[Avodah] May Kohanim visit the Rebbe's Ohel by means of a box

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Moshe Y. Gluck wrote:
> BTW, I've heard an argument similar to R' HS's in the name of
> a major Posek regarding wearing modern-day Techeiles: If this
> is it, explain why the generations before us were not able to
> have it?

I don't understand this argument at all. I'd think that the new techeiles is a great example of advancements in technology. Previous generations did not use the new techeiles, because they had no access to it. It was only discovered as a result of various factors in chemical knowledge. (Maybe I've misunderstood the whole business of the new techeles?)

There are other examples of new technology as well. From what I've heard, until recent decades, no one had the ability to make tefillin batim as strong as the ones we have now. But with advancements in metallurgy and other manufacturing processes, we now have tefillin that are so weather-resistant that many poskim advise us to never open them for inspection, unless there is a specific reason to suspect that they've gone bad. To me, this is a significant change to the previous halacha (2 inspections every 7 years) and it is a direct result of the new technology.

But other innovations have nothing to do with new technology. Previous generations could easily have done it. The claim is being made that these kohen-boxes are in this category. (I wish I could think of other examples, but my mind is drawing blanks at the moment. But the comment "If this was okay, earlier generations would've done it" sure sounds familiar.)

I might have thought that the kohen-boxes were in the "new technology" category, because they would have been very impractical before the availability of lightweight materials. But R' Zev Sero's post about using humans as a mechitza suggests that there's really nothing at all new about the kohen-boxes.

Akiva Miller