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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-GB link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>RSN </span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>wrote – directed at Areivim, but rejected there on the grounds that this should be on Avodah</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>:</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>></span>would like to formally ask the question she is posing.<o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>></span>if a rav has a position you find odious [ convicted abuser X is not guilty, it's muttar to cheat the govt etc ] --or maybe you even consider it to show poor reality testing-- can you rely on <span style='color:#1F497D'>></span>that rav's psak for anything else?<span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>However, because RSN copied me in, I wrote a response which I also sent to Areivim, but which disappeared because, of course, his original question was rejected.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>I responded as follows:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>I think there are two aspects to this.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>The first aspect is the idea that if a rav appears to you like an malach of Hashem, seek Torah from his mouth, but if not, you may not seek Torah from his mouth (Moed Katan 17a). But these days I am not sure that we find many malachim around, and if that is what you are going to search for, you may find nobody to rely on at all. So one can take a different view, namely that people vary in their area of expertise – and it might be that one regards them as a kind of malach in a very limited area – and therefore then rely on them within that area. Eg if one regarded the Rav in question as the greatest expert on borer on shabbas (or on hilchos shabbas generally) one might genuinely admire their incredible lomdus in that area, and hence be happy to rely on their hilchos shabbas psikei halacha, even if one does not like their position on other matters. But it may be that the level of distaste generated by a particular odious position is sufficient for you to be unable to see them as any form of malach. That gemora in Moed Katan is in itself instructive though. if you look at the story in which this particular quote arises, you will see that in fact it does seem to suggest that if the Rav is actually acting in a way that is wrong maybe you are forbidden to seek Torah from his mouth. How wrong it has to be may will hinge on whether you hold (like Rashi and Tosphos) that the Rabbinical scholar in question was in fact sinning in arayos, or whether you hold (like Rabbanu Chananel) that actually all the Rabbinical Scholar in question did was involve himself in Greek songs and music and dress himself in black, but did not actually engage in any form of arayos. Similarly if you hold that it is assur to cheat the government, and a Rav says it is mutar, then according to you that Rav is advocating stealing, so you are into genuinely averah territory. However, if the Rav is saying X is not guilty – it is not that he is necessarily saying that the actions of abuse are not assur, just that he doesn’t believe X has done them. There, it seems to me, you need to know a bit more. If that is all, then maybe it just is poor reality testing. But if the Rav in question has used his position to prevent justice being done – has been over on the various halachos involved in judging people (which are very stringent, and that includes how he has judged the other side), then it is more than just poor judgment, there may well be some real averos involved, and then it may be that, based on this gemora in Moed Katan, one is forbidden to seek Torah from his mouth.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>And that gets us to the second aspect which is really about the general halachos of being chashud someone as found in the Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh Deah siman 2 and siman 119). The general rules of being chashud someone work like this: unless you are talking about someone who is mechalel shabbas or an oved avodah zara, then if somebody is chashud of doing averos in a particular area, while you need to treat them as chashud in that area, you should not treat them as chashud any other area. So that, take the Rav who is no suspected in London of being over on arayos (with women), that does not mean that one would necessarily suspect his kashrus in terms of food, and have any qualms in eating in his house (if male, or with other men present). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>The issue that I have been discussing up until now, is not so much whether a Rav has a position that I find odious, but the second case. If I am chashud such a Rav as protecting people who do averos and turning on those who seek to expose those averos (refusing to even to look at the evidence, and causing those who raise the issues to be run out of town), then I need to be chashud such a Rav as likely to do the same again, even if the averah in question is a different form of averah (kashrus fraud, rather than arayos). But that does not mean that I might be chashud such a Rav as giving incorrect piskei halacha in technical halachic areas. So, for example, leaving aside the additional question raised above that relates specifically to the nature of being a Rav, in terms of treating him as any other Jew one would seem to be able to rely on such a Rav’s psak regarding worms in fish – since it is hard to see how any of the temptations that might lead to protecting people who do averos would come to play in determining that psak – in which case, one has to assume the Rav is as kosher as the next person in his learning, and thus can treat it like any other psak. That is why, to my mind, the fundamental question that I felt needed to be raised is whether somebody who is chashud of protecting those who do averos is in a position to do that in another context, or whether in fact they do not have the power or influence to do that.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>But yes, there are further issues as raised by the gemora in Moed Katan relating specifically to a Rav.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Shavuah Tov<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><br>Chana<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></div></body></html>