ללא מחבר No Author

How Baalei Hatosafos Redefined ‘Moreh Halacha Befnei Rabo’

293) A TOSAFIST PERSPECTIVE – ‘WE HAVE BOOKS, WE DON’T NEED TEACHERS OR PERMISSION TO TEACH’:

Sunday, 6 September 2020

INTRODUCTION:

Around the thirteenth century, while most of Europe was becoming comfortingly institutionalised in their communal structures, a number of Tosafists were proclaiming the right to remain independent and autonymous both in their institutions and also in their thinking.

In this article, based extensively on the research of Rabbi Professor Ephraim Kanarfogel[1], we will examine the processes involved in establishing an academy in Ashkenaz (northern France and Germany) during the Tosafist period (c. 1100-1300) with an emphasis on how some rabbis were determined to remain unconstrained by the establishment.

Before we examine the protocols of opening up an academy in Tosafist Ashkenaz, let us first turn westwards and look at Spain during that same time period.

SPAIN:

In Spain, it was the leading scholars who – in principle – were in charge of granting permission for an academy to open and operate. Once the scholars approved of the candidates to run the yeshivot, it was up to the individual communities to appoint a particular Rosh Yeshiva and pay him. In Spain, the various communities always appointed and paid the approved candidates for their institutions, whether teachers or communal rabbis.[2]

But this was not the case in northern France and Germany.

ASHKENAZ – NORTHERN FRANCE AND GERMANY:

In Ashkenaz, the Tosafist academies were run independently as small and private institutions. Very often the school was in the actual home of the Rosh Yeshiva who had established it in the first place.

As a sign of independence, it was named after the Rosh Yeshiva and not after the town or city in which it operated. But this independence came at a price – the teachers were not paid and the students received no stipends.

Kanarfogel writes:

“Unlike Spanish Jewish society, Ashkenazic Jewry believed, as a matter of religious principle, that it was inappropriate to offer any direct financial support to its scholars.”[3]

He points out that, in northern France, this was not a uniquely Jewish state of affairs  as similar practices were found in the Cathedral schools, which were also named after their teachers and not the towns.

In both Jewish and Christian communities, the institution had no real energy of its own  – as modern universities like Harvard and Oxford, for example, do –  but the personality of the individual teacher was the only determining factor to draw the student.

In both Jewish and Christian circles, the student referred to the teacher under whom he studied, and not the place where he studied. This is evidenced by the fact that when the teacher died or moved on, the academies simply closed down.

Then things began to change as a more top-heavy and bureaucratic system developed.

From around 1200,  Christian schools required accreditation through a licentia docendi in order to operate and some of the earlier autonomy was lost due to the institutionalisation of teaching.

Similarly in Jewish communities, the semicha or ordination compliance was required before a school could open. Slowly the teachers lost their independence and certainly by the fifteenth century, Ashkenaz had a well established and an institutionalised structure in their Torah academies.

There is some debate as to exactly when the shift from independence to the institutionalisation of schools began in Ashkenaz, but clearly, some Tosafists were intent on perpetuating their autonomy for as long as possible.

What follows are three examples of Tosafists who held out for as long as they could, in an attempt at maintaining their independence:

1) R. SHMUEL AND HIS BROTHER R. MOSHE OF EVREUX:

In a text ascribed to the thirteenth century Tosafist brothers R. Shmuel and R. Moshe of Evreux[4], in Normandy – northern France – it is evident that academies in that region opened without permission and the teachers sometimes openly went against the rulings of their rabbis.

‘WE HAVE BOOKS, WE DON’T NEED TEACHERS OR PERMISSION TO TEACH’:

The Tosafist brothers of Evreux wrote that it was no longer necessary for students to uphold the views of their teachers. This was because teachers were no longer the only source of the law. They now lived in an era where books and texts abounded and were thus not beholden to their rabbis as the sole purveyors of Torah knowledge:

“For the Talmudic texts, the commentaries, the novellae, the [halakhic] compositions, they are the teachers of men. And all [is determined] by one’s perspicacity [discernment].

Thus, it was usual in their locale (be-‘iram) that a student opened his own study hall…without concern for [the Talmudic dictum that] ‘one who decides a matter of law in his teacher’s presence is punishable by death’.

Similarly, the student, by means of superior reasoning, could contradict his teacher[‘s ruling].”[5]

Kanarfogel explains this interesting Tosafist text as follows:

“The brothers maintained that due to the vicissitudes of time, written sources had replaced human instructors as the most effective teachers. As such, there was no longer a concept of rabbo muvhhaq (one’s major teacher) for whom deep respect or honour had to be shown….

A student was no longer required to seek his teacher’s approval in order to decide matters of law in his presence or to open an academy in his town.”

Continue reading…

From Kotzk Blog, here.

Replace Every Appearance of ‘Leader’ with ‘RABBI’ So the Article Makes Sense…

Opinion: Of Masks, Exaggerations, and Gross Misrepresentations

8:15 am

By Rabbi Yehoishophot Oliver

rabbioliver@gmail.com

We are living through terrifying times, and I am not talking about Covid-19.

We are seeing draconian measures enforced in the western world that are harsher than any we’ve ever seen in our lifetimes. On the face of it, this should awaken alarm and skepticism of the explanations we’ve been given for this vast expansion of government power. Yet many people, including in the Jewish community and including in the Orthodox Jewish community, see no problem with these measures, and they willingly encourage and enforce them. Some even do so with zeal and fanaticism, to the point of informing—of reporting to the police anyone who dares disobey the government.

And they’re doing so based on a fundamentally true principle.

However, I believe that in this case, the principle is being grossly and dangerously misapplied.

This is the basic principle in Jewish law that pikuach nefesh, the preservation of life, supersedes all other concerns, even otherwise strict obligations under Jewish law. Based on a doctor’s rulings, one can desecrate the Shabbos (Sabbath), eat non-kosher food, eat on the holy fast day of Yom Kippur. And so on.

During the Covid-19 crisis, community leaders have been telling us that we must obey the government health experts, and invoking Jewish law to support their claim. After all, Jewish law says that one should listen to health experts, to the point that one even violates what is normally forbidden based on their word.

This message is not really new and different. This is a basic principle in Jewish law. We do not need any great scholarship to know that danger to life is an overriding principle; any schoolchild knows this.

The issue is not whether we should listen to experts in matters of health. Rather, the fundamental issue is which experts we should listen to. Who exactly is making the threat assessment? Are they truly reliable? Could they have conflicts of interest that would call into question or even entirely discredit their supposedly authoritative opinions? Are the leaders asking these questions?

Yes of course, safety and health are paramount priorities. But those who have studied the development of totalitarian regimes understand that it is for this very reason that the claim of saving the people from some scary danger is a perfect tool for control and manipulation by people acting in bad faith with a sinister, nefarious agenda.

We are being told to obey the “public health” experts. But it really doesn’t take much time to research the history of “public health” and see just how correct and reliable it has been in the past (e.g., see here, here, here, and here). Ten minutes of research on Google will lead you down a rabbit hole of many past incidents when public health officials not only got it wrong, but they deliberately lied—with regard to pesticides, AIDS, firearms, and much more.

More generally and fundamentally, public health itself is a part of the political system, and politics is inherently about money, power, and control. So public health is not and cannot ever be about pure science and truth.

The medical industry in general is joined at the hip to Big Pharma, which has been exposed as controlling medical school and medicines in order to maximize profit, not healing and good health. Those who offer cheaper, more natural, and healthier alternatives to expensive synthetic pharmaceutical products are persecuted and marginalized, their businesses are outlawed, and they are even sometimes killed.

It would be one thing if these leaders were naïve in their health decisions about their own lives. It’s another thing entirely if they impose this naivete on the community, especially when they stubbornly refuse to listen to those who try to point out that they’ve been misinformed.

These leaders are not doing their due diligence to question the narrative we’re being told. And this negligence is even more egregious now than when the scare began.

The truth has increasingly emerged that we were sold a hoax: Covid-19 is no more dangerous than the seasonal flu, and likely less so. We were given false information about the death toll in Italy. The numbers were padded and governments worldwide are giving unethical financial incentives to hospital administrations to falsely classify deaths from other causes as Covid-19 deaths. The CDC issued directives to classify deaths assumed to be from Covid-19 even without a test. The tests are utterly faulty and don’t even test for Covid-19. The original mathematical model was grossly exaggerated and completely flawed from the outset. The media is using crisis actors to hype up the fear. According to testimonies, the hospitals in New York, the supposed hotspot for Covid-19, were systematically murdering the Covid-19 patients and that is in fact what was causing the higher death count there back in March and April.

Yet all these facts are ignored by the governments, so they are also ignored by the community leaders. This is surreal. The governments clearly have a deceptive agenda, so why are the leaders playing along?

These are often the same folks who told us to obey the “health experts” with regard to vaccines, despite the numerous reports coming out that many children are severely injured by vaccines. But because the government ignores that and mandates the vaccines, these leaders push us to conform and not to try to find exemptions, nor are they willing to represent us on the political front to push for vaccine exemptions. Some have even actively supported not allowing religious schools to accept religious vaccine exemptions legal in that state.

They are the blind leading the blind.

Their blindness is astonishing.

It could be simply a blind spot due to a naive overestimation of the wisdom of the official public health officials, due to the psychological influence of the inflated status of “official culture” to which all citizens are susceptible. But we expect more of our supposed leaders.

The truth about the other side of the story is now so widespread that it’s hard to think that this attachment to the official story is not willful. It is unpleasant but unavoidable to speculate on what motivates this irrational compliance. It could be concern about their image and a desire not to be seen as “bucking the system” and breaking the taboo against criticizing the government. Many are surely affected by a perceived desire to keep their positions, a desire for their schools and synagogues to receive the continued support of wealthy patrons or to receive continued government grants and funding to ease the financial burden on their institutions. This essentially means, sadly, that these leaders are compromised and corrupted. I would even suggest that until they openly admit their failure and apologize, they should no longer be trusted to be consulted on anything, as they have proven themselves incompetent.

This phenomenon of blind acceptance of the official government narrative on matters of health is shameful and terrifying. Our trusted leaders are blindly following the government-approved “health experts”, and the sheeple are blindly following the leaders, so we have a serious problem.

This is a very slippery slope.

The problem is the automatic conformity. All based on an endless, constantly repeated argument from authority. All without considering dissenting medical voices and blatant conflicts of interest. All based on the presumption that in matters of public health policy in our institutions, the government and only the government knows best and therefore it must call all the shots.

These people are not thinking clearly; they’re obeying like robots. They’re not willing to consider anything that deviates from the official narrative. They’re not willing to listen to an argument presenting reason and evidence and adjust their opinion accordingly. They automatically dismiss anyone questioning the official narrative as a nutcase. They’re viewing the official narrative as religious dogma, all while failing to stand up for our human and religious rights.

They said that we needed to keep the shuls (synagogues) closed because opening might endanger lives, now they say we must submit to masks, plexiglass, and social distancing in shuls and mass testing of our children, and soon they will doubtless say that we must all submit to a fast-tracked Covid vaccine. All because of health.

But I guarantee you that if you would ask these same leader and administrators to take some action about the even potential danger of the Wifi in the schools or the 5G towers (which were being installed behind our backs right while we were in lockdown) right near the schools, they would give you a funny look and dismiss your concerns. If you would say that the documented harms of vaccines declared by SCOTUS is reason not to mandate them and to allow parents to decline mandates, many would dismiss your arguments and tell you to obey the government.

Nor do we ever hear statements on the harm from radiation from cellphones, on the harm from psychiatric drugs, or on the harm from a sugary diet of processed foods.

So the claim that this is about health and safety—“pikuach nefesh”—is disingenuous. What’s really going on here is blind obedience to government, not to true, unbiased health experts.

Continue reading…

From Matzav, here.

Vicious Black American Slaveowners

A Brief History of Nonwhite Slave Owners in America

By Lipton Matthews
Mises.org

November 10, 2020

The study of slavery is one of the most contentious issues in contemporary America. But frequently this history is abused by thinkers across the spectrum to score political points. To understand the complexity of such an institution, we must desist from underestimating the role of minorities such as African Americans and Native Americans in it. For much of history, slavery was the norm, and by downplaying nonwhites’ involvement, we diminish their humanity. Pursuing one’s self-interest to acquire profit or power is consistent with human nature. Depicting minorities as innately virtuous relegates them to the status of infants. Instead, we should aim to highlight their autonomy as rational agents who sought to fulfill specific objectives in the context of a slave economy. Blacks and American Indians possessed the capacity to be just as calculating as white slave owners, and it is patronizing to suggest that they failed to perform as self-interested actors.

One of the earliest reports on black slave owners was pioneered by historian and activist Carter G. Woodson. Woodson advanced what is widely known as the theory of “benevolent slaveholding.” According to this view, black slaveholders primarily purchased relatives and friends from white masters to provide them with a better quality of life. To curtail the growth of the free black population, restrictive laws were instituted, thus making it difficult for black slave owners to manumit slaves without approval from the state. In South Carolina, for example, after 1820 free blacks who bought relatives, spouses, or friends had to receive permission from the state prior to manumitting enslaved Americans. Hence, purchasing black slaves from white owners was a strategy used by free blacks to secure a greater degree of freedom for their loved ones. Indeed Woodson’s thesis remains popular among academics, as adumbrated by Philip J. Schwarz: “Increasingly restrictive legislation, stringent economic conditions, the choice of many free blacks to own other blacks only temporarily, and perhaps the aversion of other Afro-Americans to human bondage guaranteed, that free black possession of human property would be significant only as an anomaly, not as a typical experience.” Though Woodson’s theory is still influential, many have charged that he minimized the materialistic tendencies of African American slave owners.

Larry Koger in his groundbreaking text Black Slaveowners: Free Black Masters in South Carolina, 1790–1860 disputes the dominant narrative propagated by disciples of Woodson:

When Carter G. Woodson asserted that free blacks purchased slave relatives and friends, he was quite correct. However, free blacks who held loved ones bought other slaves to be exploited for profit. To classify these transactions as benevolent would be a mistake. Even though these slaveowners usually demonstrated benevolent behavior towards their slave relations and friends, a commercial and materialistic exchange existed between them and their slaves purchased as investments. In fact, the free blacks who maintained a dual relationship with their slaves had no universal commitment against slavery. To them, slavery was an oppressive institution when it affected a beloved relative or a trusted friend, but beyond that realm, slavery was viewed as a profit-making institution to be exploited.

Other scholars implore us to not be shocked that blacks in America expressed an interest in owning slaves, as summarized by Calvin Wilson: “The Negroes brought with them from their native land African ideas and customs. Many of those brought thence to America had been slaves in their own lands. Others had been owners of slaves in Africa. In both cases, they were used to slavery. It did not, therefore, seemed unnatural for a Negro in America to hold his brethren in bondage when he had become free and able to buy his fellows.”

Also, like their white peers, some black slave owners were notorious for their brutality. Ronald E. Hall in his landmark publication An Historical Analysis of Skin Colour Discrimination: Victimism among Victim Group Populations challenges the assumption that black owners were always humane using the example of William Ellison: “William Ellison is prominent for both his wealth and the cruelty toward his black slaves, for which he was known among Southern blacks and whites. Historians for whatever reasons have attempted to justify his version of victim-group discrimination perhaps as a matter of political correctness.”

Yet if you assume that Hall’s commentary on Ellison is an anomalous case, then maybe this condemnation of black slave owners by a Louisiana slave featured in Frederick Law Olmstead’s Journeys and Explorations in the Cotton Kingdom will alter your perspective: “You might think, master, dat dey would be good to dar own nation; but dey is not. I will tell you de truth, massa; I know I’se got to answer; and it’s a fact, dey is very bad masters, sar. I’d rather be a servant to any man in de world, dan to a brack man. If I was sold to a brack man, I’d drown myself. I would dat—I’d drown myself! Dough I shouldn’t like to do dat nudder; but I wouldn’t be sold to a coloured master for anything.” Clearly, Woodson’s thesis is untenable.

With greater potency than most writers Hall discredits the position that black slaveholders were mainly motivated by humanitarian concerns:

In most instances of black slave ownership, the records suggest that blacks who owned black slaves did so for the same reasons as whites: profit….Astonishingly, in 1860 there existed at least six Negroes—likely light-skinned—living in Louisiana who owned 65 or more slaves. Among them C. Richards and P.C. Richards who owned 152 of their black brethren as slaves to work their sugarcane plantation. A similarly impressive Louisiana free Negro Antoine Dubuclet owned in excess of 100 dark-skinned black slaves. He was also in the sugar business and boasted an estate estimated to be worth in (1860 dollars) $264,000. To put Dubuclet’s wealth in context, the mean calculation of wealth for Southern white men at the time averaged $3,978.

Similarly, Native Americans were also players in slavery, and it must be noted that the institution existed before the arrival of Europeans. According to the scholar Joyce Ann Kievit: “Many North American Indian tribes practiced some form of slavery before Europeans arrived in North America. The status of slaves varied from tribe to tribe. Some slaves were exploited for labor, others were used for ritual sacrifice, a few provided for the needs of women whose husbands had been slain in war, and many were adopted into the tribes.” However, with the introduction of plantation slavery by European settlers, Native Americans became alert to the financial opportunities that could be gained from this venture.

Barbara Krauthamer shrewdly dispels the notion that Native Americans had less interest in exploiting black slaves for monetary benefit:

From the late eighteenth century through the end of the U.S. Civil War, Choctaw and Chickasaw men and women held people of African descent in slavery. Like their white Southern counterparts, Indians bought, sold, owned, and exploited black people’s labor and reproduction for social and economic gain. Choctaws and Chickasaws purchased slaves—men, women, and children—to work on their Mississippi farms and plantations and to serve in their homes…Choctaws and Chickasaws understood that slavery allowed for the accumulation of personal wealth.

Neither should we entertain the fable that Indian slave owners were universally generous. R. Halliburton in an intriguing book, Red over Black: Black Slavery among the Cherokee Indians, argued that the treatment meted out to black slaves ranged from kind to excessively atrocious, indicating that generalizations about slave masters are often inaccurate.

To imply that only white people have a vicious ability to calculatingly pursue their interests at the expense of others is insulting to blacks and American Indians. Inherent in humans is the passion to achieve distinct objectives even when they are inconsistent with the goals of the wider group. Romanticizing the history of minorities to portray them as saints is quite dehumanizing. The racist subtext is that white people are uniquely human because they possess the fortitude to outwit competitors.

Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.

From Mises.org, here.

The New Form of Antisemitism: Wokeness

Wokeness is Coming for Us

By Yonoson Rosenblum | NOVEMBER 4, 2020

Woke journalists no longer see their profession as dedicated to uncovering truth, but as a means of advancing the cause

Almost 70% of American Jews, just slightly less than the percentage who always vote Democratic, believe Republicans are anti-Semitic, according to a recent American Jewish Committee poll.

That’s odd. Isn’t the Republican Party the one totally unified in support of Israel? Hasn’t the Trump administration moved aggressively against campus anti-Semitism?

But the AJC poll was nothing compared to a recent email from one of my closest and most brilliant law school friends, who wrote with unfeigned horror of President Trump as “the opening chapter in my American Jewish nightmare saga.” In the “hard core of his support, the rock-solid, rock-brained inhabitants of the ‘Red States,’ ” my friend sees “the SS,” who will become “a mass of armed, violent, encouraged, entitled, enthused pogromists roaming the land.”

With the passing of the second anniversary of the massacre of 11 Sabbath worshippers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, it is impossible to argue that there are not violent right-wing anti-Semites in America. In country of over 330 million people, there are many. But I doubt that many KKK supporters or neo-Nazis vote — Republican or otherwise — or that they see Trump, with his Jewish daughter and son-in-law, as their leader.

ADMITTEDLY, if one’s only connection to being Jewish is a Jewish last name, one’s chief fear might be of a neo-Nazi going through the local phone directory in search of Jewish names. But if one is concerned about the ability to live as an identifiable Jew in the United States and to pass on that identity to one’s children, there are far greater reasons to fear.

The greatest threat going forward is an ideology that explicitly rejects the liberal order in which American Jews have flourished. And unlike neo-Nazis and white supremacists, who exist at far edge of American society, this anti-liberal ideology, whether styled as critical race theory (CRT) or “social justice” or something else, has made deep inroads into the main institutions of American life — the universities, the press, corporate America, and the Democratic Party.

Angela Harris, a proponent, writes in Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, “Critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.”

In “The Roots of Wokeness,” Andrew Sullivan analyzes the major elements of the ascendant ideology. First, the rejection of “objective truth,” borrowed from post-modernism, in favor of “competing narratives,” to be employed to gain power, in a zero-sum game between oppressed groups and their oppressors. That explains why today’s woke journalists no longer see their profession as one dedicated to uncovering truth, but rather as a means of advancing the cause. They view censorship with equanimity.

Thus Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey told a Senate committee last week that Hunter Biden’s authenticated and never denied emails are the kind of “misinformation” that Twitter bans. But Ayatollah Khamenei’s Holocaust denial or a senior Chinese minister’s assertion that the US deliberately spread COVID-19 are not.

The AP stylebook instructs journalists to eschew the word “riot” in favor of “protest,” no matter how violent or destructive the unrest. “Looting” is also racist, according to AP, and only distracts from the underlying grievances of the looters.

In the new dispensation, group identity is everything, and the individual members of oppressed groups have no right to think for themselves. As Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a “Squad” member, puts it, “We don’t need any more black faces that don’t want to be a black voice.” When Joe Biden quipped, “If you don’t vote for me, you ain’t black,” he was in tune with critical race theory.

EVIDENCE OF THE INROADS of the new ideology and its deleterious effects on Jews are all around us. Take the mainstreaming of Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton. Farrakhan has been haranguing against “Jew devils” for decades. Yet leading Democratic congresswomen, the attorney general of Minnesota, and one of the chief organizers of the Women’s March — which could make no room for Jewish groups — are acolytes. A glowing op-ed in the New York Times on the 25th anniversary of the Farrakhan-organized Million Man March made no mention of his open anti-Semitism, prompting former Times editor and columnist Bari Weiss to tweet that the Times has adopted “a worldview in which Jew hatred does not count.” (Weiss, it will be remembered, resigned from the Times after it did nothing to address the hostile workplace created by woke Times colleagues who publicly labeled her a “Nazi” and a “racist,” put ax emojis by her name, and repeatedly asked her whether she was “writing about the Jews again.”)

Continue reading…

From Jewish Media Resources, here.

הרב משה שטרנבוך: דין ‘מוסר’ אינו נקבע לפי ראשי השלטון

בעקבות הקורונה פסק חריף: “אפשר להלשין על מפרי ההנחיות”

פסק חריף ומפורט מראב”ד העדה החרדית הגאון רבי משה שטרנבוך באשר למפרי ההנחיות. בתשובה ארוכה כותב הראב”ד מתי יש למוסרם לשלטונות ומתי רק לבית דין

אלעד דואני   

בעקבות הפולמוס בעולם ההוראה בעניין היתר ‘מסירה’ לשלטונות כנגד העוברים על תקנות משרד הבריאות, ובמענה לפניית רבה של שכונת רמת שלמה הגאון רבי מתתיהו דייטש כתב השבוע הגאון רבי משה שטרנבוך מכתב מיוחד בו קבע כללים על היתר המסירה.

במכתבו קבע כי יש להבחין בין הוראות שבהפרתם יש סכנה מוחשית וממשית – כמו חולה מאומת המסתובב בין אנשים המוגדר כרודף גמור, לשאר תקנות המועילות אך לא נתקנו אלא לשמירה והרחקה יתרה למנוע צד נזק בספק ספיקא, [כמו הטלת סגר מוחלט בימים מסוימים וכדו’] בהם אין להתיר באופן גורף ויש לשאול שאלת רב בכל מקרה לגופו.

במכתבו אף ביקש מרבני הערים לגלות אחריות ולהטיל סנקציות באמצעות בתי הדין נגד מפירי התקנות וההוראות באופן המסכן את תושבי העיר.

המכתב המיוחד נכתב במענה לפנייתו של רבה של שכונת רמת שלמה הגאון רבי מתתייהו דייטש שביקש מהגר”מ שטרנבוך לכתוב תשובה מפורטת בנושא הטעון והמתגלגל בימים אלו בבתי הרבנים, מה הם הכללים להתיר למסור למשטרה את מפירי תקנות הממשלה בנושא השמירה מנגיף הקורונה.

במענה לשאלתו, כתב הראב”ד תשובה הלכתית ארוכה, ובה הוא קובע כללים בנידון, ומורה כי יש להבחין בין הוראות שבהפרתם יש סכנה מוחשית וממשית – כמו חולה מאומת המסתובב בין אנשים שדינו כרודף גמור, לשאר תקנות המועילות להסרת המגיפה אך לא נתקנו אלא לשמירה והרחקה יתרה למנוע צד נזק בספק ספיקא, [כמו הטלת סגר מוחלט בימים מסוימים וכדו’] בהם אין להתיר באופן גורף ויש לשאול שאלת רב בכל מקרה לגופו.

בדבריו מדגיש כי כל אחד חייב לשמור את תקנות הרופאים,  אך יחד עם זאת ההיתר למסור לשלטונות אינו גורף, וכי בכל מקרה יש לשאול שאלת חכם לאחר הצגת שלל המקרים,

במכתבו כתב כי מי שמסכן את הרבים, יש חיוב גמור על כל אחד למסור אותו לשלטונות, וזאת לאחר התראה כדת וכדין: “לעומת זאת, מי שמסכן את הרבים חייבים למוסרו לשלטונות לאחר שמתרים בו, ואם אפשר להם מוטב שיזהירוהו תחילה על ידי בי”ד או על ידי הרב דמתא, (שלפעמים בהתראה בעלמא אינו מאמין שבאמת ימסרוהו), ואם בכל זאת הוא מתעקש בדרכו ואינו מקבל את ההתראה, או שאי אפשר להתרות בו, דינו כרודף שחייבים למוסרו לשלטונות כדי שיכפוהו שלא יסכן את רבים, וכל זה ג”כ רק לאחר שמקבלים היתר מרב מובהק שיש בזה סכנה לרבים, דאל”ה נתת תורת כל אחד בידו, וכל אחד ימסור חבירו לשלטונות על ידי החלטתו ושיקול דעתו שהדבר נידון כסכנה.

בהמשך מכתבו כותב עוד כי הגדרת העניין מסורה אך ורק לידי בעלי ההוראה ולא “לראשי השלטון החופשיים” כלשונו: “כלל הדבר בזה אינו נקבע ח”ו לפי החלטת ראשי שלטון החופשיים שאין להם השגה בכללי דיני התורה, והגע עצמך, הרי הם לבד משנים את תקנותיהם מזמן לזמן, והיאך יתכן שייקבעו דיני איסור מוסר לפי רגע שינוי החלטתם, ובוודאי אין הדבר תלוי אלא בדעת תורה, ובכל מקרה יש לקבל היתר מרב מובהק אם נחשב בגדר “מזיק את הרבים”.

בדבריו מדגיש כי אין לראות במכתבו כזלזול בהוראות הרופאים, ואף הוא עצמו נזהר ושומר על כל הוראות הרופאים, ורק בדיני מסירה יש להבחין בין המקרים: “הן אמת שתקנות כיוצא באלו נתקבלו בכל העולם כולו, ובוודאי אף אנו שומרים את כלל הרחקות הרופאים בעניינים אלו, אבל משום זה לא נחרוץ דינו של העובר על כל תקנה שהוחלטה על דעתם בלבד כ”מזיק את הרבים”, ובפרט שיש מהתקנות שלא נתקנו אלא כשמירה והרחקה יתרה, ויש לדון כל מקרה לגופו”.

בשלב זה של מכתבו, עובר הגר”מ שטרנבוך שליט”א לקבוע כללים ברורים להלכה למעשה במפירי הוראות משרד הבריאות לשמירה והגנה מנגיף הקורונה: “להלכה למעשה נראה, שמי שיש לו סימני המחלה, וכל שכן אם ידוע בבירור שחלה במחלה, ויוצא להסתובב בין אנשים, מצווה להתרות בו מיד, ואם אינו מקבל ההתראה או שאי אפשר להתרות בו, דינו כרודף שחייבים למוסרו לשלטונות כדי למנוע היזק הרבים.

“אבל בכל שאר התקנות, הכל תלוי לפי העניין, ואין לכל אחד להכריע בזה לפי שיקול דעתו מהו בגדר “סכנה” על פי דין תורה, אלא יש לשאול ולקבל היתר מתלמיד חכם ובעל הוראה מובהק, וחלילה להסתמך בזה על שמועות בעלמא, או על הקשת מקרה למקרה בלא קבלת היתר מפורש מבעל הוראה מובהק.

לקראת סוף מכתבו יוצא הגר”מ שטרנבוך בהוראה לרבני הערים לפעול להטלת סנקציות דרך בתי הדין על מפירי ההוראות: “באופן שניכר שיש פירצה בעיר, ורבים אין שומרים על תקנות ההרחקה שנתברר לפי דברי הרופאים שהם מועילים לצמצם את המגיפה, מוטל על רבני העיר לפעול ולטכס עצה היאך לגרום לציבור לשמור היטב על התקנות בלא שום פירצה, ובמקום הצורך יש לבתי הדין להטיל קנסות וכיוצ”ב לאחר התראה כדין תורה, אך לא ירעו ולא ישחיתו לעבור בחטא חמור דמסירה בלא שיקול דעת בכל מקרה לגופו”.

את מכתבו מסכם במילים קצרות: “סוף דבר, דין מוסר אינו תלוי בדין תקנת המדינה, אלא בהכרעת חכמי התורה מהו בגדר רודף, ויש לדון בכל מקרה לגופו, ובעוה”ר רבים מדמים שההחלטה אם נקרא רודף או לא, נעשה תלוי בשיקול הדעת של החופשיים ראשי השלטון כאן רח”ל, וזהו גופא חילול השם שאין כמוהו, וכמו שכתב הגר”א (חו”מ סימן כ”ו) שכל מי שמניח דייני ישראל והולך לפני העכו”ם, הרי הוא כופר בקב”ה ובתורה, שנאמר כי לא כצורינו צורם ואויבינו פלילים.

מאתר ערוץ 2000, כאן.