[Avodah] Tinok Shenishbah today - opinion of Gedolei Haposkim

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 4:25pm EDT, R Samuel Svarc wrote:
: These criteria, IMHO, lie at the crux of the matter. Once they know it
: exists their personal clock for culpability starts ticking. 

Let's go back a step. The phrase TNS comes up in the gemara as an
example of shogeig in which the person commits numerous aveiros under
the same error.

How is it then possible to take someone who is committing aveiros under a
misapprehension due to upbringing and NOT call him a TNS? Alternatively,
if you do, why wouldn't he be equally a shogeig despite the lack of label,
and thus have the same din anyway?

I think in v2n109 I tried to conclude that today's TSN, who may have
heard of Torah but told to dismiss it as quaint, backward, or whatever is
an oneis, not a shogeig, and that's why he's not a TSN. I can't recall
my argument (maybe it was based on the Radvaz below), or how it helps
address the conclusion of the IM or of RSZA anyway.

...
: The above mentioned poskim either:
: - Learn the Rambam differently, or
: - Have other Rishonim on which they rely on, because they are explicitly
: saying the opposite of how you understood it.

I am questioning that last clause. E.g. In IM, OC 5:28.22 RMF presumes
the non-O Jew in question "sees and knows shomerei Torah umitzvos and they
know that there are gedolim and more intelligent and rational people than
their parents"... (as quoted by RDE, the Yad Moshe, in our vol 2 iteration
of this discussion <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol02/v02n110.shtml#02>)
How many non-O Jews do you know consider R' Elyashiv more intelligent
and rational than their own parents and authority figures?

The Radvaz (2:12) is discussing 2nd generation anusim, who do very well
know what they're rejecting. I'm not sure the case is nearly parallel to
nidon didan.

BTW, recall that according to the Radvaz (4:187), someone who rejects
TmS because of honest speculation leading to the wrong answer isn't a
kofeir. Rather, it's a kind of oneis. Would someone who was misled by
their upbringing be WORSE? (Well, RAYK's notion of the holy idealist
might say, "yes". At least this person grappled with the right questions!)

...
: Because once he knows of its existence he is m'chuyav to find out about its
: veracity. So was explained to me by R' Berger from Aish (IIRC - Where I held
: the position that BD wouldn't kill a TSN who was m'challel Shabbos and he
: disagreed).

But that's not how psychology works; and the gemara's sevara is about
being under an honest error. As is the Rambam.

:> All of these quotes by RDB are about a generation or two before this
:> one.

: Correct, the 80's and 90's are a generation or two ago. It is also quite a
: few more generations after the start of the R and C movements. Certainly,
: the quotes were explicitly dealing with at least 3rd generation R and C
: Jews.

The IM is obviously older, as RMF stopped writing before the 80s.

...
:> Also, given Ishei Yisrael pg 138 fn 52 (which I found was referred to
:> here and in mail-jewish), where RSZA is quoted as saying that it's better
:> to daven in a minyan of shomerei Shabbos, but if you can't, you can rely
:> on those who hold that non-O Jews are TSN.

: These are points that need addressing, but so do RDB's original quotes;
: these conflicting points don't "cancel out", so to speak.

No, I think they bring to question the assumption that "know of" means
academic knowledge of their existence, while stilll under the miseducation
that they are meaningless. As seems to me from the IM above as well,
he's talking about knowing that he's rejecting something that should be
worth his time to explore.

:> RSZA's position is nuanced; as is RMF's. As RMShinnar pointed out in
:> <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol06/v06n019.shtml#01>, one can't take
:> RMF as labeling someone a TSN or not across the board, one must instead
:> discuss "TSN WRT hilkhos..."

: I actually checked RMShinnar's post and look at what he wrote.

: "4) Question to the extent that current non Shomre mitzvot are actually a
: TsN, (in most of his language he uses dome leTsN) - Rav Moshe clearly holds
: (whcih is the svara of the Radbaz with regard to the Karaim) that those who
: have contact with the dati community but reject it (see for example EH 1:82)
: do not have the status of a TsN"

: I think it's unanimous then. This *is* RMF p'sak: most R and C Jews are
: *not* TSN.

Again, "were". He also assumes that their clergy consciously rejected TmS
more than their followers do. I went to Columbia Engineering with numerous
JTSA students studying for ordination. (In the same combined plan I was
doing with YU, but JTSA is next-door to Columbia so the program is more
popular. Most of the yarmulkas in class were not atop O heads.) I can
not agree that this knowing what they rejected was the metzi'us in the
mid-80s, never mind today.

So, I have two choices: either to assume RMF was misled about the
metzi'us, or that he was describing something else. But in no case
does that distinction fit the criterion that knowing we're out there
removes one from the class of TsN. The lay people know that no less than
the clergy!

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 33rd day, which is
micha at aishdas.org        4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total
Fax: (270) 514-1507               submission to truth, and what results?