An Interview with Rabbi Yosef Rottenberg

 https://wherewhatwhen.com/article/an-interview-with-rabbi-yosef-rottenberg

WWW: What did you learn from him that influences the way you pasken?

 YR: I learned from him to think for myself. Reb Moshe wasn’t impressed if you showed him a sefer where it said the opposite of what he thought. “This is what I think,” he used to say. So, even though in certain matters I pasken not like R’ Moshe, when friends point out this out to me, I say to them, “I’m doing exactly like R. Moshe. R. Moshe said to think for yourself. I’m thinking for myself!”

I also learned that minhagim (customs) are very chashuv (important). Once we were all standing around, and somebody came over and mentioned to R’ Moshe that a certain rabbi was writing a get (Jewish divorce) on a typewriter. R’ Moshe said, “A get on a typewriter? This rav will never get out of gehinnom.” Now, R’ Moshe, as everybody knows, was the finest, most eidel (gentle), the sweetest person alive. You never heard a bad word about a Jew from his mouth, ever. We all got shook up from hearing this, and went back to our seats.

I don’t know how I had the nerve to do this, but I came there to learn, so I went over to the Rosh Yeshiva, and I said, “Rebbe, what’s takeh wrong with a get on a typewriter?” Do you know what R’ Moshe answered me? In Yiddish, he said, “We have to think about that.” In other words, he had not yet decided definitely that it was against the halacha.

So why did he give such a klala (curse) to the person? It was because he changed a custom that was observed by Yidden for thousands of years. Maybe it’s not assur (forbidden) to write a get with a typewriter, but since the custom is to write it with a quill like a sefer Torah, for not observing the minhag, he will go to gehinnom. The point is that Jewish customs have to be kept. He was very makpid (exacting) on minhagim.