Q&A: Giving an Untoveled Utensil as a Gift to a Secular Jew
Giving an Untoveled Utensil as a Gift to a Secular Jew
Question
Is it permitted to give, as a gift, an utensil that has not been immersed to a Jew who does not observe Torah and commandments?
If there is a problem, what is the solution?
Thank you very much!
Answer
Why would there be a problem? "Do not place a stumbling block"? There is no such issue here at all. First, because his transgressions are not considered transgressions. Second, you are not handing him something forbidden to use for him to consume or commit an immediate prohibition with it (this is not like giving a cup of wine to a Nazirite). You are giving him something permitted, and if he later uses it in a forbidden way, that is his business. Exactly as you are allowed to marry off secular people even though they will not observe family purity laws.
Discussion on Answer
In my opinion there is no issue of "do not place a stumbling block" here, for the reasons above. But I wouldn’t do the second.
Why are his transgressions not considered transgressions? Honestly, I’m jealous of his status—can I join the club? What’s my fault that I was captured among the Haredim? That I should get such a heavy sanction, that my transgressions count as transgressions and I’ll get nailed for them, at least in the World to Come? Is there any way I can undo this suffocating bond so that my transgressions too won’t count as transgressions?
Happy are you, O Israel—before whom are you purified, and before whom are you destined to give judgment and reckoning…
Someone who was captured gains nothing from it. Even if there is some kind of reward, he will not receive it, because he does not deserve it.
Oy vey, heavens above—if before the tweet I had the sanction that “transgressions count,” now that I tweeted have I also lost the reward for the commandments?? “The native is on the ground while the stranger is in the heavens”? “Should not a priest’s daughter be at least like an innkeeper”? Woe is me that this has happened in my days.
What about matchmaking for secular people?
And matching a secular woman with someone who is wavering on the religious-secular line?