[Avodah] It Is Neither Dispositive, Nor A "Xumra"

[Jay F. Shachter]

(Discussion moved to Avodah from our sister mailing list Areivim)

>
> Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2022 12:08:50 -0400
> Subject: Re: [Areivim] First US case of polio in nearly a decade is an Orthodox Jewish Man
>
> .... But then, we already discussed this WRT metzitzah be[f]eh.  If
> one does not hold it is actually required for the milah to be
> kosher, I do not see how a poseiq can recommend it as a chumerah.
> Because the poseiq isn't talking about the risk to any one baby boy,
> but to the whole population of them.
>

You are not thinking clearly, because there are more than 2
possibilities.  Metzitzah (whether that means bfeh or not is a
different discussion) is not required for milah to be kosher; that
does not mean, as you imply above, that it is a "xumrah".  It is not a
xumrah; it is mandatory, lkhatxilla; bdi`avad, if you don't do it, it
is not m`akkev.  I believe this is a distinction that you understand.
I assume that you do not say that for public-health reasons, to avoid
contagion, there should be no benediction over wine at an engagement
or at a wedding, even though, if there is no wine, erusin and nisuin
are both valid.  If there is wine, it is obligatory to recite the
benediction over wine; if there is not, or if there is, and you do
not, it is not m`akkev.  And so for many other things.

               Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter
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               When Martin Buber was a schoolboy, it must have been
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