[Avodah] Yichud and fostering

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, December 5, 2006 6:25 pm, Chana Luntz wrote:
:... RMB writes:
:>R' Dovid Cohen (Flatbush) who is Ohel's poseiq, is quite meiqil, since
:>foster care is inherently a she'as hadechaq.
:>In this he follows Rav Moshe -- the basic din holds, minus every
:>possible qulah.

: ...
: Rav Moshe himself holds in Even HaEzer vol 4 siman 64 (2) that where a
: husband marries a woman with a daughter and so adopts the daughter, that
: yichud is permitted for short periods with the daughter because "because
: it is possible to say that he will be afraid from his wife that she will
: be suspicious of  him and when she returns she will question and
: investigate her daughter" and all will be revealed.

: I wonder whether this could be considered the basis of the psak referred
: to above.  After all, if a child is being placed in foster care, the
: authorities, especially in the first month, are likely to be crawling
: all over the placement and asking loads of questions...

This is, unfortunately, not the norm in NY or NJ since well before Rav Moshe's
arrival in the States. So, if that were the basis of RMF's pesaq, it would
have based on a misunderstanding of the metzi'us. Gov't agencies aren't "all
over the case", to the point that foster children are killed by abuse in
stories covered by NY media, every couple of years or so, and in NJ, more than
annually.

Rather, Rav Moshe relies on incest usually coming out to the wife (or, I
presume husband in the reverse case) eventually, and inappropriate foster and
adoption relationships would similarly. But this does require that the foster
parents be a couple who live in the same home. For RMF this is true for all
children, for the TE, it's only for children who enter the home at a young
age.

That's WRT yichud; normal parental kissing and hugging is mutar according to
RMF. (I am told RSZA is machmir, and only allows with younger children. For
me, this would be ein yachol la'amod bah, so I never checked anyway.)

BTW, are you sure you didn't confuse #64 (2), with #7 (also in EH 4)? Because
I believe this sevara is in #64, whereas #71 is the one usually cited about
marrying a woman with a daughter.

In any case, as I opened, there is obviously a critical need for ehrlicher
foster parents. Particularly those of us who live in dense Jewish populations
large enough to have a number fo Jewish foster kids. Al tehi tzadiq harbei and
worry overly much about yichud problems; there are children losing their
neshamos out there.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha at aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter