From: schultz@garnet.berkeley.edu (Richard Schultz)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: Conservative Halacha (was re: Orthodox Monopoly)
Date: 10 Sep 1992 16:07:14 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: garnet.berkeley.edu

In article <1992Sep10.022556.7374@cbnews.cb.att.com> ask@cbnews.cb.att.com (Arthur S. Kamlet) writes:
>In article <18m4nfINN4ik@agate.berkeley.edu> schultz@garnet.berkeley.edu (Richard Schultz) writes:
>>In article <1992Sep8.223245.24953@cbnews.cb.att.com> ask@cbnews.cb.att.com (Arthur S. Kamlet) writes:
>>
>>>   - Is commercial wine prepared in the United States treife (no)
>>
>>This example brings up my problem with the Conservative approach to halachah.
>>One reason that wine prepared by non-Jews was forbidden to be consumed by
>>Jews was the fear that permitting it would lead to excessive fraternization
>>between Jews and non-Jews and eventually intermarriage.  Since the problem
>
>But assuming that commerical wine prepared in the U.S. is untouched
>by people during the wine preparation, would this still apply?

The questions of production and consumption are unrelated (see my reply to
Herman Rubin's article on the subject).

>And honestly, do you believe drinking non-hecksher wine will lead to
>more intermarriage than drinking whisky or beer or kosher wine?
>
I don't know one way or another.  I was just pointing out that by using 
the kinds of halachic reasoning that Conservative Judaism uses, one could 
easily come up with the more stringent opinion.  But somehow, they never do,
as I said before.

>The greatest rabbis made their marks by finding leniencies.
>
>I will surely hear a great groan at this point, "groan, he's
>probably going to bring up Hillel's prosbul."   Sure.  The
>brilliance of Hillel was he found a leniency which allowed for
>loans to be made according to the behavior most Jews of the time
>desired. And according to Halacha.
>
But the point is that Hillel did not go around looking for leniencies.  He
found *one* famous leniency as a way around a difficult problem.  He (or his
school, since most of the arguments are phrased as "Beit Hillel" vs. "Beit
Shammai") did not always take the more lenient path.  And guess what?  When
he took a more stringent view than Shammai, we still follow his opinion (cf.
the beginning of Beitzah for an example of what I mean).  

[examples of leniencies deleted]

>My point is, it's a very good thing to be lenient, within Halacha.

You seemed to have missed my point, which is not whether it's good to be
lenient, within Halacha, but whether it is possible for a consistent halachic
system to be *only* lenient.  That it is probably not a good idea (or maybe 
not even possible) for a consistent halachic system to be *only* stringent
may be true (you'd get no argument from me about that), but it's irrelevant
to what I was saying.  

And I doubt whether even you believe that it's a very good thing to be 
lenient, even within Halacha, all the time.  In fact, the rabbis of the 
Talmud often have very negative things to say about people who use leniencies
in the law to violate the spirit of the law.  For instance, there are 
leniencies within halachah to avoid paying taxes to non-Jewish governments;
to deal in business with non-Jews differently from Jews; to say lashon ha-ra
under certain circumstances.  Do you recommend that we follow these leniencies?

>Let's see,  should we criticize Shammai for being strict or Hillel
>for being lenient?   I hope you will answer: we should not criticize
>either.  We do, of course, tend to follow more of Hillel than
>Shammai.

As I said above, we follow him *even when he is stricter than Shammai*.
"ze v'zeh divrei elohim chayyim."  (These and these are the words of the
living God. . . but the halachah follows Hillel.)  In fact, I believe that
there are numerous examples of rabbis who are praised for particular 
strictness in following various halachot.

>By now I hope you will understand that the requirement is to follow
>the law.  Being extra strict is not a virtue but being lenient may
>be.  At least you will be in good company.

But if the requirement is to follow the law, you have to follow it *even when
it says you have to do something you don't want to do*.  If you use the law
only as an excuse to do what you want to do anyway, then it's not a legal 
system:  just a system of rationalizations.

I cannot agree with the last two sentences of Kamlet's post.  There are times
when being extra strict *is* a virtue (e.g. kavod av v'em [honoring your 
parents], viz. the story about the two rabbis (one was rabbi Tarfon, I can't
remember offhand who the other one was), one of whom put his hands down on the
ground for his mother to walk on when she lost a shoe, and the other of whom 
was told that if his mother wants to drink the water in which he's washed his
feet, he has to let her).  And if you are strict, you will be in good company
too.

				Richard Schultz
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish