[Avodah] Chop a Mitzvah?

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Aug 14, 2019 at 02:39:30PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
> 2) What if you are looked at as the senior member of the group -
> does it change your calculus?

If the mitzvah requires convincing people it is even mutar, yes.

For example, the Taz (OC 328:5) says that if ch"v one needs to "violate"
(?) Shabbos for the sake of a choleh sheyeish bo saqanah, and the rav
is present, he should do it. Quoting Yuma 84b (which is also quoted in
the Yad Shabbos 2:3):
   These things are not done not through an aku"n, not through a qatan,
   ela al yedei gedolei Yisrael
   and you do not say let these things be done by women or Kusim.

There is a famous in YU circles story where RYBS, back when he
was Berel, got sick, and R' Chaim told R Moshe to turn on
the light so that the doctor could see better. R Moshe hesitated,
and RCB called him an apiqoreis for doing so. With the explanaiton
that the question wasn't about being meiqil in Shabbs, but about
being machmir in piquach nefesh. They ask why RCB didn't do it
himself; but bekhol zos, no one expected the doctor to.

(The difference between aku"m and Kusim, as in this gemara, is worth its
own conversation.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   but to become a tzaddik.
Author: Widen Your Tent                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF