[Avodah] Chezkas Kashrus of Sifrei Torah

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 6:39pm -0800, R Saul Newman wrote to Areivim:
: http://www.timesofisrael.com/female-sofrot-inscribe-themselves-in-history-books

: the commenter predicts OU certified STAM within 5 yr to prove it's not
: female written. but there are so many old sifrei tora and other tashmishei
: kdusha which you can't prove the religious [ie frum vs not] of the sofer.
: no one though has suggested that a tora in non-O hands has defective
: provenance...

To which Zev replied on Tue, Jan 3, 2017 at 8:06am EST
> There was never any need to doubt the kashrus of any old sefer
> torah. There's a chazakah that anyone who writes stam is competent and
> does his work properly. There are many psulim that can't be detected
> with human eyes, so wehave to depend on the sofer's yir'as shomayim.
> If that chazakah ever becomes invalid we'll have to treat with suspicion
> anything written after a certain date.

The SA YD 281:1 says that a seifer Torah fund in the hands of an apiqureis
that you do not know who wrote it should be hidden.

The AhS (se'if 7) quotes the Rambam that if fround by a min, yignaz, but
an oveid AZ -- kesheirah, because they don't write sifrei Torah so you
have to assume it was written by a Jew. Whereas the Tur takes the other
side of the machloqes, and assumes it's pasul. (He rules like the Rambam.)

He also says (se'if 9) that in our dor parutz, where "hasoferim rabu
k'arbeh and in one city we know -- to our heartache -- of hundreds of
soferim and mors are no yir'ei Shamayim at all. Ve'ein beydeinu bemah
leposlam because it is a matter of the heard. But someone whose heart
is touched by yir'as H' should not by tefilling or mezuzos except from
a sofer who is known to be a yarei Shamayim. Similarly with the writing
of a ST."

So, it would see that even in situations when most soferim do not deserve
a chezkas kashrus, we still consider a random ST kosher me'iqar hadin,
and only avoid it as an act of yir'as Hashem.


Students of RYBS have to deal with the question of whether a chazaqah
disvara /can/ change. RYBS famously said that tan lemeisiv cannot:

    Let me add something that is very important: not only the halachos
    but also the chazakos which chachmei chazal have introduced are
    indestructible. We must not tamper, not only with the halachos,
    but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke
    rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon
    permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the
    human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which
    is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example
    the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan
    du mil'meisiv armalo has absolutely nothing to do with the social
    and political status of women in antiquity. This chazaka is based
    not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in breishis --
    harba arbeh itz'voneich v'heironeich b'etzev teildi vanim v'el
    isheich t'shukaseich v'hu yimshal bach -- "I will greatly multiply
    thy pain and thy travail; in pain thou shalt bring forth children,
    and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee".
    It is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality...

Notice RYBS opens with a kelal, "the chazakos which chachmei chazal have
introduced are indestructible." And yet he continues by talking about
the perat, "[t]his chazaka is based not upon sociological factors,
but upon a verse in breishis..."

So, what about the ב


Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Brains to the lazy
micha at aishdas.org        are like a torch to the blind --
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Fax: (270) 514-1507                 - Bechinas haOlam