The bridal gown

The Talmud describes how two thousand years ago brides were made up and perfumed as to enhance their beauty.  The Midrash speaks of twenty-four different adornments with which the bride was beautified. These are the twenty-four bridal adornments mentioned in Isaiah (3:18-24). Everything was done to make the bride look as lovely as possible.
There are no special requirements as to the the style of the wedding gown, except modesty. Today the custom is that the color of the wedding gown is white, which represents purity.  Although in some Chasidic circles the brides would marry in light pastel shades.
What should a bride do with her gown after the wedding? 
Some brides rent a gown and others, who can afford it, buy the dress. In this last case it is a very fine custom to make the gown available to brides who cannot afford it. In many communities there is a registry of such bridal gowns, along with their sizes, so that girls who wish to borrow a gown will have ready access to those available.
In our community and in many other communities many brides choose to donate their gowns to institutions in Israel who make them available to poor brides there. Doing this, is a holy deed on the part of the bride. When such plans are made before the wedding, the merit of this action enhances the merit of the wedding itself.
This form of Tzedaqa, considered a category by itself, is known as hakhnasat kalla: helping a needy bride to get married. It is a very special merit for individuals and for a community to assist a bride  (or a groom) with insufficient means, to get married. According to the shulchan ‘arukh (yore de’a 249:15) hakhnasat kalla, takes precedence over all other types of Tzedaqa.


SHABBAT: From fire to electricty (Part 4)

The main discussion among contemporary rabbis on the issue of electricity on shabbat is not if using electricity is permitted or forbidden: every Orthodox Rabbi accepts that we are not allowed to directly activate electricity on Shabbat. The debate revolves around the nature of the prohibition: if turning on electricity on Shabbat is a Biblical or a rabbinical prohibition.
 “Rabbi David Tzvi Hoffman states what has emerged as the consensus opinion: the verse (Exodus 35:3) “One may not create a fire on Shabbat in all your dwellings” describes the prohibition against creating fire of any sort. Current flowing through a filament and causing it to glow creates fire despite the absence of a “flame” and regardless of whether that which is on fire is consumed… Based on the position of Rambam, which most commentaries accept, the overwhelming majority conclude that turning on an electric light on Shabbat  violates the biblical prohibition of lighting a flame.”   (Rabbi Michael Broyde, see below)
Most modern rabbinic authorities consider that turning on an incandescent light, –an action which heats a metal filament until it glows–violates a Biblical prohibition because it is considered a Toleda (extension) of lighting a fire.    It is important to clarify for the advanced students that unlike other areas of Jewish Law where post Talmudic Rabbis cannot extend the Rabbinical Talmudic prohibitions to other cases (mar-it ‘ayin, for example),  the extension of a melakha of Shabbat, does not require the particular sanctioning of a Talmudic Bet Din.    It is similar to the application of the Toledot of neziqin(torts, damages,etc), where post Talmudic Rabbinical decisors might apply the Talmudic principles learned from ancient cases, extending them to contemporary circumstances.

Shabbat Shalom!   

Candle Lighting in NYC:    8:13 PM
Shabbat ends in NYC:         9:20 PM

For a comprehensive analysis and discussion of this matter I recommend the following article   The Use of Electricity on Shabbat and Yom Tov    by Rabbi Michael Broyde & Rabbi Howard Jachter  which appeared in the Journal of Halacha & Contemporary Society, No. XXI – Spring 91 – Pesach 5751



THE 13 PRINCIPLES: # 8: The divine origin of the Tora

 

In the commentary to the Mishna, where Maimonides formulated for the first time the Thirteen Principles of Judaism, he included within the Eighth principle –the one that asserts that the Tora is from Divine origin (see here)– our belief that the Oral Tora is Divine as well.   In other words, the “accepted explanations” of the Mitzvot were also transmitted to Moses by God.

For example, Lulab, Tefilin, Shofar none of these Mitzvot are explicitly described in the written Tora.  Regarding Tefilin, for instance, the Tora just says (Deuteronomy 6:8) that “You should bind [the words of the Shema Israel] as a sign on your hand and  as frontals on your forehead”.

The Oral Tora instructs us the way of binding these words in our hand , i.e.,  writing the words of the Shema Israel in parchment; introducing these parchments into squared black boxes made of hard leather; the hand Tefilin having one compartment and the head Tefilin four; etc, etc.   All these instructions, we believe, were not made up by Moses or by the rabbis. They were received by Moses from God.  Moses said: ‘Through this you shall know that God sent me to do all these things, and I did not do it on my own accord’ (Numbers 16:28)
In the introduction to Mishne Tora Maimonides elaborates more on this principle: “Every commandment given to Moses on Mount Sinai was given together with its explanation. (pirush). God told Moshe (Exodus 24:12): ‘I’m giving you the tablets of stone, the Tora and the instruction’. ‘Tora’, refers to the Written Tora, while ‘instructions’ means its explanation.  We are thus commanded to perform and keep the ‘Tora’ according to these ‘instructions’. These instructions is what we call the Oral Tora (Tora shebe’al pe)… These instruction were not written down [by Moshe] but were orally taught to the elders, to Joshua and to the rest of the People of Israel”.
Click here to see a great book where you can read more about the basic Principles of Judaism
  
“Maimonides Principles: The Fundamentals of Jewish Faith”, written by a distinguished Rabbi of our time  Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan z’l. 


SEPHARDIC RABBIS: Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel (1880-1953)

 

Rabbi Uziel was the Sephardic Cheif rabbi of the British Mandate of Palestine, succeeding rabbi Ya’aqob Meir (see here) from 1939 to 1948, and the first Sephardic Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel from 1948 to 1954.
Rabbi Uziel was born in Jerusalem. His father, Rabbi Joseph Raphael, was the ab bet din of the Sephardic community of Jerusalem. At the age of twenty he founded a Yeshiba called Machaziqe Tora for Sephardi young men. In 1911, he was appointed Yafo and the district. In spirit and ideas he was close to the Ashkenazi rabbi Abraham Ytzchak Kook and their affinity helped to bring about more harmonious relations between the two communities.
In 1921 he was appointed chief rabbi of Salonika (Greece) for a period of three years. He returned to become chief rabbi of Tel Aviv in 1923, and in 1939 was appointed Chief rabbi of the British Mandate of Palestine.  He contributed extensively to newspapers and periodicals on religious, communal, and national topics.
He was the author of  Mishpete Uziel, a very important collection of rabbinical Responsa on Halakhic general topics, and a selection of his addresses, letters and other writings.
Two days before his death he dictated his testament. It said, among other things,  “I have kept in the forefront of my thoughts the following aims: to disseminate Tora among students, to love the Tora and its precepts, Israel and its sanctity; I have emphasized love for every man and woman of Israel and for the Jewish people as a whole, love for the Lord God of Israel, the bringing of peace between every man and woman of Israel, to bring genuine peace into the home of the Jew, into the whole assembly of Israel in all its classes and divisions, and between Israel and its Father in Heaven.”
 
√ The full text of Rabbi Uziel’s testament was printed by the Israel Ministry of Religion in 1953, to commemorate his Sheloshim. This short but meaningful  text (printed in vocalized Hebrew) could be found today in Hebrewbooks. Click here to read it.
√ Rabbi Uziel wrote many books, among them Hegyione Uziel, a work on the basic philosophical aspects and creeds of Judaism.
To read this fascinating book (Hebrew) click here .


RELIGIOUS INTEGRITY: Stealing people’s mind

Last week we explained the nature of the prohibition of genebat da’at (see here). We defined genebat da’at as stealing people’s minds. genebat da’at takes place when we do or hide something or say something which is not true, with the intention that people will have a good or better impression about us or about an item we want to sell. 
Some examples of genebat da’at: 
√ A seller should be sincere with a customer. If a woman is trying on a dress and the seller sees that the dress is not a good fit for her, the seller should not tell the woman that the dress looks amazing on her or anything of that sort. 
√ Similarly, a seller must tell the buyer the pros and the cons of the product he tries to sell.  And if the product has any defect he should not hide it from the buyer.  Misleading deliberately a buyer is defined in the Shulchan ‘arukh as genebat da’at (choshen mishpat 228:6). 
√ The Talmud (Cholin 94a) brings a different category of examples: If I have an unexpected guess at my house and I already had the intention of opening an expensive wine that evening I should not say to my guest: “We are opening this wine in your honor”  to make a good impression on him. Or, the Gemara says, if the wine is a simple wine I should not overpraise it to impress my guest and make him feeling that he owes me or he should be extra grateful to me. 
√ Similarly, if I know that someone is not going to come to my wedding party because in that particular day he is going to be out of town, and I had not intention to invite him anyways, I should not give him an invitation or tell him: “I wish you could have come to my wedding”,  to make a good impression on him.



“Heroes of Israel”, Click here to Watch Buchenwald’s youngest survivor, Chief Rabbi Lau.



SHABBAT: From fire to electricity (Part 3)

 

Previously, we have explained that lighting a fire on Shabbat is one of the 39 forbidden works or melakhot (see here).  In order to understand the source of the contemporary prohibition of using electricity during Shabbat, we have to examine the ways modern Rabbis have analyzed the similarities between fire and electricity.
The first Halakhic principle to bear in mind is that each one of the 39 melakhot includes ‘toledot’, which means, activities that are also forbidden on Shabbat as an extension of the 39 Biblical prohibitions, either because they are similar to the melakhot in their nature or in what they produce.
Two examples:
1. The melakha of ‘writing’ extends to the act of ‘printing’ (ketiba ‘al yede chotemet) or drawing letters.
2. Trimming the dry branches of a vineyard is forbidden as an extension of zorea’, planting (sic!), since the objective of this trimming is to facilitate the tree’s growth.
The question now is if we should classify the activation of an incandescent light (=light produced by heat) as an extension (tolada) of the Biblical prohibition of lighting a fire .
Modern Rabbis have expressed different views on this matter.
Most Rabbis have classified the turning-on of an incandescent light as the extension of the prohibition of lighting a fire. They based their opinion in the fact that two thousand years ago the Rabbis already ruled against using on Shabbat a “heated metal-pot removed from the fire” to heat water (See Shabbat 41a) .
Based on that Mishna and other Talmudic sources Maimonides asserted: “One who heats a metal-bar to temper in it water has violated the Biblical prohibition of lighting a flame” .
This is the closest Halakhic precedent we have in which a ‘heated element’, other that direct-fire is considered as fire itself, i.e., a tolada of lighting a fire.
(to be continued…)
Shabbat Shalom!!!
Candle lighting in NYC:  8:12 PM
Shabbat Ends in NYC:     9:20 PM
 READ: “Your airplanes shall rest on Shabbat”  Recalling the day when Menachem Begin stopped Israel’s national airline, El Al, from flying on Shabbat by Yehuda Avner from Aish
  


THE EIGHTH PRINCIPLE: The Tora is from Heaven

 

Last week we explained that the Eighth of the 13 Principles of Judaism asserts that the Tora that we now have is the same that was give to Moshe (see here).

 

Our belief is that the Tora was written by Moshe but authored by God Himself. In other words, we Jews believe that there is nothing that Moshe added from himself. No passages, words or even letters were added or written by Moshe’s own mind.

 

 

There are three categories of Sacred Books in our Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). To the third category belong the books (Ketubim) which were written and authored by men who were inspired by God. This is what we call in Hebrew Ruach haKodesh or “by Divine Inspiration”. Tehilim (the Psalms of King David) or Mishle (Proverbs of King Solomon), etc. belong to this category. 

 

In the second and higher category we have the books of the Prophets. These books were written by nebu-a or prophecy, i.e., a vision, a message or a dream coming from God. Sometimes the Prophets wrote the God-given visions in their own words and according to their own personal perception, and sometimes they quoted verbatim the Divine words that they heard in those visions (such words are usually introduced by the terms: ne-um haShem, i.e., “that says God”).
The Tora or Pentateuch is unique and belongs to the first and highest category. The Tora contains the words of God Himself.  In the words of Maimonides “Moshe wrote the entire Tora with his own hand shortly before he passed away. He gave a copy to each tribe and another Tora was placed in the Ark of Testimony…. When the Tora was transmitted to Moshe, Moshe merely wrote it down, like a secretary taking dictation“.
 
 
MUST WATCH
  
The History of the Middle East Conflict in 11 Minutes  


RELIGIOUS INTEGRITY: Stealing people’s mind

In the previous weeks we explained the prohibition of lying. Today we will start to explore a similar concept which is called in Hebrew genebat da’at. genebat da’at could be understood as a form of “stealing” (stealing one’s mind).As such, this prohibition is learn from the pasuq in Vayqra lo tignobu (19:11) “You shall not steal”.

It is important to clarify that this prohibition is different from the Eighth of the Ten Commandments. The Eighth Commandment is understood in Judaism in the context of “stealing another human being”, in other words “kidnapping”, while the Pasuq in Vayiqra applies to stealing valuables.

In any case, some Rabbis (Ritba) explained that the pasuq of Vaiqra also extends to other forms of stealing, among them genebat da’at, stealing people’s mind. Other Rabbis asserted that the source of genebat da’at is a different Mitzva (Vayqra 19:18) “And you shall love your fellowman as yourself”, which means, do not do to others what you would not want others to do to you. Stealing one’s mind is different from stealing, because the intention is not to steal money from the victim. Stealing people’s minds is when I pretend that I care about someone and I do everything as if I’m trying to help that person, but after all, I just care about my own interest, which I will do every possible effort to conceal.

A common example of the transgression of genebat da’at is if a politician disguises his own personal interest and agendas, and acts as if he would care just for the poor or the weak, etc. concealing his intention for advancing his own private agenda. To achieve that, such a politician would hire professionals to teach him techniques to create a convenient perception in the public’s opinion and to build a image of himself as champion of somebody else’s cause. Obviously, genebat da’at does not occur solely in the world of politics, it could also take place in the world of business, in dating, in our social life, and much more. (to be continued…) From the book Penine Halakha



THE RING: Why plain, why gold, and why no stones?

At a Jewish wedding, the moment the groom hands the ring to the bride is not a romantic gesture or a formality. It is the legal act that creates the marriage. Everything else — the Ketuba, the blessings, the party — comes afterward. That is why Jewish law has so much to say about that ring: what it should be made of, what it should look like, and who it has to belong to.

WHY A RING?

The first thing to understand is that the ring is not required. The Torah never mentions it. Qiddushin is performed by giving the bride something of monetary value, and the minimum the law demands is one peruta, the smallest coin in circulation in Talmudic times. The amount is deliberately tiny, so that no man would be prevented from marrying for lack of money.

So the ring is a custom, not an obligation. A very old custom: Tosafot (Kiddushin 9a) suggests that a ring may already have been used for this purpose in biblical times. And it was never universal. Some Syrian and Iraqi communities used a silver coin instead of a ring, and the Syrian Jewish community of New York still does. In Georgia the custom was to place the ring inside a cup.

Why did the ring win out? For a very simple reason: a ring is worn all the time. It is a permanent reminder of the commitment, unlike a coin, which ends up in a drawer.

There is an image here I find beautiful. Our Sages compared the covenant between God and Israel to a marriage. And every morning, when a Jew puts on Tefillin, he winds the strap around his middle finger and says ve’erastikh li le’olam, “I will betroth you to Me forever.” The same gesture, on the same finger, meaning the same thing.

GOLD, SILVER, AND NO STONES

The common custom is a gold ring. But there is a rule far more important than the material, and it explains everything else: the value of the ring has to be obvious at a glance.

The reason is legal, not aesthetic. Qiddushin is not performed with the ring as an object but with its monetary value. For the act to be valid, the bride must be able to know, at the moment she receives it, what it is she is receiving. Three practical consequences follow:

1. The metal cannot be disguised. No gold-plated rings that are really made of something else. What it looks like has to be what it is.

2. No stones. This is the best-known rule and the one that surprises brides most. A stone is a “blind” object: you cannot determine its value by looking at it. A diamond might be worth a hundred dollars or a hundred thousand, and no one can tell just by seeing it. So the qiddushin ring is plain.

3. No engravings or designs. For the same reason: an inscription or fine metalwork can change the value of the ring in ways that are not easy to calculate.

Some add another reason for avoiding a stone, and it is a very Jewish one: so as not to embarrass the groom who cannot afford one. If everyone uses a plain ring, nobody is exposed. It is the same principle behind recording a uniform sum in every Ketuba, without distinguishing between brides from wealthy families and brides who are not.

One practical clarification. In my community we ask couples to bring a plain ring, but if by mistake they bring an engraved one, we use it without any problem.

THE RING HAS TO BELONG TO THE GROOM

You cannot give as qiddushin something that does not belong to you. That is why the officiating rabbi normally asks the groom, in front of everyone, whom the ring belongs to. It is not an empty formality: he is verifying that the ring is in fact the groom’s, and that he has not already given it to the bride before the ceremony. If the ring was already hers, there is nothing to hand over, and there is no qiddushin.

ONE MORE REASON

There is an additional explanation, brought by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, for why a ring was chosen and not some other object. In the Torah, handing over a ring is the gesture of transferring authority. Pharaoh gave his ring to Yosef. Ahashverosh gave his to Haman, and later to Esther. In each case the king was delegating his power over the kingdom.

When a man gives a ring to his wife, he is symbolically doing the same thing: giving her authority over his home and over everything he owns. From that moment on, everything in their lives is shared.

Rabbi Yosef Bitton



THE 13 PRINCIPLES: #8. The accuracy of the Biblical Text

The Eighth of the Thirteen principles of Jewish faith asserts that the Tora which at present time is in our possession is the same that was given to Moshe Rabbenu (Moses) in Sinai.
The Tora, as we have it today, contains the words which God gave to Moses. These words have been preserved all these centuries by the care of our scribes or writers (Soferim), our rabbis and other learned and pious men. The scribes were called Soferim, a term related to “counting”, not “writing”, because they counted the letters of the Tora. From a very early time we know by actual count how many sentences, words and letters are in each of the five books of the Tora. We know also how many times each letter is used. We reproduce in every copy the exceptional letters, those enlarged or reduced letters, etc.  A scroll of the Tora found incorrect or missing one single letter is not used in public worship until corrected. These are all precautions adopted to secure the accuracy of the text and that no alterations whatsoever take place.
I have a personal simple example to show how knowing the number of letters reassures the accuracy of the transmission of a word.  My email is “rabbibitton@yahoo…”.  When I dictate the first part of my email address to someone over the phone I always clarify and say: “one word, 11 letters”. Many times they tell me that they counted the letters and then they realize that they have to write a double “t”.  Knowing the exact number of letters prevents mistakes which could be made in such areas. Bear in mind that in Biblical Hebrew you can write the VAV or the YOD, or omit them (chaserot veyeterot) without altering the meaning of the word. That is why it was so critical to know the exact number of the letters in order to preserve the precise text during centuries of exiles, persecutions, etc.
Adapted from the book:  Jewish Religion Ethically Presented, by Rabbi Hayim Pereira Mendes. 
(To be continued…)
 
                          Words                Letters          
Bereshit              20,512                78,064
Shemot               16,723                63,529
Vayqra               11,950                 44,790
Bamidbar           16,398                 63,530
Debarim             14,294                 54,892
TOTAL             79,847                304,805