[Avodah] reform and conservative

[Chana Luntz]

RET wrote:

> > from daily halacha
> >
> > 1186. One may not count one who denies the truth of Torah Sh'baal 
> > Peh
> > - aka The Oral Torah (and certainly one who denies The Written Torah
> > received at Sinai via Moshe Rabbeinu) towards a minyan. [One may not
> > count Conservative or Reform Jews towards a minyan.] Shulchan Aruch
> > w/Mishnah Berurah 55:11, Piskei Tshuvos 55:21

> >1187. One should also not answer Amein to a Kaddish made by any of 
> >these people, even at a burial. Piskei Tshuvos 55:21  >>


And then he added:

>> Obviously the brackets were added by the email editor and is not in 
>> the mishna berura.

And RRW replied:

> ther first part is Halachah p"suqa
> The second part VIZ.:
> 
> "One may not count Conservative or Reform Jews towards a minyan." is 
> AIUI an extension enforcing the first part
> 
> 
> or I might have chosen to phrase it thusly
> 
> > "We may not count REFORM Jews into a minyan - as  a S'yag or policy
> --
> > SHEMA we might come to count deniers of TSBP..."
> >

A more normative way of understanding this (and I hesitate to use the word
psak, because like RET I suspect the bracketed words were added by the email
editor and are not necessarily based on a psak he either formulated or
received) is that whoever made such a decision, did so by examining the
metzius as far as he was aware of it regarding Reform and Conservative Jews
and their belief systems, and coming to the conclusion that they fall within
the category of deniers listed in the Mishna Brura.   Rav Moshe famously did
this regarding Reform and Conservative *rabbis*, holding that they were, by
definition, koferim b'ikar, and then one could not answer amen to their
brochos.  But most people understand this as an application of the halacha,
not an extension or a siyag (which most understand he would have been
forbidden/unable to enact). 

In response to RET's further question:

> Is this agreed to by everyone? It is not what i have seen

I think the answer has to be no.  As mentioned a) Rav Moshe restricted
himself to rabbis (and of course he took a different view when it came to
counting in a minyan, holding that even ovdei avodah zarah could be counted,
based on the meraglim, but in terms of answering brochos etc he restricted
himself to rabbis, not the laity); b) the more standard approach today is to
regard (at least) the laity as being a tinuk shenishba.  Of course that is
by no means a universally held position, for example the Satmar Rov and the
Rav of Munchkatch strongly disagreed (and I am sure there are others) - but
mostly they didn't need to get in to the question of Reform or Conservative
Jews, anybody who was a mechallel shabbas b'farhesia could not, according to
the dissenters, be counted. [Of course, it is possible to find somebody who
is a Conservative Jew, not a rabbi, and not a mechallel shabbas b'farhesia,
and it would not at all surprise me if the afforementioned rabbonim would
also have posselled such a person from being counted, if they had been asked
- but given the relative rarity of the case, I am not aware of them having
being asked - although somebody who knows their writings perhaps better than
I do, RSBA for example, might know]. I have written extensively on this
question (ie counting a non frum Jew) over the years between Avodah and Mail
Jewish (inter alia citing ROY, because again he brings pages and pages and
pages of sources, mostly for but some against considering non frum Jews
today as having the status of a tinuk shenishba).  I believe that it is this
position that leads to what you have seen.

Regards

Chana