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Rabbi Avi Grossman: Learn Torah on Election Day!

I recommend reading the whole article over here.

An excerpt:

… Therefore, election day is basically a national emergency day, and we should pray that somehow God grants us the wisdom to choose what is right.

…

The Knesset elections are to be held on Tuesday, the fourth of Nisan (April 9), and because it is inappropriate to hold a public fast day during Nisan, I propose that the previous day, Monday, the third of Nisan, be declared a day of extra prayer, while on election day laymen should be encouraged to spend a significant part of their work holiday in the study halls.

Again, see the rest here.

When Is the Right Time to Recite Birkat Halevanah? Rabbi Avi Grossman Explains

On the Times Commonly Presented for Birkat HaL’vana: Part 1

Avi Grossman
 
Abstract
 
Typical Jewish calendars list two particular z’manim for “the first time that one may begin to recite kiddush l’vana (or birkat hal’vana).” The first is referred to as minhag yerushalayim or minhag haperushim, or simply “the three-day minhag,” and the second time, to wait for seven days to pass from the start of the lunar month to recite the blessing, is attributed to the Shulhan Aruch. These two times are calculated as exactly either 72 hours or 168 hours after the average molad of each Hebrew month. These positions do not truly reflect those of our sages, nor of the Rishonim, and nor of the Shulhan Aruch. The usual shul calendars, like the Ittim L’vina calendar and the Tukachinsky calendar, mislead the public with regards to when the earliest time for saying the blessing really is. The issue is based on a number of fallacious calculations, including misapplying a chumra of the Pri M’gadim regarding an opinion of the Rema to an opinion of the Shulhan Aruch, and assuming that the Shulhan Aruch completely dismissed the halacha as described by the Talmud in favor of a later, kabbalistic opinion. The purpose of this article is to argue for a reevaluation as to how the typical calendars present these issues to the laymen and to call for a more accurate presentation of the z’manim as understood by Rishonim like Maimonides.
Introduction
If you take a look at the usual Jewish calendars, you will find that every month two particular z’manim are presented for “the first time that one may begin to recite kiddush l’vana (or birkat hal’vana).” The first is based on the writings of the Vilna Gaon, and referred to as minhag yerushalayim or minhag haperushim, or simply “the three-day minhag,” and the second is attributed to Rabbi Yosef Karo, the author of the Beth Yosef and the Shulhan Aruch, who was usually referred to by the name of his former work. TheShulhan Aruch makes mention of waiting for seven days to pass (ostensibly from the start of the lunar month) to recite the blessing. These two times are calculated as follows: exactly 72 hours (3 times 24 hours) or 168 hours (7 times 24 hours) after the average molad of each Hebrew month, the molad that is announced in the synagogue before each Rosh Hodesh and used to calculate when each Tishrei is to start, thereby making it the basis for our set calendar.
It is my goal to show that these positions do not truly reflect those of our sages, nor of the Rishonim, and that Beth Yosef himself actually held like the majority of Rishonim, while his seven-day minhag is also misrepresented in the printed calendars. The usual shul calendars, like the Ittim L’vina calendar and the Tukachinsky calendar, mislead the public with regards to when the earliest time for saying the blessing really is. I have tried to speak to the publishers about this issue, but to no avail.
Talmud And Rishonim: Birkat Hal’vana Ideally On Rosh Hodesh
Rabbi David Bar Hayim maintains that the monthly recitation of birkat hal’vana should, in accordance with the plain meaning of the Talmud and the opinion of the rishonim, ideally be on Rosh Hodesh, and in the event that that cannot be done, as soon as possible thereafter. See here. His first proofs are the most elegant.
“Whoever recites the b’rakha over the new moon at the proper time (bizmano) welcomes, as it were, the presence of the Sh’khina” (Sanhedrin 42a). What does bizmano mean if not that one should strive to recite this b’rakha at the earliest opportunity? In a number of manuscripts, we find a variant reading – “Whoever recites the b’rakha for Rosh Hodhesh…” – which leaves no room for doubt as to R. Yohanan’s intention.
 
It should also be noted that throughout the rest of the Talmud, “z’mano” of the new moon is the night it is supposed to be sighted, i.e., the first night of the month. He also points out that
The Talmud Y’rushalmi (B’rakhoth 9:2) speaks plainly of reciting the b’rakha at the time of the moon’s reappearance (HaRo’e eth HaL’vana b’hidhusha). This is also the very deliberate wording of both Halakhoth G’dholoth and Riph (Chap 9 43b). This expression can only be understood as explained above.
This is also the language utilized by Maimonides and the Shulhan Aruch, and will become crucial when we seek to understand the opinion of the Beth Yosef. Rabbi Nahum Rabinovitch, the math professor turned Rosh Yeshiva, also told me that such is the halacha, and it is proper to make others aware of this. There is a group called the Israeli New Moon Society that keeps track of the sightings of the new moon and publishes online guides for amateurs who wish to spot the new moon. The society enjoys Rabbi Rabinovitch’s support, and he used the society’s founder’s diagrams in his own commentary on Maimonides’s Hilchot Kiddush HaHodesh.
This position should come as a surprise to many. In America, the prevailing practice is to wait specifically for after the Sabbath, while here in Israel most are used to hearing about the three-day or seven-day customs.
We should begin our discussion with the relevant Talmudic sources, YT Berachot 9:2 and BT Sanhedrin 42-43, which state that one has until the sixteenth of the month to recite birkat hal’vana. The running assumption of the rishonim and logic is that the assumed first time to recite the blessing is right at the beginning of the month, similar to the obvious point that if one were told to perform a commandment in the morning and that he had until 9am, then it would be understood that he can start doing it when the morning starts. After all, is he supposed to do it before the morning, while it is still the preceding night? This position is explicit in Rashi’s comments to the gemara, the Meiri’s explanation thereof, and in Maimonides’s codification of the law (Berachot, 10:16-17), but is also the only way to understand the halacha unless other considerations are introduced. A simple reading of the both Talmudim indicate without a doubt that the blessing is to be recited on Rosh Hodesh. Rabbi Kappah, in his commentary to the Mishneh Torah (ibid.), writes that this is and always was the Yemenite practice. Note also that this halacha makes no mention of the molad or of any calculation concerning the first time for reciting this blessing, because as one of the birkot har’iya, it only depends on seeing something.
I believe that Hazal instituted this blessing specifically for the first sighting of the moon because, once upon a time, the Jewish people joyously anticipated the first sighting of the moon. The Mishna in Rosh Hashana (chapter 2) describes how the Sanhedrin actually wanted to encourage competition among potential witnesses! Jewish life once revolved around the calendar, which itself was not predetermined. Thus, every month, Jews throughout ancient Israel and the Diaspora were involved in keeping track of the sighting of the new moon, as it affected when the holidays would be. Imagine not knowing during the first of week of Elul if the first of Tishrei was going to be on Thursday or perhaps on Friday some weeks later. It can have a major effect on everyone’s holiday plans.
However, most of the calendars do not take into account when the actual first sighting of the moon will be every month. Instead, they follow a different interpretation of a view cited in the Beth Yosef, thus presenting a first time for birkat hal’vana that is sometimes as many as three days after the actual first opportunity.

Continue reading…

From The Seforim Blog, here.

Rabbi Grossman Critiques the Mishna Brurah

The Chofetz Chayim and the Vilna Gaon: Similar Halachoth, Dissimilar Approaches

March 20, 2016

This past semester we had the opportunity to review the topic of the time concerning the weekly onset of the Sabbath. Using the Mishna Berura (to Orah Hayim 261) as a base text, we saw how in the olden days, the prevailing view was that the halachic day starts at sundown, and therefore if one wished to add to the Sabbath by accepting it while it was still Friday, he would have to accept the Sabbath, i.e., desist from performing forbidden labors, sometime before sunset. We also how Rabbeinu Tam believed, based on his understanding of the relevant Talmudic passages, that the halachic “sunset,” the dividing line between the halachic days, is something that occurs everyday almost an hour after the setting of the sun that we are used to seeing. At the time, applying Rabbeinu Tam’s opinion was revolutionary. For centuries, the Jewish people greeted the Sabbath queen and saw her off at certain times of the day, and then slowly, they started doing so later. The weekly Sabbath shifted by about an hour, and that eventually became the prevailing custom among us, such that both the Shulhan Aruch and the Rema assume that the halacha follows Rabbeinu Tam. While there were notable holdouts who did not completely accept the new definition of the cut off line between days, like the Shach and Yemenite jewry, Rabbeinu Tam’s position held sway until the Vilna Gaon came around. The Vilna Goan completely rejected Rabbeinu Tam’s approach because it simply does not fit with reality. What celestial phenomenon actually happens about an hour after sunset? Most of the stars, whether, small, medium, or large, are already out by that time. It was better to revert to the classic understanding of sunset as explicated by the Geonim and Maimonides: sundown is sundown, and the Sabbath must start by then, and it departs only a matter of minutes afterward. The Chofetz Chayim, by mentioning the Vilna Gaon’s opinions concerning most halachoth, helped popularized the Gaon’s overall approach, and today the momentum has shifted. Most Jewish communities accept the Sabbath by sundown on Friday, and allow their constituents to begin forbidden labor well before even an hour has passed from the sundown the following day. Rabbeinu Tam would not be too satisfied with the status quo today; he ruled the way he did because he believed that the halacha should fit with the ancient cosmological models that the ancient Hebrews shared with others in the Near East, and felt that the sages later viewing the world and the orbits of the spheres as did the Alexandrian astronomers was improper, despite their stature.

Here’s where it got interesting. Rabbeinu Tam and the Shulhan Aruch and the rest specifically adopted one position and outright rejected the other, while Maimonides and the Vilna Gaon took the second opinion and rejected the first. All of the pos’qimtook sides on the issue, each one for his own reason(s), but the Chofetz Chayim does not present his readers with sufficient arguments for or against each position. Instead, he just presents the opinions as being at odds with each other and identifies who subscribes to each opinion, and then he rules that both opinions be ideally followed. We should take in the Sabbath according to the earlier definition of sunset, but end the Sabbath according to the later opinion. This overall approach of trying to satisfy all major opinions was popularized by the Chofetz Chayim, but is, in a historical sense, the most revolutionary. And this shows us the defining difference between the methods of the Vilna Gaon and the Chofetz Chayim, even though it was the Chofetz Chayim who made the Vilna Gaon’s views so well known: The Vilna Gaon ruled like the view that he felt fit the Talmudic sources and the reality, while the Chofetz Chayim did not weigh the merits of individual views, and instead sought to somehow satisfy all of them.

…

We then saw a number of the classic cases we discussed previously, where most notably, the Mishna Berura does not mention the actual opinion of the Vilna Gaon on the matter because, presumably, it stands at complete odds with the view the Chofetz Chayim was trying to advance.

In 31:8 the Chofetz Chayim is trying to advance the position that a blessing should not be recited when donning t’filln on Hol Hamoed, and the Vilna Gaon’s “lenient position” on the matter can be used as a “weight” to counter the position that a blessing should be recited on donning t’fillin. This would give the reader the impression that the Vilna Gaon ruled that t’fillin are worn without a blessing on Hol Hamoed, whereas in  reality the Vilna Gaon believed that there was no question about the blessing, because he held like the Shulhan Aruch, which ruled that t’fillin may not be worn on Hol Hamoed at all. Citing the Vilna Gaon accurately would have wrecked his entire thesis.

In 583:8, the Mishna Berura, in a discussion concerning the practice of Tashlich, neglects to mention the opinion of the Vilna Gaon: that tashlich should not be done on Rosh Hashana, nor by a body of water. Citing the Vilna Gaon would have eliminated the entire point of the discussion. The same can be said about the entirety of mark 605. The Mishna Berura has much to say about how to perform kapparois, even though both the Shulhan Aruch and the Vilna Gaon prohibited them.

In Orah Hayim 2 and 8 the Mishna Berura discusses the issues of ad hoc head coverings when reciting blessings, and the idea that Jews should always wear hats even when indoors. He does not mention that the Vilna Gaon wrote that “the rule of the matter is that there is never any prohibition of going about with an uncovered head,” and that it is only during the times of the prayer that one should cover his head out of respect. Once again, the Vilna Gaon’s opinion is not mentioned,  because it is in such stark contrast to the view the Mishna Berura favored.

The Vilna Gaon would often mention who subscribed to views that he rejected; I know of no instance where the Mishna Berura cites the Vilna Gaon and then rejects his opinion.

…

The entire issue of reading part or all of the last verse of Parashath Zachor multiple times has its basis in  a  practice of the Vilna Gaon as cited by the Mishna Berura. Ma’aseh Rav 133 and 134 mention that the Vilna Gaon himself would be the one to read Zachor in the synagogue, and that he read the word as zecher, with a segol, as opposed to the traditional vowelization, zeicher, with a tzeirei. In Diqduq Eliyahu, the Vilna Gaon seems to say that the difference between the two vowels is the yud-like sound that is a natural part of the tzeirei vowel, much like the long hiriq (ee as in “bee”) has a natural yud sound. This issue is surprising, because as we wrote earlier, there are many disputed vowelizations throughout the Torah, and many actually affect the meaning, but in this case, there is no known manuscript or classic text that has the word zeicher vowelized with a segol, and even if such a variant vowelization existed, it would not change the meaning of the word. The Vilna Gaon also felt that the word should also be zecher in Psalm 145:7 (“Ashrei”), even though, once again, we have no such version. Be all this as it may, the Vilna Gaon apparently favored one view over the other, but it was the Chofetz Chayim who popularized trying to somehow satisfy all opinions.

But why did the Vilna Gaon feel that the word zeicher should be re-vowelized? Granted he made similar recommendations with regards to the prayer liturgy, and spent his life trying to edit the exact texts of the Talmud and Midrashim, but those are not part of the received Biblical text, the masora, and he did not suggest any other re-vowelizations throughout the entire Bible, nor did he attempt to reconcile some other known vowelizations that are subject to dispute. Why did he seem to care about only one word in the entire Bible, and is it more than a coincidence that it happens to be in the one minimally parasha read every year by command of the Torah?

Here is how I see it. The Vilna Gaon likely did not really say that zeicher should be revowelized! Having a segolate noun of the tzeirei-segol form (e.g., sheivet, tribe, and neizer, diadem) is just as valid as the double segol form (e.g. kesef, silver, and qesher, knot). In the commentary  P’ulath Sachir to the printed versions of the Ma’aseh Rav, the author mentions that the Vilna Gaon’s students actually do not agree on how the Gaon said zecher/zeicher. Some dispute the Ma’aseh Rav, and claim he really said zeicher with a tzeirei. So what happened?

The Vilna Gaon was not always the regular Torah reader. That is why it was a novelty for him to be the reader for Zachor. He would normally only go up to the Torah for the sixth aliya. Further, he believed that the reading of Zachor was biblically ordained, and told his students that that was his opinion, so they naturally paid more attention to that reading, especially when their holy master was doing the reading. Next, the Vilna Gaon’s Hebrew definitely did not sound like that of  other Litvaks. It, like very other of his practices, was colored by his objective adoption of what he believed to be right, and therefore was unusual. (He also declined to speak Yiddish like the rest of the Jews, and strove to only speak Hebrew.) His vowels were the objective ones he describes in his other seifer (sefer?). While Ashkenazis allows for a segol that sounds like the e in “bet” and a tzeirei that sound like the ay in “way,” in truth the tzeirei should not have such a strong diphthong yud (y) sound, and in the Gaon’s opinion, the tzeireiwas actually somewhere between the two sounds, similar to the way both the segoland tzeirei are pronounced in Modern Hebrew. Next, in the entire Parashath Zachor, the vowel tzeirei only occurs once in a syllable that is both open and accented, i.e. most distinguished from a segol: in the word zeicher! Therefore, when the Vilna Gaon read that word properly, to some students of his students it sounded like what they knew was his version of a tzeirei, but to the less knowledgable students, it did not sound like a true, hard, Ashkenazic tzeirei, so it must have been a segol! This is similar to the fallacy that Ashkenazis is any pronunciation system that includes a weak sav and some sort of qamatz that is different from a patah, or that the forms of checkers or handball that are unusual are “Chinese.” The vowel was weaker than a tzeirei, so it must have been a segol. What about the tzeirei in eith and Amaleik? Wouldn’t they have noticed that those were weak? Not as much, because those syllables are closed and therefore less noticeable.

To sum up, the Ma’aseh Rav is not reporting that the Vilna Gaon felt the word should zeicher should be vowelized with a segol, but rather that the Vilna Gaon did not, when the time came to speak proper biblical Hebrew, pronounce a tzeirei exactly like the way the other Ashkenazim were doing, and this fits with the Vilna Gaon’s life-goal of escaping the misguided “poilisher minhagim” that dominated in Europe.

Much like eating an inordinate amount of matza in a short period of time has come to overshadow the commandment to remember facets of the Exodus, the over pronunciation of the words of Zachor has now overshadowed the message of the parasha, and this is due in part to the Mishna Berura’s over simplification of this issue, turning it into just another mahloqeth that needs to have both sides satisfied.

From Avraham Ben Yehuda, here.