Wednesday, May 30, 2007
would the eidah chareidis accept truth from a maskil?
Interesting tshuva in Even Israel (vol 8 #9) from R’ Yisrael Fisher, who was one of the dayanim of the Eidah haChareidis. He was asked his opinion of a certain kuntres which advocated saying mashiv haruach u’morid ha’geshem (segol under the gimel) instead of morid hagashem (kamatz under the gimel) because the use of gashem had been proposed by a certain Yitzchak Satnow (see the reference in this article from seforim’s blog in footnote #37) who was known as a maskil. R’ Fisher writes that he had actually been approached by the author of the kuntres, but refused to give a haskama (!). Aside from marshalling sources other than Satnow to support the use of gashem over geshem, R’ Fisher notes that just because an idea was advanced by a maskil is no reason to reject it outright without evidence that it is wrong.
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What's actually happening here is the non-rejection of the truth from a maskil, rather than the outright acceptance, per se.
ReplyDeleteR' Fisher writes its no worse than our quoting Elisha ben Avuya in Pirkei Avos - acceting the truth from a tainted source.
ReplyDeleteRight, for example, if a known Maskil was to say a Halacha that was correct, that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. It just means its one thing that he's not masikilish about.
ReplyDeleteIs that: מפי ספרים ולא מפי סופרים or מפי סופרים ולא מפי ספרים?
ReplyDeleteThis raises a related issue:
ReplyDeleteIn recent times, we have lessened the formal study of some essentials, such as Tanach, because maskilim or others were thought to be overemphasizing them. Being in a reactive mode like this may not always be a good idea unless our resulting changes are only temporary.
"In recent times, we have lessened the formal study of some essentials, such as Tanach, because maskilim or others were thought to be overemphasizing them. Being in a reactive mode like this may not always be a good idea unless our resulting changes are only temporary."
ReplyDeleteWell talk about unsound education! But, unfortunately, you are right about reactive impulses having influence in the frum world. I find it generally applies to issues that may appear to pose a "feminist threat." Thus women's tefilla groups are a bad thing, but if it is repackaged as a women's "Amen group" lauding the power of Amen on the basis of the popularization of the book and making it a social thing with food -- then it is OK. Also do you ever see women in RW circles bench with a mezuman of 3 women? Halachically, they should. But, even if they are aware of the halacha, they would think it looks like a feminist statement and so do not.
i was at a shabbos meal of 2 men and 3 women, and felt very uncomfortable that the women didn't form a zimun and instead everyone ended up bentshing individually. but i didn't say anything because they seemed fairly RW and i don't know all the details of the halakhic history of female zimun to try and convince them.
ReplyDeleteIn most circles, everyone "bentshes" for himself anyway. The presence of thre males only brings out a few introductory sentences. The real concept of zimun is that one person is mevareich out loud and is motsi the others.
ReplyDeleteSince in most cases that is not going to be done, it is really no big deal for everyone to bentsh quietly for himself.
And in our cirlces (Zilberman - Yeshivath Adereth Eliahu) the m'zamein is motsi everyone else.
ReplyDelete