V'dibarta Bam

12:53 AM

2:55 AM

@MonicaCellio I understand Stack Exchange is not for debate, I just had to get that off my chest. Thank you for deleting my non-answer.

Monica Cellio

@Mike I understand your frustration; thanks for understanding my deletion.

@IsaacMoses cool!

msh210

4:24 AM

All (including @MonicaCellio ): close judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/45070 per meta.judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/1734?

@TRiG chortle

HodofHod

@msh210 Perhaps. It feels wrong to me, though perhaps only in that it is so incredibly specific.

msh210

@HodofHod It is worded as if it had just occurred to the asker.

'Occurred' = happened, not 'occurred' = came to mind.

@HodofHod But it's a pretty common (or potentially pretty common) case, even as outlined in the Q, so I hate to close it as p'sak-seeking.

Maybe it can be reworded somehow to seem more general? Or maybe that's not even necessary?

HodofHod

@msh210 True, but ultimately, I'm not sure how much of their motivations in asking should matter. Obviously the standard CYLHA applies, regardless.

@msh210 Yeah, that occurred to me too ;)

@msh210 "Someone messed up my schedule and made me miss an appointment. Can I sue them?"

:P

msh210

@HodofHod Right, but not only do I suspect it just happened to the asker (bad for offline reasons), it's also worded that way (bad for MY).

HodofHod

@msh210 I don't think it is that much. The only reason I'd think they were asking for advice is how specific the question is, not because it's written in a "what should I do" kind of way.

msh210

4:34 AM

@HodofHod I guess you're right. Current wording:

> If someone has an appointment, and arranges for a babysitter to come to watch his/her children while he/she goes to the appointment, and the babysitter doesn't show up, so the parent misses the appointment, and needs to book and pay for a new appointment; is the babysitter liable to pay for the missed appointment? Sources please.

@HodofHod I guess you're right. My issue really is not the wording but the specificity of the case. On the one hand, it's very specific; on the other, this very specific case is also very common (or may be).

HodofHod

While the babysitter part doesn't really need to be removed, I think it should be only an example for a more generalized question.

msh210

@HodofHod Slightly more general:

> If someone has an appointment, and arranges for a substitute to sit in for him/her while he/she goes to the appointment, and the substitute doesn't show up, so the regular misses the appointment, and needs to book and pay for a new appointment; is the substitute liable to pay for the missed appointment? Sources please.

@msh210 I changed the question. — user3949142 1 min ago

HodofHod

I know I may be wrong in this, but the whole question seems kind of silly to me (my facetious phrasing above may have given that away).

All I can think of are the crazy ways to apply this to other cases. "..it made me late to work and I missed a lucrative walk-in customer..." "A drunk driver caused a traffic jam and made me miss my flight...."

Ugh. I need to be sleeping :)

@msh210 Hm. I see. Is it a bit more confusing this way, though? I think the babysitter part should go back in, it's a relatable and non-complex example. I'm not sure how to properly generalize the question, though.

user3949142

4:57 AM

@msh210 The case never happened to me, I was actually just wondering.

Isaac Moses

11:59 AM

@msh210 If it's very common, and set in a hypothetical voice, I think we have a right to assume that it is indeed a request for information rather than pesak and to treat it as such. I think, @user3949142, that the original version of the question was better, since it made the question easier to understand.

... I think this is a good question and not simple to dismiss out of hand. Consider an equivalent (I think) situation with higher formality and stakes: "Gladwyne T. Belmont signed a contract with PQR Corp. to take over as CEO upon the expected retirement of the incumbent in November. November came, and Mr. Belmont didn't show up. PQR lost four contracts and 20% of its stock value. Is Mr. Belmont liable?"

... (Granted, in that case, the contract would likely specify explicitly what would happen if either party should default, but it's valuable to determine what halacha would say min hastam.)

Monica Cellio

2:18 PM

@msh210 @HodofHod @IsaacMoses @user3949142 I think it's a valid question for our site and I'm not concerned with the psak possibility. Damages and compensation for same are a significant halachic topic.

Further, while we want questions to be broadly-applicable, there's such a thing as too broad and high-level, too. I'd rather somebody ask about a concrete case where we can learn a general answer and any exception for that particular case, instead of just getting the general answer and somebody mis-applying it because he didn't know about the exceptions. (E.g., and just making this up: maybe there's something different where a child is involved.)

Daniel

5:39 PM

@sethj I just happened to stumble upon your blog (I assume it's your blog since it's about Judaism by someone named Seth J) and I was wondering if you ever got to the bottom of the whole triangle-k issue? I've been not eating triangle k for a long time without ever really knowing why

I have seenhttp://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/11694/is-there-a-problem-with-tri‌angle-k-if-so-what

Isaac Moses

2

Q: What questions should we use in a Chanuka publication?

Suppose we're going to make a Chanuka publication along the lines sketched out here, with one page (or leaf or section or whatever) per night of Chanuka, and each page containing: a Chanuka-related Q&A that's accessible to wide audiences and possibly also: a related Q&A (or possibly alterna...

^^^ I've come up with four entries so far, enough to fill half the publication, if they're all used. Anyone want to add some and/or improve the ones up there already?

2

YEZ

8:49 PM

this question has been bombarded by questions about it's on-topic-ness. Is there something I am missing? It asks what Judaism says about a specific thing. What is so suspect about it more than any other question about the nature of existence?

ping @IsaacMoses as my Rebbe in inyanei on-topicness

Monica Cellio

@SethJ I've been asked this question several times, when teaching or more casually, and it's always come from the "hey, if we're not supposed to eat blood..." angle. Hence my assumption here (including in my answer). — Monica Cellio ♦ 1 hour ago

@MonicaCellio Interesting. I've never heard the question before. I guess it's possible, but without any indication, it could be a case of broken telephone based on an (anyway) ill-founded comment someone heard or overheard. — Seth J 36 mins ago

(Just grabbing a couple comments from a too-chatty thread I'm cleaning up on the "is a rare steak kosher?" question.)

YEZ

@MonicaCellio I was just in the middle of reading this conversation

Monica Cellio

@YEZ oh, sorry. What I deleted was some back-and-forth between me and Seth that led to edits to both our answers, so now obsolete. Except I thought this difference in experiences was interesting, so I wanted to bring it in here.

I've gotten this question from people who have just read the pshat (parsha, or in a torah study, or whatever) and they make the leap to "wait, no blood? but rare steaks, huh?". Seth, on the other hand, has never encountered that. I'm curious whether anybody else has.

YEZ

@MonicaCellio I still have the window open, so they aren't deleted on my screen yet. I was just making a casual observation.

Monica Cellio

(In my case it's not broken telephone; I've seen people make this connection.)

YEZ

8:57 PM

@MonicaCellio While you're here, thoughts on my above comment? I am very confused why issue was taken with my animal self-awareness question.

Monica Cellio

@IsaacMoses I've made a small contribution to help keep this from being a one-man show. Thanks for all the work Isaac, and others please jump in! This'll be cool.

@YEZ reading now.

I don't think this is off-topic. An open-ended philosophical question about animals' awareness would be problematic, but that's not what this is asking. This asks whether Jewish tradition addresses it, and that seems like any other "sources" question to me. — Monica Cellio ♦ 12 secs ago

I'm confused too.

Daniel

9:18 PM

@msh210 @isaacmoses @DoubleAA @monica @yez do any of you pronounce chataf-patach differently from patach? Was it ever pronounced differently? What is/was the difference in pronunciation?

I thought of the question because in berachot it says to be careful not to lachtof the chet which I assume means say the vowel a bit shorter

YEZ

@Daniel I don't, but I'm sure I should. And I'm sure at some point it was.

Meta-Man

1

Q: Is a question that asks "What does Judaism think of x" possibly off-topic?

At the time of this posting, this question has 4 close votes. Several comments have leveled accusations of being off-topic as not about Jewish Life and Learning. However, the question asks "According to Jewish thought, do animals have the self-awareness to know that they exist?..." I am having...

discussion scope specific-question

Monica Cellio

@Daniel I've never been taught a distinction (and don't make one). But apparently somebody does.

Daniel

@MonicaCellio I think MoriDoweedhYaa3qob's comment there is the actual reason for that

Sorry I mean efraim's comment

YEZ

@Daniel His comment only explains ayyins. Not alephs. (And his comment obfuscates "cannot" with "do not")

Double AA

9:57 PM

@Daniel Depends how guttural the consonant is. On something like וזהב הארץ ההיא or כל השמע יצחק לי then it morphs more to a shva na' which is how some texts spell it in those places anyway.

Only Tiberian Niqqud has a distinction between any of the Chataf's and a regular Shva Na. Babylonian Niqqud just marks a Shva Na for all of them, even on gutturals

Daniel

10:45 PM

@DoubleAA by "morphs into a shva na'" do you mean "doesn't morph into a chataf patach?"

Double AA

11:12 PM

@Daniel I mean even though some/many texts write it as a chataf patach I'll read it very much like a shva na (perhaps exaggerated slightly to ensure it isn't a shva nach).

See for instance the paragraph beginning "Shva was" here

Tiberian vocalization

The Tiberian vocalization, Tiberian pointing, or Tiberian niqqud (Hebrew: ניקוד טַבְרָנִי) is a system of diacritics (niqqud) devised by the Masoretes of Tiberias to add to the consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible to produce the Masoretic Text. This system soon became used to vocalize other Hebrew texts as well. The Tiberian vocalization marks vowels, stress, and makes finer distinctions of consonant quality and length, and also serves as punctuation. While the Tiberian system was devised for Tiberian Hebrew, it has become the dominant system for vocalizing all forms of Hebrew, having long since...

You may also recall I once asked you this:

What's the difference between a Shva na and a chataf patach? — Double AA ♦ Feb 19 at 20:38

Daniel

11:42 PM

@DoubleAA Yes, I remember. And I still don't really understand the question

a chataf patach is a kind of shva

so is shva na

maybe chataf patach is even a kind of shva na

but i don't think they're the same thing

at best, one is included in the other

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