[Avodah] What's important when paskening LeKula or LeChumra

[Elazar M. Teitz]

RnSBoublil writes
 
<Rav Aviner wrote a summary of the questions regarding Heter Mechira and Otzar Beit Din.

What is interesting is that he raises many issues that we have discussed here in the past, including the question of when a chumra in one matter actually impacts and causes a kula or even an aveira in another matter.

http://rotter.net/forum/scoops1/11242.shtml

He also brings Marei Mekomot.>

     WADR to Rav Aviner, what he has written is a polemic, not a summary.  

     He begins by positing that there is no question about the validity of the hetter mechira in view of the g'dolim who permitted it 112 years ago -- without even a mention that (1) there were g'dolim of equal caliber at that time who held the hetter invalid, and that (2) even among the mattirim, there were many (if not most) who felt it should be applied only in the extreme sh'as had'chak that was the then-current situation, and which might not apply today.

     Obviously, if one quotes only mattirim and not osrim, one can then claim that not to rely on the hetter is only midas chasidus, and can then argue that it is wrong to say "asur," and mention all sorts of problems one can be led to by a chumra.  But since his basic premise -- that it is indisputably only a chumra -- is false, so is the entire halachic edifice he constructs on that foundation; and the marei m'komos he cites are all about those consequences, not about the assumption itself.

     He does, however, raise serious objections to the otzar beis din hetter.  But here, too, I imagine that there are those who have responded to the objections, yet he makes no mention of them -- another indication of the agenda-driven, rather than halacha-centric, nature of his remarks.

     In the readers' reactions following the remarks, there was one worthy of note.  Rav Aviner strongly makes the point that one should not purchase from non-Jewish agriculture. (Parenthetically, the tenor of the article, especially its opening, gives the impression that it is a prohibition of greater importance than mitzvas sh'mitta.)  The questioner essentially asked why equal care was not given to this "issur" in non-sh'mitta years as well.  And it isn't -- certain vegetables, such as cucumbers, are almost all Arab produce.

EMT