I was in a study hall [beit midrash] today and someone asked a question about a woman who became a convert while pregnant. The question was if her daughter can marry a [cohen] priest.  I have no idea why he asked me this question, but it just so happened  that the previous day I was looking at a book containing questions and answers of Rav Elyashiv that happened to have that very question.    It was about a woman that had converted and was pregnant and had lost her documents and then came to Israel and had to convert again. It was clear from the answer of Rav Elyashiv that that daughter is allowed to marry a Cohen [since she was born by a regular Jewish woman].But in another place I noticed Rav Elyashiv bring up this issue in terms of a question if a fetus is part of the mother. Does this depend on that question?     

The issue here is that there are a few types of women that a priest can not marry, e.g. a convert, a woman who has had relations with someone forbidden to her [zona], or a woman who has had relations with someone forbidden to the priesthood, or a divorced woman. 

בבא קמא ל''ד ע''א בבא מציעא ט''ו bava kama page 34. bava mezia pg 15 rav shach laws of robbery chapter 9 law 8. Rav Isar Melzer in laws of theft 7 law 12

 Both Rav Shach in laws of robbery 9 law 8 and Rav Isar Melzer in laws of theft 7 law 12 hold in four places the ''shevach'' [profit, or what grows on the ground] that comes about by effort belongs to the one who did the effort. This Rav Isar Meltzer shows the Rambam holds this way in four places robbery theft, inheritance, loans. My question on this comes from the gemara that one who went into the field of his friend without permission and planted crops. The gemara holds the owner pays only the expense, not profit in afield that is not set aside for planting. Rav Shach answers this that in that case the owner can say my field had a part in the profit. but if so that should apply in all the other four cases that Rav Melzer brings.

[i am being a bit short here. rav isar meltzer goes into great detail about this subject in a few places but the place i brought here is where he delves into this at length. only later did i notice that rav shach says the same sort of principle in the other place i brought here.     ]

 Both רב שך  in הלכות גזילה פרק ט' הלכה ח' and רב איסר מלצר in הלכות גניבה פרק ז הלכה י''ב hold in four places the שבח profit, or what grows on the ground that comes about by effort belongs to the one who did the effort. This רב איסר מלצר shows the רמב''ם holds this way in four places robbery theft, inheritance, loans. My question on this comes from the גמרא that one who went into the field of his friend without permission and planted crops. The גמרא holds the owner pays only the expense, not profit in a field that is not set aside for planting. רב שך answers this that in that case the owner can say my field had a part in the profit. but if so that should apply in all the other four cases that רב איסר מלצר brings.

גם רב שך בהלכות גזילה פרק ט' הלכה ח' וגם רב איסר מלצר בהלכות גניבה פרק ז' הלכה י''ב מחזיקים בארבעה מקומות את הרווח השבח, או מה שצומח על הקרקע שבא במאמץ שייך למי שעשה את המאמץ. רב איסר מלצר מראה שהרמב''ם מחזיק כך בארבעה מקומות שוד גניבה, ירושה, הלוואות. שאלתי על כך באה מהגמרא שאדם הלך לשדה של חברו בלא רשות ושתל יבולים. הגמרא גורסת שהבעלים משלם רק את ההוצאה, לא רווח בשדה שאינו מופרש לנטיעה. רב שך עונה על זה שבמקרה כזה הבעלים יכול לומר שלקרקע שלי היה חלק ברווח. אבל אם כן זה אמור לחול בכל ארבעת המקרים האחרים שמביא רב איסר מלצר

Maybe there is a fine thin line that one crosses from learning Torah for its own sake

 How could learning Torah have become a money making profession? I assume I am not the only one who has noticed the Mishna in Pirkei Avot about not making Torah into a shovel to dig with or an ax to chop with. In fact, my experience with most people that use Torah to make their living tend to use Torah as an ax to chop people with.  It might be that what I am not seeing here is the fact that everything has its proper measure.  SO we find the Kesef Mishna defending giving money to yeshivot on that very same place in the Rambam where the Rambam brings the prohibition of learning Torah in order to get charity. Maybe there is some subtle distinction that I am not seeing. Maybe there is a fine thin line that one crosses from learning Torah for its own sake and then from lack of options one is forced to depend on charity in order to continue learning -- between that and one who sets out on purpose to use Torah in order to gain a paid position/[The reason for this is any sizable population in Israel can form a political party, and no government  can be formed without 61 seats in the Kneset. So to get the religious parties to join, they get offered money. And besides that there is also the automatic funds that the government gives to yeshivot. If that money would be going only to places that actually learn Torah like Ponovitch i would have no complaints, but 90% of yeshivot were made in the first place in order to get a ''ptur' [release] from serving in the army, not to learn Torah.'

My feeling about this is that somewhere a line has been crossed to make learning Torah or teaching it for the sake of making money seem legitimate. In Israel, there are political parties whose sole purpose is to get money out of the government budget. Judges get money in spite of  the halacha '' כל דיין שנוטל שכר לדון בל דיניו בטילים'',  ''Any judge who receives pay to judge, all of his judgements are null and void.''

Just for the sake of clarity let me admit I was part of the kollel of the Mir Yeshiva in NY for years and I probably would have been happy to continue learning Torah in the Kollel of Rav Ernster in Safed until the problem of using Torah to make money started to bother my conscious and stopped. Then for some years I went with bitachon/TRUST IN GOD--just trust in God. and that was fine for about 7 years until I fell from trust in GOD and decided to seek out a way to make a living. But I did  not want the old way of using Torah for money, so went to major in Physics at Polytechnic Institute of NYU. In the meantime other things  came up--like a possibility to go to Uman for Rosh Hashanah--so I ended up in Uman for years learning Gemara with my learning partner David Bronson. --eventually getting back to Israel --still doing Physics and Gemara and Rav Shach's Avi Ezri..  

[I have mentioned before that I consider the herem of the Gra to be valid, and yet I do not think that Rav Nahman would be included. This I concluded after looking at the several letters of excommunication issued in Vilna. The Signature of the Gra is on the top of the second one. ]

 I would like to mention here a great book I have been looking at recently,- the Even haAzel אבן האזל  by ר' איסר מלצר Rav Isar Meltzer who was a friend of Rav Shach. This book fills in a lot of details which you might not get in the Avi Ezri. For instance, I have been looking at chap 7 halacha 12 of Monetary Damages. I think it is clear  that Rav Shach goes into some of these details in laws of Robbery, but the book of Rav Meltzer goes into greater  detail. [In Laws of Robbery 9 , halacha 8 Rav Shach comes to the same sort of basic principles that Rav Isar Melzer arrives at.   ]

I think that there is a lot of quite amazing ideas in the books of Rav Nahman of Breslov, but the fact that his name is associated with Breslov ruins the effect. Rav Nahman himself must have been aware of this problem when he wrote to his followers in Breslov in one of his five letters ''קצתי בישיבת ברסלב'' I have become disgusted with yeshivat breslov'' [or perhaps it could be translated ''I am disgusted with dwelling in breslov.] 

FOR his ideas really do not work well unless taken in a straight Litvak yeshiva atmosphere of straight Torah. but outside of that context, they tend to take people off into insane tangents. 

I found the approach to learning in Conversations of R.Nahman chap. 76 the most helpful, i.e., learning fast-- saying the words and going on. This helped a lot when I went to Polytechnic Institute of NY University.  

 I grew up in an area that was WASP and have believed ever since then about the importance of white Anglo Saxon Protestant civilization. The problem nowadays is most white Anglo Saxons Protestants  do not believe in themselves anymore. the problem of course is exactly what Saadia Gaon wrote: the trinity and nullification of the commandments. the positive aspect is paying attention and believing in the words of a tzadik.  

THE problem with the Trinity is to equate Jesus with God. The problem is  not ascribing ''divinity'' to him. The reason is that it is common  in the Ari/ Isaac Luria to ascribe divinity to certain Biblical figures: Abraham, Isaac Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Josef, David, Cain Hevel, Seth,.-- that is to say their souls are from Emanation which is totally divine. That is that Emanation is different from the worlds of Creation, Formation, and the physical universe which are not divine.   

 The name of the GRA is associated with learning in depth. However there is an aspect of the Gra that implies learning fast. That is saying the words in order and going on without any review until one finishes the whole book. This is implied when he stressed the importance of getting through at least once the whole two Talmuds, Tosefta, Sifrei Sifra, Midrash Rabah, Midrash Tanchuma (I.E. all the oral law from the redaction of the Mishna until the sealing of the two Talmuds.) [this fast learning is brought in the gemara in shabat and tractate avoda zara, in the musar book ways of the rightous and in the conversations of rav nachman chapter 76     ]

 

This later fast approach is generally known to come from the Talmud itself in Shabat page 63 and the musar book The Ways Of The Righteous .

I used the approach of ''saying the words in order and going on'' in Torah learning and also in physics and mathematics; saying the words in order and going on until the end of the book and then review from the beginning --and I learnt a lot more than if I had said ''This is too hard for me'' and given up.  But in Torah, Math, and Physics it is best if one can hear and learn from a teacher.  No matter how much I might have learned in Southern California, there is no question that i would not have understood a thing unless I had gone to those two great NY yeshivot, Shar Yahuv and the Mir and learned from people like Reb Shmuel Berenbaum who really knew the depths of Torah. My only complaint  is that I never got the how to get into the depths of Tosphot that Naftali Yeger had in Shar Yashuv and David Bronson. I suspect that it is not something that one can get unless he has that special kind of I.Q. and talent. But at least, the books of the gedolai Lita [Lithuanian Sages] are around so that one can get a taste of authentic learning. 

[note: I am aware that some people just don't appreciate learning Torah. taste. Maybe to appreciate it one needs a certain kind of  taste. But it might be like many good things--it is an acquired taste.   ]

I do not have the IQ of Rav Naftali Yeger or David Bronson, so i do not see automatically the depths of Tosphot. However i have learned a method for at least begin to see those depths. that method is to review that same exact tosphot every day [once  per day] for a month,