Just yesterday Apple released the newest iPhone, the iPhone 7, and many heads were turned by the new design. Physically the phone actually looks incredibly similar to its predecessor, the iPhone 6, but with one notable physical difference: the absence of the headphone jack. That small little circle that we are accustomed to plugging our headphones into has disappeared, as Apple doubles down on wireless headphones becoming the norm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the lack of the headphone jack is mentioned in every review for the new phone, it is easy to overlook an improvement more significant than the way our phones get sound to us. That being advancements made in the way we speak to our phones. Many of us are familiar with the frustration of dealing with voice commands or speaking with automated machines when we want to speak to a human representative. I do not bother asking my phone to \u201ccall mom\u201d knowing that the phone is just as likely to call Tom or Bob . But with improvements to voice recognition technology, with Apple\u2019s Siri perhaps leading the way, machines are learning to understand regional accents, speech impediments, and even make out voices in crowded places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Voice recognition makes a surprising appearance in this week\u2019s parsha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ben sorer umoreh<\/em>, the wayward and rebellious son, is one of the more peculiar laws in the entire torah. The son has disregarded his parents\u2019 guidance, and he is taken to the elders of the city and receives a bit harsher punishment than we would have expected. There are many issues to address regarding the ben sorer umoreh<\/em>, but today I would like to hone in on one point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Granted, his punishment seems harsh, the gemara provides numerous limitations making the case of a ben sorer umoreh<\/em> virtually impossible and merely a theoretical law on the books. For example, the ben sorer umoreh<\/em> must steal meat from his parents, not any other item. He must eat that meat in a particular way: he will be exempt if he has it well done. He must steal wine, and the wine must not be too expensive. If any of these details are lacking, the son is exempt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it is one specific detail which causes the gemara to suggest: lo hava v\u2019lo nivra<\/em>: a bona fide ben sorer umoreh<\/em> never existed and never will exist:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tana Rabbi Yehuda on Sanhedrin 71a posits that the word bkoleinu<\/em>, our voices, teaches that the parents must have the exact same voice. And since women and men, and any two individuals for that matter, do not have the same voice, lo haya v\u2019lo nivra<\/em>\u2013 it is impossible for a case of ben sorer umoreh<\/em> to occur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch is quoted to have suggested that the idea of similar voices is the Torah\u2019s way of telling us that when educating a person, we must be careful that our messages are consistent. If a child hears conflicting \u201cvoices,\u201d he is as likely to follow the parent\u2019s instruction as your smartphone is to understand your commands made during a rock concert. We can only hold the ben sorer umoreh <\/em>accountable if can truly expect him to discern the message of the parent\u2019s voices, which is the case only when they are on the same page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I would like to share a question posed by the 17th<\/sup> century Polish scholar Rav Dovid Halevi Segal, who is better know for his commentary the Taz on Shulchan Aruch, from his less famous work Divrei Dovid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The gemara I previously cited understands the word \u201cbkoleinu<\/em>\u201d as implying shava b\u2019kol<\/em>, the parents of the ben sorer umoreh<\/em> must have the same voice. Is this a fair derivation from the word koleinu<\/em>? Where else does the Torah use this word? We need look no further than next week\u2019s parsha for a verse many of us may recognize from the the Haggadah:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u05d5\u05b7\u05e0\u05b4\u05bc\u05e6\u05b0\u05e2\u05b7\u05e7 \u05d0\u05b6\u05dc \u05d4 \u05d0\u05b1\u05dc\u05b9\u05e7\u05b5\u05d9 \u05d0\u05b2\u05d1\u05b9\u05ea\u05b5\u05d9\u05e0\u05d5\u05bc \u05d5\u05b7\u05d9\u05b4\u05bc\u05e9\u05b0\u05c1\u05de\u05b7\u05e2 \u05d4\u2019 \u05d0\u05b6\u05ea \u05e7\u05b9\u05dc\u05b5\u05e0\u05d5\u05bc<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Egypt the Jewiish people cried out to G-d, and he heard our voices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the ben sorer umoreh<\/em>, Rabbi Yehuda learnt from the word \u201ckoleinu<\/em>\u201d that the parents must have identical voices. If we are to be consistent, this would mean that all of the Jewish people in Egypt have the exact same voice, a bizarre suggestion. Obviously the verse\u2019s statement that G-d hears the voices of the Jewish people does not mean that we all have the exact same voice. What tipped Chazal off that by our parsha of ben sorer umoreh <\/em>the word koleinu<\/em> implies exact sameness when it clearly does not carry this implication elsewhere?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rav Yaakov ben Yosef Reischer who lived just after the Taz, suggests an answer in his work on Aggada, the Iyun Yaakov.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Koleinu<\/em> simply means many voices at once. Vayishma Hashem es Koleinu<\/em>: G-d heard our collective voices calling out in Egypt, and of course we did not each sound the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, by the ben sorer umoreh<\/em>, \u201ceinnena shomeah bkoleinu<\/em>\u201d obviously does not simply mean that the parents are speaking at the same time. If multiple people speak at once, a person cannot make out what either voice says. As the gemara in rosh hashana states, trei kolos lo mishtamai: a human being cannot discern two voices simultaneously. The child has no chance if he\u2019s hearing multiple voices at once. Thus Chazal knew that when the Torah says \u201ckoleinu<\/em>\u201d by the ben sorer umoreh<\/em>, it must be alluding to some other factor, which Rabbi Yehuda explains is the limitation that the parents are shava b\u2019kol<\/em>, having the same voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only by G-d can we interpret hearing multiple voices in its simplest sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vayishma Hashem es koleinu<\/em>: we gather in shul each week, each day, each of us with our unique voice. No human being can discern each of the individual voices that make up the symphony of our teffilah. We allude to this idea each weekday in our shemone esray: shema koleinu, listen to our voices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just as no two people in this room have the same voice, no two people in this room have the same struggle, the same challenge, the same mission, the same opportunity. G-d\u2019s listening skills are better than any human being, and will remain better than any smartphone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we gather together to pray, be it for the upcoming days of awe or an ordinary Shabbos like today, we each hold the same siddur and read the same text as those around us, and it the same siddur and text we read last Shabbos and last year. And while sometimes it feels routine and like we are just going through the motions, all doing the same thing, G-d\u2019s voice recognition skills are such that he appreciates the uniqueness of each and every one of our voices and each and every one of our teffilos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just yesterday Apple released the newest iPhone, the iPhone 7, and many heads were turned by the new design. Physically the phone actually looks incredibly similar to its predecessor, the iPhone 6, but with one notable physical difference: the absence of the headphone jack. That small little circle that we are accustomed to plugging our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"saved_in_kubio":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,66,10,40],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":390,"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions\/390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u05db<\/strong> \u05d5\u05b0\u05d0\u05b8\u05de\u05b0\u05e8\u05d5\u05bc \u05d0\u05b6\u05dc-\u05d6\u05b4\u05e7\u05b0\u05e0\u05b5\u05d9 \u05e2\u05b4\u05d9\u05e8\u05d5\u05b9, \u05d1\u05b0\u05bc\u05e0\u05b5\u05e0\u05d5\u05bc \u05d6\u05b6\u05d4 \u05e1\u05d5\u05b9\u05e8\u05b5\u05e8 \u05d5\u05bc\u05de\u05b9\u05e8\u05b6\u05d4\u2013\u05d0\u05b5\u05d9\u05e0\u05b6\u05e0\u05bc\u05d5\u05bc \u05e9\u05b9\u05c1\u05de\u05b5\u05e2\u05b7, \u05d1\u05b0\u05bc\u05e7\u05b9\u05dc\u05b5\u05e0\u05d5\u05bc; \u05d6\u05d5\u05b9\u05dc\u05b5\u05dc, \u05d5\u05b0\u05e1\u05b9\u05d1\u05b5\u05d0.<\/td> 20<\/strong> and they [the parents] shall say unto the elders of his city: \u2018This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he doth not hearken to our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.\u2019<\/td><\/tr> <\/td> <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n