Q&A: Torah scholars who lack understanding, who were reclining in Bnei Brak
Torah scholars who lack understanding, who were reclining in Bnei Brak
Question
Following up on your post against Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef: the damage that Rabbi Y.Y. caused with his unwise statement is only reputational damage. These kinds of remarks do not become Jewish law, and in a few decades they will be forgotten. In my opinion there is a much more serious problem: issuing halakhic rulings in a foolish way. That causes damage for generations, because the halakhic canonization process will never be able to free itself from such rulings without some kind of serious reform. Another point: the damage done by Rabbi Y.Y. was directed at the masses (his followers), whereas foolish halakhic rulings create a severe dissonance among the more intelligent layer of the public.
I am talking about rulings that are established in important religious courts in Bnei Brak. True, these courts do not officially represent you the way the Chief Rabbinate does, but their influence is enormous, because this is the halakhic elite. And it seems to me that this elite also pulls Religious Zionism along behind it (it is hard for me to measure this, but it seems to me that the serious religious public listens to Haredi halakhic decisors on halakhic matters that are not ideological).
What brought out my anger? On Friday night I am forced to read Torah journals (in our synagogue it is not possible to read Karl Popper’s The Open Society during prayer). A journal called Sha’arei Hora’ah happened to be next to me, from the religious court of Rabbi Shmuel Eliezer Stern, one of the top halakhic decisors in Bnei Brak (a student of Rabbi Wosner), published during his teacher’s lifetime, in 2013.
On page 166, Rabbi Shmuel Eliezer Stern himself discusses whether the leniency of “her husband is in town” applies when the husband is “married” to the woman only in a civil marriage (in order to discuss the question on its own merits, he assumes that this couple does not fall under the halakhic category of “promiscuous people,” for whom that leniency does not apply).
His question is: “Is the practical fact that they have a husband-and-wife relationship enough for this to count as ‘her husband is in town,’ or since there is no complete marital bond between them in every respect according to the Torah and Jewish law, is it of no significance?”
He compares the question to other questions (on which later authorities disputed): whether a non-Jew may be secluded with his mother (like any person with whom one is overly familiar), because in reality she is his birth mother, or whether it is forbidden since he is “like a newborn child” and she is not his mother for any Torah law. He notes another question: whether “like a newborn child” removes from a woman concern about menstrual cycles established when she was a non-Jew. He then cites the Chatam Sofer, who writes that a convert whose brothers died because of circumcision is still obligated in circumcision, and this is not considered dangerous for him, since he is “like a newborn child” and has no connection to his brothers(!). (The Chatam Sofer apparently holds that the rule of “like a newborn child” renews him physiologically, and therefore the convert need not worry about the genetic problem that appeared in his brothers. Based on this, it seems to me one could further argue that he is also exempt from Torah-level commandments until thirteen years after his conversion, and only then would celebrate a bar mitzvah and become obligated in the commandments… One could go even further and ask whether, at the time of conversion, the convert can decide that he was born as a woman, and thereby change his sex…)
Later he writes as follows: “In a large city where the distance between husband and wife is immense, like New York or London and the like, even so there is a leniency of ‘her husband is in town.’ On the other hand, in two small nearby cities it is considered as though her husband is not in town. For in this matter we do not follow our own reasoning and understanding, but rather the rules established by the Sages regarding the boundaries of the psychological forces within a person. Accordingly, it is obvious that civil marriage does not help for the leniency of ‘her husband is in town.'”
What do you think???
On page 227 there is a discussion about a father who asks his son to buy him a pack of cigarettes, and the question is whether this violates “do not place a stumbling block,” since the father is endangering himself. Rabbi Elyashiv tended to say that it is permitted (because it is possible that the father will smoke only one cigarette a day from the pack, and that is not a danger), Rabbi Steinman was stringent (when the father is a heavy smoker), and then there is the infantile answer of the “Prince of Torah” (Kanievsky): “He is obligated to obey his father, for they are mistaken in what they say, since one can live many years even as a heavy smoker.” And in the words of Rabbi Nissim Karelitz: “He is obligated to obey his father, and only if the doctors said personally about his father that it is dangerous for him, he need not obey him.”
Rabbi Kanievsky is today the Jewish “pope,” the most important Torah figure of our generation, both in the Haredi public and in the general public that stands in line to kiss his hands and feet. Statements like these cause people with even a bit of independent thought and criticism to lose all trust in Jewish law and its subject matter.
In conclusion, I would be glad if you would write against the stupidity that rules halakhic decision-making today. In my opinion, this problem is no less serious than the statements of Rabbi Y.Y. (and I would also be glad for a response to the halakhic quotations I brought). The root of the problem is the rabbis’ failure to understand that commitment to rulings from previous generations applies to normative questions, whereas on factual questions one should ask and consult experts of our own generation from various disciplines (psychologists, geneticists, and doctors).
Answer
Hello,
A distinction has to be made between the different questions you raised. Some of them certainly can be asked, if only because Jewish law is a formal system, and sometimes the deciding line is formal rather than substantive. Beyond that, the “factual” questions are not purely factual. See what I wrote here:
Discussion on Answer
Aharon, sorry for butting in, but you are mixing up Jewish law and reality. For example:
1. The question whether in practice there is a concern or not can be asked to a doctor. I assume that if a doctor says it is dangerous, people will not circumcise. In any case, such a medical question is no different from any other question. The question is the opposite: whether not to take any interest at all in the medical situation, but instead to follow the Jewish law that defined every such case and prohibited circumcision in any event. To that the answer is no. Jewish law spoke about brothers, and here from a halakhic standpoint they are not brothers, so this is no different from any medical question that has no answer already built into Jewish law. Likewise for 2: the intention of the answer is that anything which substantively involves concerns, people are concerned about even without Jewish law, and that is also common practice. The question is whether there is an “issur” because that is how Jewish law defined it, and on that Rabbi Stern argues that the boundaries of Jewish law were not given according to the size of cities, and we do not find such a distinction in the Sages. Of course, if in practice there is concern, one must be concerned, but not because of the laws of “seclusion.” 3. Rabbi Kanievsky’s answers are hard to understand without the context in which they were said, but it is quite possible that, as above, he did not mean to say that in practice people will not die, but rather that this is not a concern that from a halakhic standpoint one must take into account, just as we have not heard that people forbid eating trans fats.
Itai answered nicely.
All right, I apologize for the attack, and I would like some further explanation, from the Rabbi or from Itai:
1. What does it mean that “from a halakhic standpoint they are not brothers”? Genetically, they are brothers. If there is a rule that when there is a certain level of genetic risk one should refrain from circumcision, here there is the same risk. Why is there any need to ask a doctor? Why is the default to circumcise?
2. He is not claiming that there is a formal boundary (marriage) that cannot be breached. I would agree with that. He is claiming that the fact that there is no difference between London and small towns proves that the Sages had a special understanding of the “psychological forces.”
3. I do not know what he meant, but what is certain is that it sounds very bad, and it should not have been printed that way. The statement passed through many stages of editing—did no one understand that it was problematic?
1. Who said the risk is genetic? The Talmud certainly did not know about genetics. There is concern that something in the shared circumstances causes this death. As is known from the passage in Yevamot 64, when discussing presumptions established after three times, they attribute it to very esoteric things (like the menstrual cycle of the month, for example). Therefore the change of conversion can create a change in circumstances that lowers the concern (which in any case is itself not clear). And again, Itai is right that if there is a medical opinion that there is a risk, one should certainly refrain.
2. The distinction between London and small towns is also a formal determination. The claim that the Sages had understanding of the psychological forces is indeed not acceptable to me, but as is known this is a common approach and not one unique specifically to him.
3. I do not know regarding the editing, but see my article mentioned above regarding the level of risk that is forbidden.
Hello Itai,
A. I cannot accept most of what you said, if only because the Torah does not distinguish between one brother and another (whether he converted, is a non-Jew, a convert, etc.), and there are 2 proofs for this:
1. It calls an Edomite a brother –> “You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother.” And if he is considered a brother, then all the more so an actual flesh-and-blood brother from the very same mother.
2. And there is the matter of an extended use of the term brother, meaning either the father is the same father or the mother is the same mother for the two brothers.
B. Your definition of “like a newborn child” is not acceptable regarding marriage to his non-Jewish mother even after he converted, because she will always be his mother by blood; and just as before the giving of the Torah it was forbidden to marry one’s mother, then all the more so after the giving of the Torah—especially since, as far as I know, even this newborn child is obligated in honoring his mother, and I have shown that it is not honoring his mother for him to be able to marry her according to Jewish law, which supposedly tries to rely on the argument of a newborn child and distinguish him from his own essence as her actual flesh-and-blood son. While there is a more distant prohibition from which we may infer the closer one: “If a man takes his sister, his father’s daughter or his mother’s daughter, and sees her nakedness and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace, and they shall be cut off before the eyes of their people; he has uncovered his sister’s nakedness, he shall bear his iniquity.” If his sister from his mother is forbidden to him, then all the more so his mother is forbidden to him; so how can one understand from here that the newborn child is exempt from this verse?
Hello Moshe, these are halakhic questions that require learning the relevant Talmudic passages, and they have no connection to what I said. But of course the meaning of “brother” depends on context. (The Talmud in Makkot says that someone who died is not a brother, because there it is talking about a brother in commandments, but a yavam is called the dead man’s brother because there it is talking about a blood relationship that continues after death, and so on.) I too can say to you, “Hello, my brother,” and still not become obligated in levirate marriage. Regarding B: I did not understand. The halakhah is that by Torah law he is permitted to marry his mother because he is like a newborn child, and the blood relationship does not matter. If you are speaking genetically, of course they are the same genes. But when people speak about a “blood relationship,” they are not speaking about genetics but about a “relationship,” and a person who joins another nation burns all his ties behind him, and his blood ties no longer have significance. He left his family and joined another people, and there cannot be a family “relationship” between a person from this nation and one from another nation.
I am not talking about whether the questions can be asked.
I want to ask about the answers:
1. Can one say that a convert whose brothers died because of circumcision is obligated in circumcision and need not fear danger?
2. Is a rabbi supposed to approach a question in the laws of seclusion from the standpoint that “in this matter we do not follow our own reasoning and understanding, but rather the rules established by the Sages regarding the boundaries of the psychological forces within a person,” or is he supposed to try to understand what psychological assessment lay at the basis of the prohibition, and from there infer the new situation? From his words it sounds as though only the Sages are authorized to determine what the psychological forces in a person are, and we do not have that ability, and therefore in every new situation we are stringent.
3. Can a rabbi who sits within the four cubits of Jewish law determine that the doctors are “mistaken” when they say that smoking is dangerous.