Tefillin on Chol HaMoed

There was a shiur on this topic on YU Torah but it doesn't appear to be there anymore so I'll write what I remember from it.

A person doesn't wear the twa of tefillin on shabbos and yom tov since they are an twa themselves.
Q: Is Chol HaMoed an twa and patur from tefillin?
A: Possibly. If it depends on the mitzva of yom tov, then chol hamoed is also, since you can’t eat out of the succah all of succos and you can’t eat chometz all of pesach. But if it depends on whether there’s an issur melacha, then it’s a question. Is the issur melacha d’oraysa and therefor it is an twa or is it just d’rabanan (and wouldn’t prevent the d’oraysa of tefillin)?

So if each possibility was a 50% chance, there would only be a 25% chance that chol hamoed is not an twa and patur from tefillin. Most of the Ashkenazi rishonim held like this and that’s how the Rema paskens. He says you wear tefillin on chol hamoed and make a bracha, just say it quietly (just in case there are Hassidim in the back).

But other poskim say no, you shouldn't wear tefillin on chol hamoed. Either because twa goes by the mitzvas yom tov or because the issur melacha is d’oraysa. The shulchan oruch says you’re not allowed to wear tefillin on chol hamoed, because twa of shabbos and yom tov doesn’t just permit not wearing tefillin, it makes it assur. The zohar says someone who wears tefillin on chol hamoed is chayiv misa.* The Vilna Gaon also says [the Rema is very wrong and] you shouldn’t wear tefillin on Chol hamoed.

So according to some it’s a chiyuv d’oraysa and according to others it’s assur d’oraysa. The Mishna Berurah, quoting the Ba’ch, suggests a compromise. Put on tefillin, but make a condition before putting them on: Say “If really there’s no mitzvah, I’m not doing anything now; these are just expensive bits of leather I’m wrapping around my arm.” Without the intention of doing a mitzvah, you won’t be doing any issur, even according to the shulchan aruch. Then you say “If there is a mitzvah then obviously I’m doing the mitzvah of tefillin!” That way you’re safe either way and you can put on teffilin, you just don’t make a bracha since you’re in doubt .

The mishna berurah says everyone should follow their custom, just make sure you don’t have some people wearing and some people not wearing tefillin since then it’s “Lo Sisgod’doo. R’ Moshe says elswhere (by which half of sefirah to keep) that in America, this isn’t a concern, since there is no minhag America, everone came with their own customs. In Europe, each town or area had its own minhagim, and it would be wrong to do differently. But in America everywhere’s “Lo Sisgod’doo”. So probably everyone can follow their own minhag for tefillin on chol hamoed also. Just don’t go to a minyan that does have a minhag and not follow it. (Don’t wear tefillin to a Hassidic Minyan, they take the zohar literally!)


* The Rema says this Zohar means only if he wears Tefillin and kills someone would he be chayiv misa.

Am I allowed to be typing this?

I think so. It's a ma'ase hedyot (so is writing nowadays). It's torah, and people will read it on chol hamoed (so it's for the moed and the public). See here for some of the halachos of chol hamoed. There are also some shiurim at YU torah.

Can a Rishon Err?

Can a rishon make a mistake in Science? “Of course not!” some would say. But what about an Amora? Or a Tanna? Or a member of the Sanhedrin? What if it’s a member of the Sanhedrin making a mistake in Torah? What if most of the Sanhedrin makes a mistaken ruling on a chiyuv kareis? Oops, Now we have a pasuk from last week’s parsha:

“If the entire assembly of Israel [the Sanhedrin] shall err, and a matter became obscured from the eyes of the congregation [they permit something that’s really chayiv kareis] ; and they commit one from among all the commandments of Hashem that may not be done, and they become guilty;”

(Vayikra 4:13 Artscroll translation)


Moshe Rabbeinu himself made some ‘mistakes’ in torah. For example, Moshe got angry at Aron HaKohen and made a mistake, when really Aron was right. (vayikra 10:16-20)
Also, in the case of Zimri, Moshe forgot the halacha and only Pinchas remebered (Hashem made Moshe forget, but you still a Sage can forget something.) -see bamidbar 25:7

The Torah is very clear that even the greatest leaders aren’t infallible and can even make mistakes in Torah, something they studied their whole life. Obviously in science, something only developed a few hundred years ago, they may make mistakes.

This is not to say that if a Rishon says something, you can just dismiss it as being mistaken. Obviously, they were the greatest experts and its unlikely they’re mistaken. But if you know elephants can’t jump or something like that you are able to say they were mistaken.

(See also Gil Student’s posts on Hirhurim and Torat Emet. Other blogs like the Jewish Worker also have posts about this issue. Also look at ZooTorah which has many articles about it and has sources.)

Cholov Yisroel

Someone requested a post on Cholov Yisroel but i dont know enough about it and dont have time to write one. There's an issur d'rabanan against drinking milk from a gentile b/c of the fear he may have added non-kosher milk. There are many reasons to be meikil nowadays in America:
It's like a Jew watched it since the Government would punish any farmer who mixed in other milk. (This is R' Moshe's reason). It would be impractical or impossible for farmers nowadays to mix in other milk. A farmer of old whose cow didn't produce enough milk might be tempted to add some milk from the donkey, but nowadays there are thousands of cows who get milked by machines (it's not even milked by a gentile so may be muttar technically), and there are no other animals milked nearby (anothe reason to be matir).

There are also reasons to be machmir.

See here for a discussion of the issue that has R' Moshe's responsa in hebrew and English.
A 3-part series fom R' Jachter on cholov yisroel: Meikil, Machmir, Part Three

Taanis Esther

Q: Why do we fast the day before Purim? No tragedy happened, and its not even the right date!

A: On purim we rejoice and get drunk, so we might forget how serious the threat was and why the Jews were saved. We have to remember that the Jews were threatened with anhilliation and the reason they were saved was because they fasted and did teshuvah. There are still those who seek to destroy us, so to make sure we don't celebrate Purim too light-heartedly, we fast the day before and do teshuva.

Age of the Universe

If a person calculates the age of the universe based on the Torah, he'll get an age under 6,000 years. If a person studies the Earth and universe scientifically he'll get a much larger age (around 14 billion years). At first, religious people just dismissed the evidence of a much older universe by saying the science was wrong, but as the evidence grew they accepted Gosse's Theory. Gosse's Theory basically says the universe was created as an old universe. It's not 14 billion years old, it just was created looking like that, it's really 6,000 years old. One problem with this is there have been stars over 6,000 light-years* away that have exploded (supernovas) and become invisible from Earth. If the universe was created old, it means these stars never existed. There was simply a fake beam of light and a fake supernova. A pretty strange idea. There are many other problems.

I think that the whole claim is meaningless anyways. What a person sees is what exists, even modern physics recognizes that. If in every single way a scientist looks at the universe, its 14 billion years old, than how in the universe is it not 14 billion years old? To who? G-d? G-d is beyond time. There's no such thing as saying it has an absolute age of 6,000 and just looks like 14 billion. That's the same thing as saying it is 14 billion years old. To make my point clearer, imagine if the theory was that the universe is 6,000 years old, just the first second had 14 billion years compressed into it. Clearly, no one could claim this second is a second in any way. A 14-billion year second is 14 billion years. The same for a moment, and the same for no moment at all.

Q: But what about the Torah? Now you're going to claim 6 days aren't literally 6 days? You wouldn't have said that before this scientific evidence, it's a forced answer!
A: No, not at all. How could 6 days be 6 days if there were no people, and for the first few days, not even a sun or moon? The only way they could be literally six days, is if scientifically that is the age determined. It's not, so the six days are clearly something much deeper.

But why did G-d make such an old universe? Why couldn't He have done it in six days?
I may discuss this further in another post, but I think the key may lie in the Mishna in Avos (5:1) that asks why G-d created the universe with 10 ma'amaros (utterances)**, He could have just created it with one ma'amar! The mishna answers that G-d did it to take retribution from the resha'im who are destroying the universe that was created with ten ma'amaros and to give more reward to the tzadikim who are sustaining (she-m'kaymin) the universe that was created with ten ma'amoros.

A similar answer may be applied here. A universe that took 14-billion years and ten ma'amaros to create is inherently more consequential than a universe that was created in an instant.


*A light-year is the distance light travels in a year. So if you look through a telescope and see a star a million light-years away, you're seeing how it was a million years ago. If you see the star explode, it means it exploded a million years ago. If the universe is only 6,000 years old, it means the star could never have existed and what you saw was just an illusion.

** The beginning of B'reishis says 9 times "and G-d said" + "B'reishis bara E-lohim" = 10 ma'amaros. (Bartenura) But why couldn't G-d just have said created everything with one ma'amar?

Learning Gemara with Artscroll

Many people object to people using artscroll gemaras. They have two problems:

• If one uses artscroll, he won't develop the skills and vocabluary to read a gemara properly.
• Torah is something one is supposed to struggle with. If uses artscroll, it's too easy.

The first argument only applies to someone who hasn't learned how to learn yet. It is a valid objection. But I think a person can use artscroll as a tool, not a crutch, to help him learn the vocab and reading skills of gemara. Artscroll puts the hebrew and english together on the translation side. You read the hebrew, then the english, and you can learn a lot more. You can review it by just looking at the gemara side, and looking at the english if u don't understand something. This way you can learn a lot more than by just trying to read the gemara side and you learn how to learn too. Also, the footnotes tell a beginner things he wouldn't have been able to learn at all without Artscroll.

I'm not sure what to think about the second objection. Should a person try figuring out everything the gemara will say about the mishna before reading it? Why is it OK to use Rashi? Obviously, your'e supposed think hard when you learn a gemara, but what's wrong with having it explained clearly so now you can think about the issues without having to figure out where the period is?

Which brings me to a third point. Why don't people use punctuated gemaras? Why don't they make a new gemara with a redone daf now that they have computers instead of using an old hand-set format printed by some gentile a few hundred years ago?

I think they attack artscroll for the same reason they don't use punctuation.

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.