Pesachim

Pesachim 2a: Chometz of a Jew who tried his best to get rid of it

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Pesachim 2a: On the evening of the fourteenth we search for chometz by the light of a candle.

Ran: Since we nullify our chometz, why is it necessary to search for it and destroy it? On a Torah level bitul is enough, but because bitul depends on a person’s thoughts, and he might take it lightly and not completely put it out of his mind, the Sages were stringent and said that one needs to search for it and destroy it as well.

Shulchan Aruch: If a Jew nullified his chometz and kept it over Pesach, it is forbidden. Mishnah Berurah: Even if he did bedikas chometz and missed something, some say it is forbidden. Others are lenient, and in cases of significant financial loss one may rely on the second opinion.

פסחים ב ע”א: אור לארבעה עשר בודקין את החמץ לאור הנר.

ר”ן: והיינו למי שאינו מבטל אבל למי שמבטל סגי בהכי אלא מפני שבטול זה תלוי במחשבתן של בני אדם ואין דעותיהן שוות ואפשר שיקלו בכך ולא יוציאוהו מלבן לגמרי ראו חכמים להחמיר שלא יספיק בטול והצריכוהו בדיקה וביעור.

או”ח תמ”ח ס”ה. חמץ שנמצא בבית ישראל אחר הפסח אסור אף על פי שביטל.

מ”ב סקכ”ה: ודע דכמה אחרונים כתבו דאפילו בדק ג״כ כמנהגנו ונמצא חמץ לאחר הפסח ג״כ אסור בהנאה דלא חילקו בדבר ויש מן האחרונים שמקילים בבדק וביטל ונמצא אח״כ דמאי הוי ליה למעבד הרי עשה הכל כדין ודעתם דעכ״פ בהנאה אין לאסור ובמקום הפסד מרובה יש לסמוך עליהן.

Reb Refoel Dubachinsky lived in a small town in Poland and made his living selling whiskey to the local gentiles. He was known for his friendly manner as well as his honesty and straightforwardness. Then one day, an anti-Semitic priest came to town and decided to try to drive Reb Refoel out of business. His plan was to convince all the gentiles not to buy his chametz before Pesach, so that he would have to destroy it.

He discovered which gentile habitually bought Reb Refoel’s chametz, made his way to the peasant’s home and demanded that he refuse to purchase it. With a combination of bribery and threats, the priest succeeded in convincing him. He did the same for the other gentiles in town. When Erev Pesach arrived, the usual gentile did not show up to buy the chametz. Reb Refoel tried to find someone else, but all of them said no. He returned to his shop, opened the doors and said, “I hereby announce that all the chametz in my possession is ownerless. I no longer claim it as my own. Anyone who wishes can take it.” Then he went home and prepared for Yom Tov.

After Yom Tov was over, he broke the news to his wife. His wife agreed that her husband had done the right thing, but proposed that they return to the village and check. “Who knows,” she said, “perhaps the peasants left something behind.” The two of them set out for the village.

As they neared the outskirts, they met one of the local gentiles. “Good evening, my friend,” said Reb Refoel. “How did our festival treat you? Did you have enough to drink this year from the whiskey in my open shop?” The man looked at him strangely. “And how were we supposed to drink anything? Those two huge dogs of yours wouldn’t let anyone get within a dozen feet of your shop entrance.” Reb Refoel and his wife came close to the tavern and indeed saw two big black dogs guarding the entrance. The dogs sniffed their feet and ran away.

“Hashem has sent a miracle to protect our livelihood,” Reb Refoel’s wife whispered. “You may be right,” her husband agreed. “But this means that the whiskey was not ownerless over Pesach. I will not derive any kind of benefit from chametz that remained in my possession over Pesach in violation of the halacha.” He began opening the spigots on the barrels of whiskey.

“What are you doing? Stop it!” his wife cried out. “Hashem has granted us a miracle and now you are throwing it away?” Reb Refoel paused. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Perhaps you are right, perhaps not. I shouldn’t be making this decision by myself. Let us go to the rav and listen to what he says.” The two of them went to the rav and described what had happened. The rav listened carefully to the story and ruled, “The whiskey is permissible. You may continue to sell it as you have in the past.”

Reb Refoel’s wife rejoiced at the halachic ruling and went home content. Reb Refoel, however, was not satisfied. He sat down and thought things over very carefully. “It is clear from the rav’s words that he was thinking of my livelihood,” he mused. “The rav must have found grounds for leniency because of the great monetary loss I would suffer if the whiskey had to be destroyed.”

He stood up, his mind made up. “No!” he declared. “Master of the Universe, how is it possible that I, Refoel Dubachinsky, can depend on a leniency designed to prevent the loss of money? I cannot do it and I won’t.” He marched back to the store and opened up the spigots once more. He was not satisfied until every last drop had soaked into the earth, completely beyond return. When Refoel’s wife discovered what he had done, she went to the rav’s house, fighting back tears. “I have no children,” she wept, “and now I have lost all of my livelihood. What will be with me?”

“Don’t cry,” the rav comforted her. “I beg you, return home with peace of mind. Remove all your worries from your heart. In the merit of this great mitzvah that you and your husband have performed, may you be blessed with a son who will light up the eyes of the world with his righteousness.” Sure enough, within the year, Refoel and his wife joyously brought a son into the world, who grew up to be the famous Chassidic Rebbe, R’ Avrohom of Tchenov.

Source: Taryag Tales, p. 34

Megillah

Megillah 3b: Bris before Megillah

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Megillah 3b: The Megillah is read before doing the service in the Beis Hamikdash [or any other Torah mitzvah] .

Rema (OC 687:2): That is provided that both can be done, but if there is only time for one mitzvah, Torah mitzvos take precedence over Megillah.

Rema (OC 693:4): If there is a bris milah in shul, the custom is to do it before Megillah.  

מגילה ג ע”ב: עבודה ומקרא מגילה ־ מקרא מגילה עדיף.

או”ח תרפ”ז ס”ב רמ”א: הגה וכל זה לא מיירי אלא בדאיכא שהות לעשות שתיהן אבל אם אי אפשר לעשות שתיהן אין שום מצוה דאורייתא נדחית מפני מקרא מגילה (ר״ן וב״י בשם תוספות ומהר״א מזרחי).

מ”ב שם סק”ט: ה״ה לענין מילה ומגילה, איכא שהות לעשות שתיהן מגילה קודם משום פרסומי ניסא [פר״ח ופרמ״ג] והעולם נוהגין למול קודם המגילה וכדלקמן בסוף סימן תרצ״ג. ח”א.

רמ”א תרצ”ג ס”ד: כשיש מילה בפורים מלין התינוק קודם קריאת המגילה. (מהרי״ל ומנהגים):

Alter Reuven Weingarten and his younger brother have the same birthday, 7 Adar, one year apart. He likes to tell the story behind it. Before his birth, his mother had gone many years without having a child. In those days, mothers used to be kept in the hospital with their babies for a week. It was difficult to get out in time for the bris. His father came to the hospital early on Purim morning to get her discharged, but the hospital would not let the mother and the baby go until he paid his balance of $7. Not having any money on him, he took a taxi to Williamsburg to get some money from home, and returned straight to the hospital. By the time mother and baby were discharged, it was Purim afternoon, and they came to the Satmar Beis Medrash for the bris. The Satmar Rebbe was waiting for them, in keeping with the minhag that a bris precedes the reading of the Megillah. The Rebbe had been pacing back and forth, and he was very upset that the bris was so late. The whole kehillah had been waiting a long time to hear the Megillah. They had the bris, and the Rebbe lained the Megillah very late in the day.

Afterwards the Rebbe held his Purim tish. Alter Reuven’s father was at first afraid to go – he didn’t want the Rebbe to yell at him. But then he decided he would go, come what may. He picked a seat in a far corner of the room. Suddenly they told him, “The Rebbe wants you.” He came over to the head of the table, and the Rebbe said, “Next year don’t keep us waiting so long!”

Megillah

Megillah 2a: What it means to know Shas

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Megillah 2a: The Megillah can be read on the 11th of Adar, the 12th, the 13th, the 14th or the 15th, not less and not more.

מגילה ב ע”א: מגילה נקראת באחד עשר, בשנים עשר, בשלשה עשר, בארבעה עשר, בחמשה עשר, לא פחות ולא יותר.

The Vilna Gaon’s grandson once met a rav in Warsaw who asked brazenly, “What was so great about the Gaon? I also know Shas and poskim quite well.”

“I’ll give you an example of a question they asked my Zaideh when he was eight years old, and you’ll see,” replied the grandson. “They asked him: Why in the first Mishnah of Megillah does it say that the Megillah can be read on the 11th of Adar, the 12th, the 13th, the 14th or the 15th, ‘not less and not more,’ but in Shabbos 137a it says that a baby can have his bris milah on the 8th day, the 9th, the 10th, the 11th or the 12th, and it does not use the words ‘not less and not more’?

On the spot, the rav came up with a beautiful shtikel Torah to explain the difference between Megillah and bris milah. After he had spoken for an hour, the Gaon’s grandson said, “My Zaideh said a better teirutz.” Undeterred, the rav went to the beis medrash, learned up the sugya for two days and then came back and said a tremendous masterpiece, bringing proofs from all of Shas.

The Gaon’s grandson said simply, “My Zaideh said a better teirutz. It does in fact say the words ‘not less and not more’ in the case of bris milah as well.”

Kiddushin

Kiddushin 65b: Believing one witness who claims the food is forbidden

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Kiddushin 65b: If one witness told someone, “Your food became tamei,” and the owner of the food disputes this, the food is tahor.

קידושין סה ע”ב: ואמר אביי: אמר לו עד אחד נטמאו טהרותיך, והלה שותק ־ נאמן, ותנא תונא: עד אחד אומר נטמאו, והלה אומר לא נטמאו ־ פטורֹ טעמא דאמר לא, הא אישתיק מהימן.

יו”ד קפ”ה ס”ג רמ”א: אמרה פלוני חכם טהר לי כתם והחכם אומר שהיא משקרת החכם נאמן וטמאה היא.

There was once a restaurant owner whose mashgiach told him that he found treif food in the restaurant. The man went to his rav, who said, “You don’t have to believe the mashgiach, because he is one witness coming to forbid something.”

The story became famous and it was discussed in the yeshivos. Rabbi Yisroel Reisman told the story to his rebbe, Rav Avrohom Pam, who responded immediately: “That’s the Teshuvos Meishiv Davar, YD Siman Alef.” The Netziv is responding there to a rav who knew that a shochet in his town was not doing a good job; did he have to inform people? The Netziv answer was that if he had been a private citizen who happened to know this information, he would not be obligated to publicize it, because if he did, people would not be obligated to believe him as one witness coming to forbid. But since he was the rav of the town, who is responsible for the shechitah, people would be obligated to believe him; therefore he was obligated to publicize the problem.

This is similar to a halacha stated by the Rema in the laws of Niddah, YD 185:3. If a woman tells her husband that a certain rabbi looked at her cloth and permitted it, and then the husband goes and asks that rabbi if he really said that, and the rabbi says no, then she’s forbidden to him. Now, why is the husband obligated to listen to the rabbi? He is one witness coming to forbid her! Let him listen to his own wife, who is one witness to permit herself! The answer is that she is not claiming to know independently that she is permitted; she made her credibility dependent on this rabbi. Here too, the restaurant owner hired this mashgiach and based his credibility on him. He is not allowed to deny the mashgiach’s claim.

Chullin

Chullin 65a: The Lineage of the Commercial Chicken

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Chullin 65a: Any bird that catches its prey and eats it is not kosher. Any bird (among those that do not catch their prey – Rashi) that has a fourth toe, a crop and a peelable gizzard is kosher.

חולין סה ע”א תניא, רבן גמליאל אומר: דורס ואוכל ־ בידוע שהוא טמא, יש לו אצבע יתירה וזפק וקרקבנו נקלף ־ בידוע שהוא טהור. ופירש”י ואם אינו דורס ויש לו עוד שלשה סימנין דהוו להו ארבעה בידוע שהוא טהור.

In 1998, Rabbi Shmuel Wosner was asked about the practice of chicken breeders to mix various chicken breeds into the chickens in order to increase their profits. (Farmers have bred chickens that grow faster so that they reach slaughter weight at only 5-7 weeks – twice as fast as in the 1950’s. Commercial chickens today also require less food.)

It is known beyond a doubt, he says, that some of the male chickens inserted into the bloodline were breeds for which we have no mesorah and, following the Rema (YD 82:3), do not eat. And even if we were to rely on the Mechaber, who holds that we can eat any bird that has the four kosher signs: a crop, a gizzard that can be peeled by hand, a fourth toe, and is not a bird of prey – here the breeders are non-Jews or ignorant Jews, who are not checking for these signs. (In fact, it is known that the commercial chicken is descended from the Cornish, which was bred from the Malay for the purpose of cockfighting.)

The Chasam Sofer’s heter on a duck whose father may have been a mallard (see story on Bechoros 7a) would not apply here, because there, there was a doubt as to whether the father was a mallard, the problem with a mallard is only the lack of mesorah (but it has the kosher signs), and there is an opinion (the Tzemach Tzedek) who permits the mallard. (But in the case of chickens, the breeding was definitely done, and the chickens are descended from breeds that were developed for fighting, which may be considered “dores”.)

Also, the Chasam Sofer is talking about a case when only the father was questionable, so we have the additional benefit of relying on the opinions that the product of two factors (zeh v’zev gorem) is permitted, and that the father’s side doesn’t matter. (In the chicken breeding industry, hybridization took place on both father’s and mother’s side.)

Furthermore, the Chasam Sofer gave a heter for an isolated case, but here we would be permitting all chickens eaten by Jews everywhere, for all time to come. We can’t base the general practice of the Jewish people on a “bedieved.”

Therefore, Rav Wosner concluded, we must wake up and watch over our slaughterhouses to make sure they buy only chickens that are free of crossbreeding, a breed that has an unquestionable mesorah on both father’s and mother’s side.

Subsequently, some argued that the commercial chicken, although new, should be permitted because Jews have been eating it for the last 50 years, and thus a “mesorah” has taken hold. They compared this to the turkey, which originally had no mesorah but became accepted by most Jews. Rabbi Moshe Zev Zorger, Dayan of Satmar Yerushalayim, responded that this comparison is flawed. The chief argument to permit the turkey is that, after its discovery in the new world, it was raised in Jewish backyards for centuries and Jews had ample opportunity to observe its natural habits; they could see that it was not a bird of prey. This constitutes the necessary “mesorah.” But the commercial chicken is raised exclusively on factory farms and was almost never observed by religious Jews.

Others argued, based on the Chasam Sofer (see Bava Kama 55a), that the commercial chicken is similar enough to the original species to be permitted without a mesorah. But its astounding rate of growth, its high ratio of breast meat, short legs, minimal feathers and inability to reproduce naturally may be considered significant changes. Furthermore, the eggs of these broilers have been observed to be the same on both ends, unlike kosher eggs that have one end narrower than the other (Avodah Zarah 40a).

Bava Basra

Bava Basra 130b: Rabbi Yehuda Hechassid’s Tzavaah

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Bava Basra 130b: You cannot derive halacha from a story (because you may be mistaken about the reason for the rav’s decision in that story), unless it was your personal story that you presented to the rav, and the rav issued an actual ruling based only on the facts supplied to him.

בבא בתרא קל ע”ב תנו רבנן: אין למדין הלכה לא מפי למוד ולא מפי מעשה ־ עד שיאמרו לו הלכה למעשה.

רשב”ם: ולא מפי מעשה־ אם יראה רבו עושה מעשה אל יקבע הלכה בכך דשמא טעה בטעם של פסק דין של אותו המעשה… עד שיאמרו לו הלכה למעשה־ דכיון ששאל ע״י מעשה ואינן יודעין בדבר אלא מה שהוא אומר להם אין לומר טעם חזו ביה דלא ידע.

צוואת רבי יהודה החסיד אות נא: לא יקרא איש מזרעו את בנו יהודה ולא שמואל.

Rabbi Yehuda Hechassid writes in his tzavaah that his descendents must not name a child Yehuda or Shmuel. Once, at a gathering of rabbis, they began to discuss whether it is obligatory to keep Rabbi Yehuda Hechassid’s tzavaah. The Maharsha stood up and said, “I am descended from Rabbi Yehuda Hechassid, yet my name is Shmuel, and my father’s name is Yehuda. Rabbi Yehuda Hechassid only meant to ban those names for his immediate family, to avoid fights over who should have the privilege of naming a child after him or after his father Shmuel.” This shows that even one who is careful to keep everything written in the tzavaah (or in Sefer Chassidim) must know the context in which it was said, in order to know when to apply it.

Source: Rabbi Reisman, tape on YD 184:11

Sanhedrin

Sanhedrin 25a: One strike, you’re out

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Sanhedrin 25a: There was a butcher who was caught selling treif meat, so Rav Nachman declared him unreliable and fired him. He went and grew his hair and nails long. Rav Nachman thought that now that he showed signs of repentance, he could reinstate him. But Rava said to him: “Perhaps he is just fooling us.” “So what must he do to show that he has repented?” “He must go to a place where no one knows him [and he doesn’t think he is being observed by the rabbis of his hometown] and return an expensive lost item to its owner, or else slaughter for himself, find the animal treif and discard it although it is expensive.”

סנהדרין כה ע”א: ההוא טבחא דאישתכח דנפקא טריפתא מתותי ידיה, פסליה רב נחמן ועבריה. אזל רבי מזיה וטופריה. סבר רב נחמן לאכשוריה. אמר ליה רבא: דילמא איערומי קא מערים? ־ אלא מאי תקנתיה? כדרב אידי בר אבין. דאמר רב אידי בר אבין: החשוד על הטריפות ־ אין לו תקנה עד שילך למקום שאין מכירין אותו, ויחזיר אבידה בדבר חשוב, או שיוציא טריפה מתחת ידו בדבר חשוב משלו.

A caterer came to Rabbi Yisroel Reisman to apply for a hechsher. Until now, he had been under the supervision of a different rabbi. Rabbi Reisman looked into his history and found that he had once violated Shabbos by turning on the heat under the cholent for a kiddush. He must have forgotten to turn it on before Shabbos, and knowing that everyone was relying on him to supply hot food, he couldn’t withstand the test. Rabbi Reisman asked him about this incident on the interview and he replied, “You’ve never heard of teshuva? I’ll never do it again.” He did not get the hechsher.  

Source: Rabbi Reisman, tape on YD 185:1

[This halacha is brought in Yoreh Deah 119:15. The Shach (30) says clearly that even one such offense is enough to disqualify him. The Taz (16), however, quotes an opinion that in our time, since there are so many sinners and it is impossible for rabbis to rectify the problems and enforce the strict law, if the rabbis see fit they may warn him and punish him for the first offense, but let him continue selling.

In another shiur (on YD 69:10), Rabbi Reisman commented that nowadays, if you take away someone’s hechsher, he will just go and find a different kashrus organization that is willing to give him a hechsher.]

Bava Kama

Bava Kama 55a: The need for mesorah in identifying bird species

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Bava Kama 55a: Shmuel said: It is forbidden to mate a domestic goose with a wild goose. Rava bar Rav Chanan asked: Why not? Just because one has a long beak and one has a short beak? If so, it should be forbidden to mate a Persian camel with an Arabian camel, since one has a thick neck and the other has a thin neck.

בבא קמא נה ע”א: אמר שמואל: אווז ואווז הבר ־ כלאים זה בזה. מתקיף לה רבא בר רב חנן: מאי טעמא? אילימא משום דהאי אריך קועיה והאי זוטר קועיה, אלא מעתה, גמלא פרסא וגמלא טייעא, דהאי אלים קועיה והאי קטין קועיה, הכי נמי דהוו כלאים זה בזהִ אלא אמר אביי: זה ביציו מבחוץ, וזה ביציו מבפנים.

The Avnei Nezer was asked about a species of goose with a long neck that was brought to Warsaw from a faraway part of Russia. The Jews in that part of Russia had been eating it, but the Avnei Nezer did not consider that a “tradition” (as per the Rema Yoreh Deah 82:3, who says that no bird may be eaten unless we have a tradition that it is kosher). His reason is that a tradition is only reliable if it comes from a place where the people are Bnei Torah and many talmidei chachomim live among them. But this place originally had no Jewish community; Jews had settled there only recently, and it was not a place of talmidei chachomim.

However, quoting our Gemara, he shows that having necks of different length or thickness is not enough to define two birds as being of different species. If this is true for the prohibition of kilayim (interbreeding), it is true as well for the rule of eating only birds for which we have a tradition. Therefore, our tradition to eat geese is enough to permit these other geese, despite their slightly different appearance.

The Avnei Nezer mentions that the Chasam Sofer (YD 74) also sets down this rule: that anything that is not enough of a difference to be considered kilayim can be considered the same species for the purpose of relying on tradition to eat it.

[See Bechoros 7a in this sefer where we quoted part of this Chasam Sofer. The Chasam Sofer actually advocates a bigger leniency than the Avnei Nezer. While the Avnei Nezer is just saying that another goose species that looks slightly different is also kosher, the Chasam Sofer says that even if we know that the father is not kosher, there is reason to permit the offspring based on the opinion that אין חוששין לזרע האב – we don’t go after the father. This, combined with reliance on the Tzemach Tzedek, who permits the mallard duck, forms the basis for his ruling.

The implication is that if kosher ducks or chickens were bred with unknown species that might not be kosher according to any opinion, even if the offspring look similar enough to known species, they might not be kosher even according to the Chasam Sofer, because we have to take into account the opinion that we do follow the father. Additionally, there is no way to know if the other species was introduced as a father or a mother.]

Kiddushin

Can a mamzer marry a shifcha today?

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Kiddushin 69a: Rabbi Tarfon said: Mamzerim can make their children clean of the taint of mamzerus by marrying a slave girl (shifcha).

קידושין סט ע”א: ר׳ טרפון אומר: יכולין ממזרין ליטהר, כיצד? ממזר שנשא שפחה הולד עבד, שיחררו נמצא הבן בן חוריןֹ.

In Bnei Brak in the mid 60s there were about ten bochurim who were mamzerim because their mothers had gotten married in the DP camps right after the war, thinking their husbands were dead, and then the old husbands had turned up. It was a time when thousands of survivors were remarrying with very little rabbinic guidance.

Rabbi Tzvi Elimelech Kalish was a talmid of the Minchas Elazar who had survived Auschwitz, lost his family, and then spent years after the war trying to revive Jewish life in Munkach under Soviet oppression. He was imprisoned in Siberia and denied exit from the Soviet Union, until he finally found his way to Bnei Brak in 1965. These mamzerim boys became his students and he struggled to find a solution for them to get married. Could a mamzer today make use of the heter of Rabbi Tarfon: find a non-Jewish girl interested in becoming Jewish, have her immerse in the mikvah with the intent of becoming a shifcha, then have children with her and set both her and the children free?

He sent the shailah to Dayan Yitzchok Weiss, then Rav of Manchester, known as the Minchas Yitzchok (v.5 siman 47). The Minchas Yitzchok discussed it with Rav Yaakov Breisch (Chelkas Yaakov EH 23) and they both wrote long teshuvos on the subject, Dayan Weiss forbidding it and the Chelkas Yaakov permitting it.

The dispute centered around the issue of Dina d’malchusa – civil law. Does the fact that civil law today does not recognize slavery mean that a non-Jewish girl who immerses with the intent to become a shifcha is not really a shifcha, but rather remains non-Jewish?

The rule is that civil law is Jewish law only for monetary transactions. But this doesn’t apply to other areas of halacha: for example, if the government does not allow non-Jews to convert to Judaism (as was historically the case in many Christian and Muslim countries), and a non-Jew does convert, his conversion is definitely valid. The trouble is that slavery is a mixture of both “mamon” and “issur”. It involves monetary ownership of the shifcha, which gives the owner the right to make her work for him, and it involves issurim – the mitzvos she is obligated to keep, and her marital status as a shifcha, who is permitted to a mamzer. Do we say that since the government doesn’t recognize slavery, the husband (the mamzer) has no power over his shifcha, and therefore she is not a shifcha at all?

This is the subject of a dispute quoted by the Magen Avrohom in Hilchos Shabbos, 304:11. The Marashdam and the Marival hold that the shifcha is not a shifcha, while the Knesses Hagedolah (Even Hoezer 4:34) brings poskim who disagreed. The Magen Avrohom applies this to Hilchos Shabbos: there the Shulchan Aruch discusses the halacha that slaves must keep Shabbos (because they are obligated in all the mitzvos that any Jewish woman is obligated in), and the Magen Avrohom comments that in our time, when the government does not allow Jews to own slaves, the Marashdam and the Marival would hold that our “slaves” are just gentile employees, and therefore don’t have to keep Shabbos.

The Mishnah Berurah there quotes this Magen Avrohom and then concludes that the opinion that the slave must keep Shabbos also results in a leniency: that a mamzer can marry a shifcha.

The trouble is that the lenient opinions cited by Knesses Hagedolah will not help us solve the mamzer problem today. He quotes three poskim: the Mabit, the Radvaz and Rabbi Yitzchak Ashkenazi. The Mabit’s reason is because he understood Turkish law to allow slaves. As to the Radvaz, he may mean Teshuva 598 which permits a shifcha whose owner died to marry a mamzer, but it’s clear from the Radvaz that Dina D’malchusa was not an issue – everyone owned slaves in his time and place. And Rabbi Yitzchak Ashkenazi’s reason is because in his time, in the Ottoman Empire, the prohibition on Jews owning slaves was a “new decree of the king” and not a real Dina D’malchusa. In his view, Dina D’malchusa means only those laws that are permanently on the books, not the capricious “executive order” of a king or leader. Today, the abolition of slavery is a permanent law in most countries (in the United States, for example, it is the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution). Therefore, even he would agree that today, a mamzer may not marry a shifcha because she would not really be a shifcha.

Rav Breisch still found other reasons to permit it, but he conditioned his heter on the approval of other poskim, which was not forthcoming. We don’t know what the ten boys in Bnei Brak did in the end.

[One solution is that the mamzer and his intended wife go to a country where slavery (such as debt bondage) is still legal. According to Wikipedia’s article on debt bondage, “In many of the countries like South Africa, Nigeria, Mauritania, and Ghana in which debt bondage is prevalent, there are not laws that either state direct prohibition or specify punishment.” They can arrange that the intended wife borrow a large amount of money from the husband, spend the money and then default on the loan and become his slave. This would seem to work according to all opinions.

The only question would be whether such a couple could come back to a first world country during the time when she is still bearing children. Would coming to such a country immediately render her status as a shifcha null and void? Rabbi Yitzchok Ashkenazi, quoted by the Knesses Hagedolah, comments that even if the abolition of slavery were a real Dina D’malchusa, it would not apply to those slaves purchased before the law was passed. Here too, moving to a first world country would not change her status. However, Rabbi Moshe Klein, in his sefer Mishnas Yuchsin, quoted on the website din.org.il, argues that this would depend on a dispute between Rashi and Tosafos in Gittin 39b. Rashi holds that if someone relinquishes ownership of a slave, the slave is now forbidden to marry a shifcha, although he still requires a document of emancipation to become a full Jew. Tosafos holds that he is still permitted to a shifcha. Here too, bringing one’s shifcha to a country that doesn’t recognize slavery is equivalent to relinquishing ownership, and according to Rashi, she would now have the marital status of a full Jew; any children they would have from then on would be mamzerim.]

Bechoros

Bechoros 7a: Hybrid Ducks

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Bechoros 7a: Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: a female non-kosher animal cannot become pregnant from a kosher male, nor can a kosher female animal become pregnant from a non-kosher male.

בכורות ז ע”א: האמר ר׳ יהושע בן לוי: לעולם אין מתעברת לא טמאה מן הטהור, ולא טהורה מן הטמא.

The Chasam Sofer was asked about a farm that raised female ducks, and a male wild duck (mallard) was seen frequenting the area. There was one great authority who permitted the mallard duck: the Tzemach Tzedek (Rabbi Menachem Mendel Krochmal of Nikolsburg, 17th century). However, the common practice is not to eat it, since we have no tradition to do so. Was it allowed to eat the offspring of these female domestic ducks?

The Chasam Sofer permitted them with three arguments. Although, as he notes, each of the arguments have possible objections, when taken together, these arguments are sufficient grounds for leniency.

First of all, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says (Bechoros 7a) that a kosher animal cannot reproduce with a non-kosher animal. So either these offspring are from a male domestic, or else the wild duck is kosher. The possible objection to this argument is that perhaps Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi’s rule is true only of mammals, not birds.

Secondly, the offspring look like domestic ducks, so there is no evidence that they were from this male mallard. We can assume that they are like the majority of ducks in the world, which are fathered by their own kind. The objection is that there would still be a Rabbinic prohibition: living animals are not nullified in a majority.

Third, even if the father is indeed the mallard, we can rely on the Tzemach Tzedek who permits the mallard. Although usually we don’t follow the Tzemach Tzedek, we can rely on him in this situation where it’s a hybrid, and the halacha is inconclusive on the question of whether the father matters – חוששין לזרע האב. (See Yoreh Deah 16:2 and Shach 17.)