[Avodah] Dead-Letter Halakhoth

[David Riceman]

RJFS:
> The question relates to a larger phenomenon, halakhoth that everyone 
> knows (this is a crucial component of the phenomenon, because if a 
> halakha is obscure, then there is a simpler explanation for why no one 
> observes it) and yet which are, de facto, dead letters.

cf. Hagahaos Mayymoniyos SK 2 on H. Melachim 5:7.

With respect to obscure halachos both the Vilna Gaon and R. Yisrael
Salanter were known for reviving old halachos that people ignored,
and this was considered "Hasidus". Judaism is a mimetic tradition,
and we presume that if a community ignores a halacha it is because they
have inherited a good reason to do so (and hence the Gaon and RYS were
viewed as going lifnim meshuras hadin).

> ... when Jews ignore the halakha that you can't live in a city that 
> has no mikveh. There were plenty of otherwise religious Jews who lived 
> in Skokie, Illinois, long before there was a mikveh there.

Like RZS I'm unfamiliar with this halacha.  I also don't understand why 
the lake isn't a kosher mikvah.

> Consider another halakha that has, de facto, been defined out of 
> existence, the halakha that you aren't allowed to mourn for a suicide.

The poskim discuss this case in some detail: they require extremely 
strict evidence to conclude that someone is a suicide.




My favorite example of this isn't exactly a halacha. The gemara says
that a person prefers to sell his daughter into slavery rather than to
borrow money at interest. I know many Jews with mortgages, but none
who have sold their daughters into slavery to avoid getting a mortgage.

David Riceman