Minahgim Never Seen

Pesach edition -First in a possible series.

As observed by Haym Soloveitchik (no NOT Rav Chaim z"l his great grandchild!) almost two decades ago, ours is a generation that receives the lions share of its Judaism from evocation of seforim rather than from the demonstration of parents, grandparents and mentors.

There are many fascinating Minhagim that I have read about in seforim but never seen practiced with my own eyes. This is especially true of Pesach minhagim as many take place around the Seder table with only the extended family present / in the Matzah bakery with only the bnei khaburah present rather than in Shul or in a wedding hall. I'm wondering if any of my three readers have observed these and if so, if they'd care to expand upon and embellish them in the comments thread and/ or add to the short and very incomplete list that follows:

1. Stoking Matzah Oven with Oisgeklapteh HoShanas that had been stowed atop the Ohron Qodesh. (BTW Why would we use the שיירי מצוה of the 4 minim to burn the chometz with while using the שיירי מצוה (and here I use the term loosely) of a Minhag haNevi'im to bake the Matzah with?)

2. Displaying chometzdiga kelim on a high inaccessible shelf out in the open rather than locking them away in a closet or cabinet for the duration.

3. Slinging the bag holding the Afiqomen over the shoulder and saying משארותם צרורות על שכמם before making it available for theft by the kiddies.

4. Heading letter written during sefira with that days count followed by the word למ"טמונים

Generational Compression

Maybe it's because there's that aroma of והגדת לבנך in the air. After all there may be four sons but presumably they have but one father...

As a young Yeshiva Bokhur I would frequently spend Shabbos at the home of my khavrusa. There I observed what, at the time, I considered to be an eccentric habit. He had an Alta Babba who would never join the rest of us at the Dining Room table and who took her meals at a counter in the kitchen. When I queried her as to what this was all about she confidently replied "Generations shouldn't mix" and that was that. Way back then I considered this a bit extreme and insufficient cause for the family matriarch to dine in a spot normally reserved for the hired help. But as I age I am beginning to come around to her way of thinking.

Not only are generation gaps among the most unbridgeable but we may be doing the young'ns a disservice when we fraternize with them too closely.

I recently heard a פה מפיק מרגליות Rov explain that parents ought not provide reasons to their children when refusing a request or issuing an order. He opined that it may be OK to do so occasionally but if done regularly it would transform a father into his kids older brother or pal. Parents should maintain a certain "otherness" from their children and not seek to become their peers.

Of course, as is true about almost any Mussar that I hear, the shoe fit. With all my malfeasance and inadequacies I provide a target rich terrain for Mashgikhim and assorted Mokhikhim. I count being a good father to my kids among my many failed, or at least not entirely successful, relationships. I often feel that I have failed my kids particularly in this regard. Perhaps I have overcompensated for being the son of a greenhorn, Holocaust-surviving father. Based on his age, language, education, vocation, vanished civilization and culture our father OBM was about as different from his children as any father can be. I may have been trying too hard to be the "anti" immigrant parent by relating to my own children as I would to a peer.

This is doubly vexing as the Yeshiva milieu in which I came of age taught me that every four years represents a new generation within a Yeshiva. There certainly was never any lack of one-ups-manship and flexing of the seniority muscles while I was a student. So why the inability to translate this caste system into the true generational divide?

I am feeling this for the past few years more acutely than ever as one of my sons attends the yeshiva of which I am an alumnus. Barukh HaShem the Hanhalas haYeshiva has aged well and is basically intact from my own era. As such my son and I share quite a few Rebbeim. And I am talking about meaningful, impactful Rebbeim. Rebbeim to whom the formulation כל המלמד בן חברו תורה כאילו ילדו might be applied. Well, when one shares a father with another they become their brother and belong to the same generation.

As an outsider looking in one would imagine that among Khasidim who compress 3 generations into 54 years, grandfathers, fathers and sons having the same Rebbeim (Rebbes) and children wearing the "uniform" of the adults (albeit in smaller sizes) that the condition of peerage and generational compression would be even more acute. Yet, while anecdotal at best, the evidence that meets my eyes proves the opposite to be true. No where moreso than in Khasidic society are the parents exalted above and by their kids, thought of as being "the other", and having an unquestioned veto on basically unquestioning children.

How do they do that?!?

לשון מדברת גדולות

I haven't been able to locate the primary source on HebrewBooks.org but I saw something fascinating in one of the handout blettlakh in my local house of worship this Shabbos past.

Apparently, the Chasam Sofer writes that bragging is tantamount or equivalent to לשון הרע. Contextual and complete vort sight unseen I'd conjecture that the logic here is that any speech that accrues to negative opinions about my fellow Jew is לשון הרע. Classic לשון הרע speech does so explicitly whereas bragging speech does so implicitly. The message of bragging being that all others, other than the braggart himself, just don't measure up. In every public expression of a מתכבד lie the seeds of a מתכבד בקלון חברו.

If anyone reading out there could provide me with a link where I can read the shtikel Bifnim I'd be most appreciative. Per the Alim L'Treefeh it can be found in פרשת פקודי קס"א : ד"ה ויתנו . Until such time these are my ignorant queries and pondering points:

1. Is this a homiletic equation or a Halakhic one? Does the Chofetz Chaim cite this Chasam Sofer anywhere in his oeuvre as either a minimum Halakhic observance or as a מילי דחסידות
?
2. Assuming, for a moment, a halakhic equivalency why is it not אונואת דברים rather than לשון הרע (insulting all listeners in the braggarts audience rather than speaking ill about them in their absence)?

3. Is it more egregious than straightforward לשון הרע inasmuch as it badmouths all other people, both present and absent, rather than a specific person or group of people?

4. Does this cover "group" hispaarus i.e. bragging by association as well (my Khasidus, Yeshiva, Kehilla, tribe, family, yikhis et al are the best, brightest, strongest, kindest etc.) or does it only cover bragging about personal accomplishments?

5. As many braggarts are legends in the own minds and tend to embellish or fabricate an accomplishment or two, does bragging about a false accomplishment then rise to the level of מוצאי שם רע with the attendant difficulty in doing Teshuva and the offended party non-requirement to be mokhel?

Jus' Wonderin

Hat-Tip עלים לתרופה

Hamavdil bein Fauna L'Flora

In my 30 days before the Khag learning I came across an interesanteh Halakha with IMAO* has some philosophical implications when contrasted with a more commonly known din.

During the time of issur hana-ah it is forbidden to feed Khometz to any animal, even to one owned by another or not owned by anyone. The question is: What benefit/pleasure is one deriving from the khometz if (s)he is not nourishing their own animal or saving any money they'd otherwise have spent feeding their own animal Kosher for Passover foodstuffs? The answer that concerns the discussion here is this (ס"ק כ"ח

דיש לו הנאה במה שממלא רצונו להשביע לבהמה ועיין בב"י דאפילו במוצא חמץ שאינו שלו ג"כ אסור להשליך לפני כלב

"One derives pleasure/ satisfaction from having been able to satiate the hungry animal. As such the Beis Yoseph paskins that it is forbidden to throw owner-less khometz that one found [on Pesakh] to a dog"

While the poskim do not explicate this IMAO* I think that it goes without saying that it would be forbidden to feed a non Jew, slave or freeman, any Khometz, even Hefker found in the street, on Pesakh. Why? Because one derives altruistic satisfaction when feeding the hungry. While never quite as enjoyable /pleasurable as filling our own palates and bellies we empathize with the hungry and feel enough of anothers hunger pangs so that their pleasure in eating becomes, to a lesser extent (but enough to register on the issur ha-na-ah meter), our own. One does well by doing good.

Contrast the above with the difference between washing ones hands in a garden on Shabbos. If the garden is his own it is forbidden to wash hands where the runoff will inexorably water plants. This is based on the principle of of פסיק רישיה דניחא ליה = an unintended yet inevitable melakha that accrues to ones benefit. However, if the hand-washer is situated in another persons garden hand-washing is permitted because it is considered a פסיק רישיה דלא ניחא-איכפת ליה = an unintended yet inevitable melakha that one is apathetic about.

IOW no pleasure or satisfaction is derived from quenching/ feeding a thirsty plant. When it comes to Botanic life, a צומח , a חי מדבר = a speech-endowed human life=form could care less as to whether the plant prospers or perishes. Unless of course I am fattening my own veggies, beautifying my own flowers or making my own lawn more verdant. Then there is something in it for me.

Apparently, being two steps removed (or three loit the Kuzari) on the דצח"ם pecking order from Botanic life forms, the gulf of Havdala is too great for any feelings of commonality or empathy. In contradistinction to this a חי מדבר does NOT feel his/her havdala from speechless life forms, בעלי חיים , so acutely as to be utterly unmoved by there suffering or to care less about assuaging same.

Dogs and other animals are not peers of human beings. Are dogs mans best friend? Are dogs and food or feeding dogs? Perhaps. But diamonds, or even roses, are most certainly NOT a girls best friend. Which makes one wonder about the Havdala sensibilities of the tree huggers, not to mention their sanity ;-) .
__________________________________________
*=In My Amharatzisha Opinion. In other words
לויט מיין נערישען שכל ...און וואס זאגט איהער...לויט אייער נערישען שכל?ל

Tongues of the Living Dead

Adapted from here.

There is something Zombie-like about a Metzora. It is a death adhering to and compromising life. As poetically put by Ahron haKohen when desperately beseeching Moshe to pray for Tzora'as afflicted Miriam :

יב אַל-נָא תְהִי, כַּמֵּת, אֲשֶׁר בְּצֵאתוֹ מֵרֶחֶם אִמּוֹ, וַיֵּאָכֵל חֲצִי בְשָׂרוֹ .

Let her not, I pray, be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother's womb.

Just born and vitalized, yet half dead. What is it about Lashon HaRa, the primary cause of Negaim, that deadens a person?

Per the Targum Onkelos the Divine breath of life that quickens human beings , AKA the soul, is also that which endows them with the power of speech. Human beings are locked into a lifelong contest between their spiritual and material component parts. Will the soul refine (aidel-ois) the body or will the body coarsen the soul?

When sinning through other aveiros it is a case of the soul losing it's battle to the body-material component. But when one sins through Lashon HaRa, they are killing off the spiritual component itself. When the peddler famously announced "Who desires the elixir of life" he was not (pardon the expression) peddling some snake oil segulah for longevity like some latter day Tzedaka Marketing Campaign. He was talking about how to give the essence of life a "living" and a fighting chance to dominate and polish the material component that it interfaces with.

There is a striking image in Targum Yonososn of the Terafim that Zaideh Lovon performed necromancy with. It was a mummified firstborns head mounted on a wall with a golden shem tuma inserted under the tongue which would then proceed to wag with predictions of future events. A decapitated, talking zombie. In essence, though today we lack the Picture-of-Dorian-Gray-with -our-own-epidermis-as-the-canvas inidicia of our own compromised half-dead souls, when we speak Lashon Hara we become waggers of tongues of the living dead. Perhaps the Momma Rokhel stole the Terafim because as the תפסה פלך שתיקה extraordinaire she was trying to thresh Lashon Hara out of the lineage of K'lal Yisrael.

The Red Tent Blog

Maybe I am the Gilgul of a Metzora. A Leper king or a King of the Lepers. I am certainly חוץ לג' מחנות of the J-Blogosphere. But paradoxically, perhaps in my בדד ישב isolation I am in good company.

As my pal SomeHowFrUm might say, if Negoim come for Lishna Beesha and if we still had Negoim on inanimate objects today then the screen of every blogger and commenter in the J-Blogosphere should be well encrusted with ירקרק or better yet אדמדם !

The Asymmetry of Disproportionate Responses

These were disproportionate responses to this:
Yet all this :
was NOT a disproportionate response to this.:
Go figure.
Related.

Is this Why Civilizations are Clashing?

I am not naive enough to believe that the number one motivation for the US Government involving itself militarily abroad is the fight for Truth, Justice and the American way. Nor has America ever pursued the path of exporting their revolution as Stalin, Mao, Khomeini and Castro did and as Ahmadinejad and Chavez still do. (Kind of makes you wonder if we were ever as convinced about the righteousness and universal currency of our revolution as they were of theirs).

No, it's the free flow of oil that is the biggest factor and fear of incineration through WMDs is among many others both apparent and clandestine. Nevertheless we always hear our politicians and diplomats slinging and spouting high flown rhetoric about compassion for oppressed peoples and the spread of democracy (I'll have a shmear of Parliamentarianism on my onion flagel, thank you!) to rationalize the loss of blood and treasure inherent in all our military imbroglios.

At least on the right we also hear quite a bit about how the war against international (re: Islamic) terrorism is a clash of Civilizations pitting Western values against Fundamentalism mired somewhere in the ninth century. However, unlike the spin the Islamists love to put on it, the present clash of Civilizations does not pit Crusader X-tianity against Saladins Muslim Armies but Liberal Western Values against repressive medieval ones. For todays opponents of Islamofascism the holy trinity is not the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost but Freedom of Speech, Press and Religion. Ostensibly, they don't do battle for the Bishop of Rome but for the rule of law and the right to vote.

Which is why I am utterly mystified by some of the statements coming out of Washington condemning Terry Jones for burning the Quran. Senate majority leader Harry Reid said the Senate would "take a look" at Terry Jones' actions in burning a copy of the Islamic holy book, and threatened hearings. Referring to Pastor Jones on last weeks "Face the Nation" Lindsay Graham said : "I wish we could find a way to hold people accountable Free speech is a great idea, but we're in a war. During World War II, we had limits on what you could do if it inspired the enemy." (He fails to mention that during World War II we had full-blown racially tinged propaganda authorized by both governmental agencies and the fifth estate that demonized our enemies the Japanese Nips and the German Huns in ways that would be politically incorrect suicide in today's social climate!)

I can't understand these people. Do they believe that a Kulturkampf and a clash of civilizations is raging or don't they? Is the "American Way" chowing down on McDonalds, fantasy football, abusing recreational drugs and worshiping Lady Gaga? Is that what we are fighting to preserve and make available to others? Or is it about freedom of conscience, assembly and speech? Does the irony of condemning an American exercising his Bill of Rights granted Freedoms while extending a free pass to murderous repressive mobs hellbent on destroying these freedoms utterly escape them?

If, in 1941, an American Pastor had burned a copy of Mein Kampf and in reaction infuriated Germans had stormed a US Embassy or a League of Nations outpost killing twenty and beheading many of the victims, would a high ranking US general have condemned the book-burner and apologized to the Germans as General David Petraeus did when reacting to the Terry Jones libricide and its aftermath?

What are we fighting for?

Truth be told Michael Walsh put it much better than I ever could. Read more.

Libricide vs. Genocide

As neither a Crusader nor a Hajji with no apparent horse in the race in the recent battle of X-tian and Muslim hate-filled wild eyed fanatics I say that the Mohammedans lose in the court of this Jews semi-public opinion.

I have blogged extensively in the past on the topic of Libricide / Biblioclasm. There is a fierce symbolic power in book destruction. Even more so than burning effigies or pushing needles into voodoo dolls destroying a book is a metaphoric homicide. Destroying anothers Holy Book is a metaphoric Deicide or at least Seercide ©. Still, it is important to remember that is is merely metaphoric and, as such, not a capital offense. While it is forbidden for a Jew to burn a sefer Torah or other כתבי קדש one who does so is not liable for the death penalty. Similarly, if a Shul were burning down and, Big-Moish like, some hero, while rushing in saving others from the conflagration, were to rush out with the Sifrei Torah BEFORE rescuing the last of the trapped parishioners , causing them to perish in the interim, he would be condemned for his idiotic Bizzarro world priorities and not celebrated for his strength and valor.

The monstrous value system that would posit the murder of twenty innocents half a world away as an appropriate response to an infuriating and heretical act of Libricide fills me with fear and loathing. While there is no love lost between me and either X-tianity OR Islam, (I laugh mirthlessly and bitterly and the bald, bloody, gory hypocrisy of the formers "Prince of Peace" and the latters "Religion of Peace") and while I deeply hate the anti-Semitic "Reverend" (sic) Terry Jones and his ilk I find myself in the uncomfortable position of having to bloggishly defend him.

This is the United States of America and freedom of speech, conscience and expression are guaranteed under the US Constitution. This is true even of hurtful, hateful and politically incorrect speech. This is not Germany that has hate speech laws on the books. I hardly think that fanatics murderously overreacting half a world away constitutes shouting fire in a crowded theater.

Moreover I doubt that the symbolic power of Quran burning would resonate at all with Terry Jones' lame-brained audience had it not been preceded by a decade or more of Islamofascists bleating about a One-World caliphate under which all people of other religious persuasions or no religious persuasions at all would be offered the freedom of only one choice; don the fez or die.

While Jones has been criticized for "baiting" the Afghan rioters it infantilizes our Islamofascist enemies not to call them to task for baiting the Jones' of the world with incessant calls for X-tian and Jewish genocide, death to all crusaders, destruction of the great and little Satan and by further infuriating the X-tian Fundies by backing up all this malevolent hate-speech with acts of terrorism great and small and with systemic persecution of all X-tians in nearly all Islamic majority countries and regions controlled by Al Qaida, the Taliban et al.

The deeds of the Taliban-fueled rioters in Afghanistan call to mind this famous Gemara in Malkos 22 B: אמר רבא כמה טפשאי שאר אינשי דקיימי מקמי ספר תורה ולא קיימי מקמי גברא רבה דאילו בס"ת כתיב ארבעים ואתו רבנן בצרו חדא