Parshat Balak - Non-Jewish Nevuah

A quick thought on the Parsha as Shabbat approaches...

Rashi (22:5) quotes from Chazal (I will paraphrase due to time constraints) - why did Hashem give the non-Jews (i.e. Bilam) nevuah? So that the nations of the world cannot claim that if they would have had the power of nevuah they would have done complete teshuva; here Hashem gave them nevuah and it actually made matter worse (since Bilam encouraged illicit relations amongst the people).


But isn't there a follow up claim that the non-Jews can make?? Granted "Bilam harasha" is not going to encourage any teshuva, but if they had a star like Yirmiyahu or Yechezkel hanavi, maybe they would have indeed lead lives of avodat Hashem!

Perhaps this itself was Hashem's answer to the world - real teshuva and self improvement is not dependent on a Navi or anyone other than yourself. Each and every individual need to work on himself and improve the areas of his life and his avoda that require this improvement.

This Shabbat is the yartzeit of our grangmother Rivka Rachel bat Mordechai Reinitz a"h. She was a woman of refined character who clearly understood this and worked on herself all of her life.

May this Shabbat grant her neshama an aliya in shamayim.

Shabbat Shalom

Juggling Priorities

A friend sent me the following thought from R' Shabtai Rappaport (for those of you who do not know who he his, you can read up on him here).

All of us face the challenge of balancing our time and our priorities in one way or another - learning, working, family, time for ourselves etc. etc. R' Shabtai's essay is a refreshing perspective on this issue and can be a great source of chizuk for those (like me) who (Thank G-d) face this challenge daily.

243:1 - Drilling for Oil on Shabbat #2 - My Letter to Machon Tzomet

In light of the issues we began discussing here I sent a letter to Machon Tzomet yesterday outlining my questions. I am posting a copy of the letter here:

They responded with a brief note telling me that the letter would be passed to Rav Rozen's desk for further review and follow-up.

Cool.

243:1 - Drilling for Oil on Shabbat

We've previously discussed some of the halachot pertaining to keeping a business running on Shabbat (See here). We mentioned that a central criterion for allowing/disallowing a business to run on Shabbat is the chance that people will get the wrong impression and suspect the Jewish business owner of wrong-doing (a.k.a. "mar'it ayin").

If the business is known to belong to Yossle and it is located in the heart of the Jewish community, it may not remain open on Shabbat no matter how many kosher arrangements are made previously with the non-Jewish workers or partners since we assume other members of the community will misunderstand when they see activity on Shabbat afternoon.

From my cursory review of these halachot it seems that the only ways to avoid running into this problem is to make sure your business is situated well outside the confines of the Jewish community or alternatively to make sure that no one knows it's a Jewish-owned business in the first place.

Theoretically though, there seems to be another solution. What if everyone knew that it was a Jewish business and it was situated in a Jewish area, but you had a way to make sure everyone knew that your business was being run in a permitted manner on Shabbat? It seems that if you could somehow avoid the possibility of such a misunderstanding through publicity and ensure that everyone in the community was on the same page then this concern would fall away.

This brings me to a real-world example I saw in the news today. Givot Olam is an Israeli gas and oil exploration firm. They are currently in the process of drilling for oil in the Megged 5 oil well near Rosh Ha'ayin in Israel.

An article in last week's news publicized the company's announcement that the drilling would continue on Shabbat - without violating a single melacha.

Together with Machon Tzomet, the company has come up with a way to automate the drilling process on Shabbat with the use of timers and other technologies, making human intervention for those 24 hours a week unnecessary.

While I am sure the experts at Machon Tzomet have their bases covered, I am still curious as to how they deal with the issue of mar'it ayin discussed by the poskim. Granted, no melachot are violated with the arrangement outlined in the article, but it would seem that there is still a big chance for mar'it ayin. After all, it is a Jewish-owned well that is operating in Israel on Shabbat...

My first thought was that this is the reason for including the media in the first place - maybe the publicity itself is their solution to the mar'it ayin. If everyone knows what's really going on, there is no chance for misunderstanding. In practice though, this does not seem like a fool-proof solution to the problem and it is likely that most of the country will not be aware of this.

Not quite sure I know what to make of it. Maybe I'll get in touch with Machon Tzomet to discuss this a little more at length. I'll also try to look into the halacha one more time to make sure I didn't miss anything...

Great Index for Torah on the Web

I stumbled across an amazing resource on the "Halacha Berura and Birur Halacha" website.

It is basically an extensive web-index with links to hundreds (maybe even thousands) of free sefarim and other Torah resources available online. The index lists 36 main categories ranging from "mefarshei Tanach" all the way to "siddurim" and biographical material on various personalities.

At first glance, it looks like most of the specific links take you to sefarim on hebrewbooks.org, but there is plenty of material from other places as well that might not be so accessible otherwise.

Also, the biggest downside to the Hebrewbooks site in my opinion is the challenge in finding a sefer when you are not 100% sure of the name of the book or the author. This index looks like a really great way to find things by category instead. Enjoy.

http://www.halachabrura.org/alephlink.htm

Chodesh Tov

My Encounter with R' Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz zt"l

After a long blog hiatus due to my travels, I want to take the opportunity to reflect briefly on R' Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz zt"l - the Rosh Yeshiva of Ponovezh who passed away yesterday.

I met R' Michel personally on 2 occasions - The first was a quick, private meeting in his home while seeking a Bracha on Chol Hamoed Sukkot. I was in Yeshivat Hakotel at the time and a friend visiting from chu"l asked me to go with him to B'nei Brak to "make the rounds" and visit the big Rabbanim who were available.

The second and last time I met with R' Michel was about 7 years ago when R' Ilson took the yeshiva on a shabbaton to B'nei Brak. On Friday, we visited several prominent Rabbanim in B'nei Brak and R' Michel's simple home was one of our stops.

He greeted us warmly and invited us to come in and sit with him in his study. He was very excited when he was told that we were students from chutz la'aretz and told us he was reminded of a Gemara at the end of Brachot (63b):

 תנו רבנן: כשנכנסו רבותינו לכרם ביבנה היו שם רבי יהודה ורבי יוסי ורבי נחמיה ורבי אליעזר בנו של רבי יוסי הגלילי, פתחו כולם בכבוד אכסניא ודרשו. פתח רבי יהודה ראש המדברים בכל מקום בכבוד תורה ודרש: ומשה יקח את האהל ונטה לו מחוץ למחנה, והלא דברים קל וחומר, ומה ארון ה' שלא היה מרוחק אלא שנים עשר מיל אמרה תורה: והיה כל מבקש ה' יצא אל אהל מועד, תלמידי חכמים שהולכים מעיר לעיר וממדינה למדינה ללמוד תורה - על אחת כמה וכמה

One who leaves his home to study Torah is a "Mevakesh Hashem" - one who is actively seeking Hashem. Coming to Israel to learn Torah is not only a privilege and a responsibility, but also a badge of honor that the talmid should be proud of.

I am not well-versed in R' Michel's writings, but I believe this brief encounter characterizes the thousands of opportunities taken by the Rosh Yeshiva to positively encourage talmidim during his lifetime

243:1 - Can My Website Work For Me on Shabbat?

Siman 243 discusses if/how a non-Jew can work a Jew's property or business on Shabbat. The issue boils down to 3 main factors:

1. Is the non-Jew working on Shabbat because the Jewish owner encouraged him to do so? 
2. Is the Jewish owner profiting directly from the work being done on Shabbat? 
3. Will others in the community suspect that the work is actually being done by the Jew or by the non Jew at the Jew's request?

If the answer to any of the above is yes - then you should be closing up shop for Shabbat, but depending on the specifics, there is room to be lenient.

An interesting application of this halacha that I came across is with regards to a Jewish-owned website that is open for e-commerce on Shabbat. Is this allowed? Should the Jew close down the website on Shabbat because of any of the aforementioned concerns?

I think that although the actual transaction is automatic, there is no real way to assure the e-customers that no one is actively processing the transaction on the other side. So if it is clear that the site is owned by a Jew, it is probably best to close the site for Shabbat or at least make it clear that nothing is actively happening for those 24 hours. This article on "The Internet and Halacha (in Hebrew) suggests offering the option to retract any transaction made on Saturday until after Shabbat to drive this point home to the customer. 

Also keep in mind that there might be other issues related to operating a web-business that is open on Shabbat... I am still looking into it myself and maybe we'll elaborate more another time. But still interesting to note that this seemingly irrelevant set of halachot has some very modern applications (even on a national scale)...