[Avodah] Bizayon HaMeis

[Zev Sero]

On 22/12/2010 1:22 AM, T613K at aol.com wrote:
> But let us not kid ourselves that a C or R tahara is a tahara, esp
> when the members are not Jewish

Is that the case, though?  Does it matter, bediavad, who did the tahara?
If it could be done by a robot, or by RHS's proverbial kesuba-reading
parrot, would it matter?  The actions are the same; lechatchila it would
be nice to have them be done by frum Jews with lofty kavonos, but at the
end of the day why is it not a tahara if it's done by someone else, with
who-knows-what kavanos?


> any more than you could be yotzei kiddush by hearing it from a C-R
> convert

Kiddush is a mitzvah.  Since when is *receiving* tahara a mitzvah?
Matzas mitzvah must be baked by a Jew, lesheim mitzvah.  Ordinary matzah,
however, can be baked by anyone, and it doesn't matter what they were
thinking.  So long as it was baked without chimutz it's kosher.  Lu
yetzuyar that a machine could be built that answered all of the Divrei
Chaim's unstated objections, he would have approved it himself.  Why is
tahara like matzas mitzvah rather than like ordinary matzah for eating
the whole yomtov?



> or fulfill the mitzva of bris by having it done by a C-R convert mohel
> (you would need hatafas dam and new brachos)

Really?  Mina hani mili?  It seems to me on the contrary, that so long
as it was done lesheim yahadus it doesn't matter, bediavad, who did it.
IIRC this was the Chief Rabbinate's psak WRT the Ethiopian immigrants;
that since their milah had been done lesheim yahadus, under the mistaken
impression that both they and the mohel were already Jews, there was no
need for hatafas dam bris.

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