Rabbi Shaul David Buchko, head of Yeshivat Kochav Yaakov, has published a new article responding to a recent stringent halakhic ruling that prohibits an elderly woman living on an upper floor from using an elevator to reach a shelter during an alarm. The ruling argued that she should have left her home before the onset of Shabbat.
Rabbi Buchko firmly rejects this position, opposing any expectation that elderly individuals must evacuate their homes in advance. Drawing on the Shulchan Aruch, he explains that Jewish law does not require a person to alter their lifestyle or relocate simply to avoid a potential future situation involving danger to life on Shabbat.
He emphasizes that real-life circumstances must be taken into account, writing that it is impossible to address matters of life-threatening risk through purely theoretical arguments that ignore the realities of wartime conditions, including logistical and family challenges.
At the heart of his argument, Rabbi Buchko examines the status of electricity use and elevators. While the stricter opinion views such use as a full desecration of Shabbat, he aligns with authorities such as Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, who maintain that using electricity without ignition, such as LED lighting or modern elevator, constitutes a rabbinic, rather than Torah-level, prohibition.
According to Rabbi Buchko, in the context of rocket fire, the situation qualifies as a case of life-threatening danger combined with a secondary rabbinic restriction, allowing for leniency. He therefore rules that elderly, ill, or physically limited individuals may use an elevator to reach a protected space during an alarm and may also return home afterward, preferably operating the button in an indirect manner, such as with the back of the hand.
“In a time of great need, such actions are not considered prohibited labor," he concludes, adding that in clear cases of significant necessity, there is ample basis for a lenient ruling.
Rav BOTSCHKO. His family build a yeshiva in Montreux Switzerland. During WW2 was open , then became later a Zionist yeshiva
ReplyDeleteWho wrote the first opinion--- the one this rav responded to??
ReplyDeleteRav Shaul David Botschko is the rosh yeshiva of Heichal Elyahu in the yishuv Kochav Yaakov. His father was Rav Moshe Botschko z"l, son of Yerahmiel Eliyahu Botschko who founded the Yeshivas Etz Chaim in Montreux, Switzerland in 1927.
ReplyDeleteIhis yeshiva was transfered in 1985 from Montreux to yishuv Kochav Yaakov.
After Rabbi Moshe Feinstein passed away, the blackhats in the USA resorted to rabbis in Israel as their poseks. Rabbi Feinstein understood the American situation in ways the Israel rabbis did not, and it showed.
ReplyDeleteI had an analogous situation with my own sister's passing. She had moved to Florida, and, without going into particulars, her estate was (worse than) insolvent. I was living on Long Island at the time (Suffolk County, not the Five Towns, so many rabbis in Brooklyn and Queens did not even consider our community to even be Jewish), and my mother was in Philadelphia. A certain supposed mumche authority in Queens suggested that the body be flown to New York for the taharah, and then taken to Philadelphia for the kevurah.
There. Was. No. Money. In. My. Sister's. Estate!!!!
Taharot were done in Philadelphia before a Jew ever set foot in Queens!
Of course, my sister was flown directly to Philadelphia; how I got her a burial plot and arranged her levaya is a $€₱₳Ɍ₳₮€ ₮₳£€ unto itself.