese would he be able to study Sun Tzu's Art of War in Chinese?!
Before beginning any Torah-learning a Jewish child obviously has to know Hebrew fluently. This isn't so easy if you try starting to teach Hebrew when a child is older. It's boring and hard to learn a whole new language when older.
The solution is to send all kids when they're one-to-four years old to a Hebrew-only playgroup. The morah there will speak Hebrew and they could watch Hebrew videos at playgroup and at home. As long as they continue watching, speaking, reading or hearing Hebrew they will retain the language throughout their life and be able to learn and daven.

Black Hattiness

[I had been forced to remove this post from my blog, but now that it’s summer I am republishing it, with slight additions and revisions.]

Is wearing a hat a halacha?

If you ask most black-hat wearing kids, they'll insist it is, but most rebbeim in yeshivas admit it's not. (i) They still insist on it being worn, I guess for political reasons. [This paragraph about being forced to get a hat on shabbos and miss krias haTorah has been removed]

Tefilin are also less important than wearing a hat. If a kid forgets his hat, he’ll be reprimanded and told to bring it the next day. If he forgets it many for many consecutive days, then he’ll get in trouble. On the other hand, when someone forgets his tefilin, even if for many days, nothing happens.

I was once at a house where people are required to take off their shoes when they enter. We made a mincha minyan there, and I was the only person who put on my shoes. There were even two people there who came in a hat, but took off their shoes. They wore a hat, but not shoes which there is an actual halacha to wear by davening! It's all black-hattiness, (ii) not halacha.

The mishna berurah states:

And in our times one has to wear a hat on his head by davening like he goes in the street and not just a yarmulke because [currently] that's not the way to stand in front of important people.... And it all depends on the minhag of the places.

Nowadays, when one wouldn't wear a hat when walking in the street or in front of important people, he obviously shouldn't need to wear a hat when davening. The Mishnah Berurah emphasized the fact that there’s no inherent chiyuv to wear a hat, it’s just like a turban or gartel. (iii)

Some people say you're supposed to wear a double-covering when davening, but this is definitely not a halacha; I think it might be some kabbalistic thing, if anything.

Another reason given is wearing a hat is a minhag, and minhagim are important. But wait one second. Why's it a minhag? Because it used to be what people wore, some Jews just didn't stop. The minhag (or halacha) isn't to wear a hat, it's to wear what one would wear in front of a king. It used to be a robe and turban, now it's a suit and tie. To claim there's a special black-hat minhag isn't accurate, it's just some people didn't stop wearing what they had.

The only real claim that can be made is that a hat is a uniform to show that the wearer is different then the surrounding gentile society. This can only be claimed by those who go everywhere in a black hat, and don't just wear it for davening. Also I wonder if they're trying to separate themselves from gentiles or maybe just from other Jews? Once, a kid didn't want to wear a hat and his mother said "You have to, our type wears a hat." Clearly, she wanted him to show he belonged to the black-hat Jews, and not the modern ones. That is not a good thing.

i. Most, but not all. Once, in Adar, everyone in my former mesivta brought in cowboy and clown hats for davening. The menahel told anyone who had taken off their hat to put it back on. So there are some who feel one must wear a hat by davening, even a ridiculous one.

ii. I’m not sure why they make everyone wear black hats, there’s definetly no basis for that. People are allowed to wear grey or dark blue jackets, but for some reason hats have to be black. I guess it’s part of conforming to Black-Hattiness Judaism.

iii. The reason some people wear a gartel can't be to provide a separation, since they're already wearing many separations. I heard the reason is because a gartel used to be what one would wear in front of a king.

Shemiras Shabbos - First Halacha

I will start with the melachos of garments first since they are not too complicated, not well known, and very important (since they can happen very often).
The first Melachah is Gozez, Shearing.
The mishkan was covered with woolen curtains and it was nessesary to shear a sheep to get the wool, so that is the Av Melachah of Gozez. The Melachah d'oraysa of Gozez is detatching s/t from self or another living thing (or formerly living thing) for any benefit.*

Common Gozez Cases:

• Cutting Nails
• Cutting Hair
• Removing skin

I probably will give more details this week.


(* machlokes if any benefit is d'oraysa but i think this is the halacha. see tosafos on shabbos 94b)

Shemiras Shabbos

I realized many people don't know basic hilchos shabbos and I need to learn it also so I'm starting a Shemiras Shabbos Club which will teach hilchos shabbos. I'll put out some mini-books with hilchos shabbos and I may also put up some Hilchos Shabbos here.

Can Elephants Jump? (Tosafos might have assumed so)

Yes u rasha-kofer! For proof simply click here. I think the matter is settled.
For those who aren't so sure they might want to look at Slifkin's article on the matter (in PDF). The machlokes basically comes down to this:

One side- The ba'alei Tosafos were extremely great, but they lived in France and never saw Elephants. The tosafist assumed they had legs like other animals (that's even how they look in an old drawing) and so he explains the gemara as saying you try to get the elephant to jump. Nowadays we know elephants can't jump since they're too big and their legs are designed differently so we should explain the gemara like Rashi. ___

Other side- Chas V'Shalom to say Tosafos doesn't know about Indian Elephants! The Tosafos were infallible and all-knowing! Elephants can jump!

There are 2 main problems with the second opinion:

• Elephants can't jump. (and even if you deny facts, there's no way you could claim it would be easy to get an elephant to jump, which would be necessary to explain the gemara)

• Christians believe in (limited) Papal infallibility, but Jews don't believe their Leaders are infallible or All-Knowing, only G-d is. So there's no reason to say Tosafos had to have known about Elephants.

(An explanation of the reason for these categories of posts may be forthcoming.)

31 years of Batalah

Most yeshivas start teaching gemara in 5th or 6th grade and 'learn' for about 2 hours a day (in YSV i think it was from 9:00-11:00). There is also learning on Sundays, Fridays, and other half-days. If there are 180 days of gemara-learning in a year, in 3 years one learns about 1080 hours. A secular subject is only learned 40 minutes a day, 4 days a week, and about 120 days a year. So a year of one subject is 80 hours. That means 3 years of elementary-school gemara is really like 13.5 years of learning! After 13 years of learning you would think the kids should come out knowing how to read a gemara perfectly, but alas, this is not the case.
In 3 years of high-school there's at least another 1400 hours of learning-time (there's more hours per day and mishmar) which is the equivalent of 17.5 years of learning! So after 31 years you would think everyone should have completely mastered all gemara-related skills there are!
How come this isn't actually the case? I think it has to do with the emphasis placed on HLD (hours learned per day) instead of actual amount of learning skills gained. If there were only 40-minute periods but they actually emphasized learning the necessary skills instead of HLD, they could teach all the basic skills by the end of elementary school. They could give a Gemara final at the end of 8th grade which would test all the basic gemara skills a person needs. It could be a random gemara which everyone would have to learn during the test and then answer questions to show they understand it. This only sounds unrealistic because of the bad education system that's already in place.

Beginning

I already had a few posts on another blog so I'm putting them here to start this blog. From now on they'll be published for this blog which will have a wider readership.

Why is this blog called "nebach!"?

First and foremost, because I already had this name registered and it's a good short name that's easy to remember. This blog will also complain and say "nebach!" so much that it deserves to be called a nebach for being so hypocritical. Also, who but nebachs would read such a blog? I also think I'll give Nebach-Case awards to well-known nebachs.

Site Changing

Formerly the nebach-case hall of fame web page, this site is changing and will soon become a more serious blog devoted to important Jewish issues.