[Avodah] taker but not giver

[Zev Sero]

On 12/3/23 19:55, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> So, why am I to assume darkhei shalom is a survival strategy when used
> in a discussion of Hilkhos Shabbos, when that can't be the usage WRT
> how people contribute toward the Eruv (Eiruvin 81a) or when a wife wants
> to keep maasei yadeha (Kesuvos 58b)?

You aren't asked to assume that, since "darchei shalom" is *not ever* 
used in this context.  *Nobody* invokes "darchei shalom" to justify it.


> What are the grounds for saying that mishum eivah ever means "because
> otherwise they may come to hate us enoug to kill us"? In other contexts
> it means "because it fosters hatred, and hatred is bad."

Because there is no basis for permitting chilul shabbos simply to avoid 
"hatred".  The only heter we are given is pikuach nefesh, so we have to 
be able to relate it to that.

And also because any explanation we come up with has to explain why 
before 1800 it was *completely forbidden* to do this, and all the poskim 
insisted we should *not* be concerned about eiva.  Now we can understand 
how the metzius changed with the Enlightenment. But if we want to say 
that we are now permitting something we never allowed before, simply to 
avoid harmless "hatred" we must be able to be confident that before 1800 
there was no concern about even that.  That at that time not only would 
there be no pogrom, there wouldn't even be hard feelings, but now it's 
different and there would be.

-- 
Zev Sero            “Were we directed from Washington when to sow
zev at sero.name       and when to reap, we should soon want bread.”
		    –Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821.