[Avodah] slippery slope

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Jan 07, 2009 at 08:30:51PM +0200, Eli Turkel wrote:
: I still am confused if the objection to any change in halacha due to
: changed circumstances or just to those with a preceived femimist
: motivation.

Neither. I would say it changes with what the community can absorb
without real danger of fatally damaging the process that keeps us bound
to halakhah.

: As many have pointed out halacha constantly changes with circumstances.
: A famous case is Chanukah candles...

Feminism issues change lifestyle, redefine entire roles. It's of more
fundamental scope than whether we light outside near the door or by the
front window.

: It is interesting to note that I have seen opinions that someone on an
: upper floor should not light on the ground floor since that changes
: the custom of lighting inside!!! i.e. we dont abandon a custom of the
: last 1000 years for that of chazal

Qitniyos is also a minhag that defies Chazal. It is not like the topic
doesn't come up in the gemara. It's raised on Pesachim 114b and R Yochanan
ben Nuri is explicitly labeled a da'as yachid!

The problem is that if we allow a gap between the people and mimeticism
that proves to start a longer process, we will lose one of our greatests
tools (our greatest?) in perpetuating shemiras hamitzvos.

: If slippery slope applies only to "feminist" changes then we start
: analyzing the motives of people. Many women have objected strongly that
: their motives are to increase and display their
: spirituality and not for feminist reasons...

Both sides of this debate I think fail because they're being absolutist.
It's the desire for spirituality of a feminist. It's not necessarily
"in order to advance the feminist cause", and it's not spirituality
in the absence of feminism. It's that feminism was accepted as a value.
The world changed, and people live in that world. Given who they are now,
what can they do to be more spiritual, to better connect to the A-lmighty?

Is it to find new avenues of expression, or to learn how to roll
back applying feminism? (Altogether? To this aspect of their lives?)

I think that if the motive is to "display their spirtuality" or to
promote feminism as an end in itself, the discussion would be different.
However, I agree with RET about the countrproductiveness of simply
assuming negative motivation.

...
: Now changes in halacha become more of a political issue than the halachic
: poretz geder which seems to apply more to people who are conscientiously
: going against halakha such as not keeping yom tov sheni of galut

Actually, as I wrote after searching Ber Ilan's CD poreitz geder
appears to be a violation of minhag (e.g. MB OC 550:1) or even labeled
"bad behavior" (such as the mesacheiq bekubiyah case I brought from the
Tashbatz) that threatens to cause an unravelling of the whole minhag
system (as in the already quoted Leli Yaqar: "zehu inyan pesichas
hapesach shehizkarnu, she'al yedei hapesichah rabim boq'in bo...". It's
a variant of the slippery slope, but one in which an established minhag
was violated.

Which still allows one to ask whether the absence of these changes are a
"geder" or lo ra'inu eino ra'ayah before one can formally say "poreitz
geder [yinshechu nachash]".

However, the KY is clear that it is appropriate for a poseiq to not only
take into account the halachic merits of an issue, but also the question
of where it would lead. It's not always dismissable as "politics".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

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Micha Berger             Here is the test to find whether your mission
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