[Avodah] Hypocrisy in halakhah

[Michael Makovi]

> "Michael Makovi" <mikewinddale at gmail.com> wrote:
>>...
>>Thus, I've seen, for example, Rabbi Nahum Eliezer Rabinovitch using
>> Ramban and Meiri to justify saving a non-Juif (French) on Shabbat...

> Does this stance of R. Rabinovitch appear in writing?
> R' Yitzhak Grossman

Tradition, 8:3 1966 & Le'ela 1:5 (18-23) 1979

http://www.edah.org/backend/coldfusion/search/document.cfm?title=A%20Halakhic%20View%20of%20the%20Non%2DJew&hyperlink=wurzburger1%2Ehtml&type=Document&category=Jews%20and%20Gentiles%3A%20%C2%93Other%C2%94%20in%20Modern%20Orthodox%20Thought&authortitle=&firstname=Nahum%20Eliezer%20&lastname=Rabinovitch&pubsource=Tradition%2C%208%3A3%201966%20%26%20Le%27ela%201%3A5%20%2818%2D23%29%201979&authorid=335

http://tinyurl.com/R-Rabinovitch-Shabbat

(Same url)

This is in response to the Shahak affair. Also, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin
used this same Ramban for the Noah Feldman affair, although I don't
think he used Meiri.

-------------

It is also interesting to note that Professor Marc B. Shapiro (who, I
know, is not a halakhic authority), in response to the complaint that
"mishum eiva" is not ethical, responds that halakhah works by legal
tools and not moral/ethical ones, but that everyone knows that the
underlying motivation is certainly moral/ethical. So if we justified
saving nicht-Judes via a pragmatic self-preservation argument, this
doesn't obviate an ethical impetus or motivation behind the legal
facade.

http://www.lukeford.net/blog/?p=2595

"You have to violate the Sabbath to save everyone, but the reason
given in the sources is utilitarian (nicht-Judes won't save us if we
don't save them). Rabbi Soleveitchik said he was troubled by this. My
point was that all legal systems have to operate in a legal fashion.
That doesn't mean there aren't moral considerations pushing you, but
those are not in themselves enough to get to the result you want.

"You have to go through the system, the halakhic rules. When you get
to the utilitarian factor, that's the rule. That's the way to get to
where you want to go. That no more means you are ignoring ethical
factors than when a rabbi tries to free an agunah whose husband is
missing. He's certainly motivated by ethical factors, by great concern
for the suffering of the woman, but that's not enough. You need to
work within the system."

Professor Shapiro  is asked "Are there a significant number of
Orthodox Jews who believe you should not break the Sabbath to save the
life of a nicht-Jude?", and he answers,
"The idea that you can break the Sabbath to save a Jew is
questionable. During the Maccabee's day, they allowed themselves to be
killed. The rabbis say you violate one Sabbath so you can observe many
Sabbaths. Today everyone says you violate the Sabbath to save a life.
Some Orthodox Jews may wish we lived in a time when nicht-Judes
understood we can't break the Sabbath to save their life, but we live
in an era when no nicht-Jude is going to understand that."
He closes,
"The important thing is not the reasoning but the result."

End quote.

Professor Shapiro's claim that it is controversial even to save a Jew
on Shabbat is an interesting one. Rabbi Unterman (as explained by
Rabbi Jakobovits - http://tinyurl.com/Jakobovits-Shabbat) and Rabbi
Shalom Carmy (http://www.kolhamevaser.com/?p=9) both give this same
argument, saying that just as one cannot save a life (any life) via
murder, idolatry, and immorality, Shabbat is almost like this too.

(Full URL for Rabbi Jakobovits:
http://www.edah.org/backend/coldfusion/search/document.cfm?t
itle=A%20Modern%20Blood%20Libel&hyperlink=jakobovits1%2E
html&type=Document&category=Jews%20and%20Gentiles%3A
%20%93Other%94%20in%20Modern%20Orthodox%20Thought&author
title=Rabbi&firstname=Immanuel&lastname=Jakobavits&a
mp;pubsource=Tradition%2C%208%3A2%201966&authorid=433)

It is also interesting that a blogger quoting Rabbi Carmy (ibid.)
gives the same explanation as Professor Shapiro:
http://myobiterdicta.blogspot.com/search?q=carmy+feldman That same
blogger notes that to go from eiva to ahavah is not so far, and this
parallels Rabbi Jakobovits, who wants to say mishum eiva is synonymous
with mipnei darkhei shalom.

Rabbi Lamm also makes an argument similar to Professor Shapiro's: he
says that just as in secular law, halakhah will sometimes preserve a
law on the books but rewrite that law and hedge it so much, that it
becomes effectively inoperative. Case in point: saving a nicht-Jude on
Shabbat. http://www.forward.com/articles/11308

Mikha'el Makovi