Q&A: They Were Stringent and Caused Great Distress….
They Were Stringent and Caused Great Distress….
Question
A family was staying together for the two days of Rosh Hashanah.
About two prayer quorums were there together for all the meals.
The hostess suddenly remembered that although the challahs smelled wonderful, she had not separated challah properly. What was to be done?
Four meals times 20 people…
They asked local rabbis, and they forbade it.
They looked for the grocer; he opened up and gave them what was left in the store.
A huge embarrassment, anguish, and great distress.
They turned to me after the holiday, and I said that indeed, if there had been time on the eve of the holiday to separate challah and they forgot, one may not separate challah on the holiday. But there are three practical solutions.
- At twilight, to separate challah [apparently it was already later].
- To separate challah through a minor nearing adulthood, whose separation is valid, so the challah becomes challah and the remaining loaves are permitted to eat.
- To knead again an amount that is definitely obligated in separation according to all opinions, put everything under a cloth, and separate challah from everything together; bake the new dough [possibly in the oven via a Sabbath timer for a few more minutes as indirect causation, which on a holiday is permitted according to all opinions, or on the gas flame a small amount from the dough…], and on the holiday eat from the new one, and also eat the old ones that were permitted through the separation.
The rabbis she asked gave no option at all. They simply forbade it and left them with shame, humiliation, and a sour atmosphere.
Is it proper to publicize in the neighborhood that those rabbis either do not know the Jewish law, or are maliciously being stringent and causing great distress? Or both together?
Answer
2. What would a minor nearing adulthood help? He is under a rabbinic prohibition to separate, due to the law of education, and here it is even actively feeding him something prohibited, which is a Torah prohibition.
3. Regarding combining them, simply speaking it is impossible to combine them, but one can do a “basket-combination”: https://din.org.il/2015/10/14/%D7%A6%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%A3-%D7%97%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%9C%D7%94%D7%A4%D7%A8%D7%A9%D7%AA-%D7%97%D7%9C%D7%94/
It seems to me that if you do that as well, it is indeed a possible workaround, although it still requires discussion whether it helps to separate in that way also for the challahs from which one may not separate, or whether they penalized him not to separate from them, and it is forbidden even in this way.
By the way, on a holiday one must separate after baking and not from the dough as you wrote. And from the challahs that were already prepared, one would have had to separate from the dough, so in any case this separation is not ideal.
And obviously one must not spread any such slander in the neighborhood. That is just plain wickedness. The fact that you thought of a workaround (which I am not entirely sure is effective, as stated) does not mean they do not know the Jewish law. Where did you come up with such malice?