[Avodah] some halachot of moser

[Zev Sero]

Daniel Israel wrote:
> Zev Sero wrote:
>> 2. The Aruch Hashulchan absolutely cannot be relied on in this area;
>> his exaggerated flattery of contemporary government is transparently
>> designed to please the censor, and is so over the top precisely so
>> that the reader should understand that he doesn't mean it.  E.g. see
>> the title of the siman on hilchot gerut.   It's of a piece with the
>> siddurim that proclaimed "avinu malkenu en lanu melech *bashamayim*
>> ela ata"; everybody understood that the extra word was not to be said.

> Unfortunately, as far as authoritative sources go, once you insist on 
> such a reading, the authority of the source is back to being simply your 
> assertion.

When a source is *known* to write things he doesn't mean in order to
get by the censor, how can you possibly rely on anything he writes in
that vein?  I have pointed to a place where he wrote that a halacha
no longer applies because nowadays we live under the wonderful and
enlightened rule of the KYRH, and where surely nobody will claim that
he meant it.  Therefore whenever he writes of a halacha that the
censor wouldn't like, that it no longer applies because of the
enlightened nature of the modern government (and remember just which
government he was talking about), surely you must concede that we
must treat it with extreme skepticism.

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher