[Avodah] chumrah leading to a kulah

[Akiva Miller via Avodah]

R' Eli Turkel wrote:

> In a recent tradition article article there is an example how
> a chumrah especially made as a reaction leads to a kulah
>
> In the prohibition R Louis Ginzberg issued a psak that one could
> use grape juice for kiddush. In reaction to this Conservative
> psak some O rabbi attacked R Ginzburg and paskened that grape
> juice was no different than orange juice and certainly not to be
> used for kiddush. As a result O Jews used wine for kiddush
> during the prohibition but drank grape juice without any hechsher.
>
> Today (beginning with R Pesach Tzvi Frank) most poskim say that
> one can use grape juice for kiddush (some even say its preferable).
> Most important they all hold that grape juice is wine for the
> prohibition of stam yeinam
>
> Hence, the attempt to attack R Ginzburg and be machmir led many
> Jews for over 30 years to transgress the issur of stam yeinam.

Alternatively, one could say that the attempt to equate wine and juice led
many Jews in recent years to transgress the issur of a bracha l'vatala at
Kiddush.

I am NOT taking sides or paskening on this issue. (Nor have I read the
article he referred to.) I am merely using it to illustrate how (in my
experience) when one finds a "chumrah leading to a kulah", it can also be
viewed as a "kulah leading to chumrah". These things are reversible, and
oftentimes the right and left are determined only by one's starting point.

Chumros about Bein Hashmashos on Saturday end up being kulos about Bein
Hashmashos on Friday. Chumros about Bein Hashmashos on Friday end up being
kulos about Bein Hashmashos on Saturday. And so on.

Akiva Miller
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