What is the meaning of the Mishna about a weeping kohen?

And here we go again with might become a continuing series...

The Mishna says [Yoma 1:5]:

The Court elders [during the days before Yom Kippur] would pass [the Kohel Godol, who was being taught how to perform the Yom Kippur service] over to the elders of the priesthood, and they in turn would take him up to the upper chamber of the house of Abtinas [where incense was prepared], and adjure him, and take their leave, and go their way saying:

"My lord High Priest, we are the messengers of the Court, and you are our messenger and the messenger of the Court. We adjure you by Him who rested his Name in this house to alter nothing [about the incense sevice] of all that we have said to you." He would turn aside and weep, and they would turn aside and weep.

What is with the weeping? Is the author of the Mishna telling us that every year the Priest and the Court Agents would break down in tears? Is that plausible? Or is it saying that the men were required to weep? And how plausible is that? Given that this Mishna was written long after the Temple was destroyed, what is its author attempting to convey?

Note: I know why the oath was required, and I know that the Gemarah says that priest wept because he was suspected of being a Sadducee, and the court agents wept for suspecting an innocent man. However, I think this explanation makes my question better. We're told by the Rabbis that from time to time Sadducees were appointed High Priest (there are at least three aggadot of which I am aware that discuss this) and we're also told that there were times when the Sadducee High Priest did manage to alter the manner in which the incense service was performed; if so, there were times when the crying described (or prescribed) in the mishna would not have occurred -- unless the Sadducee priest possessed the uncanny ability to weep convincingly on command.

Here we go with another DovBear survey

We know the answer to the tuition crisis

A guest post by LeftWingPharisee

We know the answer to the tuition crisis; we just don't like the answer. The answer to the problem of unaffordable Yeshiva tuition is clear and obvious, but we are in denial.

Actually, to be precise, there are two answers to the tuition crisis. One is to make Aliya. My understanding (never having been to Israel myself) is that Yeshiva tuition is part of the package. That is certainly a valid option, and one that many readers will jump on, with good reason.

But there are many of us for whom Aliya is not an option at the present, for whatever reason. For those of us (myself included), the only apparent solution to the Yeshiva tuition problem is public school.

I would be very happy to be wrong. Very happy indeed. But I don't think that I am. If there is something that I've missed, please let us all know.

Rich and generous people are not going to solve the problem. Tzedaka is wonderful and a major help, and I don't want to discount it, but if it didn't solve the problem during the boom times, it's not going to solve it during the lean times, especially with the booming Observant communities that grow larger every day. This is not a slam of rich people, people have the complete right to spend their money as they see fit, but dependence on charity is not a good thing for any community.

Once we've accepted the reality on the ground, we can start making realistic plans. Since I am confident in saying that those who send their children to Yeshiva currently want their children to grow up to be Observant adults, the question then becomes, how do we guide our children into Observant adults while they spend a good chunk of the day in secular public school? I don't know the answer to that question, either.

I don't think that the previous American experience is necessarily a good guide, since our parents/grandparents/etc. were coming from a much less Observant place than today's Yeshiva paying crowd. American society was also much less tolerant than it is today. Teaneck Public Schools, for example, offer Kosher meals in their cafeteria.

I know that there's a lot of passion in R'Dov Bear's audience and on this issue. I would really appreciate it if responders would make a conscious effort to refrain from Loshen Hora, etc.

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Get your head patted by the Agudah! Now only $36

To be fair, the handsome and prestigious certificate, printed on genuine paper and signed by Chaim Dovid Zweibel's secretary is free. The $36 is for laminating and framing. But still, and I say this as a friend, you will announce yourself as a insecure dork if you purchase this item and a sucker of the sort PT Barnum spoke about if you pony up $36 for the framing. Download this for free, instead. Same exact deal.

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DISAGREE
On the other hand, I am pleased to announce a new and exciting DovBear Program: For just $5 you can purchase from me a handsome and prestigious certificate printed on genuine paper that announces any of the following achievements to your friends, neighbors, and potential in-laws:

• Attended shul
• Ate kosher
• Heard Krias HaTorah
• Skipped kiddush club
• Listened to Mommy

For more information contact DovBear. Stickers, head pats, and lollipops available, too. 

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Why does FOX hate America?

Because nothing says "France" like a beret.

US Special Forces officers cleverly disguised as French fops

Great (farting) moments in Josephus

I see from this the Romans employed 9 year old boys as centurions

See the book live on Google Books here

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The Numbers Just Don’t Compute

 A guest post by david a.


One compelling reason most objective scholars of the Bible understand it to have developed as a composition of many authors is driven by the hundreds of contradictions, inconsistencies, and many outright contradictions found in the Chumash. Of course, Chazal and the classical meforshim were very cognizant of these problems and offered resolutions and explanations, some quite reasonable, but unfortunately, many were just plain lame or simply not very satisfying.

This week’s parsha (Pinchos) offers just one such example of an unexplained (at least to me) inconsistency.

The Parsha’s events takes place near the end of the 40 year desert trek and God instructs Moishe and Elazar to take a census of the nation, which yielded a count of 601,730. If you recall an earlier census in the second year of the desert trek yielded a count of 603,550.

Here’s my problem, and as my rebbe used to say before a difficult Tosfet “now, halt kop”.

To account for the fact that Jacob arrived in Egypt with 49 grandsons (I think I counted that right) that in 210 years grew to a nation of over 600,000 adults we must posit a substantive, but not unnatural growth rate. I used an average of 2.48 sons per generation. (I got that by working backwards from 600,000 to 49). Now census figures also depend on life expectancy and generational age (i.e. the average age when males begin to reproduce). For simplicity let’s use 60 years for the former and 20 years for the later. So 210 years represents 10 generations (and for simplicity lets say that the first generation was 30 years). The problem doesn’t go away even with varying parameters.

So the 49 grandchildren of Jacob grew roughly as follow:

	49
Gen 1	122
Gen 2	301
Gen 3	747
Gen 4	1854
Gen 5	4597
Gen 6	11400
Gen 7	28272
Gen 8	70115
Gen 9	173885
Gen 10	431234	exodus
Gen 11	1069460	first 20 years in desert

Generations 9 and 10 represent the 20-60 year-olds that added up to about 600,000 males at the exodus. And at the exodus, the 10th generation of about 430,000 males that left Egypt and due to having an average of 2.48 sons had over a million male offspring. 


Now even allowing for some major attrition and assuming that NONE of these sons added ANY male children in the next 40 years (a supposition contradicted by the Book of Joshua, which clearly alludes to male offspring in these 40 years), how is it that the census in this week’s Parsha, 40 years later in the exile only had about 600,000 males?


What happened to the rest?

Something doesn’t compute.

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Today's Kiddush Hashem

Shimon Peres

LONDON - President Shimon Peres has cancelled his visit to the Olympic Games in London due to the refusal of the Olympic organizing committee to allow him to sleep in the Olympic village over Shabbat night.

The Israeli president, despite not being religious, does not travel publicly on Shabbat and will therefore not be able to attend the Olympic opening ceremony.

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I have a right!!

This morning, I overheard some social media mockery of an old 2010 European Union idea to grant vacation trips as a "right":

Under the scheme, British pensioners could be given cut-price trips to Spain, while Greek teenagers could be taken around disused mills in Manchester to experience the cultural diversity of Europe.

I don't know what became of the idea, but I don't object to it. In general, I believe that the more rights we recognize, the richer we are.

Those who disagree, are likely under the mistaken idea that human rights are something inalienable and endowed by a creator. Precious (and exquisite) as this idea might be, it is merely an intellectual construct, like tzimtzum or the Christian idea that God made himself into a man to give us the ability to satisfy a debt to him. However, long lasting and powerful those constructs might be, they don't correspond to anything that actually happened. God didn't literally constrict himself to make the universe just as he didn't literally endow us with a small set of rights, rights that magically happened to have been prized by 18th century men, to the exclusion of rights valued by people who live in our century.

In reality, rights are endowed (and revoked)  by communities, not God. As the Founding Fathers surely realized saying something "came from God " gives it more power. (Old trick.) But flowery rhetoric aside, they weren't making a statement about the real nature of things.

As they knew (because they created it themselves) there is nothing inevitable or final about the Bill of Rights, or any other list of rights. Rights are created, propagated, and accepted by a community  for its own relative reasons. Though of course we hope and pray the rights we prize are left alone, realistically speaking nothing stops another community from abrogating or amending the list as it sees fit.  (Even the Bill of Rights is subject to this: Article V of the U.S Constitution anticipates that we may one day wish to change things.)

The reality is that any society can choose to grant its members anything it wishes to grant them. It can also draw the line wherever it wishes. My shul, for example, has decided that all members are entitled to an aliya every year. This decision, technically, has created a right, the right to an annual aliya. In Europe, the "members" apparently were close to deciding that everyone is entitled to a paid vacation. That's their prerogative.

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Charedei Miscellanei #3

by @azigra, Chief Haredi Correspondent

Three posts by @azigra on the exalted state of Haredi intellectual life. 

Girls, Girls, Girls

I was at Cong. Beth Shalom in Lawrence this past Shabbos for Shachris, the Rabbi was away and so an Associate Rabbi named Skydell spoke in his stead. He began by referencing the last verse in the Haftora:

"וּמָה-יְהוָה דּוֹרֵשׁ מִמְּךָ, כִּי אִם-עֲשׂוֹת מִשְׁפָּט וְאַהֲבַת חֶסֶד, וְהַצְנֵעַ לֶכֶת, עִם-אֱלֹהֶיךָ" - "And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

He continued: The most visceral word in our modern Jewish vocabulary is Tzniut. It makes us think of people checking skirt lengths with a ruler, rules about the thickness of stockings, wearing long clothing in the summer heat, and receiving 'dress modestly' cards with wedding invitations. (azigra: women sent to the back of buses, physical and verbal abuse of women in the street, women getting acid thrown in their faces, eighteen year old girls being forced to shave their hair, men being convinced God cares how many layers of clothing they wear in the summer ......) And this concept manifests itself in a way where people are confronted about their clothing, asked to answer for their sartorial choices. But if someone asks you why your skirt is too short you should just ask them "what is wrong with you?"

The Associate Rabbi shared his observations made at a Jewish political fund raiser attended by the then Junior Senator of NY, Hillary R. Clinton. Everyone knows she never wears skirts, and she was there dressed in her signature pants suites. None of the rabbis made prior requests to her assistant, ran out of the room, avoided talking to her, or the like. Everyone realized she was dressed very modestly, yes, the rabbis wouldn't let their wives or daughters dress in pants, but not purely for lack of Tzniut.

A problem that exists in parts of our culture is the sexualization of girls. But one community that actively portrays them in sexual contexts and another community that obsesses and focuses on the way girls appear and dress are equally guilty of the same exact thing. That is why our community must not focus on these things and instead focus on the true meaning of וְהַצְנֵעַ לֶכֶת, עִם-אֱלֹהֶי, to behave modestly, to be open to learning new things, and engage with others, this is how we show the world that Jews live ethical and moral lives as a principal of their faith.
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Women! Know your Place!

I came across some book called Yad Vashem by Reuven ben Menachem Yazriel from Slobodka with the following paragraph on the last page. As a feminist, this gave me chills and I hope all modern men and women will realized how horrible and flawed this argument set forth by a WOMAN is.

The author records his wife's explanation of the morning blessing repeated by women, that God made them "C'ritzono" in his will or like his will. The obvious question (to this women) is that this blessing seems to indicate that God could have made women not like his will which is blasphemous. She therefor surmises that, "like his will" doesn't mean the will of God, but rather, women thank God, that he made them like the will of their husbands.

This is kind of reminiscent of that miserable essay published on JaneXO a few months ago. These women don't know what the alternatives are or they are lied to about how innocuous the alternatives really are.
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Zohar Shmo-har

I dined Friday night with some people of Moroccan descent. Someone mentioned that guy Yoshiyahu Pinto and I said that he was just listed as one of the top ten wealthiest rabbis in Israel. The wealthiest is the son of Eliezer Abuchatzera, who was murdered last July, possibly for being a charlatan, and crook, and a thief. I didnt say anything about the true identity of Abuchatzera until someone brought out a Chumash and proceeded to show how a reference to his murder could be found in the Torah and not just anywhere in the Torah but in the very Parsha read during the very week he died. At that point, I couldn't hold back, I attacked the murder victim, and somehow ended up sharing the arguments about how the Zohar is a fraud, which was a huge mistake, since I spent the next two hours listening to people attack me for being an Am Ha'aretz, an Apikores, and having basic Emunah issues. 

They had no doubt the Zohar was written by R. Shimon Bar Yochai, that it is Torah M'Sinai and that holds is a central apart of the Torah canon. I never told them they must believe me but should rather seek out the studies and scholarship done by others and weigh the claims and come to some sort of conclusion on their own as I have. This was something they refuse to do since anyone who questions the authenticity of the Zohar obviously has severe issues with the Torah and Judaism and there is no benefit to be had by reading what they have to say. One of the gentleman went on to say that this is the same reason why he wont read anything by R. Nathan Slifkin, not necessarily because he writes heretical things, but because he is bitter about the bans on his books so his outlook can never be objective, his life's mission is now to discount and discredit any and all Charedi views.

I forwarded a few essays to one of the people at this meal on this topic to which he replied:

Ramban died in 1270, and Moses De Leon was born in 1250. The Ramaban learned Zohar. So on that basis alone your argument is flawed.

Second, the one to have propagated the idea that de leon, and not Rashbi, wrote he Zohar was Elijah Delmeggido, who was, for all intents and purposes, an apikores, whose student include Pico, a Cardinal.

De Leon himself was not considered to be a Talmid Chacham, nor was he widely accepted, or should I say accepted at all, within the Rabbinic circles.

(The Chida in Shem Hagedolim make no mention of either of them. Now while you will argue that the absence of a name is not proof, the fact that the Chida mentioned the most obscure people, even if it was just a birth and death year, of gedolim from the most unknown areas, perhaps is some proof)

To this end, Delmiggido's opinion is of no relevance to me, nor should it be to any person of intellect, as since neither he, nor De Leon were considered Talmidei Chachamim by their peers. Thus, them opining on a Torah subject, nigleh or otherwise, is tantamount to a grade 7 math teacher arguing with Hawking about some complicated physical idea.

Whether this is right or wrong is irrelevant, the person who makes the claim doesn't add to or discount from the argument. Each claim should be weighed and analyzed for its own merit. I dont know if this is the charedi way of looking at things since they truly believe a persons background discounts his arguments, or whether it is just a protective measure to keep out all outside ideas that may threaten their supposed Utopia.

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From the "Nothing our parents did was kosher" file

The current trend in eulogies is to speak about the deceased as if he or she was holy and perfect in every way. We also see this trend observed in biographies and "historical" accounts. The shtetl dwelling subjects are almost always presented as being wholly without sin.

At what point will the cognitive dissonance set in?

When will we realize that either shabbos diapers are a fraud or our forefathers (who used plain old cloth diapers) were flawed?

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Why do we think Balaam slept with his donkey?

According to the Rabbis, Balaam was intimate with his donkey. This is in keeping with the general Rabininc notion that all gentiles were guilty of beastiality, and it is derived specifically from the donkey's speech in Numbers 22:30 where she says: "הלוא אנכי אתנך אשר רכבת עלי מעודך עד היום הזה ההסכן הסכנתי לעשות לך."

In the view of the Rabbis, there are too many words in this sentence. (ie the same idea might have been expressed more concisely) In particular, the beast unnecessarily says "hayom" [=today] suggesting to the Rabbis that something else occurred at night. But what? The words  ההסכן הסכנתי provide a clue

In Kings 1:2 we find the word "סֹכֶנֶת" used to describe the role of the virgin who kept old King David warm.
ויאמרו לו עבדיו יבקשו לאדני המלך נערה בתולה ועמדה לפני המלך ותהי־לו סכנת ושכבה בחיקך וחם לאדני המלך

The word is taken to mean something like "companion"  (KJV gives "and let her cherish him". Other famous translations render the words as "nurse".)

In the view of the Rabbis, (see BT Avodah Zara 4b) the use of the expression ההסכן הסכנתי following the redundant use of the word "hayom" tells us the donkey was confessing to having been Balaam's nighttime "companion".

ASIDE

Words with the root סכנ appear in several places in Tanach.

• In Isaiah 22:15 הַסֹּכֵ֣ן is a treasurer, or someone with intimate and private knowledge of finances. 
• In Pslams 139:4 " הסכנתה" is used to suggest that God has very personal knowledge of all our ways
• In five places in Job יִסְכָּן carries the sense of benefit or profit
• Koheles 10:9 is an oddity. We have מַסִּיעַ אֲבָנִים יֵעָצֵב בָּהֶם בֹּוקֵעַ עֵצִים יִסָּכֶן בָּם which every English translation takes to mean something on the order of "he who splits logs is endangered by them." In Jewish tradition, however, the verse means "He who splits logs is warmed by them." (The link is to David's סכנת who is seen not as a nurse or companion but as a "warmer") There is likely a polemic motivation beneath this reading. "Splitting logs" is understood as a metaphor for studying Torah. How can this "endanger" us? 

END ASIDE

To continue, we're left with an open question: Did the Rabbis actually believe Balaam slept with his donkey, or were they merely trying to defame him, in the way that other Biblical villains are defamed in the Midrash? (e.g. Pharaoh is presented as midget with a huge penis.)

Generally, I'm of the opinion that when the Sages interpreted a verse, they believed that their interpretations yielded the factual, historical truth. In fact, in many cases, its not clear to me that they are "interpreting" and not "reading."

Apologists, on the other hand, think they are protecting the reputation of the Sages by arguing that their interpretations (for example the stretching arm of Bas Paroh) were never intended literally. It may be true that the Sages were speaking figuratively when no Scriptural basis can be discerned. But when an interpretation, --no matter how fanciful -- is clearly linked to a reading, I think it is meant literally. (As I've argued previously, the Sages believed that God mixed fire and ice during the plague of hail because that's what the verse says. If, by their lights, a verse plainly says that Bas Pharoh's arm grew, why wouldn't they also believe that happened?)

My own opinion here is that Chazal believed Balaam was a bad guy. (Accepting the textual evidence that suggested he was evil, over competing textual evidence that presents him more favorably) This perspective (together with their general view that gentiles were incorrigible practitioners of bestiality*) made it easy for them to find and accept interpretations such as the one discussed above.


*Is there a more succinct way to say "practitioners of bestiality?"

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Other religions aside from xtianity? No way!

This lady both takes and eats the stupid cake.

Republican Horrified to Discover that Christianity is Not the Only Religion

jezebel.com

It's an honest mistake, assuming that the Constitution only protects your own personal megachurch faith. But one Louisiana Republican is learning the hard way that religi

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The search for a new Chief Rabbi Saks

Shabbos Reading

Here's the great Miriam Shaviv on Britain's search for someone to replace Chief Rabbi Sacks.

I am charmed to learn my Twitter correspondent Harvey Belovski is on the short list.
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More herpes

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Obama and Israel and me

I like Obama. I think he's done a decent, not great, but decent job, and I certainly trust him more than I trust a guy who invents RomneyCare and then disowns it just to appeal to low class Republicans who vote their prejudices, rather than their interests.

The real thing is this: I am sick and tired of the lies being told about Obama's record on Israel. I don't say a word when people tell the truth about him. Without a doubt there is plenty of truthful criticism one might deliver; however, attacking Obama on Israel is not an example of truthful criticism.

References:
President Obama: Advancing Israel's Security and Supporting Peace

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

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GoogleMaps: Grave of the Bal Shem Tov.

Here's another new series, I probably won't continue. Until someone suggests a better name, I will call it "See the world, thanks to GoogleMaps without spending a penny." First stop (for reasons that may become clear in my next post) the grave of the Bal Shem Tov.

You can see it here/

Street View hasn't made it to Medzhybizh yet, but three really nice photos of the ohel are available. If you move the little man onto the the dots near my arrow, you'll see them. I think its cool to see historical spot in their geographic context, but try not to think of the Jewish grave that were demolished for the sake of building that ohel.)

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