Contents
The following is from Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn. We have already published on our blog http://torahhalacha.blogspot.com several dozen pages about my experience with Gedolim Reb Aharon Kotler, Reb Moshe Feinstein, Reb Yosef Shalom Elyashev and others. We are now developing an entire section with material from Gedolei HaDor in Israel and America that shows the crisis of invalid Gittin, invalid conversions, and other things especially now that marriage and family is falling apart. It is our hope to supply happy answers to the dreadful crisis of broken children and families.
Lakewood Yeshiva after Reb Aharon Dies
Reb Aharon Kotler
died in 1962. President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. The new
president was Lyndon Johnson, whose great hope was to undo the grip
of poverty on the poor. From President Johnson came federal grants
for people who needed money who could qualify for the programs, and
sometimes merit large sums of money.
Who was poorer than
somebody who learned in Kollel? Thus, here is one factor for the new
money in Lakewood. The Yeshiva itself applied for the now generous
Federal government’s grants for the poor, and so did individuals.
At the time, there
was such corruption, including front page articles about prominent
people, that I determined to stay away from every dollar and every
penny. I asked Reb Yaacov Kaminetsky about this. He seemed pleased
that somebody would ask such a question, but could not rule that we
should not take money from the government. He asked if it was not
true that people constantly benefit from the government with all
kinds of Federal expenditures including roads, lights, etc. I heard
from somebody else who asked this of the Satmar Rov Rebbe Yoel zt”l,
and he got basically the same response. He did not forbid taking
federal money. Whether it was better to subsist on different money
was not an issue he publicly ruled on.
I made up my mind
after seeing what I saw of the problems with such free money, that I
would refuse to apply for it. I know that HaShem granted me wonderful
children, heads of institutions and Talmidei Chachomim. That is
wealth, and that kind of wealth doesn’t come from Federal largesse,
but the opposite, from straight earned money.
At any rate, the
free money surely helped Lakewood financially. But there was another
factor that contributed to a rapidly growing student body in the
Yeshiva. America was involved in a terrible war with North Viet Nam.
Eventually, America just left and eventually Communists took control.
There was a draft during the Vietnam war, and college students were
obligated to go fight in it. Eventually, many students rebelled at
the draft and the idea that their college program would be
interrupted by a war that nobody cared about. Timothy Leary was a
prominent Harvard professor who taught students to take dangerous
mind altering drugs so that they would sense new things. Modesty and
decency were openly flouted by the youth. Obviously, Orthodox
children could not go to such colleges which had become sewers. Now
more and more people looked with new understanding at the prospect of
sending a child to Lakewood.
Now, a good
Lakewood student was a valuable asset. This translated into cold
cash. Meaning, a boy had a price. A boy with a good name in learning
could anticipate a girl whose parents would pay him a lot just to
marry their daughter instead of sending her to college and the
heinous horrors there.
Thus was born the
idea that instead of the old Lakewood system where people trusted in
miracles not to collapse from starvation, now money flowed into the
Yeshiva from President Johnson and from parents anxious for a
learning boy.
I had talked to Reb
Aharon in learning regularly. And I needed a Gadol to talk to. Now
Reb Aharon was in another world. And, in a sense, the Yeshiva was in
a different world. The Lakewood in the last year of Reb Aharon’s
life was a new Lakewood, especially when a group of geniuses came to
the Yeshiva. Then Reb Aharon realized that he had succeeded. But the
new Lakewood, now something that attracted more and more people for
various reasons, and more and more money for various reasons, was not
for me. I was at a crossroads, and I had nobody to talk to about it.
I told HaShem I was
putting it on Him. I am leaving Lakewood. I am going home to
Cinnamson, New Jersey, which is basically nowhere, and the worst
place to be if I want to get married. If HaShem gets me married
properly in Cinnamson, NJ, it will obviously be from HaShem. And, if
I won’t have a wife, my question will be answered in a bitter but
strong way.
As time went on, I
did get married. I remember the day we held open house for the family
and close friends. I realized that people were coming not to honor me
or my basherteh, but out of plain curiosity. Who in the world would
marry somebody like me, who left Yeshiva and stayed for years at home
where? in Cinnaminson, NJ. At least two people saw my wife-to-be and
burst out with “Miracle!” Okay, so HaShem got the job!
One day a gentile
friend born in Holland who once killed a Nazi asked me where my wife
was from. My wife drove me to work that day and this fellow and some
others in his company were very impressed. But they couldn’t figure
out where my wife was born and were curious to find out. I told him
that my wife was from Poland which made him very happy. Well, don’t
Europeans have the right to think that attractive women come from
Europe?
Once, I was in New
York with my wife and children, in the house of my wife’s sister
and her children. There was a terrible milk strike. My wife and her
sister both had young babies who needed milk. But there was no way to
get one drop of milk anywhere. I declared that I was going out to
look for milk. Some people thought I was nuts. I walked one block
away from where I was staying and a milk truck drove right next to me
and stopped. I asked him if I could have some milk. He said yes. I
said I wanted a crate of milk. He gave it to me. I walked into the
house with the crate of milk and people were astounded. Well, if you
work for HaShem that is what happens.
I am now an old man
of 74. I spent my life chasing great rabbis and living in terror as I
told them my questions or understandings. After Reb Aharon Kotler I
chased Rav Moshe Feinstein for some years. I was terrified but I kept
coming back. Finally, I wrote a book and asked him for an
approbation. He wrote, “I know Rabbi Eidensohn for many years as
one who delves very deeply into complex halalacha questions to
clarify them.” That is what happens when you spend time outside a
rocket ship far from the moon and you know that if you make one false
move you will sale off into outer space.
I also have a very
strong semicha from Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashev, the senior Posek in
Israel. I had a Beth Din under Rav Elyashev that dealt with Russian
Gittin, rather, baalei teshuva who used to be either Communists or
lost Jews. I went to Israel and met with Rav Elyashev and he didn’t
want to talk about Russian Jews. He wanted to talk about American
rabbis who convinced New York State to force men to divorce their
wives even though the men did not want to give a GET. In Torah law a
GET given by the husband because of pressure is usually invalid and
the remarriage of the wife to another man produces babies who are
usually mamzerim.
Recall that at age
17 I began talking to Reb Aharon Kotler as much as I could. It was
very frightening, but I came back for more even though Reb Aharon was
very honest with what he thought of my Torah thoughts. Eventually I
understood how to present my Torah to Reb Aharon so that he did not
blow me away, which was quite a feat. Later on, I spent a lot of time
talking to Reb Moshe Feinstein. That was also very frightening, but I
kept coming back, and one day I got a very warm approbation that I
quote above. Reb Moshe knew how hard it was for me and how scared I
was and that figured into the semicha he gave me with his
approbation.
By the time I got
to Reb Elyashev I had gone through Reb Aharon and Reb Moshe and now I
was not afraid. I asked him some very hard questions which only a
Gadol HaDor could answer, and he answered right away. When we were
finished, I asked for a semicha from him to be a Rosh Beth Din for
Gittin, and I added, I wanted his name in the bargain. He immediately
agreed. Of course, that was chutzpah first class or maybe last class,
but when you deal with Gedolim at my age and with my knowledge what
else is there but brutal chutzpah? At any rate, I told this to my
chaverusa on our Beth Din, and he was absolutely furious. Such
chutzpah? The Rov never uses his name for anything and he gives it to
your Beth Din for Gittin?
Look, all of the
Gedolim knew it was pure chutzpah; I knew it was pure Chutspah, so
what else can I do when I talk to Gedolei HaDor when I might be
happier playing basketball?
Talking to Reb Moshe Feinstein about Difficult Medical Questions
Some years after
the above criticism from my chaveruso about how I dealt with Gedolim,
he told me that he was asked a very difficult medical question and he
and nobody he knew could answer it. Well, that is what happens when
you are not a mechutsaff. But I am a mechutsaff, and I had asked Reb
Moshe that exact question.
The question was,
if a person is very ill, and there is no treatment, and the person is
in great pain, do we have to keep the patient alive to suffer or can
we let him die, if we don’t contribute in any way to his death? I
had been told previously that some authorities rule that a person in
pain and dying and there is no cure must be kept alive even if he
wants to die. The case was a hospital where a certain Rov was the
posek, and a person was dying of a very weak heart. He was in
terrible pain and his children wanted him to die to be saved from the
terrible pain, but the Posek refused. Each time the sick father died
because his heart gave out, the Posek brought him back with electric
shocks. The children begged the Posek to let their father die, but he
said, no, the Din is that the person must be brought back to stay
alive, no matter how terrible the pain is.
I asked that
question to Reb Moshe. He immediately fired off exactly how many
times he had been asked that question, and how he had answered. He
spoke so fast I could not keep up, but I did understand when he said
that we don’t have to keep a person alive who is suffering and
wants to die. A child in Monsey was in that state, and it is said
that Reb Moshe ruled that if the child was suffering and wanted to
die there was no obligation to bring him back to suffer, and he can
be allowed to die. I heard that somebody had asked Reb Moshe this
question and he answered as follows: There is no obligation to keep a
sick person alive who has no chance of recovery if he is suffering
and wants to die. Yet, let the suffering person should realize that
while he lives he can do mitsvose, and when he dies he may need those
mitsvose. But if he really suffers and wants to die, he may. (And a
person who suffers can say some bad things so maybe it is better to
die – that is my comment DE.)
Now, in my career
as a mechutsaff I spoke often to the Gaon Rav Shmuel HaLevi Wosner
from Israel when he visited in America. I had two open gemoras that
Reb Moshe was right, that a person who is suffering may be allowed to
die if there is no cure and his pain is intense.1
See footnote below. One proof is a gemora in Gittin 70A and one is
Avoda Zora 12B. The gemoras say that one who will surely die from his
illness may be prevented from dying until he says goodbye to his
family and settles his estate. He is willing to suffer so that his
children will not fight after he dies over the inheritance. If as the
Posek mentioned above is right that we must fight to keep a person
alive even if he has hideous pain, why does the gemora suggest that
one take this or that food or medicine in order to say goodbye to his
family? Let it say that he must take this medicine or food in order
to live another few minutes, even if he already said goodbye or has
no need to say goodbye. I told this to Rav Wosner and he replied,
“That is poshut.” I wondered why he said such thing. But then I
realized that since Reb Moshe was Gadol HaDor Rav Wosner did not want
to say that he agreed with Reb Moshe, as this insults the Gadol
HaDor, so he said That’s poshut, meaning, of course the halacha is
what Rav Moshe said.
The Strassberger Rov and a Serious Halacha Question
When I trained to
deal with difficult halochose, I went to a Rov who paskened
halochose. He spoke to people on the phone and I did not hear what
the people said to the Rov, but I did hear what the Rov said. One
time the Rov had a long and difficult time with somebody and he tried
his best to calm things down and finally succeeded. However, he did
not pasken the Shaalo. When he hung up the phone finally he told me,
“I am not going to pasken that question. Go to the Strassberger Rov
who is in Monsey and ask him the question.”
So I went down the
block to where the Strassberger Rov was visiting his son-in-law, a
Monsey Rov. I was told to come in and sit down until the Strassberger
Rov is ready to speak to me. I sat down, and soon the Rov came in. I
told him the question and then I told him what I thought was the
proper answer. The Rov said nothing. I repeated myself and the Rov
said nothing. I tried again, and nothing, so I just sat quietly.
The Rov then spoke
and said, “HaRav Eidensohn.” When I heard that I knew I was in
big trouble. I knew that after this “HaRav” I was going to be
blasted, which is exactly what did happen. After saying “HaRav
Eidensohn” and letting it sink in, the Rov continued saying, “A
Rov never says from his mouth what you just said.”
I told this to a
Monsey posek and he told me the following: A couple went to the Gaon
Rav Yaacov Kaminetsky with a hideous problem, similar to the problem
the Rov refused to pasken. He spoke to them at length and then they
left. They by then knew exactly what the halocho was in their case,
but never did Reb Yaacov say one word about the halocho. He spoke in
a smart way that they should understand how to proceed, but never
told then directly to do this or that. That is what the Strassberger
Rov told me. I may have been right that in the case of the Rov the
person should do this or that. But since it was an ichy horrendous
thing we don’t talk about it. We talk around it and the person gets
the message, without being told directly. So I learned something.
Fine. But maybe it was learned too late. Because I was sure that by
now the Strassberger is fed up with me who says things that a Rov is
not supposed to say.
I was waiting for
the curtain to come down and then I would leave, but the Strassberger
went into the next room, where I could see him clearly, and he first
paced here and there, and then he said, “I have a difficult
shaalo.” I was stunned. I thought he was going to tell me, “Good
night.” Then the Strassberger began telling me his difficult
shaalo. It was a real difficult shaalo. Then, as I was spinning with
his remark and the fact that he didn’t get me to leave the house,
he said, “I have to bring the shaaloh to Reb Moshe, but I don’t
know how to reach him.” Now, this was really strange. The
Strassberger was in charge of Gittin and family issues in the Haredi
Beth Din of Jerusalem of Aidi HaCharedis. He never spoke to Reb Moshe
in the years of his paskening family questions? He doesn’t have
anyone to ask where Reb Moshe lives when his son-in-law is a Rov and
lives in this very building? Part of me was really confused, but the
part of me that was a mechutsoff, just wanting a piece of the action,
plowed ahead. I announced, “I know Reb Moshe and I will take the
Rov’s shaaloh to his house tomorrow.” The deal was done.
The next day bright
and early I was running up the steps of the apartment house where Reb
Moshe lived. Suddenly, somebody grabbed me and asked me where I was
going. I replied that I wanted to go to Reb Moshe. He told me that
Reb Moshe wasn’t feeling well and nobody is allowed to go to his
apartment. I replied that I had a letter to Reb Moshe from Aido
HaCharedis. The gentleman immediately released me and let me go to
Reb Moshe’s apartment. I gave in the letter and left. I called
later and asked when there would be a response to the letter. I was
told the response would be soon. I was told that Reb Moshe felt that
the ruling on the shaaloh was that it was permitted. But I never
received written proof of this, only daily oral statements that Reb
Moshe permits it.
Weeks or months of
calling didn’t improve things. The time came when I got a letter
from my rebbe in this world and the next, the Kabbala genius Reb
Shmuel Toledano zt”l. He told me that if I did not come to visit
him he would stop writing to me. I got this letter on Motsei Shabbos
and I was terrified. I ran to this and that Rov but nobody was home.
I came home, and had no idea what to do. The phone rang. It was my
sister who had just married. She told me that she won a ticket to
Israel but was going to return it, because one person of a couple who
just married doesn’t leave the other spouse and go to Israel. I
told her to give me the ticket, and I had a ticket. I had a few
dollars from a Tephilin campaign that I made, because I was studying
Safruce, so I went to see my rebbe. But I also told Reb Moshe that I
would be in Israel from this date to that date, in case he wanted to
send the answer to the question of the Strassberger Rov.
I stayed by him a
few days, and on Friday I went to see the Strassberger Rov. He told
me that I would be by him for Shabbos, but he told me that I will go
to the general Mikva and he goes to the rabbis Mikva, so he would be
back before I would. So it was. I got back to his house and he was
reading a letter. It was the letter from Reb Moshe. For some reason,
Reb Moshe did not want to mail the letter to me, but did want to mail
it to the Strassberger.
The Strassberger
showed me the letter and then asked me, “Did you speak nicely to
Reb Moshe?” I almost fell over. What kind of question was that?
Later, after I had studied the letter, I realized what had happened,
why the letter was never mailed to me. And why the Strassberger asked
me if I had spoken nicely to Reb Moshe. I will soon explain. But to
continue, the Strassberger then told me that although his rabbis
disagreed with Reb Moshe, and did not want to recognize the boy in
question as a bona fide Jew, but rather as one with serious questions
about his Yichuse, since Reb Moshe had said that what his rabbis
wanted to do with the boy was not wrong, they would do that. But
there was still some kind of a halacha question even doing what his
rabbis wanted to do with the boy. So he told me to take the letter
from Reb Moshe to the senior rabbi in Israel, Rav Shlomo Zalman
Aurebach, and ask him the halacha question.
Before I continue,
let me explain why Reb Moshe never mailed the letter to me, but
simply ruled that the boy was permitted to marry a Jewish girl. To
explain, I have to explain my relationship with a very senior Posek,
the Klozenberger Dayan in Williansburg, Rav Fischel Hershkowitz. He
was my rebbe for some years. I used to travel from Monsey to
Williamsburg once a week, with a list of questions for what I
invented answers, as part of my training in paskening halocho. Of
course, I told him about the boy who had gone to the Strassberger for
permission to marry a Jewish girl, and was refused. This caused the
Strassberger to refer the issue to the great rabbis of Israel,
especially Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurebach, who emphatically refused to
accept the boy as a definite Jew, but rather feared that he was not.
The issue is that
the boy came I believe from India, from a group of people who at one
time were probably regular Jews, but as the centuries wound down, and
the group had no real rabbis, gentiles mixed into the group. If so,
there was now a fear that the boy was a mamzer, because maybe
somewhere and sometime in the centuries in India a parent of his
going back some generations may have had relations with somebody who
would make him a mamzer. The Strassberger and the great Israeli
rabbis feared that he was invalid to marry a Jewish girl, because he
may be a mamzer or a doubtful mamzer, but Reb Moshe permitted him.
Of course I told
the argument to Reb Fischel Hershkowitz, and he replied, “Such a
problem if a boy is a mamzer can only be ruled on by Reb Moshe.” He
did not mean that the Israeli rabbis were not capable of ruling on
it. He meant that since he heard exactly what the Israeli rabbis were
planning to do, he realized that the boy would never get married with
their leniences. Thus, the only hope for the boy to marry is to go to
Reb Moshe.
To explain: The
Israeli rabbis held that the boy was a doubtful mamzer. If so, how
can a doubtful mamzer marry a Jewish girl? No way. So they came up
with a plan. The boy would find a woman who was not Jewish, and would
somehow ascertain that she was a slave, although those people don’t
exist anymore, or are not recognized anymore, and have a baby through
her, and the baby would be consecrated as a Jew. I don’t remember
all of this so well as it took place decades ago, but that was
basically what I remember. The catch in all of this is that the boy
was an ultra-Orthodox Jew from Israel who dressed with full fanatic
regalia, and what non-Jewish girl would ever accept such a person as
her husband, especially if he had to explain to her that she would be
a slave and have a baby a slave that would be consecrated as a Jew,
or if I err in any of this, the real idea was not far behind this.
This is why Rav Fischel Hershkowitz said right away that going to a
gentile woman with all of this was not going to produce a wife for
this fellow in Israel. His only hope is to go to Reb Moshe and be
told that he is accepted as a regular Jew. Since Reb Moshe was the
acknowledged Gadol HaDor, once he ruled on such a thing, the boy
would find somebody to marry.
Now we come to
explain why Reb Moshe did not mail me the letter and why the
Strassberger asked me if I spoke nicely to Reb Moshe. Reb Moshe knew
that the only hope for the boy was what Rav Hershkowitz said, to ask
Reb Moshe to pasken the shaaloh. That is why Reb Moshe sent the
letter to the Strassberger and not to me. He wrote the letter without
the proper titles that usually one rabbi sends to another in an
important letter. He wrote that way because he knew what Reb Fischel
knew that the boy would never get married with the plan of the
Israeli rabbis. Thus he wrote in a way that the Strassberger would
realize that the letter contained a harsh complaint that Reb Moshe,
the gadol hador, wants to pasken this question on his own, without
the Israeli rabbis involved. If they got involved, the boy would
never marry. Once however that the Strassberger saw my expression
when he asked me if I spoke nicely to Reb Moshe, he realized what the
truth was, and to mollify me for his accusation sent me to Reb Shlomo
Zalman, the greatest rabbi in Israel, and the head of the group
opposing Reb Moshe, so that he would see clearly what is going on
over here, that Reb Moshe is very upset that the question is not
being sent to him.
I came to Reb
Shlomo Aurebach. It was Friday afternoon before Shabbos. He read the
letter, and then, I said to him, “Rebbe! This is an Aguna
question.” He exploded and said, “Somebody talked like that in
Israel and we wanted to put him in cherem.” When I heard that,
well, what can I say? At any rate, what I did I did because I am a
talmid of Reb Fischel, but if I get put in cherem, what happens then?
Suddenly, I felt a
pair of hands on my skull, and the skull was pulled open. That is, I
sensed that. And the fingers reached into my skull and put a piece of
paper there. The paper came shooting out of my mouth and I heard
myself speak to Reb Shlomo Zalman and say, “The Rov should pasken,
not give advice, but pasken, that the boy should ask the shaalo of
Reb Moshe.” I noticed that Reb Shlomo Zalman was not looking at me.
He was obviously talking to somebody I could not see, and the other
person was obviously somebody important. I repeated myself, and Reb
Shlomo Zalman turned back to me and said, with some irritation, “I
heard you the first time. Yes, that is what we will do. I pasken that
the boy should ask his shaalo of Reb Moshe.”
I ran with the
letter to the Strassberger who agreed to the pesak, and to another
Rov, who was I believe at the time the president or something like
that of the Torah community in Jerusalem, and he agreed. So I had
three prominent rabbis who paskened that the boy should ask Reb Moshe
the shaalo.
I wrote on the back
of Reb Moshe’s letter that Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurebach, the
Strassberger Rov, and the third senior Rov, paskened that the boy
should ask his shaalo of Reb Moshe. I then presented the letter to
the boy.
Now comes the most
shocking thing I ever saw in my life. The boy refused my letter. He
said, “I am an Israeli. I want my rabbis to pasken my shaaloh. Why
do I have to go to American rabbis?”
Let us pause for a
moment. Here is a boy who knows that he is a doubtful mamzer and the
rabbis in Israel will never permit him to marry a Jewish woman. But
here is his hope. These same Israeli rabbis have clearly paskened
that he should ask Reb Moshe the shaalo, and he refuses! Never did I
see such a tsaddik, and he is a sofek mamzer – Incredible!!!
I found a Rov who
spoke to the boy who agreed to accept the pesak of Reb Moshe but I
never saw the boy again.
At least, let me
add my own bit here to explain how the rabbis in Israel who feared
that the boy was a sofek mamzer could tell him or pasken for him to
ask Reb Moshe.
See Sheb Shemattso
I:1 much discussion about a doubtful mamzer, if it is forbidden by
the Torah or the rabbis. The Pnei Yehoshua brings that the Rambam
holds that a doubtful mamzer who may be a mamzer or may be completely
worthy of marrying a regular Jewish girl, may do either or both by
the Torah. That is, even though logically by marrying both a mamzeres
and a regular Jewish girl he has certainly sinned, by doubtful mamzer
the Torah permits even this. There are other opinions there that are
not our present topic. But at any rate, there are certain leniencies
with a doubtful mamzer at least as regards the Torah, and therefore,
the senior Israeli rabbis were dealing with a doubtful mamzer who if
he marries a Jewish girl has standing with some opinions that he does
no sin by the Torah and the discussion turns to the rabbinical
stringencies. In such a case, when the rabbis accept that what they
want to do won’t in all likeness work, and he will probably never
marry, and the Gadol HaDor wants to permit him to marry, which
probably will not produce Torah sins but maybe rabbinical ones, we
understand why they ruled as they did.
Again, to mutter in
my own muttering, a doubtful mamzer has many circumstances. One case
is when there are two babies, one a definite mamzer and the other
definitely not a mamzer and they get mixed together. This is a very
serious problem of “one out of two” being forbidden for sure. But
in the case of the Jews who lived for centuries among goyim and
originally a Jewish tribe lived there, how do we define the community
now? Surely they intermarried with goyim. And we have a rule that we
go according to the majority. The majority of the country was surely
gentiles, and they don’t make mamzerim. If so, the question is what
is the question? If the majority of the country today and probably
for previous generations as well are and were goyim, and maybe here
and there is a Jew, so what? And if there is a Jew and he married
somebody who maybe, possibly, had somehow got into his system some
problem of a mamzer, is this not a remote question?
We have a doubt
that may be not one doubt but many doubts. A doubt if this child is a
goy. If he is, there are no problems. A goy is permitted to convert
to Judaism, no problem there. But maybe this child who is probably a
goy because the majority of the goyim there are goyim, maybe, he is
Jewish. So what? He is Jewish, so what? Well, maybe the Jews in this
community produced mamzerim. How could Jews produce mamzerim? One way
is by a brother marrying a sister. But nobody does things like that.
So why even worry about it. What happens if a Jew marries somebody
who is married to somebody else? This is only a problem if the woman
the Jew marries is Jewish and the man is Jewish. But in each case, we
assume that the majority of gentiles cancel out the question if the
husband or wife are Jewish. If even one, the husband or wife, is a
gentile, and the other is Jewish, there is no mamzeruth. Without
prolonging the discussion, there are so many doubts here that any
verdict that a child is a doubtful mamzer is a very interesting
challenge. Add to that that we are talking about a boy who may never
marry which is certain a factor, and we can accept that the Israeli
rabbis in good conscience told the boy to ask Reb Moshe his shaalo.
1
גיטין ע ע"א
אמר שמואל האי מאן דמחו ליה
באלונכי דפרסאי מיחייא לא חיי אדהכי והכי
ניספו ליה בשרא שמינא אגומרי וחמרא חייא
אפשר דחיי פורתא ומפקיד אביתיה אמר רב
אידי בר אבין האי מאן דבלע זיבורא מיחייא
לא חיי אדהכי והכי נשקיה רביעתא דחלא
שמזג אפשר דחיי פורתא ומפקיד לביתיה עכ"ל
וע'
ע"ז
יב ע"ב
שמביא זה.
