Ask The Rabbi
20 June 1998
Issue #197 
Parshas Shlach
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This publication is available in HTML format at
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Researched at Ohr Somayach, Jerusalem
This Issue Contains:
1. Kosherer Than Thou               4. Chapters of the Fathers 
2  Pyramids 		            5. Yiddle Riddle
3. Carrying Out in a Holiday Inn 	6. Public Domain
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_______Kosherer Than Thou_________

Avi <Email.Address@Withhheld> wrote:

Dear Rabbi,

Our youngest son was born with a disease known as "celiac" which imposes 
upon him a life-long diet restriction. He cannot ingest any form of wheat 
or other grains which contain gluten.  If he does so, it will cause him to 
become very ill.  We, as a family, have learned to adjust to this 
"inconvenience" and even when we eat out, we manage to find kosher gluten-
free foods that our son can eat.

But the other day, we ran into a problem, when we decided to go out for 
pizza at a kosher pizza restaurant which we had not tried before.  Since we 
had done this many times before at other pizza places, we knew the drill.  
My wife prepared a special pizza dough made from gluten-free flour.  She 
laid it in a round aluminum "chalavi" (dairy) pan (we keep kashrut).

In the past, we would simply request from workers at the pizza place which 
we were visiting to add the sauce and cheese and toppings to our pre-
prepared pan with the dough, and cook it in their ovens, as normal.  The 
pizza always turned out great, and our son could enjoy his own pizza, along 
with us (we always order a "normal" mishpachti-size (family) pizza for the 
rest of us).

But at this particular pizza restaurant, the night-shift manager refused to 
make the pizza for our son, because he cited "perhaps your pan is not 
kosher.  I cannot take this chance."  Now, I must tell you Rabbi, I wear a 
kippa (yarmulke) and was doing so at the restaurant.  Yet no amount of 
arguments would have convinced this manager that our pan was kosher enough 
for his ovens.  Was his "ruling" correct?  I dread to think that this is 
how far we are taking our kashrut laws, to the point that a person cannot 
eat in a commercial place, because of his illness, because that is the 
upshot of this whole story.  Granted, it is not every day that we take our 
own cooking pans to a restaurant, but then again, what's wrong with finding 
creative solutions?  Was our creative solution unkosher?
*****************

Dear Avi,

	Firstly, I wish your son a complete recovery.  Your solution was very 
creative and I applaud your "let's-find-a-solution" attitude.

	In this particular instance, however, I think the pizza shop manager 
did the correct thing by refusing.  The night manager is not necessarily a 
kashrut expert.  And even if he were, the people who eat at the restaurant 
are relying not upon him but rather upon the kashrut supervisor who is sent 
by the kashrut agency.  Therefore, the night manager should not introduce 
any changes in the food-making process without the express permission of 
the kashrut supervising agency.  It's not so much a matter of kashrut as it 
is a matter of policy.  

	Perhaps if you contact the kashrut supervision agency and make an 
arrangement with them they will allow you to "bring your own."


_______Pyramids_______

Yosef Dovid Rosenberg <Geegooo@aol.com> wrote:

Dear Rabbi,

Did the Jews build the Great Pyramids of Egypt?

*********************

Dear Yosef Dovid Rosenberg,

	According to the verse in the Torah the Jews built storage cities, 
Pithom and Rameses.  Pithom is probably ancient Tanis, and Rameses has been 
identified as either Pelusium or Quantir.  None of these places had 
pyramids, and pyramids were certainly not used for storage.  They were 
tombs of the Pharaohs.

Sources:

  Exodus 1:11

_______Carrying Out in a Holiday Inn________

Tev Djmal from Sao Paulo, Brazil <djmal@ibm.net> wrote:

Dear Rabbi,

If I'm staying at a hotel during Shabbat, can I carry anything outside the 
room, or would this be a desecration of Shabbat? For example, can I leave 
my room and carry the key with me?

Name@Withheld from Hebrew University, Jerusalem wrote:

Dear Rabbi,

In a hotel on Shabbat, what is considered "public" and "private" domain?  
Is the entire hotel considered "private" domain?  Is it permissible to 
carry objects to and from one's hotel room?

***************

Dear Tev Djmal and Name@Withheld,

	I asked this question to Rabbi Zalman Nechemia Goldberg, shlita, who 
ruled that it is permissible to carry items inside a hotel.  Since you do 
not own the room and the management reserves the right to enter your room 
to clean, plus the fact that the furnishings belong to the hotel, the hotel 
is considered one private domain.

Sources:

  See Shulchan Aruch 382:18

_______Chapters of the Fathers_________

Michael Poppers from Elizabeth, NJ <MPoppers@KayeScholer.com> wrote:

Dear Rabbi,

Pirkei Avot is commonly translated "Chapters of the Fathers."  When the 
tractate known as Avot (indeed, when all the tractates) was redacted, was 
it then divided into such chapters, or were the chapters -- like those of 
the Pentateuch -- divisions made sometime afterwards?

*************

Dear Michael Poppers,

	The chapters of the Mishna are original divisions by Rabbi Yehuda 
Hanasi, who compiled the Mishna (170 CE).  The tractate called Avot meaning 
Fathers became known as "Chapters of the Fathers" because of the custom to 
read one chapter each week between Passover and Shavuot.

	The chapter divisions in printed texts of the Pentateuch are of 
relatively recent origin, created by Christian monks in the 13th century.  
In the Torah scroll there are different divisions (called parshiot petuchot 
and setumot) signified by spaces between blocks of text.  These divisions 
are the original divisions revealed to Moshe through prophecy.  There is 
another ancient Jewish tradition called sedarim by which the Pentateuch is 
divided into 154 portions.  This was customary when the public Torah 
reading took three years to complete reading the entire Torah.  Today the 
public Torah reading is divided into 53 weekly portions and the Torah is 
completed once a year.


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Yiddle Riddle

This morning in shul, I noticed that during chazarat hashatz (cantor's 
repetition of the silent prayer) I responded "amen" 26 times.  However, my 
one friend responded "amen" only 22 times, and my other friend only three 
times!  Can you explain why?  (By the way, we all had finished our silent 
prayer completely, we all paid attention during the entire repetition, and 
we all responded properly.)

Riddle submitted by Rabbi Avraham Connack, Jerusalem


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The Public Domain

Comments, quibbles, and reactions 
concerning previous "Ask-the-Rabbi" features.

Re: Intermarriage (Ohrnet Emor):

	This is a response to those who wrote in about intermarriage.  I am 
intermarried.  When I initially got married I didn't think anything about 
my religion.  I felt that as long as you were happy it was O.K.  I didn't 
even know that intermarriage was prohibited.  As the years went on and we 
had children some things changed.  It is hard to explain, but there were 
different events that changed my life.  Well, anyway, so it goes I became 
very religious.  To reiterate, I didn't come from a religious background, I 
didn't have a Jewish education, but there were events that changed my life.

	Anyway, I became kosher, I observe Sabbath (by myself all the time), 
I worry about Israel (by myself all the time).  My daughter became very 
religious and is now going to a religious girls' high school.  My son is 
not as religious but wants to go to a Hebrew High.  I feel fortunate in 
this respect, but I am very alone in my thoughts, in my dreams; it is a 
lonely lifestyle.  I also realize that it is harder for Jewish men because 
the children are not considered Jews.  Some of the intermarried couples 
that I know have non-Jewish partners that have an anti-Semitism that comes 
out from time to time.  It comes out in the form of remarks or innuendoes 
that are hurtful.  Many Jews don't realize the generations that are lost 
though intermarriage.  We need to promote Jewish education, real Jewish 
education.  Too many souls have been lost in the Diaspora.  Too many Jews 
don't appreciate one another.  Too many of us look after the wrong values.  
We don't know what Torah has to offer, we don't know the jewel we have lost 
until it is too late.  I am still married, and struggling with conflicts 
every day.  It is hard to break up a marriage with children involved.  I 
hope any readers considering intermarriage will use more head then heart, 
show some restraint and hold a moratorium for a while.

			Name&email@Withheld

*****************

Re: Intermarriage (Ohrnet Emor):

	In a recent column you wrote:  "By marrying a non-Jew one thereby 
ends over 3,000 years of Jewish continuity, effectively cutting oneself and 
one's offspring off from what it means to be Jewish."  Isn't this statement 
at best misleading?  Without in any way condoning intermarriage, about half 
the offspring of intermarriages are halachically Jewish.  When a Jewish 
woman intermarries, the chances of the children assimilating are clearly 
far greater than that in the average Jewish family (which are already very 
high).  Yet why should we write off any Jew?  I know from personal 
experience of years working with students at NameWithheld University of 
numerous cases of children of Jewish mothers and non-Jewish fathers who 
have discovered their roots and returned to a life of observance.  Why was 
no mention made in your column of the fact that a child born to a Jewish 
mother is halachically Jewish? 

Name&email@Withheld

Ohrnet responds:  

True, a child born to a Jewish mother is Jewish.  Our point was that 
intermarriage, for a man or woman, generally means the end of the Jewish 
tradition in that family.  The child of such a marriage, even when 
halachically Jewish, usually ends up assimilated.  We too at Ohr Somayach 
have first-hand knowledge that there are exceptions.

******************************

Re:  Naming After Living Relatives (Ohrnet Bamidbar):

	In a recent "Ask the Rabbi" Ohr Somayach wrote: "It is the custom of 
Jews of European descent not to name children after living relatives."  Are 
we now excluding Spain, Portugal, and the Balkans from Europe?  The Jewish 
communities of these areas are Sefardim, and they, like the Sefardim of 
North Africa and the Middle East, do name for living relatives, as do the 
Jews of Italy (who do not consider themselves Sefardim because the Italian 
Jewish community, the oldest in Europe, long predates the Jewish 
communities of Spain and Portugal.)  Rather, should one not say that it is 
the custom of Jews of Northern and Eastern European descent not to name 
children after living relatives?  B'shalom uv'hesed,

Rabbi Zev-Hayyim Feyer <Rebbezev@aol.com>



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