[Avodah] Minhag Yisroel and Gra on 2 Matzos vs.3 Matzos/Rabbi shopping

[Chana Luntz]

RAF writes:

> It is hard to argue in the specific case you mention.  However, there
is a 
> workaround, as explained in halakhah. If you find out about a 
> different opinion, go back to the first rav and confront him with it; 
> he may change his  mind or be unconvinced.

Yes, but this only works for those who know enough to "find out about a
different opinion".  Especially in something as private as ta'haras
mishpacha, especially when it involves women, that is not that likely.
Would she have even told me in the days when her Rav told her there was
nothing that could be done?  I don't know.  She told me this story a)
after it had all happened and she had children and b) after the Jewish
Chronicle (not the world's frummest paper) did a write up on halachic
infertility (basically the article we all commented on - was it in
Ha'aretz a few months back).  And then I happened to be over there just
after she had read it.  And only then did this story come out of the
woodwork.  OK, after I told her what I told her, the next time I went
around, I discovered that she had been talking to her shabbas guests
about it, and I suspect that it is not going to stop there.  But how
many other cases might there be out there like this?

Similarly RMG writes:

>In R'n CL's friend's 
> situation, it clearly was a question of Hanhagah, and 
> therefore Muttar.

Yes, but.  My friend, is a lovely person, but she is certainly no
talmida chachama, and does not have the knowledge to know the difference
between hanhagah and halacha.  That means you are restricting the
shopping ability to those with some knowledge about where they overstep
the bounds of acceptable shopping (or alternatively it is going to
happen in the wrong cases, because first the person would need to ask a
shiala about whether one can shop, and then shop).

Going back to my discussion with RAF:

> > If one or one's wife is pregnant with Tay Sachs
> > child, knowing the machlokus regarding the permissibility (or
> > advisability) of abortion in the theoretical can allow one to avoid 
> > R'X or his followers without actually asking R'X and seek 
> out a talmid 
> > of R' Y.
> 
> Here I have a problem, for the shoel is focusing on the 
> outcome. I find that quite unappealing. 

But, then you need to ask the question - how is that anybody ever
chooses a Rav?  I suspect that if you dig down deep enough, you will
find that people end up with a Rav in two different ways - a) somebody
happens to be around and is convenient or b) somebody gells with one's
metahalachic or philosophical standpoint.

Now often it may be that one only is forced to think about the
metahalachic or philosophical issues that matter to one, when one gets
put into a crisis situation (such as a Tay Sachs pregnancy).  Let me
give you another real case that happened to other friends of ours.
Their first child was stillborn.  Now here in England, one becomes a
member of a burial society by means of shul membership, and their
particular shul was a member of a particular burial society, which meant
that the baby ended up being buried by that burial society.  Now our
friends found the way that this particular burial society, under the
guidance of their Dayanim, handled the whole matter insensitive to say
the least - they wouldn't let them go to the funeral or tell them where
the baby was buried and there were just a whole host of issues.  Now
this particular couple, after a number of subsequent healthy children,
then had a child diagnosed in utero with a very life threatening
situation.  Basically there was very little hope.  Anyhow, they went to
full term, and as soon as the child was born, it was whipped off to
Great Ormand Street (which is the premier children's hospital in the UK)
and the NHS, as it will do in such circumstances, pulled out all the
stops to try and save this baby's life.  But there is only so much that
modern medicine can do, and the child only lived for around 10 days.
Now perhaps because they had already had one experience with the
particular burial society and set of Dayanim, or perhaps they had formed
other links in the meantime, but they went to a Dayan from one of the
other betei din here (actually the same Dayan of my previous story - I
don't know if that is a coincidence), who seems to have been a pillar of
strength during the whole ordeal, (and was happy for them to name the
child even though there was no, and no real chance of, a bris etc etc,
something that gave them a lot of comfort).  And he made it clear that
if the child was being buried under his auspices, then a lot of the
matters they had found so difficult last time would not have occurred.
Unfortunately, because of the way these things work, they were stuck
with the burial society they had, but it was still helpful to have
somebody of this Dayan's calibre assisting them in their argument.

So it can be argued that it is only if and when one finds oneself in
these kind of anguished sorts of situations, that a true aseh l'cha Rav
occurs, and that is inevitably focussed on outcomes.

>Choosing between RMF and REWaldenberg's respective  pessaqim in this
matter isn't one of mere choice. Going to 
> mikveh a night earlier may be a violation of minhag, or in some cases,
of a  derabbanan (usually only a strong minhag); aborting a child is, 
> according to some, a toladah of murder.I am not invalidating REW's
opinion, but I  do feel that the 
> shoel, too, must approach his role with gravitas. That gravitas is
called  yirat shamayim.

Agreed - but what I am trying to show is that it is when the chips are
down, so to speak, that who one is may come to the fore.  I think here
you were assuming that the person would necessarily be avoiding a talmid
of RMF and finding one of REW - but I was trying quite carefully not to
make that judgement.  I can just as easily see somebody discovering that
they felt deeply and intensely in their heart that indeed abortion was
murder, and that they could not abort the fetus they were carrying - in
which case, going to a talmid of REW, who is likely to tell them that
they really ought to abort, and to think of the suffering to be caused
in the world for no reason if they do not, would not be helpful.  Such a
Rav may well be much less of a support for the inummerable halachic
shialas that are likely to come up if the couple didn't abort and then
had to deal with a Tay Sachs baby.  Somehow I would guess that a Rav who
thought that the couple had taken the moral decision not to murder would
be much more approachable in such a situation than one who thought they
were being machmir at their and their baby's expense.

Getting back to the outcome aspect of this - let's dive off into
another, topical and highly contraversial topic.  If one becomes
increasingly convinced that the whole shmitta/heter machira debate ends
up being a debate between those who prefer to be machmir (or not be
makil) in ben adam l'makom, and those who prefer to be machmir (or not
to be makil) in ben adam l'chavero - what do you do? (OK here I am
clearly slanting the debate a bit, if you were coming from the other
side you might say somebody appears to be a bit too makil in shmitta for
your comfort). Do you end up following a Rav whom you may have gone to
in the past even though you are now finding yourself philosophically
opposed to what appears to be his philosophical standpoint?  Do you
confront him?  If you do confront him and you seem to get no
understanding, do you go somewhere else?  Is this not about shopping
around?  Do we not effectively do this all the time as we form our
halachic personalities (eg in yeshiva/sem, as life throws us things that
we never anticipated in yeshiva/sem)?

> Of course, in this scenario, too, one could argue for some unusual 
> circumstances making the pre-shopping shopping more acceptable.

Well, one of the things that as one gets older, and more and more of
one's friends seem to have one set of unusual circumstances or another,
one starts wondering whether that is not the nature of life, it just the
question of which set you get.  It does start to make one wonder whether
in fact shopping around is the essence, ie finding somebody who gells
regarding the big things, and then taking the little things in your
stride, because they really don't matter (ie, if it does not matter to
you whether an egg is treif or kosher, then you are not going to make a
long trip to an extremely sensitive gadol to ask about it).

> KT
> -- 
> Arie Folger


Regards

Chana