Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Kesubos 60a - Hearos about Nursing

1. Child who "recognizes" mother - Rashi seems to understand that a divorced woman must nurse her child if he is not willing to nurse by anyone else. Tosafos Ri"d asks, why would we test for "makirah" by seeing if the child recognizes the mother, as the story in the gemara, we should simply see if the child is willing to nurse from someone else. Based on this, Tosafos Ri"d argues with rashi and says that even if the child will nurse from someone else, there is concern for emotional trauma of separation if there is still strong attachment to the mother, and that is dangerous to the child. Rashi holds that it is a physical concern of not receiving proper nourishment. Perhaps rashi would answer the Tosafos Ri"d's question by saying that although the child may nurse a little from someone else if he is starving, he will still not nurse as much as he needs and be malnourished, therefore we can't test by simply seeing if the child will nurse from someone else.
2. Shabbos - The gemara says that regarding an animal, it would be an issur deoraysa of mefarek to milk into a vessel, but to nurse directly from an animal would only be d'rabonon. It is not clear from the gemara what would be by a person. It would seem to be the opposite, that it is normal to nurse directly and that would be d'oraysa, but it is not normal to express milk into a vessel and that would be d'rabonon. However, the Shulchan Aruch 328:34) says that this is not allowed. The Biur Halacha 328:34, and sha'ar hatziyun 81 explain that by a person it is normal to both nurse directly and express milk, therefore either way would be assur m'doraysa (and cites a proof from tosafos in shabbos, against the sefer tosefes shabbos). Based on this, there would be no heter for a woman to express milk in a usable fashion (to the exclusion of holeich l'ibud) and store it for later, unless it is literally a situation of sakana. Actually, the sha'ar hatziyun explains the shulchan aruch 35 who is matir for the mother to actually squeeze some milk into the childs mouth to get him to start nursing, is based on a heter of sakana.
3. Nursing from a goat - The Shulchan Aruch 328:33 seems to allow this even if one is very hungry (or thirsty) since it is only an issur d'rabonon. The M.B. 108 wonders where this comes from, since the distinction made in Tosafos between different types of "pain", and the allowance even for hunger only applies on Yom Tov, not Shabbos. I think that based on Tosafos (end of d.h. gonei'ach) that there is a machlokes between the sugya in kesubos and yevamos, it could be that paskening like our sugya would be matir even on shabbos precisely what Tosafos originally thought that the gemara in Yevamos was being matir on Yom Tov, namely even for hunger pain. v'dok.

3 comments:

Yossie Schonkopf said...

very good points, i will add one of my own-

the שמירת שבת ל"ו הערה ס"ב brings in the name of הגרש"ז the following:

ועוד שמעתי מהגרש"ז שליט"א שמותר להניק תינוק גם סמוך למוצש"ק אף אם יכולים להמתין עד הלילה, כי אין זה דומה למעמיד עלוקה למציצת הדם, סי' שכח במ"ב סק"קמז דהואיל וכן דרך אכילתו, וגם חשיב משום כך אוכל ולא משקה, וכמבואר בכריתות יג א', לכן נקרא בשם אכילת אדם ולא כמפרק, עכ"ד

i said this over to someone and he asked me the following:

tosfos says that the reason you cannot milk a goat into a food item on Shabbos even though you may on yom tov, is because on Shabbos the goat is not considered food unlike y"t' and therefor you are being מפרק the milk from a non food goat' but on yom tov you are separating food from food and its not מפרק. (some rishonim give different answeres there but for our discussion we are just exarcting the lomdos)

based on this, by a woman she is never considered food and therefor separating the milk from the woman should be מפרק EVEN if we accept that the milk is considered FOOD for the baby. I find his question on rav shlomo zakman to be very difficult!

Yossie Schonkopf said...

it goes with out saying that if you don't hold of rav shlomo zalman you will have a problem with needing a different heter!

Yossie Schonkopf said...

i found that rabbi braun in his book (teivas moshe) says the heter is that there is no issue of mefarek when one does it in an eating form, and therefor only for an adult where its not his usual way to eat does this question arise.