[Avodah] schechtworthy

[Chana Luntz]

I wrote:

> > And, in many ways it is hard to see (leaving aside the hair covering
> >case) how a man who wants to be shomrei mitzvos can remain married to 
>> such a woman.
> 
> But I thought we were discussing precisely the case of hair covering,

I think the thread has shifted here, and you may not have followed the
shift.

We were discussing hair covering vis a vis a shochet's wife.  And RMB argued
that a husband cannot be considered controlling, and it is his wife's averah
not his.

I pointed out that the Mishna in Kesubos would seem to imply that a man
ought to divorce his wife in such a case.

RMYG queried this, given that the Rambam holds that if a man wants to remain
married to a woman in the case of the Mishna, he does not have to divorce
her.

I brought that while the Rambam does indeed hold like this, the Shulchan
Aruch brings that it is a mitzvah to divorce her (and that the takana of
Rabbanu Gershom which normally prevents her being divorced against her will
does not apply).

As a tangent, I added that while I understood the position of the Rambam in
relation to daas yehudis and those aspects of daas Moshe that involve
haircovering, I struggled to understand him in relation to the general case
of daas Moshe - of which the classic case is that she misleads him as to her
nida status.  How in that case, I queried, could the Rambam say that if a
man wanted to, he could remain married to her, and why did he not have beis
din force the man to divorce her.

> which isn't like the other examples.  Her going out with uncovered hair
> seems to me more like her eating treif, rather than feeding him treif;
> and we don't find that listed among the Das Moshe issues that justify
> divorce.

No, but her not covering her hair is more like the other cases of daas
Yehudis found in the Mishna - such as weaving in the marketplace and other
violations of tznius - and it is precisely in relation to such violations
that the Shulchan Aruch says that it is a mitzvah to divorce her.  What I
was querying was whether in fact the Shulchan Aruch was even stronger on
matters which were not just daas yehudis, and might hold that indeed a beis
din should force a divorce in the case of a woman feeding her husband treif.

> If she had actually been machshil him once then the only way I can see
> that he might not have to divorce her is if he's personally convinced
> that she won't do it again.  If it were a strict requirement that he
> divorce her, then we would not allow him to rely on his own judgment;
> the point here seems to be that he is entitled to judge the situation
> as he sees it, and stay with her if he thinks he can do so without
> transgressing any more issurim.

That might perhaps be the rationale of the Rambam - although it is a
fascinating one - as it would seem to put the husband's assessment of the
situation (and his level of negia is pretty high) over beis din's.  Why is
his judgement to be trusted here but not in regard to whether television
does or does not have an effect on him, for example?

 
> Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's



> And in any case, this all started because the shocheit's job was saved
> on the grounds that it was she who wasn't covering her hair, not that
> the shocheit himself was violating halachic norm.

That may be true, but he is still, according to the Shulchan Aruch, failing
to perform the mitzvah of divorcing her.  It would seem from this that
failing to perform an explicit mitzvah in the Shulchan Aruch is OK, if it is
the community norm not to perform this mitzvah.  

> Which means that the whole question of whether it's grounds for a get --
> while important in its own right as a discussion of hilkhos gittin -- is
> tangential to the original issue.

No, the issue is not whether it is grounds for a get, but whether or not it
is a mitzvah to give a get.

Try this one for size, how OK would a shochet be from Moldovia (or wherever
it was that the community drank stam yenam)?  According to this, fine - they
have a tosphos on which one might possibly argue a reliance, and the
community does it, and stam yenam is only a d'rabbanan after all.  But beard
trimming and galoshes, no way.

In an earlier posting RZS writes:

> I think what we're dealing with here is not the loss of the standard
> chezkas kashrus that every Jew is presumed to have, but of a higher
> level of proven trustworthiness that is demanded of communal shochtim.
> I imagine that those who fired a shochet for wearing galoshes would
> still allow him to testify at a din torah, and would even eat at his
> home.  But his deviation from communal norms made his yir'as shomayim
> suspect enough not to eat from his shechita.

But where is this all sourced from?  I thought l'hefech, that a good portion
of the dinim regarding chezkas kashrus are learnt out from the first few
dafim of Chullin, and davka specifically in relation to whether one could
eat from a persons' shechita.  This whole idea that we are discussing
elsewhere that a mumar l'chachis is like an ovdei avodah zara  who is
considered like a non Jew and a mechalel shabbas b'farhesia is like an
ovedei avodah zara is brought specifically in relation to shechita (inter
alia, Achav's shechita) there in Chullin.  Whereas a person who is over on
other issurim may be an averyan but their shechita is not assur (and then
Tosphos has a whole discussion about whether being mechallel shabbas
b'farhesia by way of a d'rabbanan is enough, or it needs to be a violation
of a d'orisa b'farhesia).

And then you go from the first few dafim of Chullin to the first few simanim
of Yoreh Deah, and you read things like (siman 2 si'if 2) Mumar ochel
nevelos l'teavon yisroel, bodek sakin v'nosen lo v'mutar l'echol
meshechitaso afilu yishchot beno l'vein atzmo. 

...

(4) mumar l'teaivon sheshochet beno uven atzmo v'yesh imo sakin yafe
v'sheaino yafe, v'omer shb'yafe shachat neman.

And then

(5) Mumar l'chachis afilu ldvar echad or shehu mumar lavodas cochavim or
shechallel shabbas b'farhesia or shehu mumar l'kol hatorah afilu chutz
mshatim elu dino k'ored chochavim   - and even with the Rema adding, mi
sheaino choshesh b'shechita v'ochel neveilos b'lo l'teivon uf al pi sheino
oseh l'chachis dino mumar l'chachis. 

And it was from all this that I thought we learnt out chezkas kashrus in
general.

- this seems an awfully far cry from galoshes. Basically it would seem from
these sources that even if he himself eats treif, so long as he does it out
of desire of the food, and not davka, his shechita is OK.  The only thing
that I thought could be brought to the contrary was the Rema that I brought
previously that the beis din has a responsibility not only to check that a
shochet knows his stuff halachically (ie a mumcha), but that he is a kasher
- because of the reliance placed on him.  

So how did we get from here to galoshes and beards and the like?  I still
don't get it.

Regards

Chana