הרב אבי גרוסמן Rabbi Avi Grossman

Speaking of contrasting Maimonides’s writings with those of early 20th century Aharonim, I was recently reminded of a sermon I delivered on Rosh Hashana a year and a half ago. When you read Maimonides’s summation of the laws of lashon hara, he connects the prohibitions thereof to the commandments to love fellow Jews, to love the unfortunate, and to rebuke transgressors, and to the prohibitions against bearing grudges and taking revenge. He defines the relevant terms, i.e., slander, gossip, libel, and innuendo, and concludes with homiletic teachings about the gravity of the sin. In total, the laws take up all of six paragraphs in the entire Mishneh Torah.

The Chafetz Chayim, however, wrote two books on the subject. After acknowledging the paucity of relevant material in the Mishneh Torah, he writes that his intent was to bring together all the scattered halachoth from the numerous sources in order to raise awareness of the issue, and hopefully to reduce the lashon hara spoken throughout the world. However, his plan may have backfired.

The notion that the existence of a full length book on a halachic subject will bring the masses to better observance of the matter is not entirely logical. Lashon hara is forbidden. Does the fact that it has many detailed halachoth matter to someone who may be deciding to speak it? Would a detailed work about the minutiae of the forbidden relations or bloodshed reduce the instances of both sins? Maimonides and the Vilna Gaon both considered it to be the gravest and most common sin, but they did not need to elaborate on it. The fact that there is much to be studied about a particular subject is, unfortunately, only provincial to those who really like to study.

But, most unfortunately, the Chafetz Chayim’s intellectual honesty may have been his undoing. If you look at the table of contents to common printed editions of the book Chafetz Chayim, you will see that the title of Principle 10 is, “Some details regarding lashon hara between a man and his fellow, that is, if someone stole from him and or cheated him or his friend, and similar cases, in what situation(s) would it be permissible to reveal this to people.” The book contains something Maimonides would never have included in his halachoth, hetterim, instances of permissibility, because lashon hara did not need a thorough halachic treatment. It should not be spoken, period. What this has wrought, and I have seen this a few times, is that people who have tendencies to want to meticulously keep the halacha and to meticulously study the halacha, end up finding excuses (or in their minds: justifications) for themselves to speak Lashon Hara!

That was then. Now I came across a perfectly relevant passage that drives home this point. Principle 8:8. (Easy to remember: Chafetz Chayim 8:8. In Hebrew, it would be ח”ח ח”ח!) There the Chafetz Chayim writes about the hetter, held of by some of the Rishonim and only under certain specific conditions, for someone to speak lashon hara about a ba’al mahloqeth,* in order to save the others from said ba’al mahloqeth‘s machinations. The source for this rule is at the beginning of the Yerushalmi Peah: Nathan instructed Bathsheba to inform David of Adonijah’s plot to take the throne. (Elsewhere, I have the heard that Moses’s warning the people to stay away from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram also teaches us this lesson.) Now, The Chafetz Chayim also notes that the codifiers, The Rif, the Rosh, and Maimonides, all omitted this hetter from their summations. In my humble opinion, there are two very good reasons for their doing so. 1. No one has the right to grant himself a hetter to speak Lashon Hara. If we find an instance where Nathan the prophet (or Moses for that matter) used such a hetter, we have to figure that they did so because they positively knew that that is what God wanted. If only all of us were prophets, but until then we cannot do like they do. 2. The Rif, the Rosh, and Maimonides may have realized the danger in recording hetterim to speak lashon hara. Once again, I know of a few who have used this hetter for themselves to speak lashon hara against others. Of course, they checked the conditions for themselves and justified their behavior in their own minds. Perhaps it would have been better had these and other hetterim not been included.

* In the strictest sense, a ba’al mahloqeth is someone who speaks and acts against those chosen by God to lead. Therefore Korah was a ba’al manhloqeth because he challenged Aaron’s being chosen for the priesthood, Dathan and Abiram challenged Moses’s authority as lawgiver, and Adonijah challenged God’s choosing Solomon to reign after David. In all these cases, the ba’al mahloqeth takes issue with that which is explicit from the words of the prophets. Ba’al mahloqeth is not an appellation for someone who is argumentative, nor for someone who disagrees with a particular rabbi.

Question: Why do we take off our tefillin before musaf on Rosh Chodesh?

Simple answer: Because everyone else is doing it.

Refined Question: Why is there a widespread practice to do so?

Answer: Because, as the Beth Yosef (Tur Orah Hayim 25) writes, in some places the congregation recites the text of q’dusha that begins with kether yittnu l’cha (“The angels shall give Thee a crown”), and it is inappropriate for us to be wearing our crowns while reciting it. Many of our greatest authorities have found this whole line of reasoning hard to understand, as 1. many other congregations do not recite that version, and 2. even if they did, why would that necessitate removing our tefillin? (Recall that it is also a weekly occurrence in many congregations that recitation of said q’dusha elicts others to put on their “crowns.”) As the Taz (Orah Hayim 25:16) points out, this practice is not universal, and at one point it never existed, and perhaps it is now on its way out. That is, many Rishonim never heard of this idea before, and as we pointed out earlier, the Vilna Gaon held that there can never be a minhag to not perform a commandment. And, see this from Rabbi Melamed, where he cites the same L’vush the Mishna Berura cites: somehow, the musaf of Rosh Hodesh is like an oth, a Sign of the Covenant, like observing the Sabbath, and we generally only have two signs per day: Circumcision everyday, combined with either a Sabbath or tefillin. On Hol Hamoed, those who do not wear tefillin or who remove them early do so because according to some opinions, Hol Hamoed is a day similar to the sabbbath in that m’lacha is forbidden thereon, if not by biblical law then by rabbinic law, but no such rule has ever existed for Rosh Hodesh. Notice how Rabbi Melamed mentions that he did not initially give the older, classical reason that was already dismissed, and instead he resorts to the later reason, that of the L’vush, because even though it is wrong, it is not as wrong. After all, we are saying Musaf. But he does offer that it seems that the L’vush was also bothered by this strange practice, and tried to suggest a post-facto explanation for something everyone was already doing. This goes to show you how strong precedent was and how afraid certain authorities were to change a practice they knew to be problematic. And it was that unfortunate attitude that kept Jews in Europe before the Holocaust, and it was going against that attitude that allowed us to once again become a sovereign people in our own land, both in the past century, and 2,000 years ago during the time of the Maccabees, whose story is directly analogous to ours.

Question: So why did the minhag become so common among ashkenazim if there was never a good reason?

Answer: Because, unfortunately, every weekday men are antsy to remove their tefillinand leave the services, even if the prayers are short, like on no-tahanun days. You know this to be true, and it is less so for stronger groups, like in the yeshivas, where the congregants have more time for personal prayers and less pressing responsibilities after prayers. Now, consider what happens when you suddenly add hallel and musaf to the service. The prayers go twenty minutes longer, and it just increases the pressure to leave quickly on a work day. If you’re wearing tefillin, it’s a work day. Note that. Rosh Hodesh was always a workday, and no one ever considered that there should be an issur m’lacha on it, and unlike Hol Hamoed, when at the very least the Rabbis instituted such a a prohibition. The fact that the congregants get a chance to at least remove their tefillin on time in preparation for leaving the services is very enticing. You have also seen how the post-musaf aleinu on Rosh Hodesh is often attended by about half of those who were there for prayers. Years ago, I did not have a quorum left to say the psalm of the day afterwards.

Question: So what do you do on Rosh Hodesh?

Answer: If alone, I keep my tefillin on until I finish my prayers. After all, it is a shame that I only usually get to perform the commandment during morning prayers, so why should I cut it short, especially on a day when I need to pray for longer? Because I never intentionally pray alone on Rosh Hodesh, I would prefer one of those  minyanim where they keep their tefillin on for musaf, much like prominent Bnei Brak rabbis were known not to pray in traditional Ashkenazic synagogues when visiting the United States because those congregations would typically omit the daily priestly blessing. Tefillin-at-Musaf minyanim are out there, and it is my hope that they will become more common. Anticipating your next question, I believe that “renew our days as of old” is not an empty prayer, and it is both with in our power and incumbent upon us to restore observance of the commandments to the way it once was, the way it was intended.

When in the synagogue, I try to gauge the congregation. If I have to lead the service, which is often, and no one notices, I only remove my shel rosh, and if I can not get away with just that, I take off my shel yad also. This is because that I, as the emissary of the congregation, have to do what they want. However, I make a point of putting my tefillin completely back on, with a blessing, immediately after musaf so that “the children will ask,” i.e., to raise awareness of the issues, and I continue wearing them for a few more minutes. As the Mishna Berura points out, all agree that the entire day of Rosh Hodesh is the prescribed time for wearing tefillin. When I do not have to lead the prayers, if I can hide the fact that I do not remove my tefillin, then I do that, which is very rare, and if I can not, then I only remove my shel rosh and cover up my shel yad and its straps. Afterwards, I make a point to put the shel rosh back on on and recite a blessing, and this is also in order to raise awareness.

From Rabbi Avi Grossman, here.