[Avodah] O attend R wedding = kosher eidim?

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, March 17, 2008 8:54 pm, R Elazar M. Teitz wrote:
:      I don't think R weddings have designated witnesses, certainly not
: "to the exclusion of all others."

I once worked for a small firm, about 8 people altogether, and two of
my co workers got married. She is an American of Italian Catholic
heritage, he was a Russian Jew who spent enough time in Israel to be
fluent in Hebrew. They were already sharing an apartment before the
engagement.

They had a civil wedding in a NY courthouse, and they asked me to be a
witness.

To bring the story to its relevancy for this conversation, I would
presume that if the American norm is to appoint witnesses, R would as
well. So, I hit Google and near the top of the list (the first
relevant hit) I found
<http://www.myjewishlearning.com/lifecycle/Marriage/LiturgyRitualCustom/ModernCustoms/Howto_Wedding.htm>:
>                   Traditionally, a witness must be a religiously
> observant Jewish male, unrelated to the bride or groom. Reform and
> Reconstructionist and some Conservative rabbis accept women as
> witnesses, though most still prefer that the witness be Jewish.

So, they appoint witnesses, often nothing resembling eidus. They are
pretty formally appointed, actually, I got the impression that there
is usually one set of witnesses for the "kesuvah" and the ceremony. I
do not know if the appointment of a woman and a nachri would qualify
as being close enough to appointing eidim as to exclude all others. So
I'm left agreeing with the possibility of the seifa of the
above-quoted sentence, even if I think the metzi'us assumed in the
reisha is mistaken.

But to my mind, a core question is at what point is the appointment of
two passul eidim not even qualify as separating out eidim? How does
selecting two brothers qualify as separating out two eidim altogether,
whereas (I presume) separating out two people to serve as
representatives of the Lollipop Guild would not?



An odd side-point of the above story; IOW, mikan va'eilakh is a tangent.

I told my then LOR about the "honor". He reasoned (roughly, I'm going
back around 15 yrs): The couple are living together either way. There
is no enabling of an aveirah by participating in the ceremony.

Now I might even add:

The Rogatchover has a huge (IMHO) chiddush that a couple who had a
wedding ceremony that wasn't qidushin would require a get shichrur!
His reasoning sounds Brisker, the Rogatchover makes tzvei dinim out of
marriage. There is qiddushin, and then there is the concept of baalus
as it applies even to benei Noach (arayos is one of the 7 mitzvos).

So, the usual get wouldn't apply, because there is no qedushah to
terminate. However, to end baalus, as by a baal releading a former
eved, one uses a get shichrur.

According to the Rogatchover, then, perhaps if you truly believed the
couple would stay together no longer with the NY state recognition
than without, the wedding is a /good/ thing.

But with or without this sevara, the damage of intermarriage was
already done. And thus the LOR in question said it would be okay to
participate, and if I was the Russian yid's only contact to tradition,
I should seriously consider accepting.

I did it, and I still feel guilty over the decision.

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight,
micha at aishdas.org        and he wants to sleep well that night too."
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