[Avodah] [Areivim] Asifa - Lose Olam Haba

[Chana Luntz]

RMB writes:

>This you yourself write, this is an idea one finds in choshein mishpat in
particular. How do you decide how to allocate communal funds when you can't
>sit down every potential taxpayer and reach consensus?

>Here in the US, it would be an executive branch question, not Judicial or
Legislative. My point was about the word "pesaq", which is interpretation of
>law.

>I don't see in this a template for pesaq, but a rule about taxation and
semi-random surveys. How would someone apply it to a ruling (if it was
>such) about EhE?

Well but one of the "halachic" requirements, as set out in the Chatam
Sofer's teshuva, was that the Rav of the town needs to be consulted and give
his consent to whatever the proposal is.  That is not just executive branch,
but a halachic requirement for the executive branch to seek out the
Judicial/legislative part.  Now if this Rav gives his consent, what would
you call it?  I don't know that we have another name for it other than psak.
When a shochet shows his knives to the Rav before shechting, what do you
call that?  This is like the executive branch showing their takanot to the
Rav before instituting them, and, as the Chatam Sofer makes clear, without
the approval of the Rav, halachically, there is no takana.

In a different post RMB wrote:

>I don't think a real taqanah or gezeirah is possible without a Sanhedrin.
>The Rambam seems to say so in Mamrim 2:2, when he asks how you can have a
beis din that is gedolah beminyan, since every BD has 71 -- "zeh minyan
>chakhmei hador". So his disacussion of taganos is THE beis din of the 71
top gedolim of the generation. Not just stam a poseiq, or even "stam" a
>collection of gedolimn. The Sanhedrin.

>I've suggested in the past that this is why Rabbainu Gershom accomplished
his "taqanos" (in the loose, colloquial, sense of the word) through a
>different mechanism -- the cheirem.

Well I think we need to differentiate between full fledged takanot and
takanot hakahal.

The latter are, I think, almost always technically enforced via cherem - the
one real mention of Takanot HaKahal in the Shulchan Aruch is in Yoreh Deah
Siman 228 si'if 33 which says:

"If one swears not to enter into takanot hakahal behold his oath is a shvua
shav and against his will the takana hakahal is chal upon him and if he does
not act like them nichshal b'cherem takanatem."

Of course the ultimate source for these takanot is from Baba Basra 8b "the
people of the city can make takanot on the weights and on the prices and on
the wages of workers and to fine those who do not follow them".

The question then becomes, are you part of the kahal, that binds you into
the takana or not?  The Sanhedrin (and only the Sanhedrin) it seems to me,
can bind all of Israel, wherever they are.  These other forms of takana are
much more limited.  But to the extent that all of Ashkenaz could be
considered a unified kahal, I would have thought that this was indeed the
mechanism for Rabbanu Gershom's takanot.

As I said, arguably, if you heed a call to gather, then you are part of the
kahal to whom the gathering is addressed.  EXCEPT, that if you heed a call
based on false pretences, because you thought you were gathering for a
different purpose, then you have been duped into being part of that kahal,
and any such takanot should not be chal upon you.

Shavuah Tov

Chana