A Minority Viewpoint
In response to an apparently black-hat viewpoint that secular and liberal Jewish endogomous relationships should not be facilitated by religious Jews, the erudite (and scientific method-embracing!) Rabbi Student wrote on The Kvetcher that,
There is a background to that attitude and a halakhic basis to it. The Netziv wrote a responsum on whether one may “set up” people who are not religious, because they will not observe the laws of family purity. In other words, you are leading them to sin. If I recall correctly, he said that you may not.
However, most poskim today permit doing it because times have changed and people are much morally looser, so you aren’t directly causing anything. Although about 10-20 years ago someone in Israel published a book in which he argued that it is prohibited for Rabbanut rabbis to perform weddings for non-religious Jews because the women will not go to the mikvah regularly. That is a minority view. I think the vast majority of rabbis permit performing such marriages and setting people up in general.
A big thanks to Rabbi Student for his scholarly input on this matter.
Update: A reader Her highness, Halfsours, mistook my above thanks to Rabbi Student as sarcastic. It was not. To be clear, I genuinely appreciate Rabbi Student taking the time to clarify the normative Orthodox approach to any issue raised on my blog. Rabbi Student is a very busy and well respected halachic authority, and it is, frankly, quite flattering to have him weigh in here.
6 comments
I don’t think someone is being “set up” for sin by doing good things for others. Performing a marriage of two people, even imperfect and unobservant people, even truly despicable people, is a step towards the light and away from the darkness. Doing the most likely of the best possible good deeds in a given situation should be regarded as a mitzvah. Refusing to perform a marriage because she’s not shomer niddah is going to do what good? Will they magically think, “yeah, I’m a sinner and need to become shomer niddah. Thanks for pointing that up rabbi.”
NO. They’ll do the HUMAN thing and feel rejected. By other Jews, by rabbonim, by the religious, by G-d. This pushes them away from the light of G-d and towards the darkness.
In my book, setting up anyone to do a true sin, like setting someone up to kill someone, that sort of thing, is always wrong and it doesn’t matter to G-d who is goy, secular, or religious.
I apologize if this is not received well, but it is not up to anyone to enforce others’ mitzvot (enforcing mitzvot is G-d’s domain for He alone can MAKE the world any way He wishes, we can merely help it along in a given direction), merely encourage them, and you cannot be a mitzvot enabler by rejecting and refusing, but by embracing and befriending. People don’t listen to those who snub them, but do listen to those who are open to them.
“A big thanks to Rabbi Student for his scholarly input on this matter.”
No need to be a meany, Kelsey. The guy was just trying to give us some background.
I was being sincere, Halfsours. Did anyone else mistake this for snark?
I’d forgotten about that Slifkin thread, DK. I even posted a couple of comments. I can’t believe that it was nearly two years ago.
Now I’m meeting MO physicians who don’t believe in evolution. It just keeps moving to the right…
DK,
I was actually wishing last night that snark was a real word corresponding with the adjective snarky. Instead it actually means this:
snark
–noun
a mysterious, imaginary animal.
[Origin: 1876; coined by Lewis Carroll in his poem The Hunting of the Snark]
Too bad to, eh? It works much better under our definition.
“Update: A reader mistook…”
“A reader”, DK?
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