[Avodah] [Areivim] More on Reviving a Ritual of Tending to the dead

[Joseph Kaplan]

Rn' Chana Luntz, at the conclusion of her as always scholarly exposition on certain issues relating to who may perform a tahara, says:

  So on the one hand my instincts are with RZS here in that, vis a
> vis an individual meis, it is better that it have a lesser bizayon (done by
> dubious chevrei kadisha that are possibly not Jewish and possibly minim)
> than a greater bizayon (not to have a tahara at all).  But on the other
> hand, once we are clearly dealing with minhag yisroel, issues of not
> breaching minhag in order to encourage minus do raise their heads, so that,
> for the greater good of the klal, it might be that it is better not
> encouraged (which really gets us into the common question about how to
> relate to Conservative, Reform etc where it is often the case where the
> individual may benefit but the judgment is that the klal does not).

ISTM that Rn' Chana, in her "on the other hand," makes a jump from non-Jew to C and R; that is, the sources she quotes and on which she bases her analysis speak about an akum participating in burial rituals, but then, in her conclusion, she speaks, for the first time, about minim (who, I must assume from the context, she equates with C and R Jews). Am I missing something?; do the sources speak about minim? Perhaps she could clarify this, but as I see it based on what she wrote, while she has educated us (as she always does) on the issue debated between RMSS and RZS of the proverbial "Gregorian monks" participating in a tahara, she has not, notwithstanding her conclusory remarks, provided us with sources or educated us on the original question concerning C and R Jews participating in a tahara.

Joseph Kaplan