This blog is a forum for the posting of insights on the daf yomi (daily daf). Postings will be brief and to the point. Comments are welcome.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Neshama Yeseira discussion
I saw that the discussion we had regarding Neshama Yeseira (i.e. women) was deleted, and I thought it was chaval to lose such an interesting discussion, so here it is in the comments.
regarding rashi describing neshama yesiera as physical, i also find that interesting. however, see shita mikubetzes who explains that it is more of a spiritual insight granted to a person on shabbo.
regarding women, what do you mean that they are more involved in a physical lifestyle. do you mean changing diapers and cooking? is that what g-d trusts them to elevate?
Avi Lebowitz
also, regarding why women don't have a bris - i have other thoughts about it - there was recently in the u.s. a man from ethiopia sentenced to a serious jail term for something like that.
Yossie Schonkopf
this is a very long topic, but in short yes. cooking cganging diapers etc must be the woman's main tafkid so ask yourself what is spiritual about it? for example, rav avigdor miller goes at great lengths to show how taking care of a house is like taking care of the bais hamikdash. a bris is what comletes a man so ask your self (funny rabbi) how do we complete a woman? a woman is also enthrusted with physical beuty that she is suppose too guard etc. it is this weeks parsha that avrohom was tafel to sara in prophecy - which is the ability to connect to The Source.
Zvi Katz
About this topic "meaning that they are born with more soul - more complete.." . the maharl in derech chaim on 1,5 says that a eish is yoter bemalah min haesha. and he says a similar idea by marbeh esha marbeh ceshafim.
Avi Lebowitz
r' yossi, Of course there are many rabbis who have taken your approach to understanding the role of the jewish woman. But, i personally beleive that most of it is apologetics. when the gemara is sota 21a asks which zechus woman have to protect against the sota waters, it answers the zechus of the learning of their husbands and children. why not the zechus of changing diapers and cooking! clearly, the changing diapers and cooking are not a tafkid by themselves, they are only valuable if they are done to compliment the torah study of their husbands and sons. that is my hashkafa in a nutshell!
Aryeh Lebowitz
Avi - I hope Fia shares that hashkafa... In regard to women being more physically oriented, this is a theme that the Maharal talks about ALOT. It doesn't only have to do with household chores. It has to do with a greater appreciation of the physical (paint colors, centerpieces at weddings, etc.) Women are by nature more gashmi. I can provide sources for the idea if you would like.
Yossie Schonkopf
my masters and teachers, you will find statements in chazal that say the women is the satan (i actually saw this in a persuh in chumas) and gashmi ect.and we pray shlo asani isha etc. on the other hand we must remember that man was created man/female and the objetive of marriage is to reunite the original oness of male/female. by the way this is the objective of the whole world and we can't forget that hashem has a male and female manefistation as in the shchina and you litvaks may not know but the chasidim say lshem yichud in every mitzva which on a simple level is that we are saying that this mitzvah should reunite hashems name with its female manefistation. yes, the female job is to house the man and bring his potential out - that is what meant by the gemara. bottom line, this subject is at the core of creation. just ask yourself what is the one thing that turns the world around... this man/female is all the world can think of and there is a reason g-d made it this way. it is beond this blog, but i hope i impressed upon you that there is much to this subject that needs understanding.
Avi Lebowitz
Morai V'rabosai, i am not sure why this is such a big issue. aryeh, yes, my wife agrees with me, and i am surprised to find that there are those who disagree. i am well aware of woman being drawn more towards aesthetic beauty than man (even without the maharal). but that does not mean that it has any importance or significance. r' yossi, i have seen the l'sheim yichud printed in the siddur. it is actually one of the things i skip every morning before i put on my tefillin. regarding the uniting of man and woman, i have also darshened similarly when i had to speak at sheva brachos and of course i agree that men and women compliment each other. however, when we discuss the "purpose of man and woman" and determine which acts are deemed "important", i think we can all agree that the purpose of creation is to spread monotheism and more importantly provide an opportunity for klal yisroel to excel in torah and mitzvos. therefore: man's job = do mitzvos and study torah. woman's job = do mitzvos and assist in torah study. just as there is no inherent value in man watching football, there is no inherent value in a woman cooking for a man who watches football. ultimately everything boils down to torah and mitzvos. can anyone disagree with that?
Zvi Katz
Yossi take a look at a sefer called yesod haberiah on maseh bereshis i think you will like it. it was printed last year. he talks about this issue. but i agree with avi i think chazzal bear him out
Yossie Schonkopf
yes and no. yes it all boils down to torah and mitzvos and yes there is absoulutely an absolute value to cooking etc. it is said on chanoch that he was doing spiritual goodness with every stich while making shoee, i herd from rabbi tatz, the wrong interpatation is that he was thinking in some kabalistic names while maeking shoes, the right interpertation (assuming he has a source) is that he made shoes well... remember the rambam says that there is no real value for torah and mitzvos as well, they are just ways hashem has us doing what he wants and for us to gain reward.... the ramban in his hakdama says that there are 2 ways to understand the truth. avrohom looked at the world and understood all of the torah- he did not have a sinai like revelation to know the laws, but he understood them from looking into this wrold correctly. Shlomo Hamelech on the other hand knew all there is to know of the physucal world by his deep understanding of the torah. the reason for all this is because the world is nothing other then the words of the torah in a diferent form. this is why a word and a thing are both called davar in hebrew. there is an exact paralel between the spiritual root of torah and the physical world. that is why the 248 mitzvos correspond to the limbs etc. and that is why the mishkan corresponds to the world and we sieze from doing work on shabbos that hashem did to crate the world and that we did to build the mishkan. therefor, we do not really have an understanding of this world, but the study of kabalah deals almost always with the physu=ical world. remember that starnge gemara in sucah comparing an esrog to a lung? the achronim already discuss that it is strange, to me although i know nothing about this, it seems obvious that the gemara is telling us the paralel for an esrog. this is the depth behind He looked into the Torah and created the world. this is the whole idea of the miskan, and deeply since there is nothing in the world that is not hashem every tree has some g-dliness in it. we are going to places that is not befitting for a blog.
Yossie Schonkopf
if the olam wants, i will try and put all this inot some order if what i heard from people that know, i realize that it is a very sensitive and wide subject and really is hard to cover in this format. truth is most of this is in rabbi tatz books and his tapes. see: simpletoremember.com his marriage tapes discuss male/female free download. again, if there is a want, and i will have the time i will try and pen this out in a more organized manner, but i think amongst this group it is probably not necessary thanks Reb Zev for the book note.
Avi Lebowitz
r' yossi, r' tatz is in palo alto now, and will be speaking in an hour. actually, i am supposed to introduce him and don't know much about him - thanks for the shoemaker tip! in all seriousness, this is not really my area of expertise. i am perfectly content into fooling myself into believing that torah and mitzvos are our sole purpose in this world and i am actually very comfortable with that (although i would probably have a much more "physical" lifestyle if i could be convinced otherwise).
אכן מצינו הרבה בחז"ל לשונות של קללה באשה. עיין ב"ר על הפסוק ויסגור בשר תחתינה שזהו המקום הראשון שיש ס' בתורה ומכאן שהאשה היא השטן )ויש עוד ס' בנהרות( וכן נקיבה מלשון נוקב שם וכו שהוא לשון קללה. ובמ"ר הכא עיין במתנות כהונה שמפרש על גדלות האשה וכן עיין ברמב"ן שמאריך במידת "כל" ע"פ סוד ־ ועיין זהו שרש של "כלה" וכנסת ישראל.
והם הם הדברים ובקיצור שודאי שהאשה גשמית ובהשתלשלות העולמות ממציאותו יתברך ועד עול הגשם היא יותר עכורה וגשמית מהאיש. והאיש הנותן והיא המקבלת כעין שאנו מקבלים מה', אך דע נא דעיקר הבריאה ניתן לגשמי ומעלת האדם גדולה מהמלאכים. ולכן כמו כל דבר שעומד ברומו של הבריאה כעין ידיעה ובחירה וכדו' יש פה סתירה מיניה וביה דליותר גשמי הוא יותר רוחני. אך עכ"ז מצוה על האדם לא להכניס עצמו לנסיונות וגשמיות אף שזהו עיקר העילוי וזה היה חטאו של דוד המלך של בחנני נא ונסני כמבואר בסהדרין וא"א להאריך כאן ועיין
The kitzur nezer hakodesh is in the back of the regular midrashim. he has a more bearichus nezer hakodosh 3 volumes on sefer bereshis.it is a old sefer.
reb zvi and reb avi, just to make my self clear on one point, i agree that a woman should supprot her husbands torah and that is the greatest way for her to elevate the physical world; i am just saying that a woman who does that shows that she in tune with this idea and such a woman can have all her actions done that way. just as we make a bracha when we ate and this accomplishes that we are elevating the food so does she when she has in mind for her husbands torah and in addition she can think how she is emulating Hashem etc. just as we can also eat and think that we are eating to have strength to learn or we can think how beutiful the world of hashem is etc. my only point is that it takes a hgher level to think about hashem while you eat then it is to think of him while you daven... the reason we dont wat to be women is because it is easy to loose one self into the gashmi (jus look around...) on the other hand the women that ar successful can reach higher levels (there is a chazal that the reword for women is greater then men's)
7 comments:
Avi Lebowitz
regarding rashi describing neshama yesiera as physical, i also find that interesting. however, see shita mikubetzes who explains that it is more of a spiritual insight granted to a person on shabbo.
regarding women, what do you mean that they are more involved in a physical lifestyle. do you mean changing diapers and cooking? is that what g-d trusts them to elevate?
Avi Lebowitz
also, regarding why women don't have a bris - i have other thoughts about it - there was recently in the u.s. a man from ethiopia sentenced to a serious jail term for something like that.
Yossie Schonkopf
this is a very long topic, but in short yes. cooking cganging diapers etc must be the woman's main tafkid so ask yourself what is spiritual about it? for example, rav avigdor miller goes at great lengths to show how taking care of a house is like taking care of the bais hamikdash.
a bris is what comletes a man so ask your self (funny rabbi) how do we complete a woman?
a woman is also enthrusted with physical beuty that she is suppose too guard etc.
it is this weeks parsha that avrohom was tafel to sara in prophecy - which is the ability to connect to The Source.
Zvi Katz
About this topic "meaning that they are born with more soul - more complete.." . the maharl in derech chaim on 1,5 says that a eish is yoter bemalah min haesha. and he says a similar idea by marbeh esha marbeh ceshafim.
Avi Lebowitz
r' yossi,
Of course there are many rabbis who have taken your approach to understanding the role of the jewish woman. But, i personally beleive that most of it is apologetics. when the gemara is sota 21a asks which zechus woman have to protect against the sota waters, it answers the zechus of the learning of their husbands and children. why not the zechus of changing diapers and cooking! clearly, the changing diapers and cooking are not a tafkid by themselves, they are only valuable if they are done to compliment the torah study of their husbands and sons. that is my hashkafa in a nutshell!
Aryeh Lebowitz
Avi - I hope Fia shares that hashkafa...
In regard to women being more physically oriented, this is a theme that the Maharal talks about ALOT. It doesn't only have to do with household chores. It has to do with a greater appreciation of the physical (paint colors, centerpieces at weddings, etc.) Women are by nature more gashmi.
I can provide sources for the idea if you would like.
Yossie Schonkopf
my masters and teachers,
you will find statements in chazal that say the women is the satan (i actually saw this in a persuh in chumas) and gashmi ect.and we pray shlo asani isha etc.
on the other hand we must remember that man was created man/female and the objetive of marriage is to reunite the original oness of male/female. by the way this is the objective of the whole world and we can't forget that hashem has a male and female manefistation as in the shchina and you litvaks may not know but the chasidim say lshem yichud in every mitzva which on a simple level is that we are saying that this mitzvah should reunite hashems name with its female manefistation.
yes, the female job is to house the man and bring his potential out - that is what meant by the gemara.
bottom line, this subject is at the core of creation. just ask yourself what is the one thing that turns the world around... this man/female is all the world can think of and there is a reason g-d made it this way.
it is beond this blog, but i hope i impressed upon you that there is much to this subject that needs understanding.
Avi Lebowitz
Morai V'rabosai,
i am not sure why this is such a big issue.
aryeh, yes, my wife agrees with me, and i am surprised to find that there are those who disagree. i am well aware of woman being drawn more towards aesthetic beauty than man (even without the maharal). but that does not mean that it has any importance or significance.
r' yossi, i have seen the l'sheim yichud printed in the siddur. it is actually one of the things i skip every morning before i put on my tefillin.
regarding the uniting of man and woman, i have also darshened similarly when i had to speak at sheva brachos and of course i agree that men and women compliment each other.
however, when we discuss the "purpose of man and woman" and determine which acts are deemed "important", i think we can all agree that the purpose of creation is to spread monotheism and more importantly provide an opportunity for klal yisroel to excel in torah and mitzvos.
therefore:
man's job = do mitzvos and study torah.
woman's job = do mitzvos and assist in torah study.
just as there is no inherent value in man watching football, there is no inherent value in a woman cooking for a man who watches football. ultimately everything boils down to torah and mitzvos.
can anyone disagree with that?
Zvi Katz
Yossi take a look at a sefer called yesod haberiah on maseh bereshis i think you will like it. it was printed last year. he talks about this issue. but i agree with avi i think chazzal bear him out
Yossie Schonkopf
yes and no.
yes it all boils down to torah and mitzvos and yes there is absoulutely an absolute value to cooking etc. it is said on chanoch that he was doing spiritual goodness with every stich while making shoee, i herd from rabbi tatz, the wrong interpatation is that he was thinking in some kabalistic names while maeking shoes, the right interpertation (assuming he has a source) is that he made shoes well...
remember the rambam says that there is no real value for torah and mitzvos as well, they are just ways hashem has us doing what he wants and for us to gain reward....
the ramban in his hakdama says that there are 2 ways to understand the truth. avrohom looked at the world and understood all of the torah- he did not have a sinai like revelation to know the laws, but he understood them from looking into this wrold correctly. Shlomo Hamelech on the other hand knew all there is to know of the physucal world by his deep understanding of the torah.
the reason for all this is because the world is nothing other then the words of the torah in a diferent form. this is why a word and a thing are both called davar in hebrew. there is an exact paralel between the spiritual root of torah and the physical world. that is why the 248 mitzvos correspond to the limbs etc. and that is why the mishkan corresponds to the world and we sieze from doing work on shabbos that hashem did to crate the world and that we did to build the mishkan.
therefor, we do not really have an understanding of this world, but the study of kabalah deals almost always with the physu=ical world. remember that starnge gemara in sucah comparing an esrog to a lung? the achronim already discuss that it is strange, to me although i know nothing about this, it seems obvious that the gemara is telling us the paralel for an esrog. this is the depth behind He looked into the Torah and created the world. this is the whole idea of the miskan, and deeply since there is nothing in the world that is not hashem every tree has some g-dliness in it. we are going to places that is not befitting for a blog.
Yossie Schonkopf
if the olam wants, i will try and put all this inot some order if what i heard from people that know, i realize that it is a very sensitive and wide subject and really is hard to cover in this format. truth is most of this is in rabbi tatz books and his tapes. see: simpletoremember.com his marriage tapes discuss male/female free download. again, if there is a want, and i will have the time i will try and pen this out in a more organized manner, but i think amongst this group it is probably not necessary
thanks Reb Zev for the book note.
Avi Lebowitz
r' yossi,
r' tatz is in palo alto now, and will be speaking in an hour. actually, i am supposed to introduce him and don't know much about him - thanks for the shoemaker tip!
in all seriousness, this is not really my area of expertise. i am perfectly content into fooling myself into believing that torah and mitzvos are our sole purpose in this world and i am actually very comfortable with that (although i would probably have a much more "physical" lifestyle if i could be convinced otherwise).
Take a look at medrash on this weeks parsha on pasuk vahashem berach es avraham bakol. and the nezer hakodesh on the medrash.
what is the nezer hakodesh?
ר' זאב
אכן מצינו הרבה בחז"ל לשונות של קללה באשה. עיין ב"ר על הפסוק ויסגור בשר תחתינה שזהו המקום הראשון שיש ס' בתורה ומכאן שהאשה היא השטן )ויש עוד ס' בנהרות( וכן נקיבה מלשון נוקב שם וכו שהוא לשון קללה. ובמ"ר הכא עיין במתנות כהונה שמפרש על גדלות האשה וכן עיין ברמב"ן שמאריך במידת "כל" ע"פ סוד ־ ועיין זהו שרש של "כלה" וכנסת ישראל.
והם הם הדברים ובקיצור שודאי שהאשה גשמית ובהשתלשלות העולמות ממציאותו יתברך ועד עול הגשם היא יותר עכורה וגשמית מהאיש. והאיש הנותן והיא המקבלת כעין שאנו מקבלים מה', אך דע נא דעיקר הבריאה ניתן לגשמי ומעלת האדם גדולה מהמלאכים. ולכן כמו כל דבר שעומד ברומו של הבריאה כעין ידיעה ובחירה וכדו' יש פה סתירה מיניה וביה דליותר גשמי הוא יותר רוחני. אך עכ"ז מצוה על האדם לא להכניס עצמו לנסיונות וגשמיות אף שזהו עיקר העילוי וזה היה חטאו של דוד המלך של בחנני נא ונסני כמבואר בסהדרין וא"א להאריך כאן ועיין
i meant reb zvi!
The kitzur nezer hakodesh is in the back of the regular midrashim. he has a more bearichus nezer hakodosh 3 volumes on sefer bereshis.it is a old sefer.
reb zvi and reb avi,
just to make my self clear on one point, i agree that a woman should supprot her husbands torah and that is the greatest way for her to elevate the physical world; i am just saying that a woman who does that shows that she in tune with this idea and such a woman can have all her actions done that way. just as we make a bracha when we ate and this accomplishes that we are elevating the food so does she when she has in mind for her husbands torah and in addition she can think how she is emulating Hashem etc. just as we can also eat and think that we are eating to have strength to learn or we can think how beutiful the world of hashem is etc.
my only point is that it takes a hgher level to think about hashem while you eat then it is to think of him while you daven...
the reason we dont wat to be women is because it is easy to loose one self into the gashmi (jus look around...) on the other hand the women that ar successful can reach higher levels (there is a chazal that the reword for women is greater then men's)
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