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

[Chana Luntz]

RJK wrote:
> If the reference to the pesak about shofar is to the famous pesak of
> RYBS, then I think some clarification is needed.  RYBS's ruling that it is
> better to stay home than to hear shofar in what RnCL calls a "C shul" was not
> about not strengthening problematic movements.  Indeed, RYBS did not refer to
> C (or R) shuls; he spoke about shuls with mixed pews (not, I note, shuls
> w/o mechitzot, but shuls w/ mixed pews; today there may be no difference,
> but that was not the case in the 1950s when this question arose. But I
> digress somewhat.)  The point is that the pesak was about not going to mixed
> pew synagogues because they lacked the sanctity of a makom tefillah; not
> that listening to shofar in such a synagogue would be strengthening such
> movements.

The "lack of sanctity of a makom tefilla" doesn't fully explain the
psak though.

For a man, listening to shofar is a mitzvah d'orisa. Nobody objects to
anybody (eg in a hospital ward or at home) fulfilling their obligation to
listen to shofar in a mixed audience. A hospital ward certainly lacks the
sanctity of a makom tefilla. And indeed, I have seen numerous Orthodox
after tephila shofar blowings - ie the type aimed mostly at women (but
frequently not exclusively), held in the shul itself where there is
no particular attempt to stop the sexes mingling, with the women and
the odd man who for some reason still needs to hear shofar all grouped
around the usually male shofar blower.

So what is going on here? A man could, if instructed not to daven, go
into the place simply to hear shofar and fulfil his mitzvah d'orisa and
then daven at home.

The only explanation that makes sense to me is that by designating
something as a shul, those supporting it are claiming that it has the
sanctity of a makom tephila, and then by going there, even solely to
hear shofar and not to daven, the individual is providing some support
or strengthening for that proposition. Perhaps you could phrase it as
lifnei iver? But the reason it can be considered lifnei iver is because
it will cause people to believe that which is halachically not acceptable
is acceptable. And the psak is saying that a man is required to forgo
a mitzvah d'orisa because it will lead people to believe that something
completely different which is halachically not acceptable is acceptable.

This is exactly the same logic that is often utilised regarding accepting
halachic acts from the R or C movements as a whole. That is, if we
recognise these acts (eg we recognise the shofar blowing) then it will
lead others to believe that other acts done by these movements (such as
the way they set up tephila) is acceptable. Whether RYBS distinguished
between different kinds of Conservative shuls is not the point. He may
well have felt that any congregation (whatever they call themselves) that
was careful enough to have separate seating, even without a mechitza, is
not sufficiently problematic as to cause avoidance in relation to other
matters where there may be no halachic problem. But what this example
illustrates is a refusal to look at the individual halachic act (shofar
blowing or analogously performance of tahara) in isolation, and rather an
insistence on linking it to other surrounding halachic acts that in and
of themselves do not, technically, impact on the individual halachic act.
And here the issue is the group. If X the individual whom nobody knows
anything about does Y, which happens to be halachically acceptable, nobody
is necessarily going to assume that if X also does Z, Z is halachically
acceptable and there is no question of lifnei iver being triggered (if
indeed lifnei iver it is). The problem arises if and only if there is a
group granting an imprimatur to X that somehow gives him or her authority.
And hence it is this imprimatur of authority, ie that mixed pews really
do still allow for the sanctity of a makom tephila, that would seem to be
the underlying objection to doing the innocuous (such as hearing shofar).

> Joseph Kaplan

Regards
Chana