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- Bemare Habazak - Rabbis Questions
Answer: The good point you make is one we do take into account. You have prompted us to highlight for our readership the background and goals of this column.
The OU Ask the Rabbi service, in which Eretz Hemdah plays a major role, provides an address to a wide variety of people throughout the world to ask questions that, for whatever reason, they are not asking to a local rabbi. Some questions are "cookie-cutter" questions, with one answer that fits all, irrespective of venue, circumstances, level of need, or halachic orientation. Other questions have different legitimate answers and are apt to be affected by circumstances.
We have several goals in sharing some of our answers with the public. One is to inform the masses how to act when they encounter the same circumstances addressed. However, there are other important goals. We treasure teaching Torah lishma, including regarding issues and cases that few are likely to encounter.
We also strive to expose our readership to a multi-faceted and, we pray, balanced approach to rendering halachic decisions. We aim for an approach that is traditional on one hand, but with an openness for innovative problem solving. We aim for high halachic standards, but with a realization that an objective or even a subjective need often plays an important role even according to these high standards. We view implementation of this balance as one of the most exciting and important elements of p’sak halacha.
One case-in-point is a set of teshuvot (Igrot Moshe, Yoreh Deah II: 4, 5), in which Rav Moshe, in the course of a week, wrote ostensibly "contradictory" rulings to the same rabbi on the same case (a shochetwho publicly did something that was chillul Shabbat according to almostall rabbanim). The rulings are not contradictory because Rav Moshe begins the second responsum: "if we will forbid him … it will negate all that you have fixed with toil in the kashrut and the peace in the city." He follows with a novel leniency to allow the shochet to continue with certain provisions. It is fascinating that Rav Moshe was willing to publish (in 1973) the two responsa back-to-back without hiding his change of mind due to the circumstances. The first responsum remains the basic one. The second one demonstrates how he could "stretch" to be lenient when needed. It also teaches that when Rav Moshe ruled stringently even in the face of great need, it is not out of lack of effort.
Bemare Habazak - Rabbis Questions (660)
Rabbi Daniel Mann
151 - Stopping to Rent Out to a Shul
152 - Sharing Surprising Grounds for Leniency
153 - Requirement for the Seller to Fix the Situation
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We want our readership to enjoy the Torah’s richness and hone their halachic sophistication to know what to ask and how. We want them to know that while pas nisht should often preclude things, we subscribe to the approach of the many rabbis, from a variety of traditions, who search for solutions to "non-cookie cutter" cases. Sometimes such rulings should be kept quiet; sometimes they should be publicized. May Hashem protect us from mistakes.
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Various Events FOR WHOM NOT TO VOTE
Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook stressed that Israeli politics is G-dly, so I have no problem answering this common question on a Torani blog. Also, Free-Will is a G-d-given right and obligation, to "destine one's fate" (R. Soloveichik, Kol Dodi Dofek, 67), so I obviously don't tell others how to vote. But once not a few (especially young) have already asked, a couple of personal words from experience and thoughts from chazal & Rav Kook which may be of help to others, mainly for whom NOT to vote.
P'ninat Mishpat Fallout from Failure to Install Elevator – part II
based on ruling 85007 of the Eretz Hemdah-Gazit Rabbinical Courts
