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

[Chana Luntz]

RAF writes:

> [Crawling out of self imposed lurk-exile ...]
> I believe that there is a major difference between 'Hazal and 
> contemporary cases, partly because nowaday it is possible to go pessaq

> shopping, which, when there was only one beit din per city, was
impossible. 
> And I didn't even begin talking about the legislative powers they had 
> (Sanhedrin was still around, etc.), which we don't have.

I am not saying that we are, or can be Chazal, I was just trying to show
that there are, or may be, other ways of thinking, perhaps even more
Jewish ways, that we may not be employing and that we may be missing key
aspects in the way we are operating.

> IOW, I find that while your argument that pessaq worked and 
> sometimes may  still work (that needs further analysis) partly bottom
up, 
> this in no way justifies the shoel looking for a particular outcome.

Let me go back to the case of the Rav who told my friend to keep trying
when we all know there is a very simple heter that should (and because
she psak shopped was) employed in this case to enable her to have
children.  Is it not crystal clear that after 120 years, when this Rav
goes to face the din emes, if my friend had in fact followed his ruling,
then this Rav would have been held accountable for the children (and all
the countless generations possibly after them) that did not exist, not
to mention the enormous suffering of my friend and her husband, that he
had caused?  In fact did not my friend, on a deeper level do this Rav a
big favour, because now his din will only be dealing with theoreticals,
not actuals.

Now as you have agreed, this case is arguably exceptional and deals with
very fundamental matters.  And yet ...  If we say that there is genuine
suffering if a person puts their hand in their pocket thinking that they
have a certain larger coin, and all they find is a smaller coin - if a
Rav rules unecessarily in a way that causes a person to have financially
less than they thought they had, then is not that Rav accountable in the
ultimate din emes for any pain so caused?  Of course the key word is
*unnecessarily*.  If the ruling is necessary, then obviously the Rav
must rule in such a way - although even then, one of the reasons given
why the Mitzrim were punished for afflicting the Yidden, even though it
had been fortold and clearly was part of Hashem's plan was because they
took pleasure in it (the other of course was because they inflicted more
than they were required which is the other limb of this).  

That is, there is a lot of focus on the shoel, and the avodah of the
shoel, but, it seems to me, very little on the meshiv and his yiras
shamayim.  After all, we already know something about the shoel.  In
this day and age, when there is tremendous freedom not to accept the
yoke of the Torah, the shoel has already demonstrated a) their fidelity
to mitzvos by asking; and b) their humility and honesty by not trying to
posken themselves out of all the books etc that are available.  Two
points already in favour of the shoel.  But the meshiv - what about his
yiras shamayim?  What about his avodah?  You see, I guess I suspect that
if the shoel really felt that the meshiv understood the full extent of
the impact of the psak on him and his life and sympathised/empathised
with his difficulties with it and was available to help in perfecting
that avodah, psak shopping would be almost non existent.  And if the
meshiv were prepared to be a bit more bottom up about things, and
genuinely try and understand the level of difficulty and/or pain that
the psak would cause, not to the meishiv if he needed to ask a similar
question, but to the shoel in the circumstances of the shoel, and really
believed that he would be accountable for that pain if the psak was
unnecessary, again I think that would unquestionably communicate itself
to the shoel and would make psak shopping far less likely.  

But the problem it seems to me today so often is that psak appears glib.
I don't believe that this Rav can possibly have genuine yiras shamayim
if he could have responded to my friend the way he did.  How could he
live with such a din against him?  And while a lot of cases are about
far more trivial things, or things that may seem more trivial, - it
seemed to me the point of the story about the egg being brought many
miles was precisely that what might have seemed trivial to many was in
fact not trivial at all to the shoel.  Now you can argue that it is nice
and easy for me to say.  It is all very rough to give psak with all the
consequences that accrue, and I am nice and out of the system by
definition, thereby making it easier to snipe from outside.  On the
other hand, perhaps being out of the system, with a complete ptur from
this kind of responsibility, makes it easier for me to see the enormity
of that responsibility and the extent to which it seems to be being
ducked. Psak shopping to my mind may well be a symptom of a deeper
problem, and not necessarily a cause.
 
> In fact, from another sugya, in Ketubot 23a, about a woman, and later
two who 
> says that she was imprisoned but remained tehorah, we see how it was
preferable to manipulate the reality (making sure that the 
> daughters of Mar  Shemuel came to beit din while the captors were kept
at a 
> distance -- a weird situation, where the captors would be willing to
wait at a 
> distance. Either the captors had been caught, or they were government
forces 
> confident that the women could not disappear under their watch, having

> numerous forces with them. The latter is indicated by Rashi s.v.
Deatyyan 
> liNharda'ah, where he explains that the women came to be redeemed).

Or they did teshuva I guess.  I am not sure that this is really a case
of manipulating reality though.  Here the women have demonstrated two
things to the beis din a) they have somehow sufficient control of the
captors to be able to get them to wait at a distance and b) their state
of purity was important enough for them to arrange for all this to
happen and they were clever enough to do so.  That seems to me to be a
strong raya that nothing happened - because the two situations where
things are likely to happen are a) when the women can't prevent it - ie
the captors are determined to take by force; and/or b) it is not
important enough to the woman to prevent it, ie it is easier to be
seduced rather than go to whatever lengths necessary to prevent
relations (assuming that the captors are not the type who are prepared
to force)).  i

>
> [back into self imposed lurk exile...]
> KT,
> -- 
> Arie Folger


Regards

Chana