yybt sent me the following letter. It is clear from all of the rabbis protest letters that Rav Greenblatt was severely criticized for issuing this psak and relying on it to marry Tamar to a second husband. Rav Greenblatt insists however that he did nothing wrong. Were Rav Greenblatt's actions clearly wrong and irresponsible? What was he required to do in establishing the facts.
Does the posek have a responsibity to ascertain that the facts are true or does a psak mean - "assuming the facts are true - then this is the halacha?"
If the latter is the answer - what happens when it is clear that the facts are not true - does that automatically invalidate the psak? Was Rav Greenblatt's heter always null and void because it was based on a lie? Or does it require a statement of retraction or nullification after he examines evidence that the facts are not true.
If the posek does need to ascertain the truth of the facts - when can he rely on experts and when does he need to know himself?
If a posek declares the husband dead, is he in fact halachically dead - even if in reality he is alive?
Additionally is there a different answer depending on the case? Are cases involving a gain to one person and a loss to another different than cases involving only the person himself? Or is it different when there might be a serious sin or great financial loss, but not for minor issues or insignificant financial loss? What if he knows the psak he received is wrong - can he rely on it anyway?
Finally, when a person sins as the result of relying on a psak - does he need to do teshuva? Does the posek who errs need to do teshuva? Or this to be viewed as an example of hashgocha protis and therefore the posek and the receiver of the psak are not responsible.
===========================================
I think I might be part of the younger generation. But I always had this
daas Torah dilemma, are you supposed to be totally mekabel or can you
question respectfully? I personally think there is a healthy balance,
meaning naaseh vnishma. First be mekabel and then try understanding.
But with this tamar heter I had a query. There are 2 types of ways rabbanim answer shailas. One is whatever you ask that's what he answers. The other trys to probe every detail and is very careful to answer. I have seen and heard stories with both these approaches.
I have a very hard time questioning big talmidei chachamim. They actually know and I don't. And they have a life of experience and shimush. So with R Nata it's definitely like that since I know his gadlus and wouldn't doubt it. But I do have questions. It seems R Nata answered whatever was asked to him. Thats not as hard to understand. But I do have trouble understanding how R Nata could have married her off without properly investigating to know for sure she was able to marry bheter?!
To end off, Do rabbanim have to probe every detail to answer or is it the questioners responsibility?
But with this tamar heter I had a query. There are 2 types of ways rabbanim answer shailas. One is whatever you ask that's what he answers. The other trys to probe every detail and is very careful to answer. I have seen and heard stories with both these approaches.
I have a very hard time questioning big talmidei chachamim. They actually know and I don't. And they have a life of experience and shimush. So with R Nata it's definitely like that since I know his gadlus and wouldn't doubt it. But I do have questions. It seems R Nata answered whatever was asked to him. Thats not as hard to understand. But I do have trouble understanding how R Nata could have married her off without properly investigating to know for sure she was able to marry bheter?!
To end off, Do rabbanim have to probe every detail to answer or is it the questioners responsibility?
I was thinking of that "famous " story of R Moshe on the bracha for
pizza. Someone asked on bread with cheese and sauce and he poskened
hamotzi, and the other asked on a cracker with sauce and cheese and R Moshe answered mezonos. By here it doesn't seen R Moshe asked further or
investigated the matter.
Also by the inyan of electricity R Shlomo Zalmon investigated thoroughly and R Elyashiv didn't so they came out with different psakim. don't think R Elyashiv himself studied electricity.
When I called Rabbi Greenblatt about the eruv his son erected in Las Vegas I first presented him with the situation that a shul was preventing certain people from entering to eat from the food set aside for the eruv without telling where this eruv was located. When he said such an eruv was passul, I then told him the details, that it was in Las Vegas and had been erected by his son. He said he would check and I should call him back a week later. When I did he simply said the rabbis there said it was okay, they were Bnai Torah and he had to believe them. In reality the "Bnai Torah" who told his son that lied! It is not okay in Las Vegas because the "Bnai Torah" of the Las Vegas Kollel disobey the halachos set forth in Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deyah siman 334 and ignore the relevant simanin in Orech Chaim relating to the eruv. Why would the Kollel do that? For their livelihood and they will not admit they are wrong.
ReplyDeleteRav Greenblatt knows the halacha. He is not negligent on paskening on conditions when then conditions are presented truthfully. But just as a medical test can be falsified by "touching up the X-ray" when it is presented to the doctor, so too was Rav Greenblatt fooled by those he trusted both in the Epstein case as well as in his response to me regarding the Las Vegas eruv.
So you ambushed him. Nice.
ReplyDeleteAt any rate, the supposedly pasul eruv is a red herring, a stalking horse. You know perfectly well that it can be made kosher simply by being mezakeh a few matzos to everyone who lives within its boundaries and placing the matzos in an accessible place. You refuse to do this b/c it gives you a reason to complain.
Why haven't you asked Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky about the eruv yet?
ReplyDeleteI was thinking of that "famous " story of or moshe
ReplyDeletetypo R' Moshe
Why would the Kollel do that?
ReplyDeleteHow about we ask you some questions.
1) Why don't you set aside a box of matzah in place that is accessible to all? If you really care about the eiruv, then you should do this.
2) Why do you want the eiruv to be possul?
3) What is your real point in having set up your website?
4) Why do you keep on saying "widow." If the charges and claims of 1) the Young Israel rabbi; 2) Rabbi Pesach Learner; 3) Rabbi Peretz Steinberg are true, then it is irrelevant if she is a widow. The rabbi has a responsibility to combat her behavior in his Shul. If their claims are not true, why not present the facts calmly and logically? Why the hyperbole? Why the use of a funny ad hock Beis Din in Brooklyn, instead of the established Botei Din in LV or LA?
Please clarify these points. Thank you.
P'sak is generally the application of halacha to the specific facts of a case. The question you ask is, fundamentally, who is responsible for determining the facts: the posek or the person asking the shaila. Posekim do differ quite a bit in their approach to this, although I don't think any posek is 100% on one side or the other. I did once have the z'chut to discuss this with Rav Yosef Soloveitchick, (obviously not with regard to this current case) who said in the name of his father Rav Moshe Soloveitchick (Zichronam tzaddikim l'vracha) that for the most part, the responsibility for the facts is on the sho'el. He explained the reason for this is that, first, the primary expertise of the posek is halacha, not determining facts, and, second, posekim generally do not have detectives on their staff to check if the facts are really as described to them. Now obviously, this depends somewhat on the nature of the shaila: for example, the question of whether zebu is kosher or not may depend on knowing the biology, but it doesn't depend on the individual animal, so the posek could investigate with biologists or veterinarians he trusts, independent of the sho'el.
ReplyDeleteBut no posek does 100% fact checking. Igros Moshe, for example, leans toward checking independently, but, for a relevant example, in his t'shuvah to Rav Draizen (EH 1:80) about a man who hid a mental illness from his bride, he relies on what Rav Draizen said he found in the hospital records: that the man was first hospitalized and diagnosed in 1938 (i.e. before the wedding) and the doctors say he has been continually ill, even when symptoms weren't apparent (at least not sufficiently apparent to keep him out of the Army). Rav Moshe (ZT"L) (at least as far as he writes in the tshuvah) neither hired a detective to check the hospital records, nor a psychiatrist to assess whether the original doctors did a correct job of diagnosing the patient. He gave his p'sak based on the facts as presented to him.
I would think that particularly, when the sho'el is himself a talmid chacham rather than a ba'al habayit, the posek generally assumes that the facts are as presented, and offers the applicable ruling based on the presented case.
So what happens when it is revealed that the facts are not as presented or serious doubts are rasied about them. Does the posek need to formally retract his psak in a letter or is it understood thata the psak is conditional that the facts are correct and thus the psak never existed?
ReplyDeleteRabbi Greenblatt and apparently Tamar feels that as long as the psak has not been withdrawn it is valid - even if there are serious questions about the validity of the facts or even if she knows that the facts presented to Rav Greenblatt are lies.
Well, I suppose it depends on how the facts are revealed and what they are. If she was just lying to the rabbis about what the psychiatrist said, then of course she is responsible for the resulting sins, vtetze mi zeh u mizeh. I am not sure there would be a need to retract the heter so much as to pasken how to deal with the situation post facto--i.e. tetze mi zeh u'mi zeh. Similarly, if it is revealed that the psychiatrist just flat out lied.
ReplyDeleteIf, on the other had, what is revealed that there is some controversy about the correctness of the diagnosis or whether the psych. had any business offering it, if this comes to light before the 2nd marriage, of course the posek has to take responsibility to tell her to not get married until the situation is clarified. If it is after the 2nd marriage, it is too far above my pay grade for me to comment.
I would like to add if I may, that the K's should have never been involved from Adam because of their Negius bedovor, and even if suppose RNG was not aware of that at the time, but he fully is aware of it at this very moment. The whole *AS IS* presentation has NO credibility NOR any integrity. Note, that R' NOTE G is still waiting for a REFUTE or a WITHDRAWL of the Reports way after Kol haOlam Kulo REFUTED the whole Kip & Caboodle Fiasco as FAKE Fraud and Phony, and has also been put on notice for it all. This Baas haYaano technique is worth as much as the passengers of the ill fated flight Swissair Flight 11X sitting at the bottom of the ocean with their seat belts intact waiting to be rescued. It is nothing more than an attempt of toleh killeloso beacherim.
ReplyDeleteHere is one more shailo before we go. Suppose Adam comes with a shailos mareh from Eve, do you tell him to wait and hold on until the psak to determine as in Vayomer Edom lo..... .., or you tell him business as usual as if LAHAD'AM, until after verification? Ken hadovor hahi, only much worse.
1) Because this situation is about more than the eruv. The eruv is a symptom. Treating a symptom only masks a worse disease and delays the cure.
ReplyDelete2) I do not WANT the eruv to be possul. It IS possul because of the situation there.
3) Because like Rav Greenblatt, I too relied on a legacy that has been used to hide dishonesty. I trusted that a "Young Israel" followed the Torah. The one in Las Vegas does NOT! The leaders of National Council of Young Israel since 1992 are corrupt and crooked while hiding behind a trusted name and instead of getting rid of the excommunicated rabbi they abetted him. Even the late Rabbi Ephraim Sturm, zt'l, said this when I went to consult with him on how to deal with the situation.
4) Because the moser (as the Las Vegas "rabbi" is declared by the Bais Din from Brooklyn) reneged on the conditions the Los Angeles Bais Din set up and which he signed to! Where do you get the idea the "rabbi" was combating HER behavior in shul? I've been in the minyan she attended after he threw her out. She is as quiet as a mouse. And besides, a widow DOES get special protection according to the Torah.
Once a group of prominent rabbis met at the home of R’ Chaim Ozer Grodzenski ov Vilna zt”l to discuss communal matters. In the middle of their meeting, a woman burst into the room and began banging on the table and screaming, “If the Rav won’t give me a letter of recommendation to the charity fund, I will smash all the furniture in this room!” R’ Chaim Ozer tried to calm her down and offered her some money, but to no avail. Some of the rabbis in attendance began to berate her for her impudence, but R’ Chaim Ozer cut them short: “Leave her be – she’s a widow!”
Source article from http://www.baltimorejewishlife.com/news/news-detail.php?SECTION_ID=45&ARTICLE_ID=35500
Funny ad hoc (there's no K in it, You pawn stuff. eh?) Beis Din in Brooklyn?? It was EIGHT diverse rabbonim so there would be no doubt of its validity. Their seruv is 100% valid. What's the proof of that? Because why else did crooked Pesach Lerner have to resort to a criminal solution like FORGERY to undermine it when his first attempt from 2005 eventually failed. And yes, I call him crooked! That's what a FORGER and LIAR is.
No, I don't do it because I am not in Las Vegas now. When I get there again I will do it.
ReplyDeleteI did not ambush Rabbi Greenblatt. I asked him the question first without mentioning it was one his son erected so that HIS answer would not be affected by familial factors. We've seen only too well from Rav Shmuel Kaminetzky, shlita, that such factors can cause an effect. Why do you think a judge cannot try a family member?
What is there to ask? I asked Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky, shlita, in person several years ago about what to about the situation in Las Vegas of an excommunicated rabbi running a Young Israel and all he said was, "oy oy, terrible". He made it clear to me he won't get involved.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear you will be fixing the eruv issue. A pity you did not do so long ago. I trust the matter will no longer be raised as a red herring in unrelated discussions.
ReplyDelete