[Avodah] Tinok Shenishbah today - opinion of Gedolei HaPoskim

[Chana Luntz]

RMB writes:

> 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 to really understand what is going on, you need to take a step back.


The basic principle flowing through from the gemora in Avodah Zara and on,
is that a person who is mechallel shabbas b'farhesia is kofer b'ikar, is
like one who is oved avodah zara, and it is impossible for them to do
teshuva (or at best, when they try, the effort is so overwhelming that it
will kill them).  Such people are beyond redemption - or at the very least,
it is not for us to assume their redemption, but we must reject them out of
hand.

The sources for this are all very clear.

So the answer to your question above is - if we are talking about being a
full fledged mechallel shabbas b'farhesia, no, that person would not truly
be a shogeg - to act in such a manner is to put himself beyond the bounds of
the Jewish people.

While the Rambam is of course the source for extending the concept of TSN to
the Karaites, in a way that is a diversion, because the Karaites were a very
separate group, and the issues are different.

Instead in many ways it is far more fruitful to look at the more modern day
situation (although what we are describing goes back in a number of places
for nearly 200 years)- and looking at the Binyan Zion, the Melamed L'Hoil
and the kinds of situations they were describing, and led to them using the
concept.

The thing is, if you relate to a person using the classical understanding
then, as a consequence:

a) a kiruv movement is pointless; 

b) a baalei teshuva movement is impossible; and

c) you pretty much need to relate to the non frum the way you are expected
to relate to a bone fide oved avodah zara - you certainly cannot be yotzei
their  brochas, - according to most, join them in a minyan, etc etc.

It is a position, one needs to acknowledge it as a legitimate position, but
once you think through what people are actually doing today you can see why
it is not the majority position.

Most people in searching around for an alternative, end up with the Binyan
Zion's formulation of TSN, but it is not the only alternative.  Rav Moshe
has an alternative - which is, the majority of these people are not like
ovdei avodah zara, they are not like people who are kofer b'ikar, they are
just like the rest of us who do averos out of ta'avah.  Some of us might
speak loshon hora because the urge is too great - that does not make us
beyond the pale, it just makes us people who have done aveiros and who need
teshuva.  Similarly people who are mechalel shabbas b'farhesia are usually
doing it because they want the parnassa, or they want whatever it is that
they get out of doing the averah, and their ta'avos overcome them.  He
excludes from this category reform and conservative rabbis, whom he holds
truly are doing it because they believe in the essence of what they are
doing.

If you follow Rav Moshe's position - there is probably not much point for
the kiruv movement as found today. What you need is more of a tochacha
movement.  On the other hand, he would expect a ba'alei teshuva movement,it
is quite likely that many of the people to whom he refers will indeed do
teshuva - especially as they get older and they retire and their desires
dominate less.  However, he would not expect any reform or conservative
rabbi to do teshuva.

To be honest, I certainly knew numbers of people who to my mind fitted Rav
Moshe's description to T, although most of them came from Europe and are now
gone.  These were the people who opened the shop on shabbas, because they
felt they could not do without the parnasa, and while keeping kosher at
home, ate treif out, as they did not feel able to lose face in front of
friends and business partners (and the kinds of kosher restaurants available
were not the sort of thing they could take such people to). Once they
retired they were often back to being in shul.  For such people, you might
have tried questioning whether parnassa was really more important than the
Ribono Shel Olam, but you would not have needed to explain to them either
shabbas, parnassa or the Ribono Shel Olam.  These sort of people would, of
course most certainly not have ended up as a reform or conservative rabbis -
in most countries the shuls they didn't go to were Orthodox, although in the
US, given the proliferation of alternatives, that might not always be the
case - but the problem was that they were not serious enough about
yiddishkeit, not that they were going to spend their life studying and
teaching it the wrong way.

Now this approach, as you can see, worked very much for the kind of old
timers that were found in a lot of Orthodox shuls, but in the more recent
teshuvos from Rav Moshe you did find some language of "like tinok shenishba"
creeping in, seeming to deal with the new breed who were, unlike the group
above, pretty clueless about yiddishkeit generally.  But I don't think Rav
Moshe ever had any real need to move beyond this intermediate category
halacha l'ma'ase.  After all, by allowing people who were not frum to have
aliyos, to duchen etc, he had taken away most of the issues that needed
discussing.

As to your question as to whether Rav Moshe would have today or even in the
80/90s - which is after the times he was writing, have considered even
reform and conservative rabbis to fall within a different category than
kofer b'ikar, we can really only speculate.  However, I suspect that the key
criteria for Rav Moshe would not so much have been the knowledge levels of
those within JTS, but whether or not such people could do teshuva and join
the ba'alei teshuva movement - if we started seeing a reasonably steady
stream out of JTS and into the Orthodox world (and I think to an extent we
have seen at least a trickle if not more than that) then I personally do
suspect he might have revised his assessment.  Because part of the
underlying assessment is that these people are beyond redemption - they are
so wedded to their incorrect understanding of the world, and so dedicated to
it, that teshuva is close to impossible.  On the other hand because of his
understanding that a Reform/Conservative seminary is not really any
different to a seminary for priests to serve avodah zara, he would have been
extremely reluctant to give any recognition to anybody who was still
carrying the title of such a priesthood, so long as and until they had made
the break.

But most people have preferred not to go down RMF's route.  This is true
historically, and is probably even more true today.  The reason I say even
more true today is because the kiruv movement and its focus on education
makes little sense within such an analysis.  The philosophy behind the kiruv
movement is TSN and the Binyan Zion - it only makes sense to put a huge
effort into education if it is clear that people will start doing the right
thing with education, which then demonstrates that what they were lacking
before was education.  Education towards keeping mitzvos, aka chinuch, is
what we generally provide to children.  To the extent that one believes that
the kiruv movement has been a success, that merely teaching adults achieves
results, and that the ba'alei teshuva movement is indeed real and a product
of the kiruv movement, then you don't have a lot of other places to go.

The other problem with RMF's approach (which may or may not be a problem to
you philosophically) is that in effect he downgrades the importance of
shabbas, or at least the public observance of shabbas - by making it just
another mitzvah that people can be over on l'ta'avon.  Whether you shrug
your shoulders and say, well that is how it is, or whether you are less
happy with that trade off, will depend on you, but historically the sources
have been very clear that the public observance of shabbas is the litmus
test of an observant Jew, and by rejecting the TSN approach, but still
allowed the non frum to have aliyos and for us to be yotzei from their
brochos, Rav Moshe has in effect done away with this litmus test, bringing
it down to the level of every other mitzvah.

The alternative is, of course, to reject all of this.  Presumably though if
you were thinking this through, not only would you (unless you held like Rav
Moshe that minyan is from the meraglim) have to refuse to be part of a
minyan that contained somebody non shomer shabbas befarhesia, one might also
have to refuse to be part of a minyan with someone who once upon a time was
non shomer shabbas befarhesia - because it is not for us to assume their
genuine ability to do teshuva, given the difficulties.

> > Tir'u baTov!
> > -Micha

Regards

Chana