הרב אבי גרוסמן Rabbi Avi Grossman

re: The Not-Well-Known Yet Shocking Facts behind Late-Term Abortion

Rabbi Avi Grossman responds to the recent mention of late-term abortion morphing into infanticide:

Some halachic background

Outline of the opinions based on R’ Zuriel’s most lenient presentation:
Either 1. abortion is akin to murder and strictly forbidden to both Jew and gentile alike, unless performed in order to save the mother’s life, in which case it is required. The talmud also requires an abortion be performed on a Jewish woman sentenced to death.
This is the approach of Rabbi Tendler.
Or 2. For Gentiles, abortion is akin to murder and strictly forbidden, unless performed in order to save the mother’s life. For Jews, abortion is forbidden but treated as “just” a form of personal damage because the fetus, before birth, lacks the status of a person independent of the mother, and may be performed under extenuating circumstances. The talmud also requires an abortion be performed on a Jewish woman sentenced to death or in order to save the life endangered by having to give birth.
This is the approach of the Tzitz Eliezer, and the one R’ Zuriel espoused.
However, according to all opinions, in any situation where an abortion is performed, the fetus must be destroyed in utero, as explicitly described by the sages, and once the fetus has been halachically “born,” even if he thereby endangers the woman’s life, no intervention may be taken.
Therefore, even according to most lenient opinions within halacha, that which is correctly described as partial-birth abortion is strictly forbidden for Jews and gentiles alike.

re: Pagan-Rabbi Shraga Kallus Doesn’t Fear God, He Fears the Temple Itself!

Rabbi Avi Grossman adds to yesterday’s article:

And that callous rabbi (?) missed the point. When it says v’lo yamusu, the Torah means that entering the Temple in a state of impurity can not and will not be punished with death by courts, but one is liable to death at the hands of Heaven. I am surprised that he is married because, by his logic regarding the verse v’hizartem es bnei yisrael mitumoisam, he should avoid women entirely lest he violate issurei nidda and zava.

Rabbi Avi Grossman: The Thirteenth Knock

Rabbi Grossman comments on yesterday’s article:

The thirteenth knock is the one that the mizrachi establishment, as exemplified by the YU rabbis, wants to keep hidden. It is the awakening of the younger generation to the fact that the Torah, and the entire Torah, was given to us in order to be put into practice. That is it insufficient to just study Talmud, and that we have to settle the land of Israel and strive to seek out the place of the Temple in order to rebuild it.

Https://mizrachi.org/ publication after publication, event after event, speech after speech, but nothing ever about even fostering a yearning to visit the temple! But the youngsters know better, thank God.

re: Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef’s Proclamation Against Saying ‘Shema Yisrael’ in a Mosque

Rabbi Avi Grossman writes:

Aside from the deeply scandalous and heretical claim of the so-called Chief Rabbi that we respect other religions and their places of worship, such that the soldiers who used the Jenin mosque’s PA system for qabbalath ‘ol malchuth shamayim should be disciplined, it is even more so insulting to our intelligence: yes the place was built for “worship”, but in practice it was used as a base for their paramilitary organization, just like the vast majority of their ostensible places of worship.

 

Rabbi Avi Grossman: Elections Should Be Free and Infrequent

The marriage mashal:

Choosing a partner could very well be the most important decision in life, and it may (hopefully) last for life. Therefore, one should not approach such a decision with the knowledge that, for example, every five years he will have a chance to change his decision, or that, perhaps, even if he chose to stick with her for another five years, after ten years, he must find another, because that will detract from the gravity of all of his life decisions, even if ending the marriage is warranted in extreme cases.

So too with a nation. A democratic and fair process should be employed to ascertain who should rule since such a decision is the most critical in the life of the nation. But it should be infrequent, with the condition in mind that it is meant for the long haul, and not to be regularly re-evaluated and likely changed every few years.

The democratic aspect of the initial election is required by the halacha. The Sages said in B’rachoth:

“אמר רבי יצחק: אין מעמידין פרנס על הצבור אלא אם כן נמלכים בצבור, שנאמר “ראו קרא ה’ בשם בצלאל” (שמות לה, ל). אמר לו הקדוש ברוך הוא למשה: משה, הגון עליך בצלאל? אמר לו: רבונו של עולם אם לפניך הגון, לפני לא כל שכן? אמר לו: אף על פי כן לך אמור להם. הלך ואמר להם לישראל: הגון עליכם בצלאל? אמרו לו אם לפני הקדוש ברוך הוא ולפניך הוא הגון, לפנינו לא כל שכן?”

And: אין מעמידין מלך אלא על פי בית דין של שבעים ואחד, the Sanhedrin being the representative body of the community.

Thus, we find that it was the elders of the people who asked for Saul, and who had to make the decision to accept him as king, and likewise with David, who despite being chosen by God, had to get the support of the elders of the nation in order to actually rule, and this explains why even though the right to rule is hereditary, Rehoboam had to go through a process of election and acceptance by the people when his time came.

This also explains how many times the new king was put in place “by the people.” (E.g., Omri, Jehoash, Amaziah, Josiah, Jehoahaz, etc.)