Volume 44 Number 38 Produced: Mon Aug 23 4:54:44 EDT 2004 Subjects Discussed In This Issue: Chumrot At Other's Expense [Martin Stern] Frummer, Chumras, Parasites [Carl Singer] Halachic parasitism [Chana Luntz] Non-Jews at a Seder [Immanuel Burton] Stroller Clarification / Eruv [Leah S. Gordon] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...> Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 09:16:36 +0100 Subject: Re: Chumrot At Other's Expense on 20/8/04 2:37 am, Leah Perl Shollar <leahperl@...> wrote: > Here's a thought: > Usually families follow the minhagim of the husband. What if the > husband is not comfortable with using the eruv, whereas the wife is? > She does not want to stay inside all Shabbos, and feels that if there is > a halachically suitable solution she wants to use it. There is a slight confusion here. A woman is expected to follow her husband's minhag and not her own family's when she marries, whether it comes out a kullah or a chumrah. For example a Sephardi woman would have to abstain from kitniot on Pesach on marrying an Ashkenazi and an Ashkenazi woman would be permitted to consume them if she married a Sephardi. With his agreement she may be allowed some leeway in these matters so long as it does not lead to conflict between them. For example he may agree that she continue to use for her private davenning the nusach hatephillah to which she is accustomed. However this only applies to communal customs NOT private chumros which he may have accepted. Thus the eruv problem does not come into the category of following his custom. Martin Stern ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Carl Singer <casinger@...> Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 06:46:53 -0400 Subject: Frummer, Chumras, Parasites When the dust settles, "MORE" is not better -- "MORE" is only different. You choose blue, I choose red -- we have a difference of opinion. You choose 30 minutes, I choose 72 minutes -- we have a difference of opinion (or a different basis for our opinions.) Is 72 better than 30 -- absolutely, positively no -- it's simply different. If I choose to hold by something (which you may wish to call a chumrah) am I in any way better or frummer -- (adjective deleted!) NO! With all due respect to the lengthy treatises on this topic -- fundamentally the "more is better" phenomenon whether it is driven by Yirai Shemayim, by a limited understanding of halacha, by social pressures or by personality traits is divisive. We see this in the artificial grouping of Torah observant Jews into all sorts of externally defined subcategories and we see it on the streets as Jews interact (or fail to interact) with each other. Carl A. Singer ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chana Luntz <Chana@...> Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 16:44:43 +0100 Subject: RE: Halachic parasitism Meir Shinnar writes: >The case initially posted was >>It is not unusual to see couples in Yerushalayim where the >>husband wears a shabbos belt to avoid carrying a key and >>the wife pushes their infant in a stroller. > >RCL suggested three possible legitimate reasons for the wife >pushing the stroller, while the husband walks along and is >machmir. >1) The wife has her own halachic shitta. That is a >legitimate reason - and the issue of how far the wife has to >take her husband's shittot is a matter of some dispute - but >does this really apply to the case and the community >being .described above?? I think it often does, although not in the way you are thinking. I agree that it would be vanishingly rare in such communities for the wife to have sat down with the sources and developed her own halachic shitta. But take a far more common case in a community with a long established eruv- her mother carries (and her mother may still be at the stage in life when she is pushing a stroller); all her sisters carry; all her friends from school and Sem carry; she has carried all her life - now suddenly he is going to tell her that her mother and sisters and friends etc aren't frum enough? Forgetaboutit! And this is indeed called having your own halachic shita. It is a shita based on mimeticism, not textualism and it works both l'chumra as well as l'kula (as her husband may well find out when he tries to tell her that she does not need to do a fraction of the pesach cleaning she in fact does). And it even has some good textual precedent, both the gemora and rishonim such as tosfos bring "im lo neviim hem, bnei neviim hem" [if they [ie the general community] are not prophets themselves, they are the children of prophets - so lets go out and see how the common people are acting in regard to this matter]. >2)The husband is machmir, but does not wish to impose his >humra on the wife. >Here, WADR to RCL, I am in disagreement. The issue in my >mind is different. The fact that he allows his wife to . >carry is proof that he views the other position is >legitimate, even if not his prefered position. Therefore, >his own position is a humra - and his "integrity" leads him >to violate the kavod habriyot of his wife. Integrity can't >be bought by somebody else doing the work. So you would agree with those people (eg in London) who take the position that since they do not hold by the eruv, they will not give shabbas invitations to people who do hold by the eruv, despite them having on whom to rely? Surely that is exactly the same kind of integrity you are recommending here and to do otherwise would indicate that they felt their own position was just a humra? Would you also agree with those people who confront those using the eruv in London and tell them that there is "no eruv in London" (because that is the confronter's own shita) or use such terms to such passers by as mechalel shabbas? How about (and this last is a hypothetical case, unlike the two preceding it) if people who did not hold by the eruv were to to fail to black ball a certain caterer, because they made use of the eruv - would not that be a prima facie case of "integrity not being bought by somebody else doing the work"? >3) The issue of kavod habriyot - the suggestion is that the >reliance on the eruv is only for the sake of hardship, and >it is the wife's hardship - and therefore the heter is for >her. This was essentially the original poster's position - >that reliance on the eruv is only for hardship such assmall >children, and therefore that is why women push the stroller. >WADR, I would suggest that the fact that it is the wife's >hardship means, or should mean, that it is his hardship as >well - even if for him it is a different type of hardship - >and he therefore can also push the stroller - and his >viewing it as only the wife's hardship is a fundamental >failing in kavod habriyot. Perhaps to get at the heart of what we are talking about here, we need to look at what is, I suspect, the unspoken assumption. Which is that were it not shabbas he would be pushing the stroller, and not her. But is that true? Six days a week, who is pushing the stroller, him or her? I agree, in an eglitarian family where childcare is shared, he is just as likely as her to be pushing the stroller. And in such a case it would indeed clearly be as much a hardship for him as for her where he to be prevented from pushing the stroller on one day a week, when he does it the remaining six days. But what I suspect is the more common case in the situations we are discussing, is that six days a week, she pushes the stroller by herself without him even being around most of the time (for whatever reason, be it kollel or work or whatever). She pushes it shopping, she pushes it to her friends, she pushes it to the park, he never sees hide nor hair of it. And suddenly on shabbas it is a hardship for her to push the pusher without help? It is clearly not (whereas, six days a week she goes out and sees friends, and it is indeed a hardship to be prevented from going out, which hardship may well include being prevented from going out unless separated from one's baby even if one's husband is looking after it if such separation never occurs during the week). This is not to say that you are not perfectly entitled to disagree with the childrearing arrangements of such families, and you may well be able to provide lots of evidence to demonstrate that children do better with actively involved fathers, starting from the very beginning. But it is that that you are really criticising, not their eruv using arrangements. As has been pointed out, if he wanted to be machmir regarding the eruv, and yet wanted to be actively involved with the kids, he could just as easily stay home with them while she goes out (actually get much better quality time with them than pushing a stroller), and the fact that that does not happen (on shabbas or the rest of the week, if it does not) has to do with assumptions about childrearing that exist in, or have been negotiated into, that marriage. But given the most common childcare arrangements during the week, what he is doing on shabbas is no more reliant on her work than what is occurring during the week. [I acknowledge that throughout this last piece I have assumed here that she is looking after the kids all week and all shabbas, with him elsewhere, which is still the most common domestic position. There are other domestic arrangements, and one that is increasing seen among kollel families, is an arrangement where he is in fact responsible for a lot of the childcare during the week (where it is not being paid for), because she is working full time, and he has more breaks from kollel than she does and so takes them to and picks them up from the paid childcare arrangements, takes them to the doctor if they are sick etc. In which case, he is indeed actively involved in childcare, and most of the time is the person in the family doing the stroller pushing, and if anything the arrangment on shabbas might be seen as his one time out. But the one scenario I think you will find very rarely in any family is that both parents are there full time to push a stroller, enabling genuine sharing, stroller pushing being most usually a solitary activity. So that while the rare situations of sharing might be in fact tremendously pleasant for all concerned, it is hard to describe it as a hardship when they do not occur]. Regards Chana ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Immanuel Burton <IBURTON@...> Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 09:37:11 +0100 Subject: RE: Non-Jews at a Seder In Mail.Jewish v44n25, Mike Gerver wrote: > I might also add that, after 3000 years, there is surely not a single > non-Jew in the world whose direct ancestors did not include slaves to > Pharaoh in Egypt who were freed at the time of the Exodus. What about direct descendents of the Egyptians who were doing the enslaving? Or populations that were genetically and geographically isolated from the Middle East at the time, bearing in mind that long- distance travel is a fairly recent activity. In Mail.Jewish v44n30, Eliezer Wenger wrote: > There are also many Halachic problems with inviting non-Jews to any > Yom Tov meal which do not exist when inviting them for Shabbos meals. > See Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 98:36 for starters. As I understand the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 98:36, it is indeed forbidden to cook for a non-Jew on Yom Tov. However, that paragraph concludes by saying that one may give to an ordinary non-Jew from the food that one has prepared for oneself. An ordinary non-Jew is one who is not distinguished, and I would guess that that would include most non-Jews. The point I was trying to make about having non-Jews at a Seder was not so much the cooking issue, but the very idea of having a non-Jew present at an event that relives the birth of the Jewish nation, replete with rituals pertinent only to commemorating our suffering in Egypt, and our Exodus. In the same issue of Mail.Jewish, Mark Symons wrote: > Yes, but didn't "Erev Rav" (a "mixed multitude") ie non-jews, > accompany them on their exodus? That's true, but that was after the first Seder held in Egypt, and would any of Erev Rav have been present at anyone's Seder in Egypt? Harry Weiss wrote: > An interesting side issue would be regarding those non Jews stuying > for geirus (consversion). We have a family friend who converted, and who came to our Seder a couple of times during his conversion. My father asked his Rov about the afikomen, and he was told that as our friend was not yet Jewish he should not partake of the afikomen. (Yes, I know this might be a contentious decision, and that other Rabbis may have advised differently, but I'm just relaying what happened.) I do have to say that it did feel a bit awkward at afikomen time. The issue of cooking food for him was never raised. If one relies on Kli Shlishi (lit. third vessel) on Shabbos for making tea so as not to be 'cooking' the tea on Shabbos, could one make tea in that way for a non-Jew on Yom Tov? If using a third vessel doesn't come under the Halachic definition of cooking with regards to Shabbos, how about on Yom Tov? And what about using any of the permitted ways to heat food on Shabbos to do the same for a non-Jew on Yom Tov? Immanuel Burton. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Leah S. Gordon <leah@...> Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 04:26:58 -0700 Subject: Stroller Clarification / Eruv Chana Luntz writes: >hardship there is on who to rely. And he may well feel that while he, >the husband, would if faced with the choice independently choose to >always stay at home (ie never eat out, never go out when the other >spouse is not in etc), he does not have the right to impose that >hardship on his wife. I agreed with Ms. Luntz' post until this point. The question is not really, 'should the husband make his wife stay home or allow her to leave home'...this is a straw-person argument, because of course if there is a reason to "allow" her to leave home, that is the sane response. What about the option of the husband choosing to stay home with the child(ren) so the wife goes out? That is *equally* sensible to the option everyone is talking about, i.e. the wife at home. The question is actually, "if a husband believes the eruv is not reliable [for whatever reason], should he insist on keeping the kids home with himself all of shabbat, or should he encourage other family members to use strollers and be a halakhic 'free rider'?" Leah S. R. Gordon ----------------------------------------------------------------------
End of Volume 44 Issue 38