Avodah Mailing List

Volume 25: Number 97

Fri, 14 Mar 2008

• 1. Re: schechtworthy (Zev Sero)
• 2. Re: efficacy of prayer (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: O attend R wedding = kosher eidim? (Elazar M. Teitz)
• 4. Re: R' Angel & Geirus Redux (Re: [Areivim] rabbi org) (Michael Makovi)
• 5. Re: schechtworthy (kennethgmiller@juno.com)
• 6. Re: Dogma and kavana vs the objective deed (Yitzhak Grossman)
• 7. Re: schechtworthy (Jacob Farkas)
• 8. Re: Shechting animals upside down (Marty Bluke)
• 9. Re: O attend R wedding = kosher eidim? (Michael Makovi)
• 10. Re: R' Angel & Geirus Redux (Re: [Areivim] rabbi org) (Daniel Eidensohn)
• 11. Re: Shechting animals upside down (Zev Sero)

Jacob Farkas wrote:

> I can't disagree more with Shehitah though. The number of chickens that
> are slaughtered per minute does not afford the Shoheit the opportunity
> to treat each individual Shehitah as thoroughly as in the past. Fewer
> tasks and responsibilities are performed by the modern Shoheit, and his
> ne'emanus alone does not suffice for the community to eat from his
> Shehitah. (He is most often anonymous). Rather it is the reputation of
> the certifying agency that is trusted.

That just shifts the responsibility for picking shochtim, and ensuring
that they are yirei shomayim, from each community to the certifiers.
They have to keep an eye on the behaviour of their shochtim.

Recently a web site posted a letter from R Weissmandl to Rubashkin
when they were negotiating for him to take over as lead machshir, and
he goes into great detail about the contract that must be signed with
each shochet regulating his personal behaviour and that of his whole
family.  For instance, he demands that shochtim not have any kind of
internet connection in their homes (television man d'char sh'meih!),
they must be seen regularly learning in the beis hamedrash, not just
at home, etc.

In some matters he specifically acknowledges the difference between
community standards.  For instance, a shochet's wife must cover her hair
to the standards that are accepted in their community.  (He also goes
into the mandatory rest periods for shochtim - they are to work 40
minutes on and 40 minutes off, with a break room provided where they
can rest, snack, and restore themselves for the next 40 minute shift.)

This is all necessary precisely because, as you say, the consumer
doesn't know the shochtim, or who shechted which piece of meat, and
can't form his own judgment about the shochet's reliability.  In
smaller communities that is possible.  For instance my father will
only eat meat from one specific shochet whom he knows personally;
he doesn't need any contract and he doesn't need to specify niggling
details, because he can see for himself what sort of person he is.
If the shochet deviates in some way from community norms, my father
can judge for himself whether this speaks of some character flaw or
can be safely ignored.  With a huge operation such as Rubashkin, Alle,
etc., that sort of thing is just not possible to arrange, so we must
rely on the certifiers, who must have written rules and go into all
these details.

 
> I didn't say the Shoheit can be an avaryan, but I did suggest that it is
> fair to consider that his role is diminished and perhaps so should his
> prerequisites. His job is at stake if he doesn't follow guidelines, and
> his actions on the floor are not without other supervision, he is no
> longer 100% bein adam lamaqom.

How will the mashgiach on the floor know if the shochet felt the knife
catch against something, or if he hesitated or pressed too hard, etc?
Only he can ever know this, and it would be so easy to keep his mouth
shut and just let it go.  Admitting that he made a mistake and wasted
an animal is always going to be difficult, and the only thing we can
ever rely on is his own yiras shomayim.

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev@sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                                                  - Clarence Thomas

On Fri, Mar 7, '08 3:07pm, R Liron Kopinsky wrote:
: L'mashal, if you need something from Person A, you make no regular
: effort to let them know that you need it, but decide to just send
: person A's best friend to ask for it, person A will probably say "I
: don't think s/he really needs it since they could have asked me for
: it themselves."

: Similarly, if Person A has something you need and 100 other people
: also need it, and you all fill out an application form for it, but
: you can ask person A's best friend to put your application on the top
: of the pile, that will obviously not hurt your cause.

I fail to see the nimshal.

In the first paragraph, you're saying that HQBH would figure that if I
really needed it, I would have turned to Him myself. But HQBH doesn't
have to guess whether or not I need it based on my actions. He knows
my need and my mindset directly. Perhaps it would be more appropriate
to attribute to Hashem the reasoning (kevayachol) that if I turn to
Him myself, I am more changed, and thus should get a more changed
response in how He treats me.

In the second paragraph, you are speaking of a person who has finite
attention, and therefore will give most consideration to the top
application on the pile. The nimshal fails here too. HQBH considers
all people based on what's best for them; there is no triage or
competition.

The case where someone goes to a tzadiq for tefillos it's because the
tzadiq shares in your pain. Hashem may do more to alleviate the
tzadiq's share of my pain than He would for me myself.

(I thought I said the following already this conversation, but I
didn't find it searching the archive. Maybe I'm thinking of my blog
entry at <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2008/03/mi-shebeirakh.shtml>. If
I'm repeating myself, I'm sorry.)

When I attended Morasha Kollel, RMWillig presented this idea besnheim
RYBS. Quoting myself on Aspaqlaria:

> When someone is found guilty of a crime, he may be sent to jail. But
> that person isn't the only person who gets punished. His wife loses
> his companionship. His children lose access to their father. They
> and his parents are shamed. His employer loses out on an employee,
> and his customers on his services. The person he used to say
> "Hello!" to on the way to work every morning gets that much less joy
> in the morning. For that matter, the people they meet get impacted
> because the employer faces these people when he is more stressed. The
> impact of one person's imprisonment ripples outward.

> We are only human beings. We can't take all that into account when
> deciding when and how to punish someone.

> However, Hashem can. Every person impacted by some tragedy are
> impacted in some customized way appropriate for their life story.

> Rav JB Soloveitchik uses this idea to explain how a "Mi sheBeirakh"
> works. It is hard enough to understand how someone's own prayer can
> cause their fate to be modified. But how would we explain how a sick
> person's health would be improved in response to the prayers of
> people he might not have ever met or ever learn of their prayer or
> perhaps never even know of their existence?

> Rav Soloveitchik answers that the tefillah turns the personal
> tragedy into a communal one. Across the community, someone does not
> deserve to hear of the tragedy. Someone's impact would be unfair.
> And the community itself, as a corporate entity, has merit that
> perhaps is greater than that of the sum of its members. The
> community's standing is continuous since Avraham, touched by every
> person along the chain of tradition; its members' standing dates
> back to their births.

(Much like RMM's citation from RSRH about Avraham's tefillah for the 5
cities around Sodom or for Avimelekh being effective because of
Avraham's pain at seeing another suffer.)

I still don't see how this helps the person who was prayed for in the
long run. If the person themselves didn't improve (e.g. turn to
Hashem), then isn't this mechanism just stalling -- at some point the
negative will have to be paid by him.

Which then divides into stalling where it's dinei nefashos, and
stalling for more time is of value just for the increased opportunity.
And other cases where I am not sure why someone would gain by getting
this onesh ameliorated without eliminated the underlying spiritual
cause.

Perhaps the point is that if someone approaches a tzadiq /instead/ of
their own tefillos, they're like the first person in RYK's mashal,
whereas if it's in addition, they're like the second. That the
tzadiq's tefillah has to be an enhancement beyond one's own effort, or
else it's "buying off G-d" -- or at least one's conscience -- and
might even ch"v have the reverse effect.


The next day (Sat) at 12:46pm EST, Michael Makovi wrote:
: Perhaps fewer people got hurt than would have otherwise.

This is quite likely. The killer entered the library at a time when
most talmidim were at a mesibah for RCh Adar II. I get shudders from
the thought of what could have happened had the murderer taken his
kalishnikov into a room filled with row after row of talmidim ch"v
(!).

: Perhaps it is because of some sin we have, that no amount of prayer is
: strong enough to overcome.

I'll save this question for the thread "Mitzvot and sins cancel each
other, or not".

: Perhaps G-d, for some reason, put the prayer in the bank for later -
: i.e., perhaps it has had some effect on the future, that we cannot see
: yet. I recall in A Tzadik in Our Time, somewhere, it says something
: about no prayer or tear going to waste, and that eventually, it will
: bear fruit, even if we cannot see it....

I know there are many stories that imply that zechus is fungible. E.g.
The tzadiq who offers to buy an esrog in exchange for the seller
getting the sechar mitzvah. Or the concept RMM gives here.

They don't make sense to me, as the middah is "din" not "masa umatan".

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight,
micha@aishdas.org        and he wants to sleep well that night too."
http://www.aishdas.org     - Rav Yosef Yozel Horwitz, Alter of Novarodok
Fax: (270) 514-1507

R. Micha'el Makovi wrote:

<EMT said Tosafot holds that all the potential witnesses in the vicinity
count, while the contrary (majority) opinion says only the specifically
designated witnesses count.>

     What I actually wrote was that according to Tosafos, if an event is
     witnessed by non-kosher eidim, it makes all who saw it disqualified on
     the basis of "nimtza echad meihem karov o pasul, eidus kulam
     b'teilah."  The designation serves to isolate the two appointees and
     eliminate the k'rovim and p'sulim.  

     The majority opinion is that "nimtza . . ." applies only to an eid
     hamei'id, to one who actually testifies, and who testifies together
     (that is, toch k'dei dibbur) of the kosher ones.  Thus, even if
     witnesses were not designated, the mere presence and witnessing of
     p'sulim is no drawback.

     Actually, Tosafos does not state that non-kosher observing witnesses
     disqualify the kosher one.  Rather, assuming that such is the opinion
     of R. Yosi in the mishna (Makkos 7a), as might be understood from his
     language, they ask how a get is ever kosher.  Their answer is that
     indeed, only a testifying witness disqualifies.

EMT
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>  The SA (IIRC, I don't have it here in front of me) describes the
>  chinuch associated with geirus in a way that sounds pretty minimal,
>  which is the basis for R' Angel's shita.
>  Daniel M. Israel

Not only the SA, but also the Gemara in Yevamot, etc., AFAIK. It says
we teach him a few large and small mitzvot, peah and such, and then,
if he acknowledges Jewish suffering, he's in. It doesn't sound like
such an involved process is being spoken of.

In America, there's no reason for a person to convert, and in Israel,
those from America, England, Germany, and the like (Russia is of
course a different story) certainly need not be suspected of ulterior
motives - there is no reason for conversions to take so long. We have
a fellow here at my yeshiva doing conversion, who already has Jewish
ancestry and simply lacks documentary evidence, so he needed a safek
conversion. Moreover, he was about to begin medical training in
America (he was a medic for the US Army) that would get a him a
six-figure salary, and left it for yeshiva in Israel - ulterior
motives?, ROFL! And yet, despite all this, he was in the process of
conversion for an entire year, after which he finally got fed up with
the Chief Rabbinut that was getting him nowhere, and he had to do the
more lenient Meah Shearim conversion.

>  Second, as a matter of lo
>  siten michshol, we shouldn't be m'gayir a person before he knows
>  enough to be shomer mitzvos.

I've heard in the name of the Lubavitcher Rebbe that we can learn from
two people that G-d doesn't expect perfection: the bar mitzvah and the
ger. Both have little idea what they're supposed to do, and yet
they're both chayav! G-d cannot expect very much from either, but He's
happy with them.

>  The simple version of my question is whether the objection that has
>  been raised against RMA is regarding the first or the second.  I
>  definitely hear the second, but as far as the first, the suggestion
>  that that is exactly p'shat in the SA seems pretty compelling.

Whatever validity the second has, the fact that the SA's pshat
supports him, means apparently the SA wasn't challenged by the second.
If the SA didn't see it as a problem, why should we? Should we be
holier than the mechaber?

Mikha'el Makovi

R' Saul Newman quoted a newsletter which wrote:
> A /shochet/ that watches television is violating Biblical
> prohibitions. While this casts aspersions on his
> trustworthiness, he should not be removed. He must be first
> warned to cease from such behaviour (Shevet Halevi YD 2).

R' Jacob Farkas questioned the above:
> I was curious whether it is fair to apply the standards of
> yesteryear to the modern day Shoheit. The role of a Shoheit
> today has (in most cases) been drastically reduced, given
> that he is usually part of a larger operation that has a
> league of Kosher overseers who decide matters of policy,
> procedure, and more particularly, decide the Kashrus of any
> specific animal in question. ... To compare him to an
> old-school Shoheit (e.g. one-man operation), whose ne'emanus
> and often whose pesaq about the meat was enough for the
> community, is unfair.

RJF seems to be understanding the newsletter as saying that a shochet who
watches television has questionable trustworthiness, and therefore it is
problematic to rely on whatever paskening he might be doing.

That's not what I presumed the newsletter to mean. I had thought the
problem to be that (from their perspective) a shochet who watches
television is under suspicion of being a non-shomer mitzvos, which would
make the shechita itself passul, regardless of any paskening he might do.

But I must asmit that the wording of the newsletter is unclear. It could go either way. Maybe someone wants to ask them.

Akiva Miller
_____________________________________________________________
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On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:58:02 +0200
"Michael Makovi" <mikewinddale@gmail.com> wrote:

> Chazal said that you should abstain from pork not because you hate it,
> but only because G-d said so. But can you imagine Chazal saying, "Do
> not say, 'I love to murder, steal, rape, pillage, but what can I do,
> for Avinu she'ba'shamayim has forbade it?'" I don't know about you,
> but I won't want to be on the shul committee with this guy!

This is exactly Rambam's view [0]:

<Quote>

... For [Hazal] have not said 'A man should not say "I do not wish to
kill a man, I do not wish to steal, I do not wish to deny", but rather
"I wish, but what shall I do, my Father in Heaven has adjured me"', but
they have cited exclusively "d'varim shimi'im": basar b'halav, wearing
sha'atnez, arayos.  And these and similar commandments are the ones
that God called 'hukos', ...

</Quote>

[0] Shmoneh Prakim 6

Yitzhak
--
Bein Din Ledin - bdl.freehostia.com
An advanced discussion of Hoshen Mishpat

> Jacob Farkas wrote:
> 
>  > I can't disagree more with Shehitah though. The number of chickens
>  > that are slaughtered per minute does not afford the Shoheit the
>  > opportunity to treat each individual Shehitah as thoroughly as in the 
>  > past. Fewer tasks and responsibilities are performed by the modern
>  > Shoheit, and his ne'emanus alone does not suffice for the community 
> to > eat from his Shehitah. (He is most often anonymous). Rather it is 
> the > reputation of the certifying agency that is trusted.
> 
> That just shifts the responsibility for picking shochtim, and ensuring
> that they are yirei shomayim, from each community to the certifiers.
> They have to keep an eye on the behaviour of their shochtim.

I agree with this point. It would be fair to note that the certifiers 
can arbitrarily decide what criteria they have in order to vouch for 
their team of Shohetim.

By arbitrarily, I mean lequla or lehumra. Your next point clearly 
illustrates a case of lehumra.

> 
> Recently a web site posted a letter from R Weissmandl to Rubashkin
> when they were negotiating for him to take over as lead machshir, and
> he goes into great detail about the contract that must be signed with
> each shochet regulating his personal behaviour and that of his whole
> family.  For instance, he demands that shochtim not have any kind of
> internet connection in their homes (television man d'char sh'meih!),
> they must be seen regularly learning in the beis hamedrash, not just
> at home, etc.
> 
> In some matters he specifically acknowledges the difference between
> community standards.  For instance, a shochet's wife must cover her hair
> to the standards that are accepted in their community.  (He also goes
> into the mandatory rest periods for shochtim - they are to work 40
> minutes on and 40 minutes off, with a break room provided where they
> can rest, snack, and restore themselves for the next 40 minute shift.)
> 
> This is all necessary precisely because, as you say, the consumer
> doesn't know the shochtim, or who shechted which piece of meat, and
> can't form his own judgment about the shochet's reliability.  In
> smaller communities that is possible.  For instance my father will
> only eat meat from one specific shochet whom he knows personally;
> he doesn't need any contract and he doesn't need to specify niggling
> details, because he can see for himself what sort of person he is.
> If the shochet deviates in some way from community norms, my father
> can judge for himself whether this speaks of some character flaw or
> can be safely ignored.  With a huge operation such as Rubashkin, Alle,
> etc., that sort of thing is just not possible to arrange, so we must
> rely on the certifiers, who must have written rules and go into all
> these details.

Once again, they are at liberty to choose what is in their best 
interests, that being the interest in not compromising the integrity of 
their Hashgahah.


>  > I didn't say the Shoheit can be an avaryan, but I did suggest that it 
>  > is fair to consider that his role is diminished and perhaps so should 
>  > his prerequisites. His job is at stake if he doesn't follow
>  > guidelines, and his actions on the floor are not without other
>  > supervision, he is nolonger 100% bein adam lamaqom.
> 
> How will the mashgiach on the floor know if the shochet felt the knife
> catch against something, or if he hesitated or pressed too hard, etc?
> Only he can ever know this, and it would be so easy to keep his mouth
> shut and just let it go.  Admitting that he made a mistake and wasted
> an animal is always going to be difficult, and the only thing we can
> ever rely on is his own yiras shomayim.

Technically, the rules of Eid Ehad actually apply, even though the 
Shoheit has lots to lose. Tosefos in Gittin 2b mentions clearly that a 
Shoheit is ne'eman even though meat is otherwise Ishazeiq Isurra because 
Beyado Lesaqno at some point in time (prior to his slaughtering).

Trustworthiness and a person's Yiras Shamayim can play a role in whether 
to choose to accept the technical Metzius (his testimony that the 
Shehitah was Kosher) or to ignore it (because you don't trust him, or 
don't trust that he cares enough not to mislead others in matters of 
Kashrus).

So long as the decision to trust or not trust the oft-anonymous Shoheit 
is the problem of the certifiers, it is only fair that they get to write 
their own, although arbitrary, rules.

--Jacob Farkas

R' Zev Sero wrote:
<No technology is needed to lie an animal down on the ground and roll
it over, which is what was done.  Shechita munachat is *not* some
<recent invention.

R' Belsky disagrees. His point was that the chumra has no basis in
Shas or Rishonim and is based on a mistaken diyuk in the Shach.

> What I actually wrote was...
>  EMT

Ahh, that cleared things up for me; thank you.

If I have understood:

According to Tosafot, anyone in the vicinity can pasul, so we
segregate by designation, so they are part of an unrelated group who
cannot pasul anymore than if they were in a different location.

According to majority, only those who actually testify can pasul be
being a relative, etc. But if an R person is sitting in the vicinity,
no harm done, as long as he keeps his mouth shut (exaggerated
oversimplification, of course).

Nachon?

The question I have then is, according to the majority, what is to be
said in the reverse situation, viz. R majority and two O people
sitting in the area. Do we apply the same logic (only those testifying
count) in reverse and say that since the Os aren't actually
testifying, it is as if they aren't present, and only those actually
testifying (the R) count? Or do we say that this principle (only those
actually testifying count) applies only to pasul-ing, i.e. only those
who actually testify make unkosher, but anyone at all, testifying or
not, makes kosher if they saw the event?

Mikha'el Makovi

R' Daniel Israel wrote:
>> The SA (IIRC, I don't have it here in front of me) describes the 
>> chinuch associated with geirus in a way that sounds pretty minimal, 
>> which is the basis for R' Angel's shita.  However, it seems to me 
>> that there is no independent requirement for a person to learn for 
>> geirus: the requirement is a consequence of two other issues.  
>> First, a person can't be m'kabel ol mitzvos without a basic 
>> understanding of what the mitzvos are.  Second, as a matter of lo 
>> siten michshol, we shouldn't be m'gayir a person before he knows 
>> enough to be shomer mitzvos.
>>
>> The simple version of my question is whether the objection that has 
>> been raised against RMA is regarding the first or the second.  I 
>> definitely hear the second, but as far as the first, the suggestion 
>> that that is exactly p'shat in the SA seems pretty compelling.  
>> (That is, the SA is indeed describing a process much less stringent 
>> than what we do today, as RMA suggests, but he is simply telling us 
>> the minimum chinuch before we can rely on the person to be m'kabel 
>> ol mitzvos; he isn't teaching us policy as far as what the person 
>> needs to be taught.)  If that analysis is right, then the argument 
>> is a policy one, which shouldn't have any effect to pasul a geirus 
>> b'deivad.
>>
>> After all, the reason why this is not simply one more area where 
>> the RW and LW just hold by different shitos is because of the long 
>> term implications.
>>
>> If this is not the issue, that is, if there are those who are 
>> suggesting that a geirus in the format suggested by RMA is actually 
>> posul, what is the basis?  Are they suggesting that we can't rely 
>> on a beis din that takes such an approach?  That seems untenable, 
>> as we are undeniably taking about talmidei chachamim and shomrei 
>> mitzvos.  Or are they objecting that there is no real kabbalas ol 
>> mitzvos without a much more stringent learning program?
>>
>>     
The process of geirus is not simply the simple sum  of citiations from 
gemora, rishonim or Shulchan Aruch. I am just going to mention some 
important issues that modify the simplistic understand presented above.

Geirus does not exist independently of social reality. The dispute over 
R' Angel's proposal (actually it is R' Ben Tzion Uziel) is not a new 
discussion. If you want to see the material in depth R' Angel wrote an 
article in tradition many years ago which was critiqued and rejected by 
R' Riskin in the same issue. He has also written a book on the subject. 
There is also an academic work put out by the Hartman institute which 
also argued that the requirement of commitment to observe the whole 
Torah is a new requirement "Conversion to Judaism and the meaning of 
Jewish identity" by Prof. Avi Sagi and Prof. Tzvi Zohar - they deal with 
the question whether conversion is identity with the Jewish people or 
commitment to halacha. There is a massive tome by Prof. Friedman at Bar 
Ilan (available in English and Hebrew). R' Bleich has a very good 
summary of the issues - original published in Tradition but reprinted in 
his Contemporary Halachic Problems series.

Our Sages say that there are 3 factors needed to convert - mila, tevila 
and korbon. There is discussion of whether ulterior motivation counts in 
Yevamos. This includes whether a person converts for the sake of 
marriage, power or security whether it is good, There is a important 
discussion in the Rambam (Pe'er HaDor) concerning leniences for the sake 
of teshuva. This is the basis of both R' Uziel's psak as well as the 
lenient view found in R' Shlomo Kluger. Prof. Friedman points out there 
are different versions of this Rambam and Rav  Chaim Ozer points out 
that it is not clear how to legitimately generalize the Rambam's 
comments. There is much discussion in the Igros Moshe, Tzitz Eliezar, 
Mishna Halachos, etc etc. It is ***not*** a simple issue!

A lot of this matterial is presented on my blog   
http://daattorah.blogspot.com/ <Daas%20Torah>  in  regards to my on 
going dispute with Rabbi Tropper and the Eternal Jewish Family.

There are a couple of salient issues.

1) There can  be leniencies found when a community or school is involved 
versus an individual.
2) There  has been a major change in the issue of Jewish identity. Rav 
Herzog points out that up until the early 1800's a person converting to 
Judaism - was joining a community which was fairly homogeneous and 
segregated from the non-Jewish community. Non observance meant be 
shunned and a pariah status which ensured poverty and possibly death. 
There was no need to explicity state a commitment to observance since it 
was implicit in conversion. With Emancipation there became a large 
degree of freedom from community pressure and therefore there is a 
significant change in the explication of the requirements for conversion 
in the halachic literature. It is basic consensus that complete 
commitment to halacha is critical to the validity of conversion.
3) The issue of success rate is critical. If the majority of people who 
convert end up non observance and are a negative force on the community 
then conversion should obviously be discouraged - or the standards 
raised so only the most sincere candidates are accepted. The Achiezer - 
who initially supported conversion for the sake of marriage - changed 
his view 22 years later and said that a kosher beis din should not be 
involved in this type of conversion. Igros Moshe similarly says that he 
personally has nothing to do with these type of conversion because so 
few are successful. The Syrian community banned converts for pragmatic 
reasons as did the Argentine community. Ezra rejected the foreign wives 
and their children - and made no attempt to convert them because of the 
danger they posed to the new Jewish community in Israel.
4) R' Angel takes an optimistic view - open admissions policy with the 
hope that the converts will eventual become serious. This can be seen in 
Shabbos (31a) with the dispute of Hillel and Shammai regarding 
conversion (See Rashi and Tosfos there).
5) Rabbi Tropper has asserted that conversion of intermarried couples 
should be encouraged (i.e., proselytizing) to remove the impediment for 
the Jewish spouse to do teshuva and reduce the intermarriage rates.
6) There is an ancient tradition of discouraging converts (Yevamos 48). 
There are some who would assert that there should be no discouragment 
when the person has a Jewish father or mistakenly views himself as a Jew 
(Rav Yaakov Kaminetsky according to his son R' Nosson Kaminetsky and Rav 
Moshe Feinstein according to R' Shlomo Fuerst). There is no written 
teshuva that allows encouraging conversion of an intermarried couple  
who know that they are  living in sin.
7) The question of conversion of children is likewise complicated as to 
whether it is genuinely a zechus for the child. Can the child protest at 13?
8) Talmidei chachomim are not granted automatic permission to go against 
the majority in critical issues involving the nature of the entire 
Jewish people such as conversion (Rabbi Angel) or divorce (Rabbi 
Rackman). It is naive to assert that anyone with semicha can posken what 
he thinks best and the rest of the world has to accept it.
9) And yes the vast majority of poskim would declare posul - a convert 
who is not clearly committed to keep the entire Torah.

The above is  just a small sample of the literature.  I have a couple 
hundred pages of sources on this topic - if you want more.

In sum. R' Angel's (Rav Uziel's) approach is based on wishful thinking 
that the person will eventually become sincere such as we find with  
Hillel. However the hard cold facts on the ground is that it simply 
doesn't work as general policy and never has - and thus is rejected by 
the overwhelming majority of  poskim.

Daniel Eidensohn

Marty Bluke wrote:
> R' Zev Sero wrote:
>> No technology is needed to lie an animal down on the ground and roll
>> it over, which is what was done.  Shechita munachat is *not* some
>> recent invention.

> R' Belsky disagrees. His point was that the chumra has no basis in
> Shas or Rishonim and is based on a mistaken diyuk in the Shach.

It depends what you mean by "recent".  It's certainly not some
mishugas that got invented 30 years ago, or even 100 years ago.
It goes back farther than the invention of the technology that
the OP thought proved his case.

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev@sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                                                  - Clarence Thomas


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