MORE FROM A SOAKED AND SALTED MIND

Some years back,
someone asked a major posek of the time to forbid smoking. The posek
replied that he could not assur smoking (forbid it), because Gedolim
smoked.

The answer put that rabbi outside the ranks of
halacha. Of all the reasons he could have given to not assur smoking,
that one was totally non halachic. Are we so fragile that we can’t
admit that not everything a Gadol does is correct? Smoking should be
assur. It is dangerous to the self and apparently to others as well.
When a rabbi answers the way that posek did, he remains a posek, but he
puts himself into a realm that today we would call DAAS TOIRAH.
According to that doctrine, Gedolim are infallible. We may not have a
Pope, but we do have Gedolim who are equally infallible. Never mind
that they may stray outside of the confines of normative halacha.

Recently,
we posted a story about a rabbi at the cRc allowing Quinoa for
Passover. Nu, this is a chidush? We have been saying it all along
since Quinoa became available here. Others, too, have said it is ok.
Last year, a rabbi in Israel said it was kitniyot. The problem with
that is that the kitniyot list is closed. We do not add to it.

One
year, Satmar declared that eggs were no good for Passover unless you
bought Satmar eggs. What were Satmar eggs? Simple, they were eggs that
were not washed. As a result, when you bought Satmar eggs for
Passover, they were dirty- covered with blood, feathers, fecal matter,
etc. Wasn’t that a nice way to spend Passover- cleaning dirty eggs
before you could use them?

One Vaad allows Brussel sprouts.
Another Vaad says, “No.” One Vaad told a restaurant owner to snip off
the tips of the broccoli before cooking. That was real popular. We
don’t know about you, but we always go to a restaurant hoping to be
served broccoli stems. How about using the vegetable wash from Israel
that rids the broccoli of any problems?

Every kashruth
organization last year said that it is required to cover the counters
for Passover. Not so. Read the Mishne Brurah. He makes it clear that
it is not required. Apparently we follow him only when he agrees with
us!

We joke about the chumra of the week crowd, but it is no
joke. We have to stand up and demand that our poskim stick to halacha
and not venture where they have no business going. Give us the
halacha, not your weltanschauung. In all cases, let us go back to the
Gemara and see what it says there. That is where we start. The Codes
are where we go next, and where we end up. DAAS TOIRAH is not psak
din.

When people ask us a question about kosher matters, we
always ask them, “Do you want to know the halacha, or what people
do?” Isn’t it time that they both became one?