Halakhah su Genesi 31:56

Responding in the following issue of Mevakshei Torah, Rabbi Diskin, a rosh yeshivah at Yeshivat Kol Torah and the author of Mas'at ha-Melekh on the Rambam's Mishneh Torah, cogently distinguishes between the two situations. For the resident of the Diaspora the second day of Yom Tov is a day on which forbidden forms of labor may not be performed. Hence any labor performed on that person's behalf was performed on a day that, for that individual, is Yom Tov. The recipient of a fax on Shabbat sent from a locale where it is not Shabbat derives benefit from an act performed in a place in which it is not Shabbat for anyone. For all persons, Shabbat is determined by the beginning and end of the seventh day at a particular latitude and longitude.¹⁰See Seforno, Genesis 31:16; R. David ibn Zimra, Teshuvot Radvaz, I, no. 76; R. Israel Lipschutz, Tiferet Yisra’el, Berakhot, note appended to Bo‘az, end of chap. 1; and R. Joseph Saul Nathanson, Teshuvot Sho’el u-Meshiv, Mahadura Revi’ah, no. 154. There are no restrictions upon acts performed at that locale when it is not Shabbat in that place. Shabbat at any place on the globe is determined by local time even for a person who is not physically present in that locale.¹¹See Teshuvot Ereẓ Ẓevi, no. 44, who permits a person standing on the side of the halakhic dateline on which it is Shabbat to direct a person standing on the other side of the dateline to perform an act of labor prohibited on the Sabbath.

That a priest with a blemish not serve in the Temple: That a priest with a blemish not serve in the Temple service, as it is stated (Leviticus 21:17), "A man from your seed in their generations who has a blemish shall not approach to offer the bread of his God." [This is] meaning that he may not approach for the service, because all types of food are called bread in many places (see Rashi on Genesis 31:54). And this blemish [referred to in this context] is permanent. As so did they explain in Sifra, Emor, Section 3:5, "'Who has a blemish shall not approach' - I only have a permanent blemish. From where [do we know] a transient blemish? [Hence] we learn to say in the same section (Leviticus 21:18), 'any man who has a blemish shall not come close'" (meaning it is from another verse and not this one). And a permanent blemish is like a boil-scar or a protrusion, and that is a growth.

12. In these days, all holy scriptures are saved from a fire and read from [publicly], even if they are written in any language and even if they are written with dye or red paint (meaning types of paint) or anything else. Similarly, a set of blessings that the Sages established [i.e., a siddur] should be saved from a fire or from any "turpah" (meaning an open and vulernable place). Similarly, a translation written in Hebrew like "Yagar Shahaduta" [Genesis 31:47] or "Thus shall you say to them" [Jeremiah 10:11, in Aramaic], or Hebrew written in Aramaic or in another language that the people are proficient in, or a Torah scroll that has 85 letters part of full words or has the name of God; all of these are saved.