[Avodah] Driving Miss Daisy to Chameitz

[Micha Berger]

On  Wed, 28 Mar 2007 22:20:50 +0200 R' Dr. Josh Backon
<backon at vms.huji.ac.il> wrote:
>>Every week she drives this 86 yr old lady to the supermarket to help
>>with her grocery shopping. Friend is sure that the older woman will not
>>change her very routine menu.
>>So:
>>Does he drive the woman, risking lifnei iveir or mesayei'ah?
>>Or does she not drive, risking the woman having a food shortage?
>>Should she bow out but find a non-Jewish driver -- is that any less
>>lifnei iveir otherwise?

> Obviously there's a nafka mina between BEFORE Pessach where the food
> is heter vs. on Chol haMoed where it's issur. On Chol haMoed: Lefi aniyut
> daati it would look like an issur mesaei'ah as per the Shach in Yoreh Deah
> 151. Taking the woman to the supermarket BEFORE Pessach looks like a
> "melachto l'issur u'l'heter" (as per Mishna in Shviit 5:6) and thus OK....

Well, I got the pesaq she was actually given.

It was ruled le'issur uleheter on ch"m too.

However, there are other problems that make it preferable to have the
woman do two weeks' shopping before Pesach.

1- Anything she buys which will be mevateil on erev YT when the issur
is derabbanan is thereby batul. If she buys the food on Pesach, those
items would be be'issur.

2- Does she really want chameitz in her freshly cleaned car?

3- The LOR in question had a half-baked idea that it might be a problem
midinei melakhah bech"m to buy food one shouldn't be eating on ch"m, or
even helping her do so. He wasn't sure it was an issue, but since there
was that first bitul reasoning, he didn't pursue it further.

:-)||ii!
-mi

PS: Mi ke'amkha Yisrael story... An element of the above that I neglected
to mention: The neighbor who does the driving is herself not a healthy
woman. She just completed chemo, but was driving her older neighbor during
her treatment as well.

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 2nd day
micha at aishdas.org        in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted
Fax: (270) 514-1507                           Chesed?