[Avodah] The Aruch haShulchan and the Government

[Zev Sero via Avodah]

On 25/05/17 22:22, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> Then he adds
>      Veda, dekol zeh eino inyan bizmaneinu
>      shemalkhei ha'umos malkhei chesed.
>      They would never force someone to convert.

He goes on far longer than that.  So long that no reader could possibly 
miss his meaning.


> Okay, he could have remained silent. But he not only writes this, he
> continues further with a pesaq based on this assumption: Since today's
> converts are willing, they are so unlikely to have hirhurei teshuvah,
> we don't have to be chosheish for it.
> 
> So, to make a point he didn't have to just to slip by the gov't, he
> suggests that a woman could remarry without a gett! Was it really SO
> obvious that to unnecessarily add a little butter to his buttering up
> to the gov't he would risk some LOR causing mamzeirus?

This was a period when some publishers of siddurim felt it necessary to 
print "avinu malkeinu ein lanu melech bashamayim ela ata".  He may very 
well have feared that including a practical psak about anoosim would 
arouse the censor's ire, especially since the censors were themselves 
mostly meshumodim.


> 1905 was the year the empire survived the Russian Refolution, which
> was over this very issue of Russification of minorities, among other
> things.
Or, if you like, instead of calling it self-censorship you can see it as 
bitter irony, obvious to the intended audience, but to which the censor 
could raise no official objection, even though it would have been 
obvious to him too.

-- 
Zev Sero                May 2017, with its *nine* days of Chanukah,
zev at sero.name           be a brilliant year for us all