[Avodah] Selling whiskey/ bourbon

[Meir Shinnar]

The discussion between RMB and RZS that minhagim should in some sense
be possibly universal seems to revolve around the following more
general issue (and I am sorry to RMB if I misrepresent his position).

There is a long section (IIRC 10 ma'amar) in Sa'adya Gaon's Nivhar
be'emunot vedeot where he examines different ethical and religious
positions - and rejects them because of particularity - because he
insists that any moral/ethical/religous position, to be defensible as
a valid position, has to be something that the entire community could
(at least in theory) adopt - that if a position is only viable because
it is dependent on other people not adopting it, that is proof that
the position is not a correct position - even if in practice, only a
few people actually adopt the position (this is different than the
Kantian imperative, but it is related)

That, I think, is in essence what RMB is arguing.  It is one thing to
argue that I have a humra that I am not going to impose on the
community. To cite one example of RZS, unless turkey is such major
part of the food supply that the community could not survive without
turkey, there is no problem with an individual saying that I am
machmir a la shelah and will not eat turkey - but will not impose that
on the general community.

 It is quite another to have a humra that is intrinsically dependent
on the fact that other people will not adopt that humra - and that if
everyone adopted it, the community would not be viable.  the question
of this viability may be debated in any inidvidual case (Eg, whether
the community could financially survive throwing out all non glatt
meat, would according to the general position of Saadya, be a criteria
whether it is legitimate for an individual to be machmir on himself -
even if he does not require the community to sacrifice... )but the
issue of communal viability if the humra is universally adopted
remains a criterion of whether a humra is a valid option - even if it
will, in practice, be only adopted by a few.

The issue of mechirat chametz seems to fall under this rubric -
clearly, as individuals, most of us can survive easily without selling
chametz, even if we lose a few single malt scotches.....  However, as
a community, we are dependent after pesach on stores having sold their
chametz..

This aspect of Rav Saadya is not one that is, TTBOMK,  widely repeated
in later literature - and what RZS represents is more the aspect of
the individual drive to perfection - regardless of the impact on the
community - but the communal (communitarian?) position is one that
some of us feel is sorely lacking in much of current discussion.

Meir Shinnar