Ask about Judaism

[agricola]

Maybe there are yeshivish dictionaries??

Anyway - the question says (mostly):
If a yungerman moves to Eretz Yisrael with the kavana of moving back to chutz la'aretz after yuntif (which means he's mechuyav to keep two days yuntif even in Eretz Yisrael,)
if a young man goes to Israel with the intention of returning to his regular dwelling outside Israel after the holiday (unspecified which), and therefore (since he isn't actually MOVING to Israel) he's 'mechuyav' (obliged (sort of)) to keep two days of the holiday even though he is in Israel (where it is customary only to keep one day of the holiday)...

and then on yom sheni shel chag he's machlit to stay in Eretz Yisrael, is he mechuyav to be mesayem the yoim sheni or can he start being noiheg one day yuntif like a ben chutz la'aretz teikef umiyad?
and then on the second day of the holiday he is forced/required to stay in Israel (even though he didn't intend to), is he (now) required to ignore the second day observance or not - that is, does he observe the second day of the holiday (as if he were back home) or can he start observing just one day like the Israelis do? (or not)

I think. That's close, anyway. Add a typical sort of sing songy cadence, and this hardly sounds like English at all.

There are, of course, varying opinions on what our hypothetical young man should do.

[agricola]

Here's another example - from 'yeshivaworld' where somebody (the poster) is answering a previous question about psak (rules) and chumrah (extra or stronger observance): my comments in blue -

Reading the Ywn Coffee room the last few days I see there is much confusion in what the definition of a kula and a chumra is. So I will try to explain the way I understand it.
Firstly, I think one must know there is really six dinim. 1. The Psak Halachah (me'ikar hadin) 2. Chumra 3. Kula 4. Radical Chumros ( Hanhagah) 5. Minhag 6. Am aratzus ( against halachah.
dinim means laws. The poster is saying there are six kinds or levels of laws.
Now let us try to explain each one.
1. THE PSAK HALACHAH/ Me'ikar Hadin. This category is the Halachah anyone in a normal circumstance is required to do. These halachos are the basic law. It can usually be found in the mishnah berurah or another sefer of the sort. This category also includes the teshuva you get when you ask your rav a sheilah. It is normally simple what comes under this area, but many times people overlook a lot of it. When we have a machlokes haposkim the ikar din is the psak halachah that your Local Orthodox Rabbi tells you you must do. This is the main level.
psak is a decision (about the law). halachah is Jewish law (it means 'the way' - ref when Jesus said 'I am the way'). a posek (plural, poskim) are 'deciders' - people who are widely considered to be reliable in deciding what the halachah actually is.

2. Then there is the basic CHUMRAH. A Chumrah is basically more than what you are required to do by the psak din. A simple example of a chumra is Since there is a machlokes haposkim what berachah you make on a granola bar, you try to avoid eating it. But you already asked your rav what berachah you make, but to refrain from machlokes you will only eat it in middle of the se'udah. Another basic eample is that by zmanim, pashtus we hold the halchah is like the geonim (first shekiah) but many will not do melachah on motzey shabbos until it is past the time of rabbeinu tam. It is more than what is required from you.
He did pretty well with this one. Chumrah is being super special strict. Like there's being kosher, and being GLATT kosher. Kosher is kosher, but there are some people who only will eat GLATT kosher which is 'extra smooth' kosher (and feel superior about it usually). A berachah is a blessing.

3. Now there is something called a KULA. It means less or below the required law. A kula should only be used bshas hadchak or bdi eved when no other option is available. Most times a kula will be , relying on rabbonim or achronim who the halchah is not clearly like in regular circumstances. An example can be eating before tekias shofar. Most Poskim will hold that it is better not to, but if you do, you have whom to rely on. Also when there is a choleh shein bo sakana on shabbos, the halachah is that you are allowed to rely on many kulos.
A kula is the opposite of a chumrah. Mostly 'it is better not to' but some poskim have given leniencies, so if you are going to do 'less', you will at least have an authority to rely on about it. But you shouldn't rely on the leniencies completely - only in special circumstances.

4. Now there is something else which al pi halachah there is no real place for. Let's call it Hanhaga. Many times you will find people being much more makpid than required. But no poskim hold that this is the real halacha. They do this more because they are choshesh/nervous to do every prat right. An example is hearing extra tekious or listening to parshas zachor many times. Another example is not to use an eruv. These are more radical, and some find it necessary to make fun of those that are makpid. But really it makes no sense to make fun of someone trying extra hard to keep the torah. The problem arises when the makpidim think that anyone who does not do as they do are reahaim.
Here he's talking about people who are so afraid they aren't doing it right that they go over and above what they need to do. Like they know they are supposed to do X, so they do it twice (OCDish much?). Not exactly chumrah because they aren't really being super strict, just super CAREFUL. Notice the 'problem' comes up when people who are being so super careful think that people who aren't being as careful as they are, are doing it wrong. (shades of instrumental music, right?)

5. A minhag is what you do because your father did or does it. It may or may not have a source in halachah but you are required to continue doing so anyway ( unless instructed other wise by a rav) A famous example is gebrokts on pesach. (Gebrokts is eating matzo that has been moistened, which most everybody does - except a few groups who won't do it until the last day. Dry matzo is awful. Don't take on the minhag of no gebrokts on Pesach (Passover) unless you have to - that is, you do it because it is your family custom - unless you get lucky and find a nice rav (rabbi) who will grant you a dispensation (different terminology but the same kind of thing). Be careful which rav you ask. Most of them won't give you the kula to drop that chumra you inherited through your father's family minhag....got it?)

6. This level was called the Kula creep. I call it am aratzus. Basically it is against halacha. People sometimes also go kula jumping, finding the posek who is the most meikil in every case and rely on him. But when those rabbonim are machmir, they disregard there words . An example is a litvishe using chasidim to be soimech on to miss zman krias shma.
Kula jumping is finding a rav to give you a leniency - and then another rav for another one - and so on, until you are being ridiculously lenient because you don't want to follow the rules. After a while, you aren't actually following ANYBODY, just your own wishes. Why pretend? 'An example is a litvishe (orthodox but not Hasidic, and usually very technically strict) using chasidim to be soimech on to miss zman krias shma' that is, using a chasidic custom to let him avoid getting up early enough for morning prayers, when he isn't actually a chasid and has no intention of being one - he just is using them.

Now with that explained one should know what many call a chumra for others is me'ikar hadin. An example of this is opening bottles on shabbos. For many the psak is to permit and a chumra will be not to while to others the psak is not to open. So what people were calling chumras in the chumrah thread for many that is the halacha. an example is rav Elyashiv and Rav Ovadiah Yosef asuur wearing shaitels. The latter was listed as a chumra.
I believe this here is saying that what one community might consider a chumra (and extra strict observance) is considered by other communities to be simple halachah (law)

there - a little intro to the intricacies of legal/religious discussion from the yeshivish world (orthodox to ultra-orthodox).

[agricola]

Would you believe, there is some controversy among the more orthodox, about whether it is or isn't kosher to celebrate Thanksgiving?

Some are concerned that it is 'copying the (religious) customs of the foreigners' which is forbidden in Torah (this is exactly like those Christians that won't 'do' Halloween because it has 'pagan origins'). Others make a point of not doing anything LIKE a Jewish holiday celebration but they certainly have 'thanksgiving'. A few go all out with Turkey and everything else, they just don't CALL it 'thanksgiving'. Quite a few add some Jewish holiday customs (like candle lighting). Most of the more liberal movements have no problem with it, viewing national holidays like Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July as non-religious positive events. Some congregations add 'Thanksgiving' prayers to the services.

There was the same discussion around Halloween, but less argumentation altogether. Most orthodox/ultraorthodox don't celebrate Halloween which isn't a big problem in heavily Jewish neighborhoods and (usually) religious day schools.

[zeek]

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[agricola]

The word 'Chanukah' starts with a chet. English does not have this sound, except perhaps in the word 'loch' as in Loch Lomond. (in other words, that sound exists, just not in ENGLISH....it exists in Gaelic and in German and in other languages but not English).

Using English to 'transliterate' foreign words is chancy, because - for one - English isn't a phonetic language anyway, so you can't always be certain that a given English letter or combination of letters is going to get across the sound you want anyway - and also some sounds in foreign languages simply don't exist in English.

Usually - most people - 'transliterate' a chet into English with an H, but sometimes they use CH, but the sound is NOT the sound of 'ch' in English (as in 'church'). Occasionally people will use a K, or KH to represent a chet (or a Het, or a Khet, or a ...).


You can actually 'accurately 'represent the word 'fish' in English using ghoti. Think about it.

Hebrew also uses a convention of putting a dot in a consonant to indicate that the sound of the consonant is somewhat lengthened, or made more 'strong'. Sometimes people ignore that in transliterating a word, or sometimes the double the letter...

So you can accurately and correctly spell 'Chanukah' like (pick one) this:

Chanukah
Channukkah
Channukah
Channukka
Hannukkah
Hannukka
Hanuka
Hannuka
Hanukka
Khannukkah
Khannukka
Khannuka
Khanuka
and probably half a dozen more.

You say someone used 'X'? Sure, why not?
h**ps://www.google.com/search?q=Hanukkah+in+Heb ... 1jHdKrk%3D

[zeek]

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[agricola]

I think the most commonly accepted spelling is 'Chanukah'. Personally I find all the ones starting with a K look silly.

But my sis-in-law's name starts with chet, and when she puts her name into English, she uses 'H' and not Ch. It can be confusing, because Hebrew DOES have an actual 'H' although it isn't quite as aspirated? is that the word? as an English H.

There are two basic schools of thought about putting a foreign word into English. One system goes for 'sound above all' so a single letter in the other language sometimes gets two or more different letters in English transliteration. The other system assigns a particular letter to every letter in the foreign word regardless, and always uses it, even when it makes the word a bit weird looking or even hard to pronounce.

But at least with that style, you can always back-engineer it and figure out how it is spelled in the other language, so you can look things up in dictionaries.

Same reason you see 'Koran/Qu'ran'. One spelling goes for 'closest way to sound it out in English' and the other goes for 'use certain letters for those letters'. Same word.

[zeek]

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[agricola]

That it is a Jewish observance?

I do know a few Christians who celebrate Chanukah, but I think it is (*cough*) silly. Also I thought the whole idea of 'do Christians have to first be Jews before they become Christians' got settled before the NT was even canonized, with the story of Peter and the dream about animals, and the letters of Paul about circumcision and such. So I think that Christians actually should NOT take on Jewish observances as a matter of 'doctrine for Christians'. But some do it anyway.

As long as you don't call yourself a Jew, I guess it is okay to some degree.

Now, the first thing to know, is that Chanukah is not a major holiday. It isn't even a 'holiday' at all, just a 'chag' (a celebration). It is post biblical and the observance we follow is purely rabbinic in origin (it is, in fact, the quintessential PHARISAIC celebration).

Next, the only important 'observance' is the candle lighting, which takes place over 8 nights. There are other cultural attachments (games, foods) but the only thing that is mandatory is the candle lighting (originally, oil lamps, nowadays usually candles, but some people pull out the oil and wicks).

The Temple menorah had seven total holders. A Chanukah menorah (a chanukkiah) has nine. For each type of menorah, the central (or the one set apart by being higher, or lower, or to the side....) light holder is for the 'shamash', which is used to light everything else and otherwise doesn't 'count'.

On night one, you put a light in the shamash holder, and one in the furthest left holder, and you light the shamash, then use that to light the other.
On night two, you put a light in the shamash holder, and two in the furthest left side holders.....and so on.

It isn't necessary to have a chanukiah. You can use individual lights, just arrange them the same way.

________ X_________
X_X_X_X_/\_X_X_X_X
1 2 3 4____5 6 7 8

There are three blessings on the first night, and two the other nights.
The first is Shehecheyanu, which thanks God for allowing us to reach this time.
The second (first after the first night) is the generic lighting lights blessing.
The third (second after the first night) is a thank you for the miracles.

Here's a guide to everything:
h**p://www.chabad.org/holidays/chanukah/articl ... -Guide.htm

[agricola]

The rabbis of the Talmud - who set the rules about observance - didn't really approve of the Hasmoneans (the Maccabees). Their opinion of the rebels against the Persian overlord and the religious persecution was mixed. Some parts they approved, but the final outcome resulted eventually in the Roman domination and far worse oppression, which colored their opinions. The Maccabbees celebrated military force and the overthrow of the government as well as independence, and that example had encouraged continual rebellion against the Roman empire with dire and extreme disaster for the later Jewish presence - it had resulted in the destruction of the Temple, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the dispersal of 75% of the Jews from Israel into slavery around the Mediterranean and the near-outlawing of Torah study (again). So they had a mixed feeling about the whole Maccabeean period, not least because the Maccabbees allowed themselves to be crowned as kings in Jerusalem, although they were clearly not properly qualified (being of a priestly family - tribe of Levi - and definitely NOT tribe of Judah. They 'should have' set up a king from the Davidic line - and they could have, because there were possible candidates available. Instead, they 'usurped' the throne of David, setting up a situation where both the king and the high priest were from the same 'house' and eventually, due to dissension between the family members over the succession, invited the Romans in.

Which is probably why the whole observance of Chanukah focuses almost totally on a minor miracle (oil lights in the temple) and almost not at all on a 25 year uprising and rebellion that led to a short lived period of Jewish home rule.

The reason we have decorations, Chanukah cards, and give presents is because Chanukah occurs close to Christmas in western societies, and for no other reason. It is a leniency, and not an integral observance. In Israel, kids may get days off from school, but that's it. There are no work stoppages as there are for the major Jewish holy days like Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Passover, Shavuot and so forth.

So the Maccabees get a little token mention and the focus of the observance is on a minor event connected with the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem, and event that occurred fairly early in the rebellion when the Maccabee forces retook Temple Mount, cleaned the temple precincts and had a rededication event modeled on the original dedication by Solomon - eight days long. This occurred as soon as possible after the Maccabees gained control of the Mount, so was in the winter, Kislev 25 (first night) rather than waiting for any other suitable time.