On R' Moshe Sternbuch's Halachic Novellae and on a conversation with him

If you would like a clear and concise summary of virtually any issue in Halacha, no matter how complex, then I highly recommend R' Moshe Sternbuch's Teshuvos V' Hanahagos. He generally cites and discusses only the important sources on an issue with little or no sidetracking (see his introduction).

In many of his earlier Teshuvos (dating from his tenure as a Rov in S. Africa), he demonstrates the sensitivity that Prof. Daniel Sperber seems to value so much in a posek. My favourite Teshuva concerns a Baal Teshuva who was raised for many years by a step-mother before becoming frum. The dificulty is that he is not even able to shake hands, let alone kiss or hug her, something that would obviously casue no few problems. R' Sternbuch suggests that he give half a hand which is not derekh chibah and therefor permitted. Lest this seem like no big deal, note that as opposed to the German posekim[1], R' Sternbuch considers handshaking to be not only a Torah violation but an actual אביזרייהו דעריות and he is now Raavid of the Edah HaChareidis not well-known for leniency in these matters.

In D. Horowitz's article on "R. Moshe Sternbuch's Halakhic Novellae", he discusses the innovative nature of R' Moshe's novellae which, as opposed to the novellae of the yeshivos, have direct halachic ramifications.

Prof. Sual Lieberman used to say:

כשאדם אומר חידוש הרי לבטח כבר קדמו אדם אחר, ואם לאו - הרי שאין החידוש אמיתי. אם בכל זאת חושב הוא שהחידוש נכון, אזי צריך הוא לשאול את עצמו מדוע לא אמרו את החידוש הזה לפניו

Perhaps, this might be true of some of R' Sternbuch's chiddushim. As I was studying Yevamos[2], the following occurred to me. [Although after reviewing the sources, I see that this is not a very good example as R' Sternbuch is following the strict ruling of the MB who resolves the apparent contradiction, but I decided to write this anyway - בשביל דבר שנתחדש בו.]

[In one of his Teshuvos (4:118 and other places), he suggests that if on Shabbos one needs to have a child turn on a light, it is best to have someone else's child, in order to avoid the extra prohibition of שביתת בנו. This prohibition, although mentioned in Mechilta, is nowhere mentioned in the Mishna or Talmud. In fact, in Yevamos 114a we read:

ש <עובד כוכבים> {נכרי} שבא לכבות אין אומרים לו כבה ואל תכבה מפני שאין שביתתו עליהם קטן הבא לכבות אומרים לו אל תכבה ששביתתו עליהם א"ר יוחנן בעושה על דעת אביו

as Rashi explains , the problem is that it is as if the father directly commands the kid to extinguish but w/o this difficulty, it would be permitted and the father does not have to stop his son because of שביתת בנו. The exact status of the Halachic Midrashim, when in conflict with the Talmud still needs to be clarified.]

R' Sternbuch is a descendant of the Gra [3], so when I had an opportunity to meet him I asked him what he considers to be the purpose of the hagahot hagra on Shas (Bavli). The hagahot seem to differ very much in style between tractates. At the time I was learning Bava Metzia in which most of the hagahot simply mention that "the Rambam disagrees and the Rosh is in doubt" and the like, which don't seem to add anything substantial to the sugya. R' Sternbuch suggested that the Gr"a means to pasken like that Shita in these cases but I must confess that this doesn't seem to me to be sufficent explanation. Can anyone check if Y. S. Spiegel discusses this type of hag'ah in his Amudim?

[1] See here, I have unearthed some more sources on this Minhag Ashkenaz (not one you will find mentioned in Shorshei) which I hope eventually to place here.

[2] It is interesting that the difficulty of Yevamos was so well-known that it is even referred to in Karaite polemics - see Shraga Abramson's article in Sinai 52.

[3] As he signs his name, נין ונכד להגר"א, I saw R' Chaim Kanievsky refer to a "certain Gadol who signs this way and I told him they are both false" - as in Bereishis 21:23 that the terms refers to the 2nd and 3rd generation but not beyond (see here).

Rashba's response to the Bible critics

Menachem Mendel refers to Rashba's polemics against Ibn Hazm - or more precisely against -
"an Ishmael[ite] who composed a work on the religions; a fool, for he spoke [disparagingly] even of our perfect religion."

B. Naor has recently published the full text of the polemic (available at Biegelesien) - see here for an excerpt.

Lubavitcher Rebbe in college

Menachem Friedman on the early years of the Lubavitcher Rebbe (here) - via this thread. See also this post where I suggest that the Lubavitcher Rebbe went to study in Berlin to investigate the conflict between Torah and Science.

Correspondence between R' Yaakov Reifmann and the Aderet

There ia a fascinating piece from the Seforim V' Soferim Forum (see also these posts on Reifmann)

[Update: Another piece of a fascinating letter discussing Rabbenu Tam's Sefer HaYashar and the Aruch HaShulchan's edition has been added here.]

Avraham's mother, Shimshon's sister and the "Immaculate Conception"

Parshablog has an interesting post on the post-talmudic designation of Lot's wifes name as Idith. There is an interesting wiki on the subject of post-biblical designations for biblical characters here (hebrew) and here (english - they bring the source for Lot's wife back to the Sefer HaYashar).

On this subject, R' Reinman (One People Two Worlds) argues for the strength of Rabbinic tradition - because even a minor detail like the fact that Avrohoms mother's name was Amatlai bas Karnebo (see end of Ch. 5 of Bava Basra) has been verified by the discovery of a similar name in ancient Sumerian records.

I innocently mentioned this "source" on Wikipedia at one point, to which I got the following response:

"You mentioned that this was the name of Abraham's mother and that it had been found to be a name in Sumerian times. I am interested in following up on this as I can find no Sumerian called Amatlei Bas Karnebo (linguistically it looks very un-Sumerian too). Do you have a reference? "

Does a more scholarly source exist for this claim?

In the same sugya, we have the following cryptic tidbit:

The mother of Sampson, Z'llpunith, and his sister N'shiin. To what purpose was this said? For an answer to the Epicuristen (censored - should be minim - based on the shoddy and overly apologetic - Rodkinson ).

One might understand the need for the names of the mothers as per Rashi but what is the importance of the nameof Shimshon's sister?

R' Yaakov Kamenetsky has the following brilliant interpretation (B'Mechitzos Rabbenu pg. 212 - and this is a foreshadowing of what we can expect from EY on Nach which I am eagerly awaiting):

Minim generally refer to the Christians [Rashi, for instance, seems to learn that it is an acronym for M'Talmidei Yeshu HaNotzri - see the Rashis removed by censor. See the second part of R. Kimelmans diss. for a more comprehensive discussion]. In Judges 13 - it first states

verse 2 - הנה נא את עקרה ולא ילדת והרית וילדת בן

verse 4 - כי הנך הרה וילדת בן

In the first verse we are told that she is going to conceive a child - in the future. The second verse seems to say that she has already conceived - in the past tense. Chazal (Bamidbar Rabbah 10) explain that the seed that was already there "gathered" so as to form a child. But the Christian explain (although I see no nore of this distinction in the AKJV), that we have here mutatis mutandis a beautiful proof for the doctrine of the Virgin Birth - since we see that the word of an angel can cause conception. Therefore, by citing the sister of Shimshon -whose birth was preumably natural - we can prove that Tzlilpones's conception was of the normal kind.

Updated Shadal list to include Ohev Ger - Thanks to S.

Yaltha, the wife of R' Nachman: A woman of spirits (1)

I had often wondered why in the (excessive) modern focus on proto-feminist figures (here is the earliest article I know on the subject) I have rarely seen mention the name of Yalta, the wife of R' Nachman. After a quick internet search, I see that there is some discussion but surprisingly, no full-length study.

The name Yalta is acc. to Kohut - Aruch Ha-Shalem) is derived from the aramaic for doe or mountain-goat. Yalta was the daughter of the Reish-Galusa and wife of R' Nachman (bar Yaakov). Babylonia was the bread-basket of the Sassanian empire and hence of vital importance. The Reish Galusa as head of a significant minority group weilded considerable power (see wiki). Yalta, a princess of sorts, would have had a considerable sense of her own importance. This is crucial for understanding her action in many of the stories cited. She acts not as a proto-feminist but as a princess [1].

One full-length article analysing one of the Yalta stories is: Yalta's Ruse: Resistance Against Rabbinic Menstrual Authority in Talmudic Literature", in Women and Water: Female Rituals of Purification in Jewish History and Culture,ed. by Rachel Wasserfall, University Press of New England, 1999, pp.60-82 (here).

An over the top typical feminist analysis of the story in Berachot 51b (which I refer to in the title) is in R. Adler's Engendering Judaism (and see here). Adler's exposition involving cups and wombs is all very nice and Da Vinci Code-ish but it is also utter nonsense. It is all too easy to find hidden messages and symbolisms where none exist. I would like to discuss this source in detail in a future post.

There is an interesting thread here that collects R' Nachman's statements about woman whether there is a correlation between these statements and his famous wife is anyone's guess. (I saw one scholar insists that Yalta was not necessarily his wife, etc. ,etc. This is nonsense. It is clear from numerous statements is the Talmud that R' Nachman was the son-in-law of the Reish Galusa (see Graetz's lovely biography)) - or at the very least close to his court.

This is all that I have found of the scholarship on the subject. In the next post, I will discuss some of the other Yalta statements and see what we can make of them.

[1] I do not have Tal Ilan's - Mine, yours, and hers (see pgs. 121- 129 - basing herself on Shamma Friedman's "good story deserves retelling" hypothesis) but agree with her basic thesis.