[Avodah] best v. worst;

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 08:22:17AM -0400, Rich, Joel wrote:
: I haven't been following the thread but it occurs to me that the shikul
: hadaat required might be more of an analysis of the probability of the
: total range of possible outcomes weighted by the "long term benefit"
: of each- much like the decision on medical procedures that I've seen in
: the sh"ut literature.

It's a machloqes acharonim, with different kiruv organizations having
different practices in this regard. Many will take a "don't ask don't
tell" policy to make it clear to the talmid that they're implicitly
encouraging driving as a least-of-evils thing.

(The C driving responsum totally failed to understand the concept
of halakhah ve'ein morin kein. Therefore, their allowing someone who
otherwise wouldn't ever do anything Jewish to drive to synagogue on
Shabbos became in the minds of the people (1) reason not to bother looking
for a house near their synagogue, and (2) blanket "permission" to drive.)

When explained to me, the machloqes revolved around RJR's point. But
since one is discussing policy for a program, rather than individuals,
the shiqul hadaas becomes about what's true for most of the people they're
trying to reach, and not assessing an individual. IOW, the machloqes isn't
only about the application of "mechalelin alav shabbas achas", even among
those who say it does apply in principle, there is also a question of the
metzi'us and the likelihood of the Shabbasos harbei.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

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