More on copepods: Some letters to the editor in the Jewish Press

(finally posted - initially composed Nov 6:)

Right now the Jewish Press' web site is down, so I will link instead to the google cache.

There were two letters to the editor in response to Rabbi Dr. David Berger's article, which I thought I would analyze.

(Note: Perhaps the author of the following letter did not intend to attack the Rabbis who issues the pesak and those who are following it, but rather congratulating Dr. Berger and the Jewish Press on willing to publish a dissenting view, while criticising those who would not consider listening to, or considering that there may be, a dissenting view. If so, I would have a different response. Certain elements in the letter makes it seem that he is attacking the pesak as well, though.)

One of the letters reads:

The Jewish Press is the only Orthodox publication I know of that would have published Dr. Berger’s courageous op-ed article. If we learn anything from studying the lives of our great sages and rabbis, it is that a Jew can be completely devoted to Torah and mitzvot and still use his or her brain. Unfortunately, today we see less and less of that in the yeshiva world, which by and large has retreated into a cocoon of mindless ritualism and a “can you top this” chumraism.

Thank you, Dr. Berger, and thank you, Jewish Press, for refusing to succumb to the current climate of obscurantism and worse that has settled over large parts of the frum olam.

This letter is unfortunate. Dr. Berger realized that it is possible to disagree over what should or should not be done while not disparaging the other side or attributing to them chumraism, obscurantism, mindless ritualism, or lack of brain function. To that end, he gave reasons, and valid halachic sources that could be evaluated towards determining what the halacha should be. Further, Dr. Berger did not attack the eminent rabbis who issued the pesak that there is what to be concerned about. Rather, he directed his words at the knowledgable rabbis who held divergent positions from the pesak in order to encourage them to maintain their position by offering additional reasons why copepod-infested water should be halachicly potable.

The rabbis who issued the pesak - Rav Dovid Feinstein, Rav Elyashiv, and Rav Pinchas Sheinberg can certainly think. I am sure they are quite intelligent. They also are poskim, and have developed a sense of what is and what is not legitimate halacha. Just because you think it is a crazy chumra because you are not used to doing it does not mean that these people do not know what they are talking about. They know an incredible amount of Torah, certainly much more than you or or I know. They, and those who follow them, need not be categorized as people in a cocoon of mindless ritualism.

Rav Belsky, who says the water poses no problem, says so based on halachic sources. He looked at the relevant gemaras and determined, for example, that the specific situation - that the water comes from a reservior - brings the copepods to a specific halachic state in which they pose no problem. (He also things they are small enough not to be problematic.) Had there been a different metziut - had the water come from moving streams instead of a reservior, he might have come to a different conclusion. Yet people are unlikely to accuse him of obscurantism, because he came to an halachic decision that they liked.

I saw this phenomenon with regards to Rav Schachter. When he ruled initially that the copepods posed no problem, people posted online, in comments in blogs, that they knew that Rav Schachter was sensible, and here is a rabbi that knows what he is talking about. Once more information came to light and he reversed his ruling, there were comments disparaging him and his position (if people really understood it).

Perhaps people who are actually knowledgable about halacha and how halacha is determined should decide whether something is important or not?

Having reviewed the sources and the metziut to a somewhat greater degree than most of the people that dismiss the issue out of hand as ridiculous, I see that there is a possibility that the copepods do pose a problem and a possibility that they do not. Regardless of the actual status of the copepods in the end, there is certainly what to be concerned about and to think about. And this determination is best left to those who know, rather than those who are outright dismissive and do not know.

Some who were dismissive of it are not familiar of the facts - they thought that copepods are microscopic, on the scale of bacteria, while this is not the case. Others are not familiar with the halachic sources in the gemara and later on about bugs and small fish in water which might require filtering of said water.

About 2000 years ago, another Jew was dismissive of what he saw as excessive legalisms and chumraisms as opposed to the important things such as social justice. He said, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel." He was in fact talking about excessive chumraism in his day, about Jews who strained their water for gnats, who gave maaser on spices. Will we also call Rav Feinstein, Rav Elyashiv, Rav Sheinberg, Rav Schachter (and those Pharisees who follow them) blind guides?

I hope to post and address the second letter later.