V'dibarta Bam - 2012-02-15

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1:36 AM

@ShmuelBrill I've heard R' Rakeffet say multiple times in his recorded lectures that the Israeli Chief Rabbinate renewed it for all Jews at some point.

@HodofHod, thanks very much for accepting SE's invitation to formalize and extend the great work you've already been doing to help maintain our community

@IsaacMoses My pleasure :-D

2 hours later…

3:17 AM

@IsaacMoses he may be talking about Sefardim, as the Israeli Chief Rabbinate is not the ultimate Beis Din for all Jews outside of Israel.

@HodofHod did simchastorah's avatar change?

@ShmuelBrill this one? judaism.stackexchange.com/users/475/simchashatorah

or this one? judaism.stackexchange.com/users/87/simchastorah

@HodofHod #2

1

A: Why only 5 points per upvoted question and 10 points per upvoted answer?

Because “שאלת חכם חצי תשובה”; a good question is worth precisely half an answer. ☺

@HodofHod it's strange as he hasn'

t come around here lately.

@ShmuelBrill Indeed, his avatar has changed within the last month: webcache.googleusercontent.com/…

1 hour later…

4:40 AM

@IsaacMoses I was hoping when my names morphed together, I would get my avatar :)

@HachamGabriel Sorry; the information in the main account takes precedence. You could just add it to that one, can't you?

Tried a lot, but it wouldn't work/

@HachamGabriel Can you detail what the problem is? Someone may be able to help.

12 hours later…

5:06 PM

Stack Overflow Blog: So You Want To Be a Developer (Part 1)

Posted by David Fullerton on February 15th, 2012

A few months ago we had James Portnow of Extra Credits on the podcast. We’re huge fans of everything that they’re doing over at Extra Credits, so when they asked us to help them write an episode on programming, we jumped at the opportunity. Here’s the link:

If you’ve never heard of Extra Credits, it’s a weekly show about the video game industry from the perspective of people who actually work in it. It’s a fascinating look into game craftsmanship — not just how video games are made, but what makes them work, what games do well and not so well, and th …

5:34 PM

@MonicaCellio, hello

and @HodofHod, hello

@Alex Hello!

@msh210, hello

I'm surprised... usually I'm not the first here

@Alex hello all

@MonicaCellio hi!

@Alex yeah, I expected to join a conversation already in progress because I was a few minutes late.

5:36 PM

@MonicaCellio, @Alex, @HodofHod, hi! Apparently no one has officially started this chat, so let me announce the start of Parashat Hashavua chat #11, Mishpatim 5772. Sorry for being tardy in doing so.

@msh210 got something to start off with?

@MonicaCellio No. I wasn't planning to be here at all, and I expect to pay at most half attention throughout.

@HodofHod does our newest mod want to start?

indeed, @HodofHod, mazel tov on that

@Alex Thank you!@Monica I'm drawing a blank, :-(

5:40 PM

@HodofHod I've still got questions from the question I posted on the main site last night, but not sure if we should "double-cover", so to speak.

Okay, a thought (not well formulated, I'm afraid). It seems the Torah repeats the mitzva or concept of cities of refuge many times. How come?

(One is in this week's parasha and doubtless @Alex will know where the rest are.)

@msh210 It's hardly the only one; interest also comes up a lot. But yeah.

@msh210 it repeats other mitzvot too, like meat/milk. Do they all have something in common or is each case different?

Cities of refuge are a communal command; maybe that's relevant? (vs. shabbat, interest, kashrut...all individual.)

@MonicaCellio But then that wouldn't explain what you pointed out about meat & milk

@Alex I was riffing on "maybe each case is different, so what makes this one special?" The whole community, collectively, is commanded in the cities of refuge. Just a thought, though. It's kind of an odd command to get even once and we get it twice (at least).

5:43 PM

I'm thinking maybe it's because the Torah wants to stress how important it is to save lives. Don't think that because this person committed murder and he's got people out to get him, that he's to be left defenseless.

@Alex the blood avenger has always confused me too; why is extra-judicial killing ok there?

@MonicaCellio At least four, I think. In this parshah, in Mas'ei with all of the details, and more briefly in Va'eschanan (where Moshe sets aside the cities) and Shoftim.

@Alex ah right; I remembered Mas'ei and had a vague "somewhere in D'varim" feeling.

@MonicaCellio Not sure, though we actually do see that deliberate murderers are treated more strictly even by beis din; there's the law that a repeat offender is to be jailed and fed a starvation diet, which isn't the case with other crimes

Someone (maybe Ramban, I don't recall) says something about murder being particularly destructive of the social fabric and therefore that it needs to be treated more harshly

@Alex sentences handed down by a court in accordance with torah are fine. Empowering relatives to kill a killer who doesn't make it to a city of refuge in time seems odd. But maybe that's the only way to get them out of "circulation", since the torah doesn't call for jail?

5:47 PM

@MonicaCellio Could be. But the reason the court sentence is odd in this case is because it applies even if the normal rules of evidence aren't there (say, for example, there wasn't proper warning).

In Mas'ei doesn't it say that murder poisons the ground (via the victim's blood)? And we have the ground crying out when Kayin kills Hevel. So Ramban's take makes sense to me.

@Alex hmm. So there are three categories? Court can pass sentence; court can't pass the intended sentence but can starve him; and courts can't act so go to a city of refuge?

@MonicaCellio The third one isn't that they can't act - it's that the killing was unpremeditated. But yeah, that mostly covers it. There are also cases where the killing was completely unexpected and couldn't reasonably have been prevented, and then there's no penalty at all - no execution and no city of refuge

I wonder, too, whether this allowing the relatives to kill is sort of an example of the Torah allowing a practice that was entrenched anyway, with the objective of discouraging and eventually getting rid of it (other examples include slavery and the yefas to'ar)

@Alex I've seen explanations like that for these things, and I've always wondered: whats the source?

for saying that the reason Torah permits something is only because it's already entrenched, but that it should be eventually gotten rid of?

@HodofHod Well, for yefas to'ar, the Gemara says that the Torah is just giving a concession to the yetzer hara. No idea about the others - who knows, they may have started out as apologetics in times when, for example, slavery was starting to be widely condemned as immoral

I actually recently read an essay by R. Jonathan Sacks saying this about slavery, but yeah, I don't recall him giving a source

@Alex Interesting, concessions to the yetzer hara

5:55 PM

@HodofHod There is a lot more to that than meets the eye too - the Ohr Hachaim has a fascinating explanation that it's not just a concession but actually a way of tricking the yetzer hara

@Alex The plot thickens! Where can I find this ohr Hachaim?

@HodofHod Beginning of Ki Seitzei. Basically, he says that the yefas to'ar has a Jewish soul, and by rights she should be able to become a convert, but she doesn't have the capability to do so on her own - and of course the yetzer hara would want to prevent that from happening anyway. So the Torah allows the soldier to capture her and bring her to conversion, while all the while the yetzer hara is duped into thinking that it's succeeded in making him follow his passions

@Alex interesant....

By the way, that article of R. Sacks' is here: chiefrabbi.org/ReadArtical.aspx?id=1874

oh, hello @jake

(sorry, got interrupted)

6:01 PM

@Alex Hi. Just backreading a bit.

Anyone mind if I start a new topic?

@jake Not I

Hi, @jake. Go right ahead.

There is a machlokes in the gemara if we may learn things from the order in which mitzvos are listed in the whole Torah or just in Devarim. But I'm wondering: why not? Don't you think there would be reasons for the order of the commandments in this week's parsha?

@jake Is that machlokes talking about the order of whole sections discussing a particular mitzvah, or even individual verses? Because in our parshah, for example, most of the mitzvos are given in one or two verses

@jake no source, but it seems reasonable that ordering within a single block is meaningful while ordering throughout the whole isn't necessarily.

6:05 PM

@ShmuelBrill, hiya.

@Alex I don't recall exactly. I think the actual mitzvos themselves, i.e. eved ivri next to hitting parents or whatever.

@msh210 hi

@Alex It's Y'vamos daf 4 amud 1, I believe.

@jake IIRC, the reason why we learn Smuchim in Devarim is because it was said through Moshe, it was filtered through his intellect first

@msh210 (That's not b'kius: it's Googling.)

6:07 PM

Therefore, we have a chance of understanding the order. The other parshas were said directly from Hashem and the reason of the order is above us.

@jake I read somewhere, but don't remember where, the idea that this week's list starts with slavery because that's Israel's recent experience -- sort of "when this happens, this is how it's supposed to be done".

@ShmuelBrill But don't you think it would be more of a reason to learn smuchim from what was said by Hashem? Wouldn't He have his reasons for what is said after what?

oh, that makes sense

@jake but are we supposed to understand the torah linearly? Certainly God isn't constrained to that kind of thinking, and they say there is no before or after in torah?

@HodofHod i've heard that the Rambam said the same thing about sacrifices (in Moreh Nvuchim).

@MonicaCellio I know that several commentators say that the mitzvos in this parsha are listed in the order of the ten commandments. That is, these mitzvos are all connected to the aseres hadibros in some way, and they folllow that order.

6:09 PM

@ShmuelBrill If you hover over the post you're replying to, an arrow will appear int eh bottom-righ-hand corner. Click it, and your next post will link back to it as a reply. Thishelps kep track of who's replying to what.

@jake interesting -- I'll have to reread through that lens tonight.

@MonicaCellio The fact that there is no "before or after" in Torah makes this question stronger. Otherwise one could just say that they are listed in the order in which Moshe told them over to the nation.

@jake That does kind of ring a bell. I don't remember where I saw it, but yeah, someone claimed that this begins with the couple of mitzvos at the end of last week's parshah

@Alex Could be.

@ShmuelBrill I've heard there is disagreement on whether the Rambam believed everything he wrote in Moreh Nevuchim, or whether he meant that its possible to explain things this way. Did I hear correctly?

6:11 PM

@Alex The steps thing sounds like lo sisa: don't "cheapen" God kivyachol. (Just thinking aloud.)

@jake but does "no before or after" apply to parts within a single utterance? Moshe's speech is one big block; that's not the same as the ordering of mitzvot throughout Sh'mot or Vayikra or whatever.

@HodofHod Given that the Rogatchover uses things from Moreh Nevuchim to understand statements in Mishneh Torah, that would indicate that he at least understands these to be Rambam's true opinions, no?

@HodofHod I never learned it, but I heard the same. Either way, in the Yad he obviously brings hilchos Korbanos. If he felt that it was a concession and should be canceled, when would be a better time than in Yemos Hamashiach to do so?

Although it's possible that he is of the opinion that once the Torah commanded something (even as a concession), it becomes a full-fledged law and will just have to stay.

@MonicaCellio You know - that's a very good point. There's an argument in the Gemara whether the Torah was given piecemeal or all at once; if the former, then yeah, the fact that Moshe taught the people one mitzvah on Tuesday and wrote it down, then another one on Wednesday and wrote that one down next, isn't necessarily as significant

@Alex At least according to the Rogatchover. I'm not saying that what I said is the case, only that I had heard some posit that it its. Have you heard this as well?

6:14 PM

@MonicaCellio True. Whether we can say that Moshe's speech is out of order itself is an interesting discussion. I recently came across it researching this answer where the Rashi supercommentary in the link tries to show that Yisro came after Moshe descended from the mountain from the sequence of events in Devarim.

@HodofHod I don't recall, actually. It sounds a little like apologetics to me ("a tzaddik like the Rambam couldn't possibly have held X, so it must be that he's just saying it for argument's sake...")

@Alex That could be. I wonder if I'll be able to chase down where I saw this

@Alex But wouldn't the order in which he was given the mitzvos still matter?

@jake I saw that in that question but didn't follow it then; will have to take a look. The plain reading seems to be that Yitro advised and then left and then we had matan torah, but what would Moshe have been spending long days on before matan torah? And if Yitro converted, didn't he need to be there? Confusing.

@jake I'm not sure that's the same thing, though. There's a difference between whether in one speech Moshe mentioned previous events out of order, vs. whether the Torah reports what he said on 22 Shevat before or after 23 Shevat

@jake Maybe, but then again, did he necessarily teach them in the order he was taught them?

6:19 PM

@Alex he got them all in a 40-day brain dump on Har Sinai, right? Do we have any reason to believe that ordering within that mattered? It's not like some mitzvot are more important than others (broadly speaking).

@Alex I would imagine that each time, we have "Vayedaber Hashem el Moshe... daber el b'nei yisrael..." Why would he wait to tell them?

@MonicaCellio What exactly he got then vs. later is a whole other issue. He definitely received some individual mitzvos or their details later, like Pesach Sheni, inheritance, what to do with the blasphemer, etc.

@Alex B'nos tzelafchad...

@jake unless it says "and do it right now", the logistics of assembling the people to hear the command might be a factor.

@Alex good point

@Alex Oh nevermind, I see you said that.

6:21 PM

hello @Vram!

@MonicaCellio That, but also, based on what you just said: suppose that one day Hashem gave Moshe ten mitzvos. Does he necessarily have to tell them over in the same order, or can he rearrange them at his discretion?

@Alex Y'know, these are all interesting points, but the way I see it, there should always be a reason to darshen smuchim, either because of the way Hashem ordered them, or the way Moshe ordered them, or the way the Torah orders them. It's not just random.

@Alex D'varim is one big speech at the end of his life; I don't assume that ordering within that tracks with the order he received them. Ordering elsewhere in torah where Moshe speaks to the people is an interesting question.

@jake Sometimes indeed it isn't even in the other books. Tosafos (in Yevamos that @msh210 referenced) points out that sometimes we still do darshen smuchim, because there's a vav tying one section to the previous one, or because of extra words, etc.

Hi, @TalFishman

6:26 PM

I'm coming in the middle of a conversation, but you seem to be discussing whether or not the order of pesukim matter. We have an idea called "en mukdam umeuchar batorah." Historically, order doesnt mean anything. Why wasn't the Torah written in historical order? There probably is some greater purpose for the way it was done

And there's definitely always significance to the order anyway; one of the Gemara's examples is the juxtaposition in our parshah of מכשפה לא תחיה and כל שוכב עם בהמה מות יומת, and Baal Haturim gives a couple of derashos about that. The question is whether it has halachic significance.

@msh210 Hi Michael

@Vram That's sort of what jake asked (which this convrsation about). He asks how we can say "en mukdam..." if, doubtless, there's some reason for the order we have. You're essentially asking the same thing in reverse.

@Vram There's a Midrash that says something about us being able to "create and destroy worlds" if we knew the proper order - with practical kabbalah, I guess.

@Vram Order does not "not mean anything". It is definitely very significant. "Ein mukdam umeuchar" just means it's not chronological order.

6:29 PM

@jake Indeed - on the contrary, ein mukdam umeuchar means that when two events are juxtaposed, it's not because of chronology but because of some deeper significance.

@jake right thats my point; there must be a reason the torah isnt in chronological order

@Alex That would seem to answer @jake's question, then.

@msh210 Sort of, but not really. Why indeed might we grant this juxtaposition significance only at the drush level but not in deciding halachah?

@Alex True.

@Alex I suppose that's a good point. There is always a reason, but not necessarily a halachic one. Whereas in Devarim, we want to say that the reasons are halachic, maybe because part of what moshe was trying to do was "ba'er as hatorah etc."

6:31 PM

@jake Very good point. (Yours, I mean. :)

Once again i'm coming in middle of a conversation, but the gemara uses derashot from simuchim. such as the gemara in yevamot which says that if a woman objects to yibum we dont force her cuz dinei yibum are next to "lo tachsom shor bideesho"

@Vram That's in Devarim. Everyone agrees that you darshen smuchim there; it's a machlokes whether that's also true in the other chumashim.

In our parshah, for example, that the Torah puts together מכשפה לא תחיה and כל שוכב עם בהמה מות יומת, Ben Azzai says that this implies that the former gets stoned just as the latter does, while R. Yehudah demands a different pasuk for this. (Yevamos 4a)

@Alex How far do we carry this? We get the 39 melachot of shabbat from positioning and that's not in d'varim.

@MonicaCellio So maybe this goes back to the "same speech" idea. Vayakhel begins with Moshe gathering the Jews to tell them about Shabbos and then immediately about the Mishkan.

End of Parashat Hashavua' chat #11 - Mishpatim 5772. But of course please continue to discuss topics beyond the official end. Thanks, all, for your participation.

6:36 PM

@Alex oh, is that all one block too? Hmm.

@TalFishman Out of curiosity, how do you know my name? (Not that it's a secret: I'm just curious where/how(/why) you found it.)

@MonicaCellio They're not "one block" in the Sefer Torah - there's a parsha break there - but it's all part of the same assembly; it ends with the people leaving (35:20).

@msh210 Thanks everyone. Great chat, as usual, even though I came in the middle.

@Alex yeah, I meant "block" as in utterance, not parsha (else D'varim couldn't be one block)

@jake Thanks especially for the great topic!

6:39 PM

@MonicaCellio It wasn't one utterance, anyway. It took about five weeks to say: he (and his listeners) presumably slept in the middle.

@jake thanks for the great discussion!

@msh210 where do we learn that?

@MonicaCellio Learn that they slept? Seems natural. Oh, wait, you meant learn it took five weeks to say. :-) Um... not sure.

The start of Dt. says he started on 1 Sh'vat.

@MonicaCellio He started on Rosh Chodesh Shevat (Deut. 1:3) and continued until his passing on 7 Adar.

@Alex How do you know he continued until he died?

@msh210 It's definitely mentioned somewhere - I'd have to look. But we do see that parshas Vayelech begins on the day he died, which would seem to imply that everything else in that chumash covers the period before that.

6:43 PM

@DoubleAA, hi! The parasha chat is 12:30 to 1:30 Eastern time Wednesdays (i.e., you've just missed it). FYI.

@Alex Right, yeah, thanks.

@msh210 Yes I'm busy till around now on Wednesdays usually,but I thought I'd drop by to catch the end

@DoubleAA You can backread (above); I'll also bookmark the whole thing bl"n.

@Alex ah, ok. (Yes, I meant how do we know it took all five weeks? Physically it's possible in a few hours.)

@MonicaCellio ...and it's done in many synagogues on the night of Hosha'na Raba. But I think it'd take longer to absorb everything.

@MonicaCellio I see where Ohr Hachaim to Deut. 1:1 says so (and says that these 36 days correspond to the gematria of אלה, the first word of that chumash). I'd still have to check whether there are any earlier sources that say so.

6:46 PM

@Alex I guess Sh'vat was chaser....

@msh210 hearing takes hours; absorption takes a lifetime. :-) (When the people went to hear the whole torah every seven years that was a one-day reading, right?)

@msh210 Maybe, or maybe he means except for 7 Adar itself (on which he was busy with a lot else)

@MonicaCellio Yes, but wasn't it also just D'varim?

@msh210 And not even all of it, just selected passages.

@msh210 yeah, that was my point -- Moshe could have given his final speech in an afternoon and I had assumed he did until the discussion here. The every-seven-years reading was the whole torah in a day, wasn't it?

6:48 PM

@Alex But Vayelech (as you pointed out) was said on 7 Adar.

@msh210 But then that's not really part of the "be'er Moshe es haTorah hazos" but something new.

@MonicaCellio No, the every-seven-years thing was just D'varim, is what I meant, and, as @Alex pointed out, not even all of it.

@Alex Right.

@msh210 oh, ok -- thanks for clearing that up for me.

@MonicaCellio The wikipedia article en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakhel#In_the_Mishnah lists which parts of devarim were read.

So I see that Ramban (to 1:1) points out that 5:1 ("Moshe called all of Bnei Yisrael and said to them...") is the start of a new speech. So he must have broken off at least there. Although I guess it's still possible that he said all of chs. 5-30 in one day, and then spent the next few weeks going over the details.

(According to Eruvin 54a, he anyway taught each mitzvah four times: first to Aharon, then to him and his sons, etc.)

6:56 PM

@Alex Moshe's name is not mentioned at all from 5:1 to 27:1

@DoubleAA True, but even if it was divided up by days, the Torah doesn't have to say each time that he gathered the people for part X of the speech

@Alex True, but it would possible imply that at least 27:1 is also a new start (of some sort)

@DoubleAA Indeed. And yeah, maybe it could imply that everything up to that point was said all in one day, but like I said, I don't think we can show that one way or the other from the actual pesukim

@Alex Asmachta BeAlma

I've really got to get going. Thanks to all for a fascinating and stimulating discussion!

7:00 PM

I've got to go too. Thanks all!

7:18 PM

I missed?

2 hours later…

9:37 PM

@msh210 After we first talked I googled msh210, your amazon account came up, and for some reason I just remembered it.

10:20 PM

@TalFishman Oh, my. I haven't used that Amazon account in years, and the e-mail address on that page hasn't been valid all that time (though I think it is again now). The name is correct, though. :-)

@msh210 Speaking of which, I'm in middle of your essay on ASCII art. Very interesting.

@HodofHod Heh, thanks. Where'd you find that? Linked to from the "my old site" link on Wiktionary?

@msh210 Yep. Internet archive to the resuce :-)

@HodofHod Yep. :-) Actually, I used that archive in answering the question about feeding birds on Shabas Shira.

@msh210 Really? It's such a shame when good info is deleted from the internetz

10:28 PM

@HodofHod Yeah, well, thank God for archive.org. And thank the proprietors, too.

@HodofHod ...but not completely correct. Caveat lector.

@msh210 Speaking of which, they don't appear to have archived any of the figures you refer to

@HodofHod See web.archive.org/web/20080509062606/http://www.math.wustl.edu/… : the three figures are the top three pictures at web.archive.org/web/19990116231112/http://users.inetw.net/…

"The Scream" in ASCII? That's good!

@HodofHod Yes. There are some pretty elaborate and high-quality pieces of ASCII art out there. I personally never have been able to produce any.

@msh210 I imagine that now there are automated ways to produce any of the three styles you refer too, no?

10:36 PM

The best I've done is web.archive.org/web/20090130121457/http://www.math.wustl.edu/…

@HodofHod I know computer programs produce ASCII art. Probably all three styles I mention, though I don't know. People still do it by hand. I don't know how the quality of hand-produced compares with computer-generated, though I would guess that for small (or highly detailed) pieces hand-produced is better (computers would have a hard time with the detail).

@msh210 ah I see you mention that further down in the essay :-)

@HodofHod Oh, do I? Heh.

@msh210 That's really cool!

@HodofHod Thanks.

@HodofHod Wow. Rereading parts of it now, I see how awfully I used to write.

@msh210 I wouldn't know, I'm not much of a writing critic. I think you could have a done a better job at defending "Gifscii" as ASCII Art, though.

10:45 PM

@HodofHod Perhaps I didn't believe it. (I don't remember. The essay's from some 14 years ago.)

@msh210 Explains some of the earlier reasonings on the benefits of ASCII Art over binary images

@HodofHod Yes, but like I said:

19 mins ago, by msh210

@HodofHod ...but not completely correct. Caveat lector.

@msh210 True

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Feb '1215

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